Mr. Right Next Door (6 page)

“You’re making fun of me—”

“No. Really. I mean, if it happened to you, it could happen to anyone, right? I could get attacked by pirates tomorrow—”

“In Magnolia Falls, Georgia—”

“And I wouldn’t know what to do. And you’d feel guilty about it,” Nick said, for a moment forgetting himself and talking just for the sake of arguing with her, because, well, he liked it. “I mean, look how badly I handled being attacked by that vicious cat with the three-inch claws.”

“Cleo doesn’t have a vicious bone in her body. She’s just overly friendly.”

“And free and easy in applying her claws to my lap. There’s no telling what kind of injuries I sustained.”

“To go along with your bad shoulder, knee and back?”

“There is nothing wrong with my back,” he said.

Did she really think he was old and falling apart? Not that he should care.

Or had he reached that hideous state Harry had described?

Invisible to women of a certain age?

Nick cringed.

Not that he made a habit of chasing after women half—well, not exactly half his age—two-thirds his age?

No, she wasn’t two-thirds his age.

Women between half and two-thirds of his age?

Which sounded every bit as pathetic as chasing after women half his age.

“You looked happy for just a moment,” she said.

Nick shrugged. “What can I say? I have my moments.”

“That’s all? Moments of happiness.”

At this point she looked as if she actually cared. Or maybe just felt sorry for him. Who could tell? And what did it matter anyway?

Nick was happy running around, chasing criminals, righting wrongs. He’d do that for as long as he could and when he couldn’t anymore…Well, he’d worry about it when the time came.

He’d leave. Kim would be a little wiser, a little sadder, and life would go on. She’d find someone who wasn’t a criminal and she’d be fine staying right here in her little town, listening to gossip at the diner and being looked after by her older brother, the cop, and fussed over by her sisters.

Nothing to worry about here.

“You know, since you’re here, you could help me for a moment, if it’s not too much trouble. I need to take some measurements of the fountain, so the class and I can make design plans.” She held up a tape measure and waited.

She thought he couldn’t handle holding on to one end of a tape measure?

What did she think? That he was going to collapse from standing up too long in the sun?

Oh, hell.

How bad did he look?

“I think I can manage,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too sarcastic, too disgusted or too grumpy.

Must not have managed, because she sighed heavily. “I just thought…. you know…. Leaning over the edge and into the water to measure the work space we have on the bottom of the fountain. I thought it might aggravate your knee or maybe your shoulder—”

“And since I am practically on death’s door—”

“That’s not what I said. Not at all. I was just concerned—”

“Give me the damned tape measure,” he said, holding out his hand.

She plopped it down on his palm none too gently.

“Where to?”

“Right where you are is fine,” she said.

So he didn’t have to be troubled with moving, he realized, when she grabbed the end of the tape measure and pulled it along with herself as she walked to the other side of the fountain.

Harry must be about to bust a gut laughing, if he’d heard that.

Nick shook his head and tried not to scowl.

Scary Nick. Scary Nick.

No good for getting the woman to talk to him.

He obediently held his end of the tape measure as instructed. Inside the fountain and along its outer edge. Circumference, radius, every angle imaginable, while she took notes and made a diagram.

She was wading in the fountain in her short shorts, mapping out the base of the statue while Nick tried not to look at her legs, when a woman Nick would swear had to be a small-town librarian her entire life came along, giving him a thorough once-over.

“Kim, is this your young man?” she said, smiling up at Nick, who stood there with his tape measure trying for all the world not to look scary or grumpy.

At least she didn’t think he was decrepit. So what if she was sixty if she was a day?

“Hi, Ms. Applebaum. How are you?”

“Fine, dear. And you?”

“Great.”

“We’re all so happy you’re home safely.”

“Me, too. This is my temporary neighbor, Nick Cavanaugh. He’s Mrs. Baker’s first guest at the B&B.”

Nick took the hand she held out and shook it.

“Not Kim’s young man?”

Nick shook his head. “Afraid not.” And tried not to think about how he felt about being referred to as a
young man
by a sixty-year-old small-town librarian, as sexless a creature as he could imagine.

