Mr. Right Next Door (8 page)

She’d always found the notion ludicrous until now.

“Kim—”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you. I came home and found sugar and coffee grounds on my kitchen countertop.”

He gave her a look that said, “And?”

“And I didn’t make that mess. I don’t even drink coffee. I drink tea. I keep coffee for people who come over and have to have coffee, but I haven’t had anyone here drinking coffee since before my trip and I just cleaned the kitchen last night. I didn’t spill the sugar or coffee and I don’t know who did. Except maybe for the phone guy—”

“Phone guy?”

“Except, there’s nothing wrong with my phone that I know of. So why was the phone guy here?”

“A phone repairman was here? In your apartment?”

“I think so,” she said. “Otherwise, who would have made a mess of the coffee?”

Coffee grounds?

Phone repairmen where there was nothing wrong with phones?

Nick stared at the woman who’d just scared him half out of his mind, trying to think through the fear, to make sense of what she was saying, but it just wasn’t happening.

Still, she was right in front of him, safe and sound. Just scared, that was all. She wasn’t shaking anymore. She wasn’t in his arms, thank goodness. And she wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, but she was okay.

“Start over,” he said. “Slowly, so that maybe I can understand. You came home, and…?”

“Found sugar and coffee grounds on the kitchen countertop. Like someone had searched the sugar and the coffee canisters and made a mess while they did it. Why would anyone be trying to find anything in my sugar or coffee supply?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “But keep going. You found the mess…”

“And I knew I hadn’t made it, which means someone else had to. Which means, someone must have been in here.”

“Okay.” He was starting to get it. Who’d been here? Maybe the love of her life? The pirate?

“So I looked around the apartment—”

He grimaced, just thinking about that. The woman believed someone had been in her apartment and what did she do? She went looking for him! Sure. That’s what any reasonable person would do, right? Go see if they could find the guy who’d broken in?

“Go on,” he said, snarling,
Scary Nick
back in full force.

“What?” she demanded.

“He could have still been here, Kim,” Nick roared.

She flinched, looked hurt, looked like she might cry.

“And don’t you dare cry,” he said.

Her lower lip started to tremble. Tears filled her eyes as she glared at him. “I’m already scared enough without you yelling at me.”

Which meant that—dammit—he was probably going to touch her again, try to reassure her again and then try very, very, very hard not to do anything else when he had her that close to him. Which he figured was next to impossible, but he was going to give it a shot, because she was scared and Scary Nick had yelled at her and made her cry.

“Oh, hell. I’m sorry,” he said. “You scared me, too.”

She bent her head down, like she didn’t want him to see her tears and he leaned forward until he found himself with her head on his shoulder, his arms cradling her in a loose embrace which he found thoroughly unsatisfying.

He just sat there, his head bent down to hers, her shoulders shaking while she cried and shook and buried her nose in the crook of his neck. She smelled sweet and her skin was so soft—from the bath he supposed and that stuff she’d smoothed all over herself afterward. He fought the urge to bury his face in her hair and kiss her cheek, her closed eyes, her nose. Her mouth. Anything. Any part of her.

“It’s all right now,” he said, even though it wasn’t. Even though she was in danger even while he was here. He was supposed to be the one protecting her and someone had gotten in here and done who knew what in her apartment.

He ran his hands up and down her back in a move he hoped was soothing and not too personal, not too tempting to himself, tried very hard not to think of what it felt like to have his hands on her, on all that he’d seen of that tempting body of hers while he’d been spying on her on the ship and here in her own apartment. Tried not to think of all the things he wanted and could not have.

Sometimes it seemed like his whole life had been about nothing but things he’d wanted and could not have.

There’d been women who couldn’t handle his job and the life he led, women he might have been able to build a life with, a brother he hardly ever saw, nieces and nephews who wouldn’t have known him from a stranger on the street, a mother working on her fifth marriage and a father who’d disappeared when Nick was six.

He hadn’t planned on having this sort of life. It had just happened, and it had worked fine for a long time.

Still, there were things he wished were different, things that could have been simple, could have been real.

She was quickly making her way to the very top of the list of things that could have been real.

Scary Nick
didn’t get women like her.

Still, she was right here with him now, easing closer he feared and in no hurry to stop crying or move away.

He debated with himself for all of half a second longer, then in one move, shifted around to sit on the sofa and pull her more fully into his arms.

