Page 28 of A Winter Thaw

“Puddle, stop,” Michelle begged, looking down at the dog as she continued to push the cart forward. “Please. You need to be polite in the store. We have to—oh!”

Michelle jumped as she felt her cart ram into something. Her head whipped in that direction, but all she could see was the mound of food and pillows rising out of her cart.

“Are you trying to knock me over?”

Michelle froze. She knew that voice. Of all the people in town that she could have bumped into—literally—he was the last person she wanted it to be.

Slowly, she leaned to the side and peered around the cart. Theo was standing there laughing next to his cart, which was full of Christmas light boxes.

“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry,” Michelle said, feeling herself turn scarlet. She wanted to turn around and run away in embarrassment.

“Hey, I get it. Ramming into other people’s carts is fun. It’s like bumper cars. I probably would have rammed your cart if I’d known it was you back there.”

Michelle burst out laughing, she couldn’t help it. For once, Theo’s teasing was making her feel better instead of making her want to retaliate verbally.

“Why are you buying so many Christmas lights?” she asked curiously, peering inside his cart. “You’ve got enough for like eight trees in there.”

“It’s for the car shop,” Theo said, and Michelle thought the tips of his ears looked slightly pink. “I decided it would be nice to have some lights strung up around the place. You know, festive.”

“Yeah, sure.” Michelle felt awkward and didn’t know what to say.

“Are you buying Christmas decorations too?” He gestured to her cart. “Pillow decorations?”

She shook her head immediately. “No, these are for people to sleep on. We had our decorations up weeks ago.” She didn’t mean to sound prim, but she did.

“Of course you did.” Theo laughed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she countered.

“Just that the three of you are like a troop of fairies, making things cute and sparkling. Or I guess it would be elves in this case. Christmas cheer and all that.”

Michelle wrinkled her nose. She knew he was still teasing her, but there was a look in his eyes that made her feel that his comment was a compliment at its core.

“Well, sorry for running into you,” she said, starting to stuff the pillows down into the sides of the cart so that she would be able to see better moving forward. “I need to check out. Have fun putting up all your Christmas lights.”

“Don’t say goodbye to me just yet,” Theo said. “I’m also leaving right now. You know how awkward it is when you say goodbye to someone and then you both keep traveling in the same direction?”

Michelle made a face at him. “Okay, fine. You may accompany me to the check-out register.”

Was it her imagination, or had his eyes lit up when he’d heard her say it?

Michelle carefully steered her cart toward the front of the store and Theo followed behind her. She began to check out, doing her best not to glance over her shoulder and see if he was still behind her, but finally she caved and looked. He wasn’t.

Don’t be silly, she told herself. You want him out of your hair anyway.

She paid for her groceries, and then looked in dismay at her cart, which was still full to bursting with items—although now at least they were all bagged up nicely.

She loathed the thought of having to bring all those bags up into the mansion by herself. She loved the fact that The Birchwood House had a big yard, but the walk from the garage was no joke.

It’s okay, I can do it, she thought with a sigh. Of all the tough things that have happened during the last couple of days, this is hardly the worst one I’ve had to deal with.

She was just starting to push her cart toward the store’s entrance when she heard someone speak behind her.

“That’s a lot of groceries to unload. You want some help?”

So Theo was still behind her after all! He must have just checked out at the adjoining register.

Michelle turned slowly, feeling oddly embarrassed, as if he would somehow be able to sense that she had been wondering where he was. “Um, sure. Okay, thanks.”