Snowfall on Haven Point by RaeAnne Thayne Read Free Book Online

than annoyed. “Fine. I’ll text you a list of a few things. Does that work?”
    â€œPerfectly. See? You’re getting the hang of this whole accepting-help thing.”
    â€œI don’t believe you’re giving me much choice, are you?”
    â€œNot really,” she admitted. “I have just enough time to reheat a little more stew or I can probably throw together a sandwich if you would prefer.”
    He didn’t sigh this time, but she could tell he wanted to. “Stew would be fine,” he finally said. “Thank you.”
    â€œGive me a second.”
    After dishing some into a bowl and popping it into the microwave, she spent a moment straightening up his mostly clean kitchen while it reheated. She added a couple of the rolls she had brought the evening before and cut up an apple she found in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator.
    â€œHere you are. Soups and stews are always better the second day, if you ask me.”
    â€œAgreed.”
    â€œI wasn’t snooping—okay, I was snooping a little—and I noticed you didn’t have milk or bread and the only other banana looked pretty ripe. I can pick those up for you and whatever else is on your list. And if you think something sounds good for dinner, let me know.”
    â€œStew is fine by me, if there’s enough for one more go-round.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “My stew is remarkable, I will admit, but you can’t have it for every meal.”
    â€œYou’re not running a short-order restaurant here. I’m fine with whatever. I’ve got frozen dinners in the freezer that will do.”
    â€œAre you this stubborn with everyone or am I receiving special treatment?”
    If she didn’t know better, she might have thought the stoic sheriff almost smiled, for a minute there. “My deputies would probably say the former,” he answered.
    â€œThat makes me feel a little better. I need to run, but make sure you text me your list. I probably won’t have a chance to go shopping until after Chloe gets home from school, but we’ll bring groceries and dinner around five thirty, if that works. Meanwhile, you’ve also got leftover pie and Louise Jacobs’s shortbread.”
    â€œWhat else could a guy possibly need?”

CHAPTER FOUR
    T HE SCENT OF flowers again lingered in the room after Andrea Montgomery blew out of his house as quickly as she’d come.
    He couldn’t seem to escape it. He shifted in the recliner, wishing he could find a spot that was comfortable for more than five seconds.
    It wasn’t only the general discomfort from his smashed-to-smithereens leg or his various other aches and pains that left him edgy and unsettled. Her mention of the Jacobs family next door was even more disconcerting.
    He knew Herm and Louise from way back. Louise had been good friends with his mother—in a roundabout way, that friendship had been the catalyst for everything that came after.
    When he first moved into Wyn’s house here on Riverbend Road in late summer, he had made it a point of going over to say hello to them. It had been the neighborly thing to do, hadn’t it?
    Since then, he had spoken with them a few times in passing, but he worked long hours and their schedules didn’t seem to coincide, plus he didn’t really have an obvious excuse for stopping by.
    They had bumped into each other a few times at the only grocery store in town—which was one of the main reasons he didn’t do his shopping in Shelter Springs, five miles away, even though the two grocery stores and the box store there were larger and had a far more extensive selection.
    He had decided those rare encounters at the little store in Haven Point were worth the disadvantage of having a choice between only two brands of dishwashing detergent.
    He needed to figure out a way to do more than say hello in passing. That was the entire reason he was living here in his