He was grateful, he feared.

Pathetically grateful.

“Well, welcome,” Mrs. Applebaum said, then turned to Kim. “And your young man? When will he be joining us?”

“Any day now,” Kim said.

“Well, good. We’re all dying to meet the man who captured our Kimmie’s heart.”

Kim smiled, chitchatted, then said goodbye, but Nick didn’t think she was all that happy.

They went back to taking measurements. She was very thorough and getting the measurements she wanted often involved her bending over and him trying not to watch the way her top gaped open just a bit, giving him a shadowy view of what he knew from his surveillance on the ship while she was sunbathing was a chest that would be considered a museum-quality work of art.

“Going to tell me about you and the pirates?” he said finally, trying to keep his mind on his job.

“There’s not much to it,” she said, straightening up, thank goodness. “I was nearly asleep on the pool deck when I heard shouting and what I thought were fireworks or something like that. Granted, it was daytime and thinking it was fireworks was not the smartest thing I could have done, which my brother has already explained to me in excruciating detail. He’s a cop—”

Nick nodded.

“And instead of getting out of the way, because I thought it was fireworks I just sat there, looking for pretty colors and patterns in the sky and things like that.” She finally climbed out of the fountain, sitting on the ledge and swinging a pair of perfect legs over the side. “Then I woke up a bit more and thought…kid’s game? You know, with fake guns and things? Because real bullets were zinging by me by then. And then someone came along and saved me.”

She got a kind of dreamy look on her face at the mention of her new man.

“Someone you’re in love with, I heard,” Nick said.

She grinned. “Yes.”

“Which your brother isn’t happy about?”

“Yes. That story’s making the rounds, too?”

“I told you. Fifteen different stories. That was just one of the ones that sounded plausible, given what you’ve already said about your brother.”

“So, that’s really all there is to it. My great adventure with the pirates at sea.”

“And now the whole town’s waiting for a glimpse of your new man, right?” Nick said.

“Yes.”

“And he’s coming soon?”

She didn’t look quite so happy then.

Damn.

Nick had been hoping it would happen fast, that he could escape, get her out of harm’s way and be done with it before she had time to get hurt too badly.

Where the hell was the guy?

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She shrugged, hugging her sketchbook to her chest. “I haven’t heard from him since I left the ship.”

“Oh.”

That was bad.

Very bad.

What if the guy didn’t need her for anything else? What if he was just flirting with her, toying with her, making her fall in love with him for no reason at all, other than the fact that she was there and gorgeous and one of the sexiest women Nick had ever seen, with that innocent small-town-girl way of hers?

Maybe it was just that she looked so innocent that it made the seduction that much more fun to a rat like him.

Nick scowled. Couldn’t help it.

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Kim said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself as much as him.

“Sure. It’s only been…” He almost tripped himself up. Damn. “How long has it been?”

“Thirty-seven hours since he walked me to my gate at the airport, then flew home himself.”

Which meant she was counting every hour as it passed. “He’s not answering his phone?”

She shook her head, looking that much sadder.

“Well, it could be anything,” Nick reasoned. “Phone trouble. Plane trouble. He could have come back to a mess at work that accumulated in the time he was gone.”

“I know.”

Still, she was obviously not used to being ignored, especially by a man she was supposed to be madly in love with.

And what man in his right mind would ignore her?

Certainly not a sane one. Not an innocent one.

“You know, I’ve got a friend from college who works for the phone company. I could ask him to check out the number for you.”

She brightened at that. “Really?”

Nick nodded, thinking,
Give me the number. Just give it to me.

“He’s done it for me before,” Nick said. “When I wrote down a number wrong for a business contact. Stuff like that. It’s nothing to him. Wouldn’t take him five minutes, I bet.”

“And he could tell us if the number’s working?”

Nick nodded, thinking,
Don’t be in love with this jerk. Please don’t be in love with him.

“Okay. That would be great. He lives in California,” she said, then rattled off the number.