Honestly, that’s all he meant to do.

But somehow in the shift from one spot to another, she ended up sitting in his lap, her arms wrapped around him like she might never let him go. He saw big, dark eyelashes spiked together with tears, a trail of moisture running down her soft cheeks, her sexy-as-hell lower lip puffed out in a little pout that sent a purely sexual ache shooting throughout his entire body in a flash.

That silly phrase,
You’re beautiful when you cry,
ran through his head, then,
You’re beautiful all the time.

And then he gave in and kissed her.

Oh, God, he was kissing her.

His mouth found hers, surprised her, he realized. Maybe even startled her. She jumped a little, sighed, made a little whimpering sound in the back of her throat that he decided was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. Her lips parted ever so slightly, pressed against his. They were wet with her tears and he set himself to the task of finding all those tears and kissing them away. From her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, her chin.

And then he just devoured her.

One minute she was sitting on his lap, scared, and the next he was easing her back against the sofa and following her down, bodies tangled together, until they were lying on the sofa, his mouth locked on hers.

It was like diving into a banquet. He didn’t know where to start.

Her soft, soft lips, her hair, the smell of her skin, all those sweet curves laid out beneath him.

She opened herself to him and he let himself sink into her, stroking her, tasting her, teasing her. His hand caught in her hair, holding her to him, the other slid down her side and palmed her hips, fitting her body to his.

He would have begged happily at that point.

Right here. Just stay right here. Just for a minute. Please.

He thought she was okay with that, thought her hands were clutching at his back, urging him closer. He hoped that wasn’t pure wishful thinking on his part. And she was definitely kissing him back. Yes, she was. Her mouth opened to his as he thrust into her in the only way he could allow himself at the moment.

But he was thinking of other ways he might be doing this, was thinking of what it would take to get her clothes off and his and truly be inside of her in no time flat and how that would feel and how soon they might do it again, her climbing out of the tub and walking toward him dripping wet and him giving up, giving in, gone.

He dragged himself off of her, feeling like a sixteen-year-old looking at a girlie magazine.

He had no control whatsoever.

Dammit,
he muttered.

Not that he could get away. She was still sprawled out across his lap, their bodies all twisted together. He could sit up, breathing hard, still turned on as hell, but he couldn’t get away.

She lay there with her head against the big, cushy arm of the sofa, her arms wrapped around herself, like she wanted to protect herself from him. She shot him an accusing look he rightly deserved. A look that said,
What in the world was that!
That said,
One minute I was terrified and just wanted you to help me and the next you were on top of me, you rat!

He noted that he wasn’t the only one struggling to breathe normally. That her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were dry, at least.

And her mouth…
Oh, that mouth.

Yum.

Just yum.

It was an absolutely juvenile word, Nick knew, but the only one he could come up with that fit.

It was all he could do not to dive back on top of her right that minute and beg her to let him do anything…just anything she’d permit. Teenage boys begged, too, he remembered. Begged very well.

And in her life, she wasn’t that far removed from having teenage boys begging for all sorts of things from her, while he…he had a body that was threatening to fall apart. He was limping, for God’s sake, and grumpy, sometimes scary and old, fast becoming a bad cliché, the old man lusting after the pretty little girl.

Just shoot me now,
he thought.

Please.

She was looking at him finally, waiting for some explanation, no doubt. Looking hurt and sad and surprised all at the same time.

Surprised in a good way?
Nick wondered before he could help himself.
Surprised like…she’d liked it?

Not that it mattered in the least.

Not that he’d ever be doing this again.

Not like he didn’t have one hell of an apology he had to offer and fast, and then do some quick talking to try to explain and have her keep trusting him and talking to him.

How was he going to manage that?

Nick shook his head back and forth, at a complete loss. “I’m sorry,” he said.

She frowned. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He wanted to believe that. “You mean, it’s okay—”

“No. It’s not okay. I just meant…okay, you’re sorry. What else?”

“I don’t know. I just…lost it for a minute.” That was certainly true. “I didn’t mean to do it. I can’t believe I did.”

“Okay,” she said again.

“Okay? Like…not at all okay? Like…what do you have to say from there, asshole?”

She nodded. “That works.”

He was afraid of that. “I don’t know what else, okay? I just don’t know. You were scared and I was here and I just didn’t want you to be scared anymore and I was sorry I made it worse by yelling at you and then…I don’t know. You’re…. well, you know what you are and I’m just a man. You know what men are like, too, right?”

