Chapter 1

"Come on kids, dad's got a headache," I said, good-naturedly. The kids were behaving decently in a public place, for once, and my headache was from the workday, not really from them.

"Bounce bounce bounce," Ethan, my 4-year-old said, ignoring me completely and hopping up and down inside the basket of the shopping cart I was wheeling around the grocery store. In the seat, his two-and-a-half year old brother, Jake, chewed on a cardboard box of croutons.

"A few more minutes, and we'll get out of here and get you guys home, okay?" I said.

"Bounce bounce bouncy," Ethan answered, as Jake drooled all over my coat sleeve.

Sighing, I pushed the cart around the corner onto aisle 4. Glancing at the typed and categorized list in my hand (yes, Beth was that efficient), I headed towards the peanut butter section.

"Daddy I like peanut butter on bread," Ethan informed me. "That's nice, Eth," I said, leaning down to get one of the large Jiffy jars on the lower shelf - and with a thunk, knocked my head against another customer who was reaching for the same thing.

"Ugggh," I said, rubbing my noggin, the peanut butter forgotten. "Sorry about that."

"Oh, my fault," my co-conspirator said, and she looked up from the jar in her hand. We made eye contact for the first time, and my throat tightened.

She was absolutely gorgeous, with these deep blue eyes that seemed to be staring right through me. She was a brunette, with short hair, damp like she stepped out of the shower on her way to grocery shop. She had a few drops of coffee along her upper lip, no doubt from the caramel latte she held in her hand. I found myself wanting to lick those drops, and I licked my own upper lip without thinking.

I glanced down at her long legs, encased in a pair of sculpted jeans. Her sweater was tight enough to give a glance at her curves, but not so tight as to be slutty.

And, she was wearing red boots. She looked like the most adorable pixie, or elf, I'd ever seen.

When my gaze met hers again, I realized she'd been checking me out while I did the same to her. This, despite the fact that she had to be nearly fifteen years younger than my 34.

She smiled at me, those startling eyes full of mirth as she realized we'd both been doing a little reconnaissance for the past few seconds. I smiled back, my heart pounding.

Her face reddened, approaching the color of her shoes. She looked away from me quickly and started pulling jars of peanut butter off the shelf, dropping them into her cart.

I watched quizzically, frozen to the spot. Behind me, Jakie was screaming something about "bubbagum," but I wasn't really listening.

As my mysterious stranger dumped four, five, eight jars of peanut butter into her cart, I couldn't resist commenting. "Guess you really like peanut butter, huh?"

"Well, the protein, you know, um," she said. Her face still pointed at the floor, she wheeled her cart down the aisle and disappeared around the corner.

I chuckled softly to myself and reach for the forgotten peanut butter, grabbing a jar of Peter Pan.

I moved down the next couple of aisles, picking up the items on my ever-so-organized list. I encountered my mystery girl again a few minutes later, when I mistakenly turned down the "feminine products" aisle. Amid the rows of tampons and douches and yeast infection creams, the women, including my friend, scattered and ran. I felt like Moses parting some kind of Red Sea of Y-chromosomes.

The cart got fuller and fuller, the boys crankier and crankier, as I moved through the list. "Did you guys take naps at school today?" I asked, pushing them around the corner to the cookies and crackers aisle.

"No, Daddy. I wasn't sleepy at naptime," Ethan answered me. Jake was still chewing on a package of something and ignored me.

I moved down the aisle, looking for the box of "low-fat Cheez-Its" that Beth had on the list. Finding them and dropping them in the cart, I pushed the boys down the aisle. It was here that I made the mistake of pushing them past the rows and rows of packaged cookies. The begging started immediately.

"Daddy we want cookies."

"Cookies cookies cookies."

I started to explain things to them, calmly and rationally. "I can only get what your mom put on the list," I said, waiting for the carts in front of me to move so I could get out of this aisle from hell.

The boys refused to be mollified. "Cookies NOW" became their battle cry, and my headache returned.

Just then, my mystery girl appeared. She reached right past our cart, grabbed four bags of Chewy Chips Ahoy! and put them in her cart, grinning at me the whole time. I shook my head and chuckled, her attitude infectious.

The boys, however, were not amused. "Cookies," they shrieked in unison, their voices getting louder.

My new friend reached over to our side of the aisle again, grabbing a bag of Oreo DoubleStufs. She then tossed them into the cart, onto Ethan's lap. He (and Jake, who's craned around to see what just happened), were instantly silent, gazing up at their newfound friend with adoration in their eyes.

I grinned at her. "You're bad," I mouthed silently.

"Wouldn't you like to know how bad," she answered impishly, pushing her cart down the aisle. I turned to watch her tight ass and long legs as she receded and then disappeared around the corner.

"Daddy, who is that lady?" Ethan asked me.

"I don't know, Eth," I replied. "But she was very nice to give those cookies to you, huh?"

"Oh yeah," he replied enthusiastically.

We met up with the nice lady several more times, and I proceeded to flirt with her a little. I couldn't resist getting a flash of those eyes, and I made eye contact with her every chance I got. She seemed to be holding back a bit, probably figuring that a man with two kids is not the best target for a grocery-store pickup. And, she was right.

We got to the frozen foods section, and I was still thinking of her. As I opened the freezer case to pull out a package of mixed veggies, I heard Ethan clapping behind me.

"Yay!" he said, and I turned around to see a package of chocolate Fudgesicles on his lap. My new friend was across the aisle, innocently looking the other way. When she turned back towards us, I waggled my finger at her.

"So that's how you want to play, huh? Let's have some fun, boys!"

I pushed the cart over to her side of the aisle and grabbed the first decadent item my eye falls upon, a box of strawberry popsicles. I dropped it into her cart, on top of several jars of peanut butter.

Not to be out done, she raced to the other side and grabbed a package of corn dogs, throwing them into my cart. I laughed, thinking of Beth's reaction.

We moved down the aisle in unison, dropping items into each other's carts. The kids squealed with glee as microwave pizzas fall into ours, tiramisu into hers,

The game went on like this. Strawberry cheesecake into ours, whipped cream into hers, on and on until we reach the end of the frozen aisle

At the registers, I watched, bemused, as the cashier rang up junk food and snacks that weren't anywhere near Beth's shopping list. I was certain a lot of these items had never been on any list Beth had made.

"Mommy isn't going to like all this. Oh no, mommy is gonna yell at DADDY," Ethan said, loud enough for the entire store to hear.

I glanced up, and my mysterious stranger was looking at me again. Her entrancing blue eyes stared right into my soul from over the breath mints and supermarket tabloids.

"She's gonna kill me," I mouthed, indicating the snack foods moving down the conveyor with a toss of my head.

"Sorry," my new friend mouthed back, a wave of sadness flashing over her face

She finished her transaction before we did, and I watched as she wheeled her cart out of the store, and out of my life.

"Come on boys. Let's get you home."

That night, I had to endure a lecture from Beth about the things I missed from her grocery list, and the things I'd bought that were nowhere near her list.