The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(21)

I think I do.

But before my lips can fully spread in a smile, it happens once more.

The weird, unidentifiable, ghostly noise.

But this time, it’s an aaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh.

Moment over, and I’m struggling not to roll my eyes.

Don’t make that face, dear. It makes you look so plebeian.

Thanks, Gigi.

“Very funny, Carter,” I yell toward the air duct that seems to be the source of the noise.

“That’s not your brother,” Steve or Harry or Bob, or whoever is following after me with disinfectant spray, says. “That’s Floyd.”

“Floyd?”

“Tickled Pink Floyd,” Anna-Selma-whoever replies solemnly. “Not Deer Drop Floyd.”

“Deer Drop Floyd stole Ridhi’s family’s coconut-pudding recipe,” Steve-Harry-Bob tells me. “Tickled Pink Floyd was the janitor here back in the day. Still sticks around, you know?”

My eyeball is not twitching.

It’s not.

I’m not moving into a haunted school with my entire family, who are all self-absorbed trust fund babies who don’t understand the value of hard work, and I’m not living in a place without cell service and tailors and massage therapists and personal chefs, and this will not last the full year.

It can’t.

It seriously cannot.

I fling open the next locker, and an army of small, furry, rabid, miniature gray pandas hisses and spills out.

I scream.

Steve-Harry-Bob screams.

“Are you kidding me?” Ridhi mutters. She digs her phone out of her pocket, dials a number, and while I dive behind her, cowering while the other locals grab brooms and try to corral the raccoons, she starts talking. “Abe? Locker room. Missed a couple. Yeah, looks like Big Bertha wasn’t ready to let the kits brave the great outdoors.”

“Big Bertha?” I gasp.

More locals start poking their heads in, including one Mr. Teague Miller.

“It was just Big Bertha,” Steve-Harry-Bob calls to them. “Sorry for the scream. Didn’t recognize her. Plus, Phoebe screamed first. Didn’t want her to feel lonely.”

“Ah.” Teague nods. “Big Bertha. Makes sense.”

“You named a raccoon Big Bertha?” I’m shrieking. I’m shrieking, and I can’t stop, and—“Oh my God, your phone works?”

Ridhi hangs up, shoves her phone back in her pocket, and makes a duh face at me. “We do have electricity up here in the backwoods.”

“But—but—I can’t get a signal.”

“Lightning took out the cell tower last month. We’re all on Wi-Fi.”

“There’s Wi-Fi?”

She smirks. “Yes, Miss Priss. Tickled Pink has town-wide Wi-Fi.”

“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars if you give me the password.”

“Your grandmother’s offered to donate a million dollars to seed a town scholarship fund if we don’t.”

That ruthless, two-faced harpy.

Big Bertha hisses at me, and I squeal and dash for the door.

I quit.

I quit. That’s it.

I can’t do this.

I can’t—“Oof.”

I can’t get out of this godforsaken building.

There’s a giant wall of a man in my way.

A giant wall of a man who does smell a little like lemon-meringue pie, which has never been more appealing to me in my life, and that pisses me off on a new level.

“Just can’t resist me, can you, Ms. Lightly?” Teague Miller says in that subtle drawl.

I momentarily consider sticking a spiked heel down on his shoe before I remember I tossed them in a bag that I left in the front hall, along with my sweat-stained Chanel skirt, after I stripped and changed in the café’s restroom when I stopped to get Ridhi the worthless peace offering.

Peace offering.

Bribe.

Whatever.

“Where’s my grandmother?” I ask.

“Right here, Phoebe.” Gigi turns the corner and steps into the short hallway outside the locker room, all of it lit with sunshine streaming through dirty windows and illuminating more plumes of dust than I have ever seen in my entire life, and I once witnessed a dust storm in the Sahara. “Coming for you, actually. I have a separate assignment just for you. Come, come. We can talk in the library.”

Teague’s still holding my arm, keeping me steady after I barreled into him.

He smirks down at me, and this time, I get the full effect of his bright hazel eyes too. “Good luck, Ms. Lightly. And remember—that which doesn’t kill us makes for a great story later for our enemies.”





Chapter 7


Teague


There’s nothing like fresh-grilled walleye under the stars on a warm night in late spring, but tonight, my evening ritual is lacking.

Probably because there’s a woman picking her way through my goat field.

Again.

“Mr. Miller?” Phoebe Lightly hisses.

I crack the top on a False Hope pale ale and pretend I don’t hear her. Walleye’s getting cold, and if I’m not eating with Bridget, I like to eat in peace.

“Mr. Miller?”

Nope. Don’t hear her.

“Mr. Miller, I will climb this tree if you don’t answer me.”