“Let me guess,” I said. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?”
His grin flashed. “Want to play hooky?”
Yes, please. “I can’t,” I said with regret. “I’ve got so much work to do.”
The new images on social media had boosted sales. My phone screen had broken out in a rash of notifications, likes, comments, and tags. I needed new posts, fresh content to keep my followers coming back.
Maybe Trey would pose for me. In black and white, that wild dark hair, his lean, hard chest framed by the panels of his white shirt (unbuttoned, of course), those black eyes laughing at the camera as he held a purse with the Baggage logo...
Best marketing ever. There wasn’t a woman in the world who could resist him.
He nodded at the box in my arms. “Fetching for Phee?”
I blinked, recalled from my photoshoot fantasy. “I’m getting her old photos scanned.” We’d spent the day sorting through pictures. It was strange seeing my father preserved in Phee’s eyes, a toddler with fat knees and cheeks, a tall boy with a shy smile. “Also, I have to pack. I’m driving to New York tomorrow.”
Trey shot me a glance, his eyes hidden by sunglasses. “You’ve already decided to leave, then.”
“Everyone he’s ever loved has left him,” Beth whispered.
But I’d put my heart out there before. I wasn’t doing that again. Not without some kind of sign from Trey.
“I’m keeping an open mind. But my stitcher quit. Flo can’t fill the orders by herself. If I don’t go back soon, I won’t have any business to go back to.”
“Too bad. I was going to give you a tour of that shoe store. I brought the key,” he added in a low, deliciously dirty voice. Like he was promising to show me his secret sex dungeon.
I tilted my head. “That’s always been my dream. That one day you’d pick me up in a red convertible and drive off with me to... the Shoe Box.”
Okay, my childhood fantasies had not included a tour of an empty storefront in downtown Bunyan. But the rest of it? Trey, listening to me, wanting to be with me, giving shape to my dreams? It was all I’d ever wanted.
His eyes lit with laughter. “So that’s a yes.”
An answering smile uncurled in my heart. “Maybe. Are you going to feed me?”
“That’s part of the plan.”
There was a plan. That included me. My chest filled with butterflies.
“Go,” Phee said from behind me. “You’re no good to me mooning around here.”
Since offering me the loan, she hadn’t tried to talk me into staying in Bunyan. Maybe she thought Trey would.
Maybe I wanted him to.
“Mooning?” Trey murmured as he opened my door.
“Shut up,” I said, and got into the car.
He took me in the back way, unlocking the door and leaving me there while he walked through the empty showroom to turn off the security system. The evening sky had clouded over on the drive into town—a summer thunderstorm rolling in. Inside the building, the air was stale, warm, and dark.
I felt along the shadowy wall. “I can’t find the switch.”
“I’ve got you.”
I was waiting for the overhead fluorescents to flick on when Trey returned in a pool of light, carrying a lantern. “Mood lighting?” I joked.
He grinned. “I wanted you to see the place in the best possible light.”
“Ha-ha. What are you hiding? Water damage? Mice?”