She’d memorized it. Because she’d been calling the jerk round the clock, Nick feared.

Because she was in love with a crook.

H
e called Harry right then and there to relay the number.

“You dog, you,” Harry said. “She just gave it to you?”

“That’s right. Anything you can find out, my friend would appreciate.”

“You two are friends now? That’s sweet, Nickie. Really sweet. And I hear she’s dripping wet again—”

“Harry—”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. You still got it, Nick. Don’t let anybody tell you that you don’t, because you do.”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

He could lie to women with the best of ’em.

It was a real talent.

He hung up the phone, reassured the beautiful, dripping-wet woman who’d been wading in a fountain with him all morning that he would have some information for her very, very soon, then stood there by her fountain as she thanked him.

“No problem,” he said, while trying to figure out what he’d tell her the next time he saw her about her would-be-terrorist/love-of-her-life.

While he tried to figure out what it would be to his advantage—and to his investigation’s advantage—to tell her. Not what would be best for her. It couldn’t be about her and getting her the hell away from this man and maybe keeping her from feeling any more foolish or hurt than she’d already be.

“You’re scowling again,” she said.

“Just thinking,” he said, tucking his phone away.

“About?”

“A work problem.”

“To do with the falls?”

He nodded.

“What kind of work do you do with a waterfall?”

“I’m a city planner.” He made it up on the spot. “Working with a town in Pennsylvania. They’re interested in having a park similar to this. I’m here to gather information about the park.”

Which would give him an excuse to wander around, taking notes and things, while she and her juvenile delinquents played with mallets and broken glass if his assignment lasted that long. Yeah, that was what he was going to say if anyone asked what he was doing in town.

“You design parks?” Kim asked.

Nick nodded.

Her look said she had a hard time believing it.

“What? I like parks.” Everyone liked parks, didn’t they?

“You just don’t seem like the park type.”

“Well, there’s a difference between designing them and wanting to hang out on the playground in one or climb a tree,” he said,
Scary Nick
coming through loud and clear, he was sure.

“I guess so,” Kim said.

“You probably still like to climb trees, right?” He was really trying not to be so grouchy.

“Are you actually attempting to make a joke?” she asked incredulously.

“I make jokes. I’m a funny guy.”

She laughed hilariously at that.

He frowned.

“Okay, if I’m not all that funny, why do you keep laughing at me?”

She tried to tell him but she was laughing too hard to speak.

He wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted or annoyed.

He didn’t want to like her. It was bad enough that she was gorgeous and that her window was at a perfect angle for him to look inside her apartment at night. Feeling guilty about what he was doing here and how she was no doubt going to be hurt didn’t help, either. But liking her—really liking her and thinking she was a nice person—that had no place in Nick’s world. It served no purpose to the job he’d come here to do. It hindered him, actually.

He had to think of her as nothing but a subject of an investigation, a means to an end.

Period.

She was still laughing when one of her sisters showed up, pushing a baby carriage, one about the size of a small bus.

A double-seater, he realized.

There wasn’t just one baby in there. There were two. Or a baby and a…what would you call it? It was still mostly bald, sucking two of its fingers on one hand, bashing the other against the bar that kept it from getting out of the hideous contraption, looking like it would break out if it could. It was dressed all in yellow, some kind of one-piece outfit that left no clue to its sex, and in between sucking on those fingers it was babbling about something. Something that made absolutely no sense.

Nick tried not to look too scary, not wanting to make it cry.

The not-quite-baby grinned up at him, like it found him every bit as amusing as a certain adult Nick knew.

The baby in the backseat was slumped over to its side in a position he felt sure would give it a bad back. Eyelids dropping, it was sucking the same fingers as the one in front, except the baby was…What was that drool coming out of it’s mouth?

Oooh. It was drooling like a little waterspout.

Nick grimaced.

The whole front of its little suit was wet in a big circle around the collar.

What was up with that?

Kim greeted her sister like she hadn’t seen her in weeks, when Nick knew damned well they’d had lunch together the day before. Then she turned to him to introduce him, but her sister beat her to it.

