“That’s not what I meant or thought. You’ve made something original and interesting and even beautiful out of…out of God knows what.”
“It’s hardly beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is. All the color, the scarves and stuff…it looks intentional. Not like you’re covering up the horrible room. But like you were creating an artsy cool boudoir.”
She frowned, confused.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “You want me to take this more seriously. You’re not just broke. You’re
“Yes.” She hesitated. “Teague, I don’t mind you knowing. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything around town, because my parents and family still communicate with a ton of people here. I don’t want word to get back to my family. Obviously, they know about the divorce, but not much more-and especially not what financial shape I’m in. It’s just…complicated. They didn’t know I was unhappy.”
Somehow she found herself sitting across from him, Teague on the couch, hunched over, playing with that wineglass, and her settled at the bottom edge of the bed. There was no other place to sit, not where she could comfortably face him. “Why?” he asked bluntly.
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t you tell your family how unhappy you were-or that you’re this strapped for money?”
“Because.” She lifted a hand in a sweeping motion, one of those gestures that was supposed to communicate there were a zillion reasons. “At the time I first realized the marriage wasn’t going to make it, my mom and dad were just retiring. I was in another country. They would have worried to death. And I didn’t tell my two sisters…”
“Yeah, they’re another question. I thought you said you were really close to your sisters.”
“We were. We are. But I’m the oldest, you know? I’m the one they always looked to for advice, to take charge.” She added, “In fact, I’m the one who did a little masterminding behind the scenes to help them hook up with the guys they just married. Good men. And they’re both totally happy-”
Teague didn’t exactly interrupt her, but he acted as if he had no interest in hearing how happy the rest of her family was. “I get it,” he said. “You didn’t want your family to know because of pride.”
She scowled. “All right. So I have a little issue with pride.”
“Little?”
“Okay. Big.”
And Teague could have judged her. Instead he just seemed to keep taking in information like a sponge. “The point isn’t your pride, sweet pea. The point is…where you’re going from here.”
“Well. Like I told you, I’m living free above the cafe, because Harry was hot to have someone in the place. Food’s free, rent’s free, electricity-it isn’t costing me a dime to be here. On top of which, I’m a little short on wheels temporarily.”
“You had a car,” he said with a frown.
“A rental car that I picked up at the airport. And that’s the thing. I don’t need a car at all for a few weeks if I live here. I can walk anywhere in town and eat downstairs.”
“In return for which, Harry hired you on as a cook?”
“Not exactly. Harry said he hasn’t got enough business at this time of year to hire anyone full-time. But we made a deal. Most days, I open and close the place for him-which is easy for me to do, living upstairs this way, and that way he can sleep in and leave early. And I’m putting in a few hours-as many as he’ll give me-baking. French pastries, fancy stuff. He said he’d give it a try, and even if it’s only been a week, it seems to be working to bring in new customers.”
“But he can’t give you more than part-time hours?”
“No,” she admitted. “On the other hand, with zero expenses, I’m putting everything away. It shouldn’t be that long before I can put a down payment on a used car. Then I can look at moving somewhere there’s some job potential.”
“But for right now, you’d like more money?”
She looked at him. That quiet, intense expression-Teague could be very hard to read. Obviously, she wanted more money. She just wasn’t sure exactly what he was asking. But before she could even try leaping to a wrong conclusion, he filled in what he was thinking.
“I told you, Daisy. I need help. Exactly the kind of help you could give me. I’ve got more carpentry work than I know what to do with, but I’m lousy on the decorating end. For a while, when you wanted to, you could work as a consultant. Even better, you could work when you had free time, because the specific hours wouldn’t matter to me.”
She stiffened. “Trust me. I don’t do charity.”
“I’m not talking charity.”
She pushed off the edge of the bed and started pacing-not that there was more than a few feet potential to pace with. The most walking she could get in was a circle around the couch. “Come on. You told me flat-out that you had trouble working with other people. You said that was how you ended up in White Hills, because you wanted a place where you could make a one-man business work. Trying to do a partnership didn’t work out for you, you said. You always want to be boss, you said. You-”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that stuff I told you. And it’s all true. I’m a pain in the butt. Domineering. Single- minded. And it doesn’t help that I’m always right.”
She had to grin at his arrogance, even if she still couldn’t relax enough to quit pacing.
“But this is different,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s different. Because I admitted being broke right now, so you got the idea I needed a white knight. Only I don’t do white knights. And I didn’t tell you so you’d feel sorry for me. I’m not having any trouble living poor for a while, so don’t waste your breath thinking I need your charity.”
“It’s not charity I’m offering.” Now he was on his feet, pacing, too. There was something strikingly alert in his eyes suddenly-like she shouldn’t have mentioned not doing white knights, as if she had once, as if he were taking in that information like a robber learning a bank code. He didn’t make anything of that, though. Didn’t ask. He just started firmly arguing. “I need help, whether you do or not.”
“Sure you do,” she said dryly.
“I’m serious. And I told you straight, that I failed playing well with others in the sandbox in pre-K. But our situation’s different. I know you’re not going to stay in White Hills for long, so it’s not as if either of us have preconceptions about a long-term future. And for right now-you don’t know anything about carpentry, so you’d have no reason to fight with me about how I do things. And I have no interest in interfering with any ideas you’ve got about style or decorating whatsoever, so you’d have a free rein. It seems like a workable plan to me. You wouldn’t have to be pinned down to a set schedule. You could just work whatever hours you had free.”
Probably because she was looney, it was starting to sound like a good plan to her, too. Of course, she’d fallen prey to persuasive men before, and knew better than to just blindly trust her own judgment. She plunked her wineglass down by the minisink on one of her pacing rounds circling the couch. “It still won’t work. I don’t have a car, Teague. How would I get to wherever you were working?”
He plunked down his wineglass, too, which was still full. He really wasn’t a wine man. Just like her, though, he seemed to instinctively pace when he was thinking. “Hmm. Well. I’ve got both a car and a work truck. I need the work truck.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in your voice.”
He scowled. “Because there is one. I do have a spare vehicle. So in principle it’d make sense to let you use it for a while.”
“I still hear that ‘but’ in your voice.”
“Because it’s a Golf GTi.”
She’d never heard of the car, but she knew men and their toys, and he had one of those Guy Looks on his face. “Ah. Your baby.”
“It’s not like an old Jag or anything that expensive. In fact, I picked her up last year for a song. But as old as she is, she’ll still go another seventy thousand miles if I take care of her. And she’s the MK 1 version. Cross-spoke
