She maneuvered her shopping cart, trying to get closer without being conspicuous, dodging a flustered mom who was trying to snag a singing child in an Adventure Time sweatshirt pirouetting between the apples and the bananas. There was something about the guy with the avocados—besides the fact that he was exceptionally easy on the eyes—but it wasn’t until he glanced over at her and she caught a spark of recognition in his expression that she understood.
I know him. He knows me.
She was running all the possibilities through her mind—work, school, gym, here—when he grinned at her and it clicked. That grin. She knew that smug, snarky grin. Sugar sticks! That smart-alecky maid. What was his name?
“Nurse Ratched!” he said, setting the avocados in his basket and looking entirely too pleased with himself. “I’d recognize that scowl anywhere.”
And then she did actually scowl, and frowned at the realization that she’d done so, and immediately tried to cool her expression into a kind of bemused grin. Oh, that guy. One of Josh’s guys from the Cleaning Crew. She waved a hand toward the juice aisle and said, “Did they call for a cleanup in aisle two, Man Maid?” She felt a flush of heat in her neck and cheeks as she said it.
He laughed and strolled closer to her with a purely casual confidence that irked her. All at once she was acutely aware of how she must look, straight off the end of a long, crazy shift in the ER, in wrinkled blue scrubs and beat-up Asics that probably should have been swapped out six months ago. Wait, there isn’t vomit on my pants or anything, is there? Random bodily fluid stains were always a possibility on her shift. Tiana pulled her coat closed and tried to keep her expression casual, amused but disinterested. But darn if he wasn’t a fine-looking man.
“They actually let you take care of people now?” he said. His grin had reappeared—big, wide and goofy, making everything feel like it was all in fun.
“Take care,” she said, reverting to Stern Nurse Mode. “More like save lives, Mr. Maid. Why are you here? I thought you were joining the army or something.”
“Or something,” he repeated, putting a hand over his heart. The grin faded a bit—just a bit—as if those words had hit him a little too hard.
Uh-oh. There’s a story there, she thought.
But he bounced back right away. “You do remember me,” he said. “I’m touched.”
“Tetched maybe,” Tiana said with a laugh.
The grin may have faded but the mischievous gleam in his eyes had not. “Life. You know. You have a plan and sometimes it falls through.” He paused, just for a beat or two, then added, “I went with Army National Guard instead of active duty. Got a great job as a civilian here at the Corps of Engineers.”
“Oh. Okay,” she said. “Well. That’s good.” She put her hands back on the shopping cart handle and felt something brush by her at hip level. The whirling child had reappeared, the pirouettes now alternating with mini jetés, and his flustered mom gave Tiana a glance of apology as she scooped her budding ballet dancer up into her arms. She needed to get home. Wednesday night was some prime Netflix watching.
“Sorry,” the boy’s mother said as he thrust a sticky handful of Gummi Bears toward Tiana. “Caleb, I swear...”
Tiana laughed. “Not a problem,” she said. She smiled in solidarity as she watched the mom plop her squirming child into the shopping cart and buckle him in. The struggle is real—don’t I know it. That reminded her. She needed to get herself moving so she could be back home before Lily went to bed. She winced as she watched Caleb rub the handful of candy against the cart handle and then stuff the entire wad into his mouth. Ah, well, it’ll give his immune system something to do.
As Caleb and his mom disappeared around the corner, Tiana remembered Mr. Hottie Maid’s name. DeShawn Adams! He was still watching her, his mouth twisted up into that grin, suggesting he was barely holding back on a snarky comment. Mmm-hmm. He may have lost the little goatee he’d had when she last saw him, but he was still the perfect picture of tall, dark and handsome. His hair was short and once again she considered how not even the light jacket he was wearing against Charleston’s February chill could hide that body. Tall and strong and muscled and probably even a really good guy once you got past his Mr. Smarty Pants facade. Ugh. Stop.
“Yeah,” she said, tapping her fingers on her cart. “Well, hey, DeShawn, nice to see you, but I do need to get going.” She gave him a little wave, then remembered. “Oh, wait. The avocados.” She gestured toward his basket. “I was going to say. Get one that’s ripe now and one that’s going to be ripe soon. That’s how my mom always told me to do it.”
He nodded, that twisted-up smirk still concealing a zinger, and then he reached into the pile, plucked out not one but two green avocados and placed them in his basket beside the pair of ripe ones.
One of Tiana’s eyebrows went up.
“Hey,” DeShawn said, “I really like guacamole. Now and later.”
Tiana groaned. “Later, Man Maid.”
His laugh was rich and warm. It was a good kind of laugh, a hey-we-just-connected laugh, and it followed her as she tried to make her exit and slip on down an aisle. “Hey, Tiana?” DeShawn called out. “Speaking of later...”
She turned just long enough to give him a decidedly chilly look. “Later,” she repeated. “Good to see you.” She regretted the aisle she’d turned into as soon as she chose it, but there was no way to turn around now without looking flustered. She so wanted to appear casual but she felt like she was going to trip over her own feet. Was she overtired? It had been a long shift at the hospital. Was he still watching her? He was still as infuriating as ever and she had enough on her plate right now. New job. New city. Settling in with Lily. Her mother had moved to Charleston with them to help her, so that was another adjustment. Living with her mother again made her feel like she was still fifteen years old rather than a grown woman, a working professional. The last thing she needed was a smart-ass man on top of that tangled knot. She looked around, one hand up as if trying to decide on an item. When she finally looked back, trying to make it appear nonchalant, he was gone. Good. She looked at the shelf in front of her. Nothing but applesauce, fruit cups and dates. She picked up a box, inspected it. What? No. No way. She definitely did not need any dates, ha-ha. Even though Man Maid was super yummy.
What was wrong with her?
* * *
LILY, HER ARMS wide and a huge dimply-cheeked smile on her face, was running toward her as soon as she opened the front door. “Momma! You’re home!”
Tiana dipped down to eye level with her child, smiling but serious, and put a hand up in the universal sign of stop right there. “Hold up, Lily,” she said. “What’s the rule?”
Lily skidded to a halt and her little face became serious. “No hugging in nurse clothes,” she recited. Tiana’s heart skipped a beat, she loved this girl so much. Lily standing there in her lavender pajamas trying to play at wearing a stern face. Was it possible for anyone to be so adorable?
As much as Tiana wanted to scoop her daughter up and squeeze her tight, the reality was there could be anything lurking on her scrubs after twelve hours in the emergency department. And this shift had been all kinds of hot messiness, the kind of stuff usually reserved for the night shift when the moon was full. Old guy coughing like he was going to heave a wet lung across the back of the hand that he held halfheartedly in front of his face. A gunshot wound rolled in by ambulance; just a kid, really, late teens, lying there stunned, groaning, as the paramedic—Rachel, one of the best—called out the particulars to Dr. Dean. The kid had made it. Dr. Dean could