“You must Eric,” she said, throwing her arms around Nick and giving him a big hug. “I’m Kim’s sister, Kathie. We’re so happy to have you here in Magnolia Falls. Everyone can’t wait to meet you.”

Nick endured as best he could, trying not to scowl about being mistaken for a pirate/terrorist, part of him wondering how in the hell Kim’s sister could think she was involved with someone as old and broken-down as Nick felt. Part of him wishing it didn’t seem like such a ridiculous idea. Even if he couldn’t have her, just thinking that it might be possible for him to have her was a scarily attractive proposition.

“Kathie, honey. No. This isn’t Eric,” Kim said.

Her sister pulled away, looking puzzled. “But…I thought…”

“This is Nick Cavanaugh, my new neighbor. He’s staying at the B&B, Mrs. Baker’s first guest. Remember me telling you she’d opened up a few days early?”

“Oh. Sure.” Her sister grinned at Nick. “Sorry. I just…Well, we’re all anxious to meet Kim’s new boyfriend and when I saw the two of you and Kim looking so happy, I just assumed you were him.”

“No problem,” Nick said, knowing she was not going to be happy for long with her pirate.

“Nice to meet you, too.” She held out a hand. “I’m Kathie Reed.”

He shook her hand.

“And this is Cassie, who’s almost two, and her baby brother, Ned.”

Cassie held out her slobbery fingers in greeting. Nick declined what he feared was her offer of a handshake, instead keeping his distance and trying to work up a smile. Cassie pouted, but at least she didn’t cry. Harry would have just loved it if
Scary Nick
showed up and made a toddler cry.

“Nick’s a city planner. He’s here studying the park for a town that might want to build one like it.”

He tried to look city-plannerish, like a guy who liked trees and flowers and the outdoors in general, fearing he was failing wildly.

Kathie Reed frowned at him, much like her sister was prone to do. “Oh. How nice for you. We just love our park.”

“Kathie was married here,” Kim said.

Her sister nodded. “In the gazebo right over there, overlooking the falls. It was beautiful.”

“And she got engaged here, too. And so did our parents,” Kim added.

“Oh,” Nick said, like he needed to make a note of that. Like he was a guy who could design a spot for romantic weddings and engagements.

Scowl, scowl, scowl.

Scary Nick.

“Well,” he said, forcing a carefully neutral expression across his face. “I should make my way to the falls. I have a lot of work to do today.”

“Thanks for helping me with my measurements,” Kim said.

“No problem. Happy to help.”

“And you’ll get back to me about…the number?”

“Sure,” he said. “As soon as I hear anything.”

He waved to her and her sister, and off he went.

“There’s something odd about that man,” Kathie told Kim after they’d bought sandwiches from a snack cart in the park and settled themselves on a bench.

“I know,” Kim said, unwrapping her chicken salad and pinching off a bite for her niece, who had her mouth hanging open at the ready.

Cassie took her bite and smushed it against her mouth, not quite getting it open in time, but she stayed with it until most of the sandwich ended up in the right place.

Kim grinned at her, then thought of her offbeat neighbor. “He comes off all dry and cynical, but he’s really funny when you start talking to him. Still, there’s something about him—”

“Something odd,” Kathie insisted.

“I guess. But for some reason, I like him. He stood here for close to an hour helping me take measurements of the fountain for the mosaic.”

“Okay, so he’s helpful and makes you laugh. Still…does he strike you as a guy who’d plan parks for a living?”

“Not at all. He seems way too serious for that.”

Cassie grabbed on to the front cushioned bar of her stroller and started trying to push it back and forth, succeeding only in pushing her own body back and forth. “Ahh-uhhh-ahhhuhhh-ahhh,” she said, like a little Tarzan-girl.

Kim gave her another bite of her sandwich. “Open up first this time,” she said, trying to help.

Cassie didn’t.

Her mother just sighed, took the piece from her daughter’s collar and into her mouth. “We’re going to figure this out one day. I’m sure of it.”

Cassie chewed enthusiastically with her mouth wide open.

