“Cows are contained.” He chomped half the treat.
“Did you smile at them so they’d follow you anywhere?” I asked sweetly.
Ruby snorted. “No wonder they put the bulls in the pasture closest to your place.”
Teller swallowed wrong and started coughing. He threw his arm over his mouth and turned, his shirt pulling at his waist. He smelled like sunshine and warm grass with the pleasing undertones of horse sweat. I inhaled deeper.
“Sorry,” he rasped and grabbed another cookie. He handed it to me. “You tried one yet?”
“I made them.”
“Then the baker should get a taste too.”
Ruby’s eyes burned into me as I accepted the cookie. I hadn’t noticed the hunger grumbling in my stomach while I’d been busy in the kitchen. I took a bite and caramelized sugar and butter blasted over my tongue. My sweet tooth woke up and I moaned.
Teller stuffed the rest of his cookie into his mouth, watching me as I chewed.
I covered my mouth with the back of my hand. “I shouldn’t ruin my appetite.” I swallowed. “Your mom worked hard.”
“So did you. Have the cookie. She’s pretty damn excited about the coconut cake.”
“She had all the ingredients.”
“No way,” Ruby said. “You made it? That cake is legendary. I even heard about it before today. I’ll have to try some.”
Mycake had a reputation? People gushing at the nursing home was one thing, but something good related to me circulating through the Baileys of all people? What universe did I wake up in?
Teller was watching me, like he knew this was a momentous moment for me, and he hadn’t heard Ruby’s declaration.
His name was shouted from outside. One of his brothers. “I’m needed.” He snatched two more cookies and rushed out the door, and didn’t that fill my chest with all sorts of warm goodness.
The beeper on the oven went off.
I wiped the crumbs off my fingers. “Oh, good. The batch is done. Should I put them on a plate and take them out right away?” I retrieved the perfectly browned rounds and set the pan on a trivet on the counter. “I don’t want to ruin Mae’s routine.”
“I think Mae will let a lot ride. Especially when Teller looks at you like that.”
Heat exploded in my cheeks. “What?”
Ruby touched her fingertips to her lips. “I shouldn’t have said anything. God, how awkward. I’m not usually like that, but then I’ve never seen Teller like that, and I’ve spent a lot of time in the tasting room with him. Oodles of women gawk at him, hit on him, practically flash him, and he’s aloof. The way he acted just now took me off guard.”
“He’s just being professional at work, but he’s a natural flirt.”
“I think he’s a learned flirt—except when he’s with you. It’s natural.” Ruby ran her lower lip through her teeth as she considered me. A divot formed between her brows. “Sorry. I’m just rambling. I’ll text you that invite. I really hope you can make it.” She scurried out the door.
What the hell? Teller didn’t look at me differently. Sure, there wasn’t the annoyance anymore. And sometimes, he got that concerned crease when he was worried about my safety. Then there was the humor. His seriousness, like when we were discussing his expenses. The perplexed encouragement he’d given me when he’d tried to talk to me about making Flatlanders a bakery.
What exactly did Ruby think she saw?
The memory of him calling me Mad Maddy while a breath away from my mouth surfaced. His low voice when referring to my moans. His hooded eyelids when I was straddling him on the couch. Those moments were each a fluke.
Flukes weren’t supposed to happen repeatedly.
Even if Ruby was right, I wasn’t interested in being temporary. I wasn’t going to be just another date. A fling. Anything more than that left me with a pounding heart and flashbacks to catching Damien with Wendi in our bed, her mouth wrapped around his cock.
I’d had my trust broken countless times. My heart too. There wasn’t enough of it left to survive Teller’s interest.
Teller