Her mouth fell open, in what he feared was disbelief and a definite dissatisfaction with his answer.

What had he even said? He honestly wasn’t sure at the moment.

If he could just walk through that door right now and start all over again, he was sure he could handle this whole thing better. The only problem was, then he wouldn’t have gotten to kiss her and snuggle on the couch with her and he didn’t think he’d give that up for anything in this world. Not even if it meant not having to sit here, completely baffled, trying to explain the whole thing to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

And he was.

Because she was not happy and he had honestly just wanted to help her and he’d made things worse. Or different. Or uncomfortable. Or odd.

“That’s it? That’s your explanation? You’re a man and I know what men are like?”

He nodded. “Best one I’ve got, I’m afraid.”

“And I’m…what? What is it that I’m supposed to know about myself?”

“That you’re gorgeous,” he said in all honesty. “That you make grown men weep by walking down the street. By just existing. By breathing. By walking into a room. You are drop-dead one-hundred-percent gorgeous and men must have been making fools of themselves over you since the day you were born, so I have a hard time believing you could be that surprised by this. By one more man behaving like…a man.”

He glanced over at her.

She still looked pissed.

“Neanderthal man,” he tried. “Caveman. Jerk-of-a-man. Grabbing you and rolling around on the sofa with you. Taking advantage of you—”

“Like a man? Because that’s what men are like? That’s it? Your entire explanation?”

“We try to do better most of the time. Honestly, we do, but yeah…like a man.” He frowned, sighed, wished he could just disappear. “I mean…I know you think I’m old enough to be half-dead, but trust me, I’m not that old. Not enough to be immune to a woman like you.”

K
im felt a little like she had when the pirates attacked.

Because who got attacked by pirates?

No one did.

They were pirates, for heaven’s sake.

But there she’d been, getting attacked by pirates and not quite believing it was happening.

For the second time in as many weeks, she found herself trying to clear her head and not quite sure how to connect one thing that had happened with the next, not quite able to figure out how she’d gotten from point
A
to point
B.

Point
B
being Nick kissing her silly.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Really. I am.”

“Okay,” she said, for lack of anything better to say, anything even remotely coherent.

She was reminded instantly of an old boyfriend she’d caught kissing her best friend when Kim was sixteen, after he’d pledged his supposedly undying love for her. She hadn’t bought the undying-love bit, but she had liked him more than anyone she’d ever dated and she’d thought he was a good guy. So she’d been surprised and hurt and angry to find him rolling around on the rec-room floor with Shelly Stevens. And when he came to try to apologize, all he’d managed to come up with was,
I don’t know how that happened.

Sure,
Kim had thought.
Right. You have no idea how you ended up kissing her that way. Sure you don’t.

But if Eric had walked in right that minute or one of her sisters or her brother, she’d have said practically the same thing.

I have no idea how that happened. Why it happened. What it meant. What I’m going to do about it.

How it possibly could have felt so very good.

Kim made a face.

“Are you going to cry again?” Nick said with his trademark gruffness that she somehow found both appealing and amusing.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because…” He shrugged helplessly. “Because I don’t want you to. Because I hope you’re not. And because it’s hard to watch you cry and for me not to do something about it. Which we’ve already established that you probably wouldn’t like. So I’m hoping you won’t do that again, so that I won’t do the other thing again. So I won’t make things even worse. Sorry.”

“Okay,” she said.

Don’t cry and he wouldn’t kiss her again?

That seemed straightforward enough. Reasonable enough. Manageable enough.

She would not cry.

And she’d try to forget how it had felt to be kissed by her very unusual neighbor, Nick Cavanaugh.

“Can we get back to your mysterious sugar thief?”

“He didn’t steal any sugar,” she said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” she said, wondering how what he’d just said could come off so completely like a gruff kind of kindness, that she could feel like she understood it so completely and was so sure that’s what it was. Kindness. Concern. Outright worry.

She liked the idea of him worrying about her.

Of him caring.

Nick gave a sigh of complete exasperation and Kim tried not to grin at him and let him know that she somehow found that an attractive trait as well.

