She let out a long breath. “I know. I told Harley it was too early, but she assured me you’d be awake.” Her voice became a whisper. “Sorry, did I wake Amanda?”
Her eyes were still firmly closed tight, as if she hadn’t seen everything before. Normally he’d think it was funny, and a little sexy, but Amanda’s name threw ice water over the moment. She was not a topic he liked to discuss on a good day, and today was definitely not that.
He’d received an emergency call at two a.m. from a client, Jack, whose horse got spooked and ran through a barbed wire fence. When he’d arrived home, Maddison was crawling through her bedroom window, coming back in from, hell if he knew. She said she was at Shay’s, as if A) visiting her cousin in the middle of the night was normal, B) Ethan would have ever allowed Maddie to walk home in the dark, and C) she wasn’t wearing a headband for a skirt.
He called bullshit, said they’d talk about it later, then sent her straight to bed. Now his first heartbreak was inquiring about his last heartbreak, as if this was an episode ofDr. Phil.
“She split.”
Her eyes opened and met his. “I’m so sorry.” There was so much earnestness in those big brown pools, he almost invited her in for a cup of tea.
Jesus. He rubbed a hand down his face. He was losing it. It was too damn early for this conversation. And he was too damn tired to play Sherlock.
“I’m not.” There. Two words followed by a period. A few years ago, it would have been followed with a few four-letter words, each accompanied by its own exclamation mark.
“Was it recent?” she whispered gently.
“No.” One word. Much better than two. It implied “End of conversation.”
“Divorce is awful.” Clearly, she’d lost her ability to read his mind, not that he was complaining.
“Yup.”
They stared at each other, but he didn’t invite her in. No way. He’d let Teagan in once before and she’d slammed the metaphorical door shut without any notice, then hung aDear Johnletter to let him know they were out of business. And he’d rather punch himself in the face than have a therapy session with the first woman to obliterate his life plan. Hard pass.
“You can say no, Colin. I wouldn’t blame you.” And, well shit, he felt like a prick. He could slam the door in her face, and she’d accept it. Teagan didn’t have a vindictive or judgy bone in her body—unless it came to Harley. Those two were like a fork and a power outlet.
“I’m not an ass. It’s just early and you caught me off guard.” She opened her mouth to say something compassionate and understanding, but since he wasn’t feeling nearly as mature, he turned and walked back into the kitchen, leaving the door open behind him. If she wanted to follow, fine, but he wasn’t going to encourage anything more than the pleasantries exchanged between one neighbor helping another.
“Be nice,” he whispered to the biddies, who took one sniff and, with their noses in the air, walked away as if Teagan wasn’t worthy. “Oven is over there. Pretty standard. The bottom one runs hot.”
“How hot?”
He turned to see if she was flirting with him, but she was opening each of his ovens, checking the insides as if she was under the hood of a Formula 1 car. She must have liked what she uncovered because she shut each door and began fiddling with the temperature gauges. When she went to turn the bottom gauge, those pajama bottoms fiddled their way up her thighs—way up—and his gauge appreciated just how athletic and mouthwatering her body still was.
“About twenty degrees.”
“Thanks again for letting me . . . Oh.” She’d caught him staring at her ass.
Then they were staring at each other, but he wasn’t going to admit to anything. Neither spoke and the silence grew, thickened with sexual tension until the air crackled between them.
Oh, was right.
She cleared her throat and waved a hand over his body. “Could you, uh . . .”
“I will if you will,” was all he said, and he moved to the laundry room, where he pulled on a pair of jeans. When he returned, he found the door open but no Teagan.
She was gone. Only a footprint of flour marked the spot where she’d been. He padded to the door and looked out . . . she’d vanished.
With a sigh, he was about to close it when she hollered, “Hold it. I’m coming!”
Dressed in a new outfit consisting of leggings, a blue T-shirt that readLIFE’S A BEACH, and, sadly, a bra, Teagan crossed the sandy path between their houses. Barefoot and balancing a cookie sheet in each hand, she pushed past him into the kitchen.
He relieved her of one of the trays and opened all three preheated ovens. “Tell me how I can help.”
“Maybe put on a shirt.”
“Or you could just take off yours and we’d be even,” he said. While the jury was still out on whether her “How hot” comment had been flirty, Colin’s was unmistakable.
