The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(46)

Yet here I am, half-incapable of forming actual words.

He steps to one side and eyeballs me with all the suspicion that he probably should. “Your grandmother wants a tour of office space.”

“There’s office space in Tickled Pink? Why does she need office space? What’s she planning on doing with it? We have sixteen empty classrooms here. Why would she need more real estate?”

“Do I look like an Estelle Lightly expert to you?”

He rubs his forehead, and an unfamiliar feeling slashes through my chest.

Guilt.

I’ve stifled it for so long I don’t readily recognize it for what it is, despite the number of times I’ve felt it since I got here. “I’m sorry.”

I’m saying that a lot today. Would I if I were still in New York? Would I mean it? I mean it now. “I saw your shadow. I should’ve slowed down.”

He sighs.

It’s a far cry from the grin he flashed me yesterday in the car.

Back before I killed a tire and then things got weird and we both pretended we weren’t making out in bug-and biting-plant-infested weeds.

I found another of those sticker burrs in my hair this morning while I was taking a cold shower.

He lifts his chin past me. “Your family needs a doorbell. Is everyone decent? Your grandmother’s expecting me.”

“Yes. Cafeteria. Family meeting.” I start to walk past him, get another whiff of chocolate, then pause. “You’re not actually setting her up with office space, are you?”

He smiles.

Teague Miller smiles.

It makes those multifaceted, dragon-egg jewels in his eyes sparkle while his shoulders relax and his lips—no.

No.

Not thinking about his lips.

Just his eyes twinkling is enough to steal my breath.

I swallow hard to make sure he can’t hear it in my voice. “Is the office space condemned too?”

“Oh, Phoebe. So much to learn about all the ways real estate can be wrong.”

God help me, I’m smiling back.

I’m enjoying this. “Is it as bad as the motel?”

“What’s wrong with the motel?”

“Funky smell, 1980s decor, and I would not use a blue light in any of the rooms. Do they wash the bedding? Ever? Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

“There’s no bedding in the office space.” He tilts his head. “Probably.”

“Probably? What are you selling my grandmother?”

“Waste not, want not, Ms. Lightly.”

“You are still working on convincing her to leave, aren’t you?”

He grins wider. “You clearly haven’t heard yet what she signed your family up for.”

“I know we’re hosting dinner.”

“Did not know about that one. I’m busy.”

“I sincerely hope everyone in town is busy.”

I’m standing on the steps of a high school flirting with a man who offered to let me use his shower yesterday.

Not that I was willing to take him up on it after the tire-kiss thing, but him smiling at me this morning?

Like we’re friends?

Or maybe not friends but at least not mortal enemies?

This is new.

And not just with Teague.

It’s new in my life.

I don’t flirt with men. I proposition them when their reputations, experience, and bank accounts are good complements to mine. Relationships in my world are based on success probabilities and expanding empires.

Feelings have nothing to do with them.

But going from a place where all Teague would do was growl at me to a place where he’s smiling and conspiring with me?

I like this.

And you have a real life to get back to, Phoebe, that sinister little voice in the back of my head whispers.

She sounds like a cross between Gigi and my father.

I frown. “Wait. If you didn’t know we were hosting dinner, what do you know about that I don’t?”

His grin goes even brighter before it disappears completely, his gaze darting behind me.

It’s the only warning I get before the door rams into my back, sending me tumbling straight into Teague with an unladylike “Fuck!” slipping out of my lips.

Funny thing about fishing lumberjacks, though.

They’re remarkably solid, and they make good catchers.

Two rock-hard tree trunks wrap around my ribs, and I get a heady whiff of pine and toast and something with just a hint of spice, like he had cinnamon and cloves in his morning coffee.

Also, his T-shirt is the softest fabric I’ve ever felt in my life.

And it’s warm.

Warm with all his body heat.

“Dear God, Phoebe, please tell me you’re not so desperate for attention that you’re throwing yourself at the local riffraff?” my mother says behind me.

I tense.

But when I straighten and cast a glance at Teague, he’s not visibly offended.

If anything, he looks . . . satisfied? “I believe the phrase you’re looking for, Mrs. Lightly, is, I’m sorry, Phoebe. Are you okay?”

Mom’s nose lifts.

“He’s right, Mom,” I murmur. “We’re in Tickled Pink. The gate angels are watching.”

Her forehead doesn’t move—that’s what Botox is for—but her lips purse. “I’m sure they are. Phoebe, how do you feel about a mommy-daughter shopping day in . . . that other town.”