“So there was a guy from the phone company in your apartment?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because someone was here, obviously, and when I went to find my landlady, Mrs. O’Connor, she wasn’t here, but the lady who lives in the apartment next to my landlady, Mrs. Beasley, was. She said she’d seen a man from the phone company go upstairs, that he said he had to check on someone’s phone. And there aren’t that many of us upstairs. Mrs. O’Connor’s apartment has an upstairs and a downstairs, so she has part of this floor, and Lizzie Watson and I have one-bedrooms here. A married couple, the Whitakers live on the third floor.”

“And you asked them about it?”

Kim nodded. “Betsy said there’s nothing wrong with their phone.”

“Okay,” Nick said.

“And it could be nothing. I mean, there could be something wrong with someone else’s phone. There could have been something wrong with mine that I didn’t know about. The phone guy could have fixed it before I even knew it wasn’t working. But…”

“What?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know. You’ll think it’s silly—”

He shook his head. “Remember? I don’t do silly.”

And then she knew it was okay to tell him. That he wouldn’t think she was silly. That he’d understand.

“It felt so creepy. I think…no, I’m pretty sure someone’s been here…been through my things.” She shuddered, just thinking about it.

Nick saw it, too. He tensed, like a man bracing himself against all enemies, seen and unseen.

Or a man who knew she was upset and didn’t want to do anything about it?

Did he still want to do something about her being upset?

Because he was worried about her?

Because he cared?

She liked that he cared and the fact that he was here. Liked it very much, even though she probably shouldn’t.

“Then, we’ll proceed as if someone’s been in here. Which means we need to talk to someone at the phone company.”

Kim nodded. She wanted him to do something about this, to help her figure it out and to not leave her alone just yet. To care. Even if he had kissed her when he shouldn’t have. When no one should. Except Eric. Who wasn’t here and hadn’t called and was really starting to worry her and make her mad.

“I could call my brother,” she told Nick. “But he gets a little weird where I’m concerned. He thinks I’m still twelve years old and need a mother and a father to take care of me, and since we don’t have either one anymore, he thinks he has to do everything. He’d make a federal case out of this.”

“Okay. No brother. Know anybody at the phone company?”

Kim shook her head.

“Want me to call my friend?” Nick offered.

“You think he could help? I mean…he’s not here in town, right?”

Nick shrugged and started babbling. “Phone company cooperation thing. He can call any phone company practically anywhere and find out what he needs. There’s like a…phone company interagency cooperation code. They take care of each other.”

“Okay,” Kim said. “Thanks.”

Phone Company Interagency Cooperation Code?

Lame,
he’d told himself.
Very, very lame.

And yet she’d bought it without question.

Nick was surprised, but grateful.

He feared he was making very little sense at the moment, feared his brain was still short-circuited from touching her the way he had and wanting to do it again.

He got her out of the room on the pretense of asking her to do a more thorough search of her bedroom and bathroom, to make sure nothing had been taken and to look for any other signs that someone had truly searched her apartment.

He feared someone definitely had and that it had everything to do with her pirate/lover boy who hadn’t disappeared at all, just hadn’t let her know he or someone who was working with him was in town, except for the sloppy search of her apartment. Even worse was the idea that the person who did it might have been interrupted by her in the midst of it.

So why was he here? What would he want from her apartment?

It put a whole new spin on why she needed to be watched.

If she had something he wanted or needed, if he’d maybe slipped something into her luggage that he’d feared not being able to get into the country himself, then there was no telling what kind of danger she might be in, especially if the guy couldn’t find what he was looking for.

Maybe they had taken something from the ship, something someone hadn’t reported stolen yet—or the kind of thing one didn’t report stolen—and Nick just hadn’t heard about it yet. Maybe he had no idea what he was dealing with and needed to figure it out quick.

He pulled out his phone and called Harry, who answered on the first ring.

“Did you have someone search her apartment today without telling me?” Nick growled.

“No,” Harry said.

“And we had somebody watching the apartment all day?”

“Of course we did.”

Which meant there’d be a detailed record, including photographs, of everyone who came and went from the building.

Good.
If lover boy had been there, they’d have a very recent photo of him.

“See anybody in a phone company repairman uniform?” Nick asked.

“Give me a second. I’ll check.”

“And check with the phone company here in town, just in case they had someone here for legitimate reasons,” Nick ordered.

“Sure. I’ll do it. You okay, Nick? You sound…I don’t know. All shook up.”

Which made Nick think of the old Elvis song, “All Shook Up.” Which he was sure she’d never heard of, because she hadn’t been alive long enough. Would she even know who Elvis was, let alone how well that particular song fit him right now?

