stepped back and she shot a look at Polly. Her friend wiggled her fingers, then shrugged, a “What can you do?”
Nothing, Skye thought, placing her hand in Gage’s. As his fingers closed over hers, desire surged again, along with an almost melancholy feeling of inevitability. “Don’t think you can escape me,” he’d said.
She’d always known she couldn’t.
The only question was whether she could escape losing her heart.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THAT NIGHT, POLLY DIDN’T know what prompted her to nudge aside her front curtains. But some instinct had her crossing the living room floor, the flannel of her men’s-style pajamas flapping around her ankles. From Skye’s place next door, a floodlight was trained on the surf. It lit up the sand, too, giving it a glaze of silver. At the edge of its ghostly cast, closer to Polly’s house than to her friend’s, she saw a man sitting on the beach, his back to her.
Teague.
She dropped the curtain and retreated from the window. What the heck he was doing out there this late—it was close to midnight—was not her problem to ponder. Usually she’d be in bed herself by now, but insomnia had decided to move into the tiny cottage with her.
Biting her lip, she looked toward the front door. Should she...? No. The four walls were too small for her, Teague and sleeplessness. Good sense precluded her from going out to him. Telling him her bad girl secrets had only served to make her feel more vulnerable and insecure. In this state, who knew what other dangerous information—I love you, I’ve loved you for years—she might unwillingly reveal?
So instead she retreated to the bedroom and shivered as she slipped between the cool sheets. It was the only good-sized room in the house, large enough for her wrought-iron queen-sized bed with its very high mattress as well as the tall lingerie chest in the corner. The matching bureau had to be stored in the closet, but she still had access to all her things.
When she’d moved in at the end of last month, Teague had installed a hanging jewelry rack on the interior side of the door.
What a pal.
In return, she was leaving him alone in the cold night.
Shoving the thought away, she closed her eyes and tried picturing her upcoming students—the Olivias, the Beaus, the Bobbys.
But what popped onto the screen of her mind was that image of Teague sitting on the beach, dressed only in a T-shirt and jeans. Another shiver went through her, as she thought of how chilled he must be by now.
Or not. Maybe he’d already headed for home. Maybe he was driving back to his place that was twenty minutes away, the car heater blasting, leaving her to lie here, needlessly worrying about him.
Frowning at his rudeness, she threw back the covers and hurried into the living room without pausing for her slippers. She gripped the corner of the curtain, then jerked it back with a flourish, like a magician about to reveal that the rabbit had disappeared.
The bunny was still out there.
Damn his big ears. She stomped to the front door, worked the locks, then yanked it open. “Shoo” was on the tip of her tongue. But strange noises floated above the sound of the surf. Musical notes?
Curious despite herself, she hurried across the chilled sand toward her former best buddy. Getting her first frontal glimpse of him, she came to an abrupt halt, her heels digging in the damp grains. It was Teague, all right, sitting cross-legged, a bottle of something wrapped in a brown bag propped in front of him. He cradled a ukulele to his chest.
Polly stared. “Since when do you play an instrument?”
He squinted up at her, as if her face were too bright. “Wha?”
Sinking to her knees, she sniffed at the brown-bagged bottle. Booze. “You’re drunk,” she said, surprised. He was always very careful about the amounts he imbibed.
He plucked at the instrument’s strings. “Pozzible,” he said, slurring the word.
“Why?”
“Can’ talk.” He made a tipsy, big-armed gesture that she realized was him miming zipping his lips, then locking them and throwing away the key. “M’father’z advice. Don’ talk ’bout it.”
Polly decided not to try to decipher his mood. As she’d been saying for weeks, she was moving on from him...except she couldn’t move on until she got him off her beach. “Let’s go,” she said, grabbing for his wrist.
His skin was corpse-cold, his arm a deadweight. “Came here,” he said, a big lump of unmoving, drunk man. “Didn’ mean to.” His