The Lawman's Surprise Family by Patricia Johns

Author:Patricia Johns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

That evening, Sofia pushed the grocery cart down the aisle of Bounty Foods. It had been an emotionally tumultuous day, and she was ready to pick up some groceries and go home. She was even going to skip the treadmill tonight and go straight for the tube of frozen cookie dough in the back of the freezer—the kind that Jack was allergic to, and that she could only dig out after he was in bed. She needed some comfort food and some time to herself—the combination that always helped her through hard times in the past, but her duties in taking care of her family weren’t done for the day. While laundry could wait, the groceries couldn’t. They were down to crumbs.

Her father seemed to have stopped eating completely, his stomach horribly upset from his chemo treatment. The spot on his arm where the IV went in was bruised, and he would sip meal replacement shakes and bottles of juice, but he complained that everything tasted terrible now and couldn’t even choke down water.

She wanted to find something her father could eat... Pudding, maybe? Canned fruit? She’d bring home some options and hope that something worked.

Jack seemed unfazed by the day’s events, and he was ambling along behind her, looking for his favorites to add to the cart. His rubber boots thunked along the floor, out of rhythm with the canned country music playing in the background. The grocery store wasn’t a big one, but it was well stocked and was conveniently located in downtown Haggerston. There were bigger stores in the next town over, but Sofia didn’t have the energy right now to plan for extended shopping trips. What with her job, Jack and helping her father with his medical appointments, her energy was used up.

“We should get cookies today,” Jack said.

“We just had cookies when Ben came over.”

“We should get more.”

“We’ll see how much money we have left,” she replied absently. In her opinion, her son wasn’t too young to know about budgets and the fact that money ran out. Being a single mother, she had to be smart with her dollars, and he’d have to learn the same skills.

“What about the coconut milk ice cream?” he asked.

“Same answer, kiddo.” She glanced back and gave him a smile. “You’ll survive on healthy food. It won’t kill you. I promise.”

Jack heaved a sigh. Such a cruel, cruel mother. She smirked to herself.

Sofia rounded a corner, heading toward the next aisle. She paused to grab a couple cartons of almond milk from the refrigerated dairy case. She read the ingredients quickly, just making sure nothing had changed. That was one of the challenges with allergies—they were at the mercy of the factories and those cocktails of ingredients that could change without warning.

This isn’t easy, Lord, she prayed. I’m so tired...

Sofia was glad that Ben had been with her at the school that day. She’d been certain that she wanted to handle the meeting alone, but he’d turned

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