Love and Chaos: A Growing Pains Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

big body dwarfing hers regardless that she was also tall for a girl. That intense, completely focused look was back, challenge burning brightly. “I’m always the best guy.” He winked and stepped around her.
    He bent to the beer aisle and picked up a crate of Great White, a moderately strong ale. He glanced back at her and half-raised the crate. “Since I’m a redneck.” He moved away with powerful strides.
    She glanced at the beer. Then a t the wine. Then at her stuff on the ground. “He just got the last word.”
    Well, that would never do.
    She snatched up her stuff, grabbed the same brand of beer, since he hadn’t led her wrong with the wine—she hoped—and hurried after him. Except…with wine slung under one arm, and the beer in her hand, and the flowers starting to get crushed, and the chocolate…
    “Oh crap.” The bottle started to wobble out of her grip. She bent her legs, somehow thinking this would work as a balancing tactic. It didn’t. The wine squirmed like a fighting child, trying to get free. The plastic on the flowers crinkled, one squeeze from being crushed.
    I should’ve taken that offer for a basket.
    She glanced up in desperation, about to put everything on the ground in the mouth of the aisle to figure out how to carry it if she didn’t find a store worker to help. Just then, she noticed that that glorious body was back, finishing two strides and then stopping at her side.
    “Here.”
    Eyes sparkling but face still stoic, he held out a red basket. He easily balanced his wine in the other arm with the beer in his hand.
    “Not fair, your arm is four times the size of mine.” She put her stuff down and took the basket gratefully.
    He helped her load the few things into the basket as his delicious smell of man and wilderness toyed with her senses. He eyed her beer choice silently.
    “I copied you, O Lord of Rednecks.” Her face went red. “Figured you’d know best.”
    “You don’t drink beer?” He didn’t move toward the check out.
    She didn’t, either, content to stay and bask in this man’s gorgeousness and deep voice and muscles. Lots and lots of well-defined muscles. It was like a sea of glorious, cut muscle.
    “I do, but not this stuff. Too strong. I don’t have the tolerance for it. I drink Corona, or Coors Light.”
    That smile flirted again. He stepped around her into the aisle, coming back a moment later with a crate of Corona. He exchanged it for the Great White. “In that case, take Corona. It’s a crowd pleaser and middle of the road.”
    “Kind of pushy, huh?” she said with a grin, arranging the basket so the flowers didn’t get flattened.
    He hesitated, tugging her focus back up to him. His body posture had changed from his confident, rough-and-tumble bearing to just slightly rigid. “Sorry—I shouldn’t have presumed.” He reached for the Corona again.
    “Oh my God, no.” She motioned him away like a guy in an orange vest directing airplanes on the runway. “No, this is good. I asked, right? I was just joking. Go put the Great White back—I don’t need it if I have the Corona.”
    He paused again. That furrowed brow and quirked lip was back, struggling against a smile. “You harass me one minute, need help the next, give me crap, and then end with a command. How do you juggle all the personalities?”
    She froze as her mouth dropped open, that assessment hitting a little too close to home. In fact, her last boyfriend had broken up with her for that very thing--s he was a tornado that wore men out. Her utter chaos of personality drove people away.
    Her heart sank as that fun-loving sparkle left the stranger’s eyes. “So you want the Corona, or…”
    “Yup. Yes, the Corona will work. Sorry.” She dropped her hands, at a loss.
    “Then I’ll just put this back .” He hefted the Great White, hesitating.
    “Oh no, that’s okay. I can, if you want. I can do it.”
    Without a word, h e turned back to the aisle to put away the beer.
    Way to jam