Tell Me You Need Me (Search and Seduce #1)(27)

“What are you doing?” Michelle Ruby asked, stepping out of her boutique. The fashionable city woman owned and ran Chic Storm, and judging by the few looky-loos hovering around the storefront display, the boutique was doing well today.

Which wasn’t surprising. Even though Michelle was relatively new to town? her high-end fashion apparel was already a staple around Beaufort.

“Just checking the paper.” Chloe crumpled it back together. The sun was already burning off the morning dew and making way for a bright summer day, yet a gray cloud hovered right above her head.

Michelle looked at the paper. “Are you job hunting or something?” Her bright red hair was fastened into a bun, and her light blue eyes were lined with smoky kohl that made her look like a Paris model.

“No, I’m looking for something. The paper was supposed to do a little article about my restaurant.” And her mother. “It was supposed to come out last week, but I still haven’t seen it.”

Last week. As in exactly five days ago. Chloe had been so excited and had gotten up at dawn to get the paper, but the article hadn’t been there. She’d checked every day since, even the online version, but had seen nothing.

Silly thing was, it was important to her. Yes, the article would help advertise the anniversary, but it was more than that. The piece was about her mother, how she’d opened the bar with little more than a dream and a small business loan. Twenty years later, it was the center point of the town. And it was struggling. Chloe was determined to bring back the joy and light that made the restaurant great, including her mother’s food. Just the possibility of this article gave her a flare of connection to her mother. Like others could still experience her memory.

“Oh, I saw that!” Michelle said. “It was an insert a few days ago.”

“An insert?”

She nodded. “Yeah, like a little two page spread. Had some pictures and a story about the bar and its origins. The woman who opened it was really incredible. She renovated her house into a restaurant!”

Chloe nodded. “Yeah, I know. She was my mother.”

Michelle gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She clasped her hands together. “I should have put that together. Let me go check to see if I saved the insert.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

She nodded and hustled into her boutique while Chloe gripped the paper tighter. She already knew what Michelle would say when she came back. It was an insert, which meant she’d thrown it away. Chloe knew Michelle had done that because Chloe had done that. The inserts in the paper were usually a bunch of ads and the local grocery store deals of the week. She hadn’t thought the article would be amongst the filler.

“Beautiful day,” a smooth sexy voice said near her.

“Are you stalking me?” she said to Gage as he stepped in front of her.

“I’m trained to search and rescue people,” he said.

“So is that a yes?”

He glanced at Michelle’s shop, then back at Chloe. Maybe he was trying to get another look at Michelle? Not that Chloe cared or anything. They weren’t committed—far from it. One date didn’t mean anything, and one night of hot sex didn’t mean anything either.

Yep…totally didn’t care.

Gage smiled. “I won’t admit to stalking off the clock. But I must say that a beautiful woman puts even a beautiful day to shame.”

Chloe glanced at where Michelle had disappeared to. “Yeah, we all know how beautiful Michelle is.”

She wasn’t jealous he was talking about another woman. No reason for her to care.

He tucked a lock of hair behind Chloe’s ear. “I was commenting on the beautiful woman in front of me.”

“Smooth.”

“Hey, that was one of my best lines.” He winked at her, and that mushy feeling flared up in the way only he could manage. She laughed a little. But when he flashed those dimples, he had her hooked.

Oh God…were they flirting?

Not the sexy I want in your pants flirting, but the cutesy Will you take me to the sock hop? flirting. It needed to stop. Now.

“So what are you doing?” he asked.

“I was heading to work, just stopping to get the paper.” She tapped the small bin where the Beaufort Daily Gazette rested.

He opened his mouth, but Michelle’s voice boomed out, followed by the clicking of her four-inch stilettos.

“I’m so sorry, Chloe, I don’t have it. I even checked my recycling, but it was picked up yesterday. I would have saved it if I’d known.”

Chloe tried not to let the hollow feeling creep in. If it had run a few days ago, all the papers were gone by now. “Totally fine,” she said. “I appreciate you looking.”

“Looking for what?” Gage asked.

“There was an article about Chloe’s mom and her restaurant in the paper,” Michelle said.

At the same time, Chloe shot out, “Nothing.”

He glanced between them. Chloe wasn’t interested in standing around. Her eyes stung, and Gage, with his big shoulders and muscly arms, looked too huggable for her to stay. Especially since she needed a hug then. The exact kind of need she couldn’t allow herself to feel.

“Bye,” she said quickly and hustled off. The bar was the beacon at the end of the street, and she was almost there. She had to toughen up. Certain things couldn’t be changed: her mother was gone, her father had long ago disappeared, and she’d missed the paper she was dying to see.