Mr. Right Next Door (9 page)

He nodded again.

“Okay,” she said, feeling moderately foolish at least and a little afraid to know what he’d found out.

“Did he tell you it was his home phone number, Kim?”

“I don’t know…” She frowned, trying to remember exactly what he’d said.

“Well, it’s not his home phone,” Nick said.

“Okay.” She thought about it for a minute. “Maybe he didn’t actually say it was his home number. I mean…I thought it was, but…. I don’t remember, okay? I don’t. He just gave me his number. Maybe I assumed it was his home number. I…Why wouldn’t he give me his home number? He’s supposed to be in love with me.”

She sounded really pathetic there at the end, but what could she do? She’d opened her mouth and out it had come.

If he loved her, surely he’d give her his stupid home phone number.

“It’s a cell,” Nick said.

Kim made a face. “So? Tons of people have cells instead of landlines these days. No big deal.”

“Maybe not,” Nick said. “But it’s not a regular cell. There’s no paperwork associated with it. No records. It’s one of those pay-as-you-go phones you can buy anywhere. Nobody knows your name, your address, anything. You buy a card with call time on it and use that, so the calls are virtually untraceable.”

“So? Who’d want to trace his calls?”

“It’s not that. It’s just…They’re expensive to use, especially as someone’s primary phone. Most people use them if they want a phone for emergencies only or if they have credit problems and it’s hard for them to get a regular cell. It’s an odd choice.”

“Well…still…I don’t see that it really means anything. So he uses a pay-as-you-go phone? Maybe he’s just disciplined. Maybe he thinks cell phones are a ridiculous luxury or an abomination against nature and free time or something. Some people are militant about them. He could object on perfectly reasonable moral grounds. So what?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said. “But my friend couldn’t find any other phone registered to him anywhere in California.”

“So what? Maybe he doesn’t like talking on the phone.” Maybe that’s why he hadn’t called her, the supposed love-of-her-life.

It sounded lame, even to her, but there it was.

“What’s going on?” she asked, feeling pitiful and scared and sad.

All she’d done was fall in love. With a brave man who’d saved her from the pirates. That was all.

Everybody fell in love.

Why couldn’t she do it without it turning into a disaster?

That’s what it felt like. Like it was turning into a disaster.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it that someone was in your apartment,” Nick said.

“You’re sure someone was?”

He nodded.

“How can you be sure?” she asked. Because it all seemed kind of silly now. Spilled sugar? What was a little spilled sugar?

“Because I believe you,” Nick said. “I believe you’re scared. I believe you know someone was in your apartment when they shouldn’t have been there and there has to be a reason for that. I want to find out what it is.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You’re a parks planner,” she said. “What do you care who’s in my apartment?”

“I just do,” he said.

“Why?”

“Well…you’re a nice woman and you’re right next door to me. I mean…neighborliness alone…the Neighborly Code—”

“Neighborly Code?”

“Isn’t there one? I could swear someone here told me about the Neighborly Code,” he claimed. “You help take care of your neighbor. Especially in a small town. Isn’t there some Small Town Neighborly Code? And you are right next door. If I don’t help figure out what’s going on, the next thing I know, someone might be searching my sugar canister—”

“You don’t have a sugar canister. You’re renting a room next door to me—”

“Well, Mrs. Baker’s sugar canister. I know she has one. I’ve seen it. And she seems like a nice woman—”

“She drives you crazy. She told me so—”

“Still, she’s my neighbor. My landlady. And I have an obligation—”

“Under the Landlady Code?” Kim suggested.

“Hey, don’t mock the Code.”

He said it with all seriousness, all sincerity, and all of a sudden Kim didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

It all struck her as ridiculous and scary and sad and just…not right.

Something was definitely not right.

“No, no, no,” Nick said. “Don’t do that. Especially not here. Don’t cry here.”

“Why not?” she said, her bottom lip quivering, tears threatening.

“Because it’s bad. Everyone will stare—”

“They’re already staring,” she said, choking back a sob.

“Well don’t give them any more reasons to stare.”

“I can’t help it. Something’s wrong. I know it. And you know it, too, but you won’t tell me. This is my life, Nick. If anybody has a right to know, surely it’s me. Tell me what’s going on. Where’s Eric?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you know something. Something about him and the phone and whoever was in my apartment today—”

“I have no idea who was in your apartment today—”

“But the rest of it. You know something about the rest of it,” she accused. And she was right. She could tell. “Oh, God. What’s going on?”

At which point, Nick took her by the arm and half led, half dragged her out of the restaurant.

“What are you doing?” she yelled when they got onto the sidewalk and came to a dead stop, dead center on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. People were watching through the window. She could tell.

