"About the call last night," she started. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
"Yes, you should." Noah inched forward in his chair. "I want that to be clear before we say anything else."
Teagan swallowed over the knot in her throat. "Of course."
He repositioned and straightened, as though he didn't want to be there any more than she wanted to hear him call her out for an overactive imagination. "About last night … "
She couldn't handle the thought that he might believe she'd placed that call because she couldn't stay away from him or needed his attention. Embarrassed, she clasped her hands under her desk. "I know you think that I called you as though you were my knight in shining armor, but those noises were real, and I was worried-"
"Stop."
She blinked rapidly, choking on her words.
"Teagan, I know." Noah pulled his chair closer to the desk. "But after what I'm going to tell you, I don't know if you'll ever call me again."
###
Here went nothing. Noah pictured the best way to explain how he'd overstepped the bounds of a normal friendship last night. Nothing came to mind as his gaze drifted over her shoulder to a pennant from the homecoming football game.
That was an example he could work with. Maybe. "Have you ever taken the ball and … " Noah gripped an imaginary football, staring at his empty hands, then tucked it to his chest.
Teagan obviously had not. He put one arm out, as if he was blocking and shielding, twisting and flexing the arm-carrying ball for emphasis. "And run with it?"
"Is that a football?" She gestured to the empty space under his armpit.
"Aren't counselors trained to use their imagination?" He dropped his arm and let the football disappear from his thoughts.
With a gentle tilt of her head, Teagan cast a sideways glance through her eyelashes. "I'm ninety-five percent sure that you didn't come here to discuss football."
He snickered despite what he had to tell her. "You're giving me a five percent chance of cutting work and interrupting your day to talk about sports?"
"I think so, yes."
He leaned back. "Do I come off as a sports guy?"
A flirtatious eyebrow lift teased him. "Noah, you come off as a do-whatever-you-want kind of guy."
"Well … " He angled his head, losing his focus on why he was there.
"If sports were on your mind, and you wanted to discuss them." She nodded. "Yes, I think we'd have that discussion."
Wouldn't be the first time his dominant nature had gotten him in a situation. "But not in a barbaric, caveman, ruin-your-job and interrupt-your-day kind of way," he said. He wasn't a Neanderthal, though he had shown up to discuss overstepping what some might call boundaries and was dropping football references. "Maybe you're on to something."
"I don't doubt your best intentions," she said. "But why won't I call you again?"
Well, hell. Again, here went nothing. "When you called me last night, I wasn't comfortable with how you sounded."
Teagan's sweet smile quickly sobered. "I called because I wasn't comfortable."
"I called my buddy, Wyatt. He knows people around town and connected with local PD."
Teagan's eyes went wide. "You did what?"
Despite the shock on her face, Noah kept plowing. "I asked Wyatt to swing over to my place."
"Last night?" Teagan blinked rapidly, stammering. "Why?"
"Wyatt knows Bella, and if Bella woke up, he could easily explain that I had to run out."
"Run out?" Her eyes stopped the rapid-fire blinks and froze. "Where did you run out to?"
Noah stifled an uncertain groan, staring at a crack in the ceiling. He might have overreacted, but he would do it over and over again, faced with the same situation. He faced her head-on. "Your place."
"Mine?"
"I wanted to check it out." Noah squared his shoulders and would stand by every action he'd taken. "I know that sounds crazy. Overprotective. Overbearing. Even saying it aloud, it's … a lot. But at the time, the way your voice shook, Teagan, you sounded scared."
Her lips parted before she closed them again. Not the best reaction, though it was better than her standing and screaming "stalker."
"Thank you," she whispered quietly. "I wanted to ask you to come over. But … Bella." Her eyes went to her desk. "There was no one else I trusted enough, but I just turned the lights out."
"I should've told you I was coming." She would've felt better.
With a quick flick of her wrist, Teagan downplayed the situation for his benefit. "Nothing came of it, so … "
"Damn it, I should've told you."
"Noah, really. That means a lot to me."
He ran a hand over his chin. He didn't have the best of news to follow up with. "I didn't see anyone back there, but there was another issue."
Teagan crossed her arms, and worry marred her forehead. "What kind of issue?"
"I saw a pile of cigarette butts that struck me as out of place."
"Really?"
"I mentioned it to Wyatt, he mentioned it to his friend at the police department, and they dropped by your place today while you were at school."
Her eyes widened. "And?"
"I think we were all hoping your lawn guy ditched his cigarette butts in the same corner every week or something." Noah shook his head. "The detective took a close look at them in the daylight, and they look smoked about the same time frame."
Teagan's mouth gaped. "Someone sat outside my house, smoking?"
He nodded. "And your shed."
"What about it?"
"On the inside, the insulation had been torn out. Does that make any sense?"
Her face skewed. "Like an animal got into the wall?"
That'd been his hope too. "Not so much. More like it was stripped out."
Teagan bit her lip. "I never use that old shed. There's nothing in there. My ex-husband built it to store some equipment and gadgets. That's why it was insulated, but I haven't used it in years." Her brow furrowed.
Interesting. "Last night, before I got home, I ran into your neighborhood watch."
"We don't have a neighborhood watch." Her bottom lip trembled.
"Know anyone named Edward Lee?"
Teagan shook her head. "No."
That was what Lexi and her husband Parker, an elite hacker Lexi's equal, had turned up too. That person didn't exist in Eagle's Ridge, much less Teagan's neighborhood.
"But … "
Noah's eyebrows arched as panic set in on her face. "What, Teagan?"
"But Edward Lee was often my ex-husband's screen name."
His brow furrowed. "What? Why?"
"It's some guy. E. Lee. First name's Edward, but his last name's Spence. He's an underwater archaeologist."
"A what?" he asked.
"Another treasurer hunter."
Had Noah run into Teagan's husband? Talked to the bastard? But why? What was going on?
"Was he at my house?" she asked.
Noah's mind couldn't keep up, but he would loop the detective in. "Does he smoke?"
Teagan shook her head. "No. He never did."
"I don't know what's going on, but awareness is half the battle. If there's an issue, Eagle's Ridge PD has been clued in and will be on the lookout now."
Teagan looked numb-or maybe shocked.
"Your street will be on their patrol."
"For what?" she asked.
"Exactly. There hasn't been a crime committed. Other than the damage to the inside of the shed."
"And who knows when that damage happened? I haven't opened that thing in a long time."
They sat in silence, and Noah let Teagan work through everything he had told her, waiting for her to set aside what he had shared and flip out over what he had done. But that didn't happen.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she finally asked.
Ha. He could start a list. The easiest answer was that she was gorgeous. Her expressive eyes made him react in half a dozen ways. She could curl her lips, and Noah would be lust-drunk or laughing. Looking at her was a top favorite pastime, but that wasn't what she meant. "I was worried."
"About last night?"
"Nah, stuff like that doesn't faze me."
"Then what?"
"I didn't know how you'd react to me. Reacting to you." He inched forward, resting his forearms on her desk, and simply watched as her chest rose and fell more than it had when he first arrived. Their dynamic squeezed him from the inside out, and now he could see that it did her too.
What he wouldn't give to run his hands over her, to feel that she was safe. That was why he was staring, because he was longing.
"And what's that look for?" Teagan asked in a much quieter, coarser voice.
His hungry gaze dropped, and Noah inhaled deeply before braving a look at her again. "After all the sharing just now, I'm going to keep that to myself."