The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(7)

Whatever she’s about to try next, it won’t be good.

“Mr. Miller, my grandmother is recovering from a traumatic experience, and she is not well. I’m sure you don’t want the legal headaches that my family are prepared to set at your doorstep if you don’t rescind the sale of that building today.”

“Ms. Lightly, your grandmother passed a Breathalyzer test, which she took voluntarily, she knew what day it was, she could recite the Gettysburg Address and her favorite Robert Frost poem, and she was as lucid as my last dream about flapping my arms and flying over the top of that half-done Ferris wheel at the edge of the town square. She was also clear as crystal that she wanted that school building as the first project on the path to turning herself and all of you into better people. I don’t know what kind of skeletons you have in your four-story fancy-schmancy Manhattan closet that made her think you’re not a good person, but that’s between you, your grandmother, and your own conscience. Prefer that you leave me out of it.”

She’s holding her hands in her lap so tightly her knuckles are turning white. “I’ll be happy to leave you out of it, Mr. Miller, as soon as you return her money and rescind this sale. I don’t think you realize who you’re dealing with here, and I promise you, you do not want to find out.”

She should be irritating the snot out of me, but there’s something shining out of Phoebe Lightly that I can’t help but recognize.

It’s that feeling of being trapped.

And that’s what she is.

She’s trapped here.

She’s a wounded animal, lashing out at anything she sees as a danger, and I, the man who won’t help her by giving her grandmother her money back and unselling that high school, am a danger.

Do I want her to stay?

No.

But am I refunding her money?

Hell no. That’ll go a long way toward shoring up the town’s budget for a few new roads around here, not to mention fixing up the bridge Deer Drop keeps insisting is our responsibility, even though the county commissioner’s drawings clearly say it’s theirs and they’re not hurting for money the way we are.

They say the county commissioner’s biased.

Might be, but nobody from Deer Drop ran against him last time, so they can zip it.

Plus, the bridge still has to get fixed, whether or not the Lightly family stays long enough to move into the old high school.

I jerk my chin toward the four people still standing on the shore. With everything Estelle Lightly said since Shiloh found her trying to break into the shut-down land that was supposed to be an amusement park based on Pink Gold, I’ve got a pretty good feeling they’re the rest of the clan. “How’d you get picked to be the one to come out and negotiate with me?”

“Are you suggesting one of the men should’ve done it?”

“Gender’s got nothing to do with it. Just wondering if you’re supposed to be the most charming of the bunch or the scariest of the bunch.”

Her eye twitches.

Feels like a victory to get an honest reaction out of a socialite.

“All right, Mr. Miller.” She glares down her nose at me and pulls herself to her feet like she’s ready to walk away from this and leave me the one about to suffer the consequences. “If we can’t—aaaah!”

Yeah, that boat’s wobbling.

And she’s not ready for it.

You can tell because she’s flinging her arms out wildly to the side while Dylan’s boat rocks this way and that, tipping harder every time she overcorrects her balance, until one Ms. Phoebe Lightly tumbles headfirst and lands with a mighty splash in Deer Drop Lake.

She sputters to the lake surface. “My Louboutins!”

I toss her the orange life ring that I store in my boat to keep the game warden happy.

So much for catching anything else today.

Anything other than a fancy city lady who should’ve stayed onshore.

“Thing about fishing boats, Ms. Lightly, is that they can’t fight physics either. One more thing money can’t buy. I won’t give your granny her money back, but you’re welcome to leave anytime. And since I’m feeling generous, I’ll even do you one better. Say the word, and I’ll help make sure no one else in your family wants to stay here either.”





Chapter 3


Phoebe


Gigi did not, in fact, go to hell when she choked on her filet mignon.

How do I know?

Because the place she described as she was getting checked over in the hospital sounded nothing at all like Tickled Pink, Wisconsin.

Her hell?

Fire. Brimstone. Terrifying evil laughter. Screams. Demons.

Tickled Pink?

No cell service to check my work email. No car. No Prada store for self-therapy. No dry cleaner to take care of the McQueen suit that went into the lake with me yesterday. Not that I’d trust them with my McQueen. The grocery store down the way has a massive sign advertising 80 percent lean ground beef on sale, accompanied by a picture of a grated beef pile that resembles brains more than it resembles any pictures in that meat subscription box I got my assistant after I overheard her complaining that there was no good sausage left in Manhattan.

Don’t tell me I’m not a giver.

Also, I was nearly attacked by a crow when I left the motel this morning, which Gigi insists we’re moving out of today after a hard day’s work of “cleaning our new home,” which she also insists we’re all living in, together, for the next year, just like Whitney Anastasia moved into a run-down former post office when she came to Tickled Pink for her moral transformation in the movie Pink Gold.