He scowled, grateful that she wasn’t here to see it.

“Yeah, Harry,” he admitted. “I’m a mess. Call me back when you’ve looked over everyone who was here today. And check with the phone company here in town. Someone claiming to be from the phone company was here. Find out if it was legitimate.”

“No one from the phone company in town was here today,” Nick told her an hour later, when Harry called back.

She looked a little panicked at that.

Nick managed not to grab her and hang on to her, but just barely.

“What do we do now?” she whispered, truly scared and looking so vulnerable.

How could anyone want to hurt her?

Nick hated that she was scared, wanted to tear someone limb-from-limb for making her feel this way.

Hated even more that he needed for her to stay right here and wait for Eric Weyzinski to call her or come see her or come back to get whatever it was that he’d been looking for earlier.

No way Nick was going to do that.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, taking her by the arm and steering her toward the door. “You can think about it while we go get some food or something. How about that?”

She looked grateful.

And supremely kissable.

Nick could feel his brain start to short-circuit, could feel little bursts of static all throughout his head, normal thought processes disappearing with each little fizzle of stray energy.

How was he supposed to think rationally around her?

How did any man?

Kim went with him because she wanted to get out of her apartment and she didn’t want to be alone. So she’d be with him.

They drove his miniscule red sports car the eight blocks to the Corner Diner, and she was happy they hadn’t walked, happy not to be out on the street where mysterious sugar-searching, non-phone-company guys could be.

What in the world did they want with her?

She had an odd feeling that Nick knew more than he was telling her—maybe exactly what the non-phone-company guy wanted from her—but why would he know? What did he have to do with anything? He was a parks planner who happened to be staying at the B&B next door.

Wasn’t he?

Kim wasn’t sure anymore. She wasn’t sure about anything.

But she let him lead her into the diner, felt eye after eye drawn to them as the owner, Darlene, led them to a table smack-dab in the center of the restaurant, where everyone could see them. Which made Kim feel a bit safer, actually. Who’d try to get to her in the Corner Diner with everyone watching?

Who’d want to get to her anyway?

Darlene left them with menus and a highly speculative glance.

“Are you sure this isn’t your young man?” she said.

Kim blinked up at her. “Of course I’m sure. This is Nick.”

“Sure he is. It’s just that ever since you’ve been back, the only person anyone’s seen you with is him,” Darlene said.

“He’s just a friend. He’s staying at Mrs. Baker’s B&B,” Kim said, trying to make herself believe it as she said it.

Nick shot Darlene what Kim was sure was a practiced I’m-just-the-guy-next-door look.

Practiced being the operative word.

He’d used that look on her before, hadn’t he?

And he hadn’t looked anything like a mild-mannered parks planner when he’d burst into her apartment and then searched every inch of it. He’d looked completely different. Intent in a way that frightened her. Serious as could be. Maybe even a little bit scared.

What would scare him about someone searching her sugar canister?

“I don’t understand any of this,” she whispered to him, once Darlene was gone.

Then he gave her his mild-mannered I-know-nothing look. “Understand what?”

“Any. Of. This,” she said, hitting and pausing on each word. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know—”

“But you know something. I know you do. And you’re going to tell me right now or…or—”

“Or what?” he said, all mild-manneredness gone.

“Or I’ll scream. Right here in the diner and then everyone will want to know what’s going on.” Her voice rose on the end and she could feel all eyes in the place shift to them once again, if people had ever stopped watching.

All her fault, too.

Going on a simple vacation and getting attacked by pirates!

Falling in love and not being shy about telling anyone and everyone about it and then not being able to produce said love-of-her-life once she returned.

“Tell me,” she demanded. “Tell me now. Or else.”

“Okay. Okay. Just…keep your voice down.”

“Why? Everyone’s already staring. They’ll be staring whether or not I whisper to you. They all just want to know what’s going on. Where Eric is. Whether I’m crazy to believe I could fall in love with someone that quickly, which…maybe I was. Maybe I was just stupid. I don’t know, because I can’t find him now. I haven’t heard a word from him and all of a sudden you seem to be everywhere I am and there’s just something…odd about you. Who are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” he began.

“Don’t tell me that! Don’t you dare tell me that—!”

“But I found out something about the phone number you gave me,” he rushed on.

“You did?”

He nodded.

“That’s why you showed up at my door? To tell me about Eric’s phone number?”