Until You (The Redemption, #1)(67)

“She’s here,” Paige shouts excitedly and grabs her bag about the same time as a dust plume kicks up farther down our driveway as Phoebe’s mom arrives.

We spend the next few minutes chatting with Phoebe’s mom and getting the girls in the car. Tenny and I both stand at the foot of the steps, and as they pull away, she waves her hand in front of her face to swat the dust away.

“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” I ask. “The damn dust gets into the house regardless of how much I keep it closed up.” I glance back to the dust that’s still settling. “If I owned this place, if I lived here permanently, that would be the first thing I’d do.”

“What’s that?” Tenny asks me as she takes a seat on the top step and uses her hand to shield her eyes to look up at me.

“Asphalt the road.”

“That would definitely help cut down on the cleaning. Why do you think Ian hasn’t done it? Is it the cost?”

“My uncle’s not hurting for money,” I say, thinking of the text he sent me the other day. The one where he’s sitting on his forty-foot fishing boat that’s docked outside of his sizeable house in Palm Beach. He may be slowly losing his mental faculties, but he sure isn’t spending like it. “But in his defense, why go to the expense when he doesn’t plan on keeping the place.”

“Maybe whoever buys the place will.”

“Maybe,” I say and hate the feeling of knowing someone else might be living here. Might be spending time with her.

What’s it to you, Crew? It’s not like you’re going to be here. It’s not like she’s going to sit here and wait for you on the off chance you bring the girls back here to visit.

So why does looking at her and realizing our time is limited feel like a weight has been dropped into my stomach?

“What’s that?” I ask, so lost in my thoughts—of her—that I don’t hear her.

“I said hopefully the new owners will be decent and abide by the contract and lease that Ian drew up for me. He might not have been the best at getting handywork done, but he swore he’d take care of me so that I could keep my place, and he did. Speaking of places, do you have any idea when the cottage will be livable again?”

I hook her around the waist and pull her onto my lap as I sit beside her. “Why? Are you trying to get rid of me?”

There’s a quick flash of a smile that doesn’t sit well with me. Especially when the last thing I want is for her to be back in that cottage. It’s more than the built-in sex and the company . . . I like Tenny. Like really like her.

“No. Not at all. I just figured I’d give you and the girls your space back. You’re all probably sick of me.”

I stare at her, trying to get a read on her and her sudden caginess. I’m missing something, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s been since my nightmare last week. Hasn’t it? Tenny’s been a bit more reserved. Seems to be pulling back a bit. Or am I just projecting because I’m insecure over her seeing me like that?

Then again, is something there, and I’m just so blissfully ignorant that I’ve missed it—just like I missed it with Britt?

“Talk to me, Tenny.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” She gets up, picks up my putty knife, moves to the railing, and begins to scrape the paint there with no skill whatsoever.

Definitely something going on.

“So you won’t talk, and you’re clearly trying to avoid me because you actually picked up a tool to use it.” She stops mid scrape and looks up at me with a look that says I’m being ridiculous . . . but that look alone tells me I’m not. This is definitely not the afternoon I had planned ten minutes ago when the girls climbed into Phoebe’s car. “So . . . what’s really going on here? Are we about to have our first fight?” I clap my hands together and rub. “You never really know someone until you have that first knockdown drag out. So come at me. Tell me what you hate.”

“Crew.” My name is an exasperated sigh as her hands drop down to her sides.

“What? Do I chew too loud and it drives you crazy? Do I talk obnoxiously loud on the phone? It drives the girls crazy that I pace when I’m on it, so I’m sure you think that too. Or is it my cooking? Do my stellar culinary skills make you so jealous that you can’t even be in the same room?” I rise from my seat and move toward her, that stony fa?ade of hers slowly cracking as the corners of her mouth upturn just slightly. “I know. You’re envious that I know every single lyric to every Taylor Swift song on the face of the earth. I mean, that takes some serious talent. But what can I say?” I blow on my knuckles and then shine them on my shoulder. “When you’ve got it, you’ve got it, and I’d hate me for it too.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” she says as I put my hands on both of her hips, and she looks up at me from beneath those thick lashes.

This woman is just . . . Jesus, she does things to me with just her smile.

“Not ridiculous if it’s true. I mean, I haven’t even gotten to the part where I leave my shoes on the stairs, and for that—I mean, those are serious offenses you should be furious at me for.”

She just shakes her head with that expression on her face that makes me want to kiss her and never let her go.