Nerds on Fire (27 page)

It was a picture worthy of
framing.

He yanked out his phone and managed to
snap the moment. Setting his mug on the island, he checked out the
picture. It was so nice, he used it as his phone background. These
amazing women were his roommates. His heart swelled as he gazed at
them.

By then, Gran had finally poured her
coffee while Trixi used the pot to inquire as to whether he wanted
some. He shoved his mug under the spout. She poured for him and
then for herself.

Then Trixi tugged out bagels and
muffins. His stomach growled so he helped Gran set the table while
Trixi toasted the bagels. He noticed Gran return for a coffee
refill before they sat down to eat.

“
Tough night?” he
asked.

“
I’m not certain.” Gran’s
eyebrows nearly met over her nose. “I just kept experiencing an
unsettled feeling but couldn’t put my finger on it.”

“
Really?” Trixi’s eyebrows
met. “I experienced something similar the other night.” She fixed
those lovely fey eyes on him. “I thought you took care of
this.”

“
I did. It’s probably not
going to improve right away though.”

“
Why not?” That was the
most demanding tone he had ever heard from Trixi’s mouth. He kind
of liked it.

“
My cousin and his team are
on this case, but they haven’t had a lot of time to conclude it
yet.” Mark kept his own tone mild.

Her cheeks flushed with color. “Oh,
right. I’m sorry for snapping.”

“
Your reaction is
understandable.” He took a long sip of coffee as she bent to remove
the tray from the oven.

The bagels were perfectly toasted. He
wandered over to the fridge where he found cream cheese and the
juice. He deposited them at the same time Trixi divvied up the
bagels.

After they gave thanks, he slathered
some cream cheese on one half of his bagel and took a large bite.
As was everything else in this house, it was delicious. The errant
thought snapped his attention to Trixi. In a completely offhand
way, he wondered how she tasted...

“
Can you pass the cream
cheese, sweet?”

Gran’s question to Trixi
jolted him out of his thought process, thankfully. He was grateful
for the diversion when Trixi complied. But not so much for the way
she licked cream cheese off her lip. He would have been happy
to...
What is wrong with me?

Fortunately, they finished up quickly
because the ticking clock reminded them they did have somewhere to
be today. It didn’t take long to collect Trixi and his work
essentials and stow them in the car.

She sat beside him, and he liked
having her there. It was right for Trixi to be seated next to
him.

What did this mean?

Lauren, a surgical nurse she really
liked, stopped her in the hall later that morning. “Trixi, I heard
you have an apartment for rent?” She was almost wringing her
hands.

“
Yes, I do,” Trixi
answered, caught off guard.

“
May I
please
rent it? I need a place
immediately
. My landlord
sold my building and we have until the end of the month to vacate
the premises.”

“
He didn’t give you much
time.”

“
No, less than three weeks
to find something else, pack, and move.” Lauren shoved a hand
through her gorgeous spiral curls, looking as stressed as she
sounded.

“
Why don’t you come tonight
to check out the place? I have a guesthouse you can look at as
well.”

Lauren’s brown eyes bugged. “You have
two places to rent?”

“
She has three, but I’m
renting the guest wing,” Mark announced behind them.

“
I’m so happy you told me
about her apartment. I really need somewhere to live.” She turned
back to Trixi. “When I told Margie about my situation, Dr. de Vosse
overheard me and mentioned you have a nice apartment.”

“
Like I said, come tonight
and look at both places and you can decide which one you want.”
Trixi tried hard not to be envious of Lauren’s blemish-free mocha
skin. Lauren was one of the few women she knew who could defeat
Chrissy in a beauty competition, but unlike Chrissy, Trixi was
pretty certain Lauren’s loveliness was one-hundred-percent
real.

“
Thank you, Trixi.”
Lauren’s gratitude was almost painful as she waved and hurried back
to work.

Trixi sent a sardonic look to her new
roommate.

He didn’t look in the least bit
repentant. “You have two places to rent, and Lauren needs
something, badly.”

“
And how do I figure out
how much to ask for either of these places?” This was all happening
so fast. She had only just started to consider her
options.

As though anticipating her question,
he tugged out his phone and emailed her a document. When she opened
it on her phone, he bent over her and pointed out the calculations
he came up with. He showed on a graph what other property owners
were getting for their apartments and compared theirs with what she
had to offer.

It looked like this would generate a
tidy income. With just his rent and Lauren’s, her financial worries
would fade. If she rented the guesthouse, that income would offer a
generous cushion.

“
Dr. de Vosse to the O.R.
please. Dr. de Vosse to the O.R.”

“
You’re being
paged.”

He sent a withering glare at the
intercom. “They could be paging Leo.”

“
He is a Dr. de Vosse, but
I’m guessing it’s you.”

Mark reluctantly left while Trixi
hurried on to find a cup of coffee. Numbers ran through her mind as
she went. Based on her rudimentary calculations, she wouldn’t have
trouble coming up with this year’s taxes and repairs.

Gran had insisted before she moved in
that she would contribute to the household as well. Trixi argued,
but her grandmother had been stubborn more years than Trixi, so she
won.

Now with the advent of Lauren, Trixi
suspected it would be fun to have the perky nurse nearby, provided
she wanted the apartment or guesthouse.

Lauren took the apartment. In fact,
upon seeing it, she squealed. When she discovered she could also
rent a garage bay, she squealed again. As a bonus, Reed and Shawna
had added automatic garage door openers.

