“Make sure you save some of the chicken thighs.” Marilee said over her shoulder. “The free range kind.”

“Already have them packaged.”

Biff watched his wife waddle away, not taking his eyes off her until she had rounded the produce department and situated herself behind the register. Marilee turned her checker-three light on and gave Biff a sweet little wave, and damn if the man didn’t flush.

Biff cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. Today’s our anniversary and she always gets a little excited.” He shook his head in wonder and when he spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “Fifty years. Can you believe it?”

“You’ve been married fifty years?” Nate knew the Cravers were old as dirt, but to live with that for half a century, Nate wondered if the man was a masochist.

Biff laughed. “No, fifty years ago today was the first time she filed for divorce. I said no. And every year she comes back demanding her freedom, when really she’s just trying to give me an out.”

Nate wondered why the hell he didn’t take it. Then he saw it, the way Biff looked at his wife, the way she looked back when they thought no one was watching. What everyone else in town saw as them bickering was their way of flirting. Of saying I love you.

“You ever hope she’ll stop asking and accept that you aren’t going anywhere?” Nate said, thinking of another stubborn woman.

“And miss getting the chance to tell her all the reasons why she’s made me the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet?” Biff shook his head. “Now, what can I get for you?”

“I need a couple of steaks,” Nate said. He crossed the white line and, making sure to keep an eye on Marilee’s throwing arm, looked in the display case. “What’s good today?”

“Let’s see.” The butcher took in Nate’s cart. “You’ve got wine, candles. Strawberries? Looks like you’re entertaining a lady friend.”

“Just dinner. And she’s just a friend.”

“That Showdown picture Nora Kinkaid’s got on the Facebook looked like a whole lot more than friends.”

It felt like a whole lot more too. Truth was, Nate didn’t know what Frankie and he were or even what he wanted them to be. She was unpredictable and stubborn and argumentative. And every time he thought about how her lips felt beneath his or the way she clung to him while moaning into his mouth, he seemed to forget that she was the last person in the world that he should be contemplating cooking for.

But after witnessing how two people who were so obviously mismatched could go from driving each other bat shit crazy to twitterpated in a single conversation, Nate began to wonder if maybe the Cravers were the ones who had figured it out.

“I was going to suggest a couple of private reserved porterhouses. Got them in this morning. Nice and marbled on one side, tender as veal on the other. But maybe something more delicate would be better.” Biff lifted a rack of lamb and held it out for inspection.

Nate enjoyed good food almost as much as he enjoyed sex. As an eighteen year old college freshman interested in getting laid, Nate read a study in Men’s Health that said women were sixty-six percent more likely to have sex with a man after a home-cooked meal, so he immediately enrolled in a culinary course for his elective. Over the years, he had impressed many a woman with his culinary prowess, and lamb always ranked high on the panty-dropping scale. But Nate had a hard time picturing Frankie, with her nail gun and work boots, nibbling on a little frenched lamb chop. “I think she’s more of a porterhouse kind of person.”

“You sure? Because judging by the ball of fury headed your way, a sharp knife on the table might not be in your best interest.”

Nate’s gaze rose from Biff’s beefy hand to the woman storming through the front door. He watched as she moved through the produce aisle at an alarming rate. Her hair was down and hung lose around her shoulders, just like it had been the night he broke in, and she was wearing her trademark black tank but with a pair of black stretchy pants that caressed every amazing curve of her body.

Nate hadn’t seen her since this morning, where she’d appeared in a baggy men’s shirt, those boy cut panties, and not much else. She’d eaten a Pop Tart while he’d sipped his coffee, she’d told him she still had to talk to Walt, he’d told her not to worry about it, she’d swallowed down her argument and promptly left.

Now with her body tense and ready to snap, Frankie rounded the cantaloupe barrels, her tennis shoes silent on the wide, wood planks of the floor, and past the artichoke display. Her head jerked right then left, scouring the dozens of patrons who made up the pre-dinner rush that filled the store, until those baby blues zeroed in on him.

“DeLuca,” she yelled over the elevator music playing in the background.