“I’m taking you somewhere where we can talk?”

“No!”

“Do you really want to do this on a public sidewalk? Or in the diner?” he asked.

Steely-eyed Nick was back. The Nick she’d caught a glimpse of in her apartment earlier.

It scared her a little.

Maybe a lot.

Her heart started pounding. She couldn’t quite breathe, didn’t understand, was afraid to even know.

“You’re scaring me,” she whispered.

“Good. You should be scared,” he said, then backed up and took a breath, reconsidering. “I mean…I don’t want you to be scared. Not of me. You don’t have anything to be afraid of with me. But Eric…maybe with him.”

“What about him?”

“Kim, just come to the B&B with me, okay? You know Mrs. Baker. You’ll feel safe there, right?”

Kim nodded.

“Okay, let’s go there and I’ll tell you everything I can,” he said, then turned and started walking the half block to his car.

She followed him, thinking about it. What if Mrs. Baker wasn’t there? What if he’d…done something to her? What if he was going to do something to Kim? Would he? Nick? Really?

“My brother’s a cop,” she said as threateningly as possible.

He turned around and smiled. “I know.”

“And my father was a cop. He was killed in a convenience-store robbery when I was just a baby and if you know anything at all about cops, you know that they look out for their own. They especially look out for the families of other cops who’ve been killed doing their job.”

“I know,” Nick said.

“You know that’s how it works? Or you know my father was a cop?”

“Both,” he said, unlocking the car and holding open the door for her.

“How?”

“Are you kidding? You know how people here talk. Everybody in this town knows you and that your father was a cop who was killed in a robbery. Ten people probably told me that story alone,” he said. “Can we get in the car now and go to the B&B? And talk about this there?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

He pulled out his cell phone and held it out to her. “Or you can call your brother right now, if that’s what you want. Tell him your story. Let him make a federal case out of it, if that’s what you want.”

She stared at the phone for a long time, thinking it through. Her brother would make a federal case out of it. Her whole family would. If she was wrong and this was nothing, she’d be hearing about it for months at the very least and she’d fought hard for years to have her family see her as an adult, a strong, smart, capable woman and not the baby of the family.

So calling her brother would not be her preference.

Nick waited, surely more patient than a man out to do her harm would be.

The whole situation was odd, but she really couldn’t imagine being in any kind of danger from Nick.

“All right,” she said, getting in the car. “I’ll come with you.”

S
he didn’t want to go inside with him, so they ended up sitting on the patio in the fading light, some kind of night creatures making a racket all around them. If Nick wasn’t mistaken, Mrs. Baker was hovering in the kitchen, probably with a window open, listening to their conversation or waiting for Nick to drop dead. One or the other.

He wasn’t sure which was more annoying, her eavesdropping or her obsession with his supposedly poor health.

Or saying too much to Kim like a damned amateur and being stuck with having to come up with something to tell her that wasn’t quite the truth, but would keep her from asking too many questions for the time being. And hopefully help keep her safe.

“Well,” she said, annoyed with him from the start, since he’d hauled her out of the restaurant that way.

Not one of his finer moves.

He still wasn’t quite sure how it happened, except…she did something to him. Something really good and really bad, all at the same time. Something that made him forget what he was here to do—what he had to do—and made him want to do things like haul her into his lap and kiss her until they were both naked on her sofa.

Nick scratched his head, wondering where it had all gone so wrong. He was far from being an amateur. He didn’t make mistakes like this.

“I’m sorry. I’m probably overreacting,” he began, pausing to see if she was buying that or not.

Didn’t seem to be.

Okay.

“I get a little paranoid sometimes. I try to not go there, but, well, it’s a flaw of mine,” he tried.

“You’re telling me you have a personality flaw that tends toward paranoia and that’s all that’s going on here?”

Okay, it was weak, he knew, but he had trouble thinking around her and he was worried about her. If that man had gotten to her and hurt her, while Nick was here supposedly watching her and keeping her safe, he’d have never forgiven himself. It had shaken him up, knowing someone had gotten into her apartment despite how closely Nick’s team was watching her.

He was going to be chewing people out left and right when he got done with her.

“I’m just saying…I might have overreacted,” he said.

“About believing me that someone was in my apartment?”

“No. Not about that. But our witness, who said the guy she saw was someone from the phone company, is what? Seventy years old?”

“Sixty-three.”

“Okay. Sixty-three. How’s her eyesight?”

“I don’t know,” Kim said.

“How’s her hold on reality?”

“Just fine.”

