The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(95)

Texas oil money. Whole family shunned not just in Texas but across the country, twenty or so years ago after their company was involved in a massive spill. Oldest son disappeared. Father caught in a love triangle. Grandfather suspected of embezzlement and tried for other criminal activity related to the spill but never convicted of either.

Not like Uncle George, who Gigi still won’t acknowledge.

I wonder if she knows her soul will need to make peace with that if she’s going to make it to heaven?

Jonah nods to me, his eyes narrowing as though he knows I know every dirty secret about his family. “You have a moment, Ms. Lightly?”

His voice gives me chills.

Not because it’s frightening.

But because I suddenly know why it sounds familiar.

And everything I thought I knew about Tickled Pink?

And my favorite lumberjack?

I was wrong.

I was so wrong.





Chapter 33


Teague


When I realize Phoebe’s disappeared from the surprisingly edible feast tonight, I start to smile.

Wonder if she did any shopping in Deer Drop this week.

Hope so.

Her last set of lumberjack lingerie, as she called it, made me so light headed I couldn’t think for almost an entire day after she left.

I wait a few more minutes to see if I spot her again, then go for casual as I amble over to Shiloh and Ridhi. “I’m heading out. You got Bridget?”

They share a look.

No, a smirk.

And I don’t care.

I have a date with a naked Phoebe.

“Your place?” she said earlier with a wink, and yeah. That’s where I’m heading.

“You might want to try to be more subtle if you don’t want to see Bridget’s I’m going to puke face,” Ridhi tells me.

“Somebody has it bad,” Anya murmurs behind us.

Gleefully, for the record.

Don’t much care. They’re happy for me. They can give me shit all they want.

Because I’m happy too.

Happy in ways I never thought I could be.

All because of a mouthy, sometimes overconfident, haughty, but gold-hearted workaholic socialite.

The last thing I expected when Phoebe Lightly tried to penguin her way into Dylan’s fishing boat was for me to fall head over heels for her, but it’s impossible to not be attracted to those fascinating layers of sass and entitlement tempered with her growing self-awareness and kindness.

There’s something irresistible about a woman fighting to shake off who she was to become even more than she ever thought she could be. It’s fucking hard, and she’s doing it, and I respect the hell out of her for it. That in the process, she would see my home the way I do—rich in what matters, defined by its soul instead of its outer shell—and want to help it the way we always help each other around here instead of just opening her checkbook and moneying her way out of it—I’m well and truly gone.

I think I’ve met my match.

I catch myself whistling on the walk from the football field back to my place, and once again—don’t care.

It’s very likely I’m not the same person I was, either, when Phoebe fell into the lake the first time.

And that’s not a bad thing.

Not a bad thing at all.

There’s a light glowing in the sitting room on my first floor. I open the door softly, wondering if she’ll be exhausted from serving everyone all night and still in her jeans and fancy-ass blouse coated in streaks of watermelon juice, or if she changed into sweats, or possibly into something skimpy and silky that’ll be no match for my fingers.

Don’t actually have a preference.

I’m just ready to be alone with Phoebe for the night.

Her back is to me, a messy bun visible over the top of the chair, red-stiletto-clad feet propped on my ottoman. She’s facing the windows overlooking the twinkling stars of town and the dark abyss of the lake, and I go hard so fast it feels like a punch to my gut.

Worth it. “Excuse me, ma’am, I think you have the wrong house,” I tease, my voice husky, because that’s what she does to me. She makes it so I can’t breathe. Can’t talk. Can’t think.

“Do you know the problem with taking the girl out of the Upper East Side?”

Role-playing. Yes. I love when we play games. “No butlers to feed you grapes after a long day of chewing people up and spitting people out?”

“The problem is that you can never fully take the Upper East Side out of the girl, Richard.”

My veins ice over, my lungs seize, my feet go numb, and I heave out as much of a gasp as I can as the name echoes in my small sitting room. “What?”

“It was never about Bridget or the town, was it?” If I think my veins are icy, they have nothing on the glaciers dripping from Phoebe’s voice now. “It was about you. The whole time. About you hiding. You know Bridget can take care of herself and that she’s loved here. You know everyone in this town would stand up and protect one another and send people like us packing in a heartbeat if they needed to, and you and I both know that that school and the bugs and all of those animals inside and out of the school are only the start of what you could’ve done to us. This was never about Tickled Pink and your family and what the media did to Shiloh when she was younger. You didn’t want us here because you didn’t want anyone to find out about you.”