“Yup, I’d go with the chops. Nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like lamb,” Biff advised and then went back to arranging the display case. Obviously the never-leave-a-man-behind pact was still in full effect.

The closer Frankie came, the less convinced Nate was that she’d stopped in to say she’d missed him or thanks for handling her uncle. The last thing he wanted to do right now was have a confrontation with her. By confrontation, he meant fight, which meant no round three of locking lips because based on the way her fists were flexing, the only lip action and heavy breathing he was looking at tonight was a verbal lashing.

Digging in for the duration, Nate leaned unconfrontationally against the glass display case and waited for her to start yelling.

“Do you have any idea what you are doing to me?”

He didn’t need any clarification to know she clearly wasn’t talking about their earlier kiss. He leaned forward, resting his arms on the handle of the shopping cart. “If it is half of what seeing you in those pants is doing to me, I think I have a pretty good idea.”

“Not what I meant,” she ground out, attracting attention from the one woman in town who could out-gossip his gossipy granny. Nora Kinkaid dropped her cantaloupe and shuffled over to study the avocados—which were a good five feet closer to the drama.

“You’re looking nice in that dress, Mrs. Kinkaid. Is it new?” he asked. Nora harrumphed and went back to squeezing avocados, but not before he noticed her flush under that scowl.

When he was good and sure that Nora was at least giving off the pretense of minding her own business, Nate reached into the basket and picked up the soy milk. “And this? This is me getting us some groceries.”

“There is no us!” Frankie grabbed the carton, marched her sweet ass over to the refrigerator section, slammed it on the correct shelf and marched back. Stopping so close he could smell her hair. She had really great smelling hair. “Got it?”

“Hey, Frankie,” Biff cut in, his voice low as he rested his trunks for arms on the top of the counter and offered up one of his rare smiles. “I’m going to have to ask you to either lower your voice or take a step back.”

Frankie looked down, saw the line was behind her and said, “Sorry, Biff. I was just—”

“I know. Not a problem. Just reminding you that only one woman is allowed to get all hot and bothered on that side of the line.” He winked. “And never during business hours.”

“Right. Sorry.” She took a step back. Realizing the produce section wasn’t buzzing with chatter anymore as everyone had stopped to see who would snap first, she grabbed his arm and tugged.

He could practically feel the anger vibrating though her body as she steered him, and in turn the cart, through the produce aisle, around the bakery where he was forced to say, “Excuse me,” when he bumped into Peggy from The Paws and Claws Day Spa, who was also Judge Pricket’s newest lady friend. A “Pardon me,” two more, “Nope, all my fault,” and a tour of the canned foods aisle later, Frankie pulled him to a stop next to the deli counter and spun to face him.

“There is no ‘us’! There never will be an ‘us,’ ” she said in hushed tones. Hushed, angry tones that made her breath heavy and managed to turned him on. “And stop staring at my mouth because we are never kissing again. Ever.”

“That’s a damn shame, sweet cheeks, because we’re so good at it.”

“Just stop.” She held up a trembling hand.

“Frankie, what’s going on?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I mean, do you make a habit of ruining people’s lives?”

“No.” Nate actually thought he’d done a pretty good job of making people’s lives easier.

His answer seemed to deflate her. All of the anger and spunk just vanished. “Then it’s just me?”

“Frankie.” He tried harnessing that same calm tone Biff used. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t. You never do. That’s the problem.” She worried her lower lip, as though she was trying to hold it together. Not the response he was going for. “You know that Abby is more upset about the divorce than she’s letting on, which is why you offered to be her designated driver next week. You know that Nora has been dieting and hasn’t lost a pound, hence your line to her that she was wearing a nice dress. And that camel boy likes carrot tops, not the carrots just the tops.”

“He’s an alpaca.”

“Whatever,” Frankie drew out, stopping her eyes mid-roll as though horrified by the gesture. “What I am saying is that you pay attention to things, little things that everyone else is too busy to notice. And you say the right things, all the time, just to make people smile.”

He didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment. It sounded like a compliment, but he had a feeling that she didn’t mean it as one.