Trixi didn’t want to rent the other
side though because with her car, Gran’s, and Mark’s in her garage,
they needed a place to park the tractor and lawn mower, but there
was certainly room for Lauren’s little car.

“
When can I move in?”
Lauren’s enthusiasm made Trixi relax.

“
You can have the keys now.
It’s ready.”

Lauren squealed again, hugged Trixi,
and took the keys dangling from Trixi’s finger. Before leaving, she
paused. “I do have my own furniture.”

“
We’ll take care of
clearing this stuff out.” Trixi assured her, with no idea as to
when.

“
I haven’t packed a thing,”
Lauren admitted. “So I’d better go get started.” She drove off with
a beep and an exuberant wave.

Trixi turned to Mark. “Since you got
us into this mess, you can help me clear this
apartment.”

He didn’t seem inclined to worry. “Leo
and Katy can help this weekend.”

“
Lauren wants to move in
now.”

His expression turned droll. “She
hasn’t even started packing. That’ll take at least two evenings and
she’s scheduled to work the early shift on Saturday. We have
time.”

“
Oh, right.”

They locked up and she located the
garage door opener for Lauren’s side. Lauren had agreed to the
money Trixi asked for both the apartment and the garage bay without
question or dispute. It made her wonder what her friend was paying
right now for her current place. Trixi had no intention of asking,
but was thankful Lauren at least had somewhere to live.

That would be a really scary
situation. Trixi had always been well aware she had a home to
return to. It had been a legacy, and burden, passed down through
the generations so she never had to wonder where she would end
up.

There was comfort in her
situation.

Rylan scanned the next
report, his mind churning through the data presented at rapid-fire
speed until he caught a word out of the corner of his eye that
looked surprisingly like
Nina
. The stray thought knocked him
out of the report. It was like getting hit by a linebacker who
outweighed him by a hundred and fifty pounds.

It left him gasping for air and
wondering what had happened.

He sat at his desk and stared blindly
at the report he was supposed to be reading. The memory of an
evening spent at his house wrapped around his mind and thoroughly
emptied it of anything pertinent.

How Nina’s blue eyes twinkled as she
laughed. How her hair glistened in the lamplight.

Just as he imagined, she looked
exactly right in his home. It felt complete when she was
there.

She hadn’t looked comfortable the
first time. In fact, he feared she was planning to escape through
the nearest window, but after a little while, she relaxed. Those
gorgeous eyes and lips soon softened.

Never before had a man been so
lucky.

Right now he had
everything
.

Life was good.

Glancing up when a shadow blocked the
light in front of her, Nina sent the person her professional
smile.

“
May I help
you?”

“
Are you Nina
McCormick?”

The smooth voice, coupled with the
woman’s plastic perfection immediately tightened Nina’s
spine.

She kept her smile in place. “Yes, I
am. How may I help you?”

The eyes staring back at her weren’t
friendly at all. She recognized the calculating look, if not the
woman.

“
I’m Chrissy Hunter,
Rylan’s fiancée.”

Nina nodded. Rylan had warned her
about this creature. “Odd.” She propped her chin on a fist. “He
told me your engagement ended several weeks ago.”

To give Rylan’s ex credit, she didn’t
so much as flinch. “That’s not true. We’re still
engaged.”

Nina glanced at the woman’s left hand.
“Where is your engagement ring?”

Hand curling around the bare finger in
question, Chrissy spat, “It’s being cleaned. I haven’t picked it up
yet.

A lie, as Rylan told her how Chrissy
had flung the large diamond at him.

Nina contemplated the woman-in-denial
and felt only a wave of pity. “You might want to look into some
counseling.” Her voice dropped to her most compassionate. “He’s not
in love with you and you deserve a man who is.”

Chrissy’s perfect features crumbled
but she soon regained control of her emotions. “He promised to
marry me. Not you.”

“
He asked you to marry him
before he realized neither of you loved the other. There is no
sense in tying yourself to a man who doesn’t love you.” She
reflected briefly on her first marriage. “It’s not worth it,
Chrissy.” The conviction in her tone must have shocked Chrissy out
of her inner turmoil.

“
You know something of
this?” The woman’s expression morphed to calculating
again.

“
My husband loved me, but
he loved his job more.”

“
You’re married?” There was
hope there now, maybe some glee.

“
I’m widowed. He died in
combat overseas.”

The calculating look slowly
disappeared. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said
stiffly.

“
It was a long time ago.”
Nina shrugged. She was well over it now. She had barely been a wife
before he left to enter the action elsewhere. Raising their son
while he chased across the globe. Until the day he didn’t come
home.

Really, what did she know about giving
advice? Not much, but the early realization that she could never
compete with his job had been a shattering blow.

Rylan was different. His job was well
established, as was his business, and while he enjoyed his job,
there were other things that came first. Foremost was his family.
Nina loved his loyalty.

Loved
his loyalty? As in
loved
him?

When had that sneaky
emotion snuck in?

“
Oh no.” She
moaned.

Chrissy’s eyes widened. “Are you all
right?”

“
I don’t know,” Nina
whispered, her eyes fixed on her blank computer screen as shock and
something else she couldn’t identify fought like two
cats.

“
What’s wrong? Do I need to
call a doctor?”

Fortunately, the waiting room was
empty, or Nina would have been mortified.

The woman’s question did straighten
her emotionally sinking boat. Everything evened out. “I’m in the
right place if I do,” she murmured with a faint smile.