“We’ll figure that part out, too.”

“I’m sure,” Kim said.

“So, I have your final student list for your art class. I’m so glad you’re doing this for us. It’s so hard once kids get behind and know they won’t be able to graduate with their class. It makes it that much easier for them to give up and quit school altogether,” her sister said.

“I’m happy to do it. And excited about the project.”

Kathie was a former teacher herself, and since the birth of her first child, she’d been working part-time with Big Brothers Big Sisters as the group’s education coordinator. It gave her the flexibility she needed with her kids, while still keeping her involved in education. She and Kim together had sold the school district on the idea of Kim’s slightly offbeat art class, funded and coordinated by Big Brothers Big Sisters.

“If this works, I have a friend who’s into metalwork. We might be able to get him to do a class that makes park benches or something like that,” Kim said.

“Great.”

“Gaaaiiiit,” Cassie said.

“Almost, sweetie,” Kim said.

Then shook her head, imagining what Nick would have to say about taking a bunch of high school kids with delinquent tendencies and giving them a blowtorch to play with. He’d love that.

“So, I’m trying not to ask, because I know everyone’s bugging you about it, but where is the guy we’re all dying to meet?” her sister asked.

“He’ll be here soon. I know he will,” Kim said with all the conviction she could muster.

She was trying not to worry. Honestly, she was.

Of course he was going to show up.

He was wonderful and he was in love with her.

It wasn’t some silly holiday fling.

Why would it be that? He wouldn’t have told her he loved her if it had just been that. There’d be no reason to say he was in love with her so quickly if he wasn’t really in love with her.

Unless he’d just been trying to get her into bed with him.

She’d tried hard not to even consider the possibility, but the longer she waited without so much as a phone call from him, the more that thought kept creeping in.

What if he’d said it only because he’d wanted to sleep with her?

Guys did that all the time, didn’t they?

“Hey, what’s wrong?” her sister asked.

“Nothing.” She smiled brightly, thinking she was just feeling overly emotional given all that had happened to her in a little more than two weeks. Her entire life had changed. The feelings she had for Eric were so strong and it had all happened so quickly. It was all so new, so overwhelming.

Being back here with her family without him, it was easy to almost imagine that it had never happened, that it had all been a dream.

She’d come back to her ordinary life, filled with all these new feelings, missing Eric like crazy and now…

Where was he?

Had something happened to him?

If he’d gotten into a car accident or something, no one would even know to call her, would they? Or how to get in touch with her, even if he’d mentioned her name.

“I just want Eric to be here,” Kim said.

“Well, of course you do. We all want him here.”

And he would be, as soon as he could get here.

That’s what he’d promised.

That he had to go home, clear up a few things with work, arrange for more time off and get on the next plane for Atlanta.

What had gone wrong with that?

Kim spent the next two days catching up with her family and working on arrangements for her class. The first meeting in the park was in three days. She’d have outlines drawn to scale of the existing fountain for the kids to use as they came up with their own design ideas for the project. One of their ideas, probably with some tweaking by her and the class, would be used for the project. They only had six weeks, so they had to get moving. She wanted to start construction within two weeks.

Distracted, thinking of all she had to do to finish the project on time, she unlocked her apartment door that afternoon and walked inside, and it wasn’t until she got into the kitchen that she noticed something odd.

There was something on her countertop.

She went to put her fountain plans down and felt it on the back of her hand.

Turning her hand over, she saw tiny white specks.

She sniffed.

Sugar?

Tasted.

Yes, it was sugar.

Kim frowned.

She wasn’t the world’s greatest housekeeper, but she wouldn’t leave a trail of sugar on her countertop, either. She should know. She’d just cleaned her kitchen yesterday, and she hadn’t used any sugar this morning. When she’d opened the refrigerator, she’d discovered she was out of milk, and if she couldn’t have some milk in her tea, she’d do without. It just didn’t taste good to her without it.

And when she didn’t have tea, she didn’t use sugar, unless she was baking cookies or something, which she hadn’t done since she got back from her trip.