“Okay, but still…She said she thought it was a guy from the phone company. What if it was some other guy in a uniform and she only got a glance at him and thought it as a guy from the phone company?” Nick tried.

“No. She said she talked to him. He said he was there to fix someone’s phone.”

“Well, how’s her hearing?” Nick said, backed into a corner. “I mean, she’s sixty-three….”

Kim looked like she was about to bash him over the head with something. “Would you just tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” he claimed. And really, he didn’t. He had suspicions. A lot of suspicions. And they might be right or they might be wrong. He didn’t know yet. “But I want to check some things out, if it’s okay with you.”

She made a face at him. “What kind of things?”

“Like trying to find out who this guy was, who was at your apartment.”

“And how would we do that?”

Fingerprints for one. Harry should have been in there and dusted the place while Nick and Kim were at the restaurant. Of course, he couldn’t tell her that. And he hoped Harry was a lot more careful with the sugar than Kim’s intruder had been.

“We could talk to your neighbors again. You and I together,” Nick began. “If you’re with me and they know we’re trying to find out something for you, I think they’d be more likely to talk.”

Because so far, his guys were having a hard time getting any information that they could trust to be truthful. The town was full of suspicious busybodies who loved to gossip with each other, but none of whom could get their stories straight. It was really annoying. And forget asking questions outright if you were a stranger and were asking about someone in town. They all clammed right up.

“Okay, I guess we could ask some questions together,” Kim said.

“And we could talk to someone at the electric company, the gas company, the water company. All those companies, just to make sure this wasn’t someone who had a legitimate reason to be there. I mean your neighbor could have bad hearing, and someone from the gas company could have been there and just not notified you. Things like that happen.”

Sure they did.

“Okay,” Kim said, still looking skeptical.

“And I was thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you stayed here tonight. Mrs. Baker’s a friend, right, and she has a bunch of empty rooms. I’m probably being overcautious, but there’s no reason for you to be in that apartment all by yourself until we know for sure what’s going on.”

Which would put her right down the hall from him.

Which wouldn’t make for the most comfortable night in the world for him, but he wasn’t leaving her alone over there, either.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Well…I guess…I could stay here.”

“Good—”

“I mean, I’m probably being silly, but—”

“Cautious. You’re being cautious. Cautious is good in situations like this. I feel much better. I would have worried with you over there all alone,” he admitted.

“You would have?”

Nick nodded, thinking,
Please don’t look at me like that. Like you want me to worry about you. Like you like the idea. Like you want me to care.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Baker about staying here.”

“Good,” Nick said.

It was good.

He’d lock himself in his room if he had to.

He would be okay.

At least, he thought he’d be okay.

Until she got this look on her face, this…

What was she going to do?

She looked a little uneasy, a little scared, scared in a completely different way than she had been when they’d been talking about the mysterious sugar thief.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing. I just…” She took a step closer, looking unsure of herself. “You kissed me!”

It came out like an accusation.

“Yes,” he said. No arguing with that. He’d kissed her, God help him.

“Why?”

“I told you, I don’t know. It’s just something men do. They kiss gorgeous women. Every chance they get.”

Lame, Nick. Very lame.

Granted, he didn’t do it that often. Especially not with women like her.

But a man just snapped every now and then, didn’t he?

He was only human.

“I need to do something,” she said, putting a hand on the arm of his chair and leaning toward him.

“Do what?” he asked, thinking either he was crazy or she was about to kiss him.

God.

Why?

Just the thought took his breath away.

“I just do,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I need to try to understand,” she claimed.

“Understand what?” He leaned back as far as he possibly could in his chair, putting off as long as he could the moment when her mouth settled over his. It was killing him, but he did it.

Because if she actually kissed him, he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

“I need to see if it felt as good as I think it did,” she said.

That was all she wanted? He laughed. He could tell her that.

“It felt great. I remember. I swear to you, it felt fantastic.”

“See, I think it did, too. If I remember correctly. But it shouldn’t,” she claimed. “Because I’m in love with someone else.”

“Oh.” That guy. The pirate.

Nick had forgotten all about him when he’d kissed her.

He’d forgotten about everything.

“And if I’m really in love with him, I shouldn’t be kissing other men—”

“Of course,” Nick said, when she was so close, he could feel her breath fanning his cheek as she slowly exhaled.

He could smell her, too.

That stuff he’d watched her rub all over herself after her bath.

She smelled really good.

“And if I do happen to kiss another man, it shouldn’t feel as good as it did to kiss you,” she reasoned.

“Okay,” Nick said. “Sure.”

“So I thought…now that I’ve had some time to think about it and now that I’m not so scared, that I need to kiss you again. Just to see how it feels.”

Nick nodded. “Like a science experiment.”

