“What’s going on with you?” She stops a few feet away, arms crossed, head cocked. “You look like someone kicked your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“Metaphorical dog.” She narrows her eyes. “You have your guilty face on. What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I bark.
“Oh my gosh, you so did something. And Faye ripped you a new one, from the looks of it. Did she put you in time out?”
“I didn’t— Nobody put me anywhere.” The words tangle as shame burns my cheeks.
“Are you blushing?” Becky is practically bouncing on her toes.
The heat spreads from my cheeks to my ears. I could blame the sun, but it’s only April, and the temperature can’t be over seventy. “Shut up, Beck.”
“Holy cows, you are blushing. What the hell happened in there?”
“Nothing happened.”
Rebecca ignores me, still grinning. “How on earth did you offend Faye? She’s the sweetest person I know.”
I blink at her. “You know her?”
“Of course I do.” My sister rolls her eyes like I’ve asked if water is wet. “She’s been renting cottage four since August. And we’ve become friends; we’re in the same book club.”
Cottage four is one of the six lakefront properties we went into heavy debt to renovate last year. I don’t handle the rentals; Becky is in charge of managing long and short stays, so I never connected the dots.
“She’s the one paying summer rates year-round?”
We have families coming in from Chicago wanting a lake vacation who rent for an entire season, but cottage four was the first to go on a long-term lease.
Rebecca nods. “Without batting an eyelash. She signed the lease as soon as she saw the place.”
I low whistle. “What are they paying elementary school teachers these days?”
“Not enough for that rent.” Becky shrugs. “Maybe she’s got family money?”
She sure looks like she comes from a wealthy background.
Rhys tugs on my hand. “Dad, can we get ice cream? Please? I was really good today. I didn’t even talk during silent reading, and Tommy was making faces at me, but I ignored him like Miss Rose said to do when people are being distracting.”
“Maybe another time, bud.”
“Miss Rose!” Rhys’s shriek punctures my eardrum. He drops my hand and takes off across the playground.
I follow his trajectory and spot her.
Faye Rose, first-grade teacher and apparently my tenant, is walking along the sidewalk in the same preppy cardigan and tight pencil skirt she wore in the classroom. The outfit leaves a sliver of skin visible above her knee-high leather boots. A strip of flesh that shouldn’t be eye-catching, but somehow is. Why the hell am I staring at it?
Rhys crashes into her at full speed, wrapping his arms around her waist with the same enthusiasm he showed me five minutes ago. Her leather messenger bag—a buttery soft designer thing with gold clasps—slides off her shoulder and hits the ground. She doesn’t even glance at it. Her face breaks into a wide smile, the stern teacher mask vanishing as joy sparks across her features like a sunrise over the lake.
She crouches down to Rhys’s level, and they hug as if they haven’t seen each other in weeks instead of half an hour.
At the sight, warmth, unexpected and unwelcome, spreads through me in uneven pulses.
“Hello, my brilliant scientist,” she says, her voice breezy and affectionate. Nothing like the steel-edged tone she used with me.
Rhys’s face lights up even brighter, as if she’s made of magic.
