Yes, the equivalent of te quiero in English might be "I care about you" or maybe "You mean a lot to me", "I really like you", or a number of similar expressions. The expression "I love you" is usually reserved for family, very close friends, or significant others (though it's sometimes used very casually to mean nothing more than "I like you" -- I wouldn't recommend using it that way). If you want to express your feelings of "almost" loving someone, you'd probably just say how much you care about him or her, how much he or she means to you, or something like that without actually mentioning the word love.