“Yes. If you don’t mind?”

She put her free hand on his cheek, turning his mouth to hers. Her eyes were a dark, deep blue, her touch light as a feather, his senses filled with her.

“Well, if that’s what you have to do…”

“Thank you,” she whispered, those achingly soft lips settling against his, the barest hint of a taste of her getting to him, hitting his system like a drug, the kind of drug a man craved, a taste he’d do anything for, make any kind of stupid, idiotic mistake to get.

He dug his fingers into the arms of his chair, to keep from grabbing her and pulling her onto his lap, and tried very hard not to move anything else at all, to let her do what she wanted, what she needed to do, without any reaction at all from him.

Yeah, right,
Nick finally told himself.

A man would have to be dead not to respond when she kissed him.

He groaned, opened his mouth to hers and thrust deep inside. She gasped, but didn’t pull away. Just in case, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her onto his lap, arms locking around her. Her head fell to his shoulder and soon he had a hand on one very soft, perfectly round breast, his hand slipping inside her shirt, beneath her bra, finding warm, soft skin and a tight little nub of a nipple.

He kissed her like a man who was drowning in her, in the sensations she created in his body. And he couldn’t get close enough, devouring her with his mouth, her and those little sounds she made in the back of her throat. Aching sounds. Give-me-more sounds. Take-me-upstairs sounds?

He wished.

Now she groaned, her hand locked in his hair, tugging his face down to the side of her neck and then in the general vicinity of her breasts. At least, that’s what he told himself. It was what he hoped, as he nudged her shirt aside with his nose and left kisses along a trail from her collarbone down inside her shirt.

She squirmed on his lap, pressing her pretty bottom against his groin.

His day was complete, his happiness off the charts.

Life was very, very, very good.

He didn’t deserve this, but he didn’t care.

For the moment, she was his.

His mouth found her nipple, teeth gently nipping. She squirmed even more.

He was such a happy man.

He was thinking of her after her bath, skin all rosy and warm and still a little wet. Thinking of taking her in his arms then, her without a stitch on, and kissing his way down her body and then back up again. Of how sweet she’d smell, how sweet she’d taste, of how she’d look if she was naked and his.

She shuddered in his arms and clung to him, moaned.

Could he strip off her clothes right here?

Just how dark and secluded was the backyard?

He wasn’t an exhibitionist, just didn’t want to wait long enough to carry her upstairs.

His mouth came back to hers, going deep inside, telling her with his tongue what he wanted to be doing with his body, needing her to understand, to know if she was willing or if he had gone stark-raving mad.

“Nick?” she whispered, breaking off the kiss.

He heard her from very far away, like her voice was coming at him through a thick, billowing fog.

“Nick?”

Louder this time, more insistent.

She was pushing him away, he realized.

He raised his head, opened his eyes. “What?”

“Stop,” she said.

“Stop?” He was afraid he sounded like a seventeen-year-old.
Stop? Now? Really?

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Everything,” she said, sounding sad as could be as she scrambled off his lap and ran inside.

Nick was still breathing hard when she disappeared.

Damn.

Nick told himself he was a man. A strong, determined man. And that she was just a woman. A gorgeous one, but yes, just a woman. And that he could resist.

For the third night in a row since the mysterious sugar-thief incident, she was here in a room right down the hall from him, scared, obviously, because she was still here, but feeling foolish about it after so much time had passed without anything else happening.

Still, they hadn’t found anyone who’d had a legitimate reason to be in her apartment that day. She was there a good bit of the time, but late at night, when no one was looking, she crept next door to sleep in the room down the hall from Nick.

If something didn’t break soon, she’d go back to her place and Nick would worry even more. Or someone would figure out she was sleeping at the B&B and want an explanation. Like one of her sisters or her brother.

The brother kept running into Nick’s men and was suspicious. Any day now, Nick figured the brother would figure out what was going on. Nick didn’t want to be around when that happened.

They still hadn’t found Eric Weyzinski, although they had a photo of the sugar thief, a man in a phone company uniform, looking away from the camera, a hat obscuring most of his face.

It might or might not be Eric.

They couldn’t ask Kim without coming up with some really hard-to-come-up-with explanations and Nick was stuck, not knowing what to do. Kim was right down the hall from him, his landlady probably planted in the hallway between them, obviously curious as could be about what was going on.

Every night, Nick listened while Kim did things in her room, the getting-ready-for-bed things he really didn’t want to know about or to imagine. And he sat by that window and looked down into her empty apartment, thankful that she wasn’t there, but wishing someone else was, so that this whole thing could be over and he could get out of this town before he did something he’d regret.