Teresa Hill - Mr Right Next Door

The brother’s expression could be nothing but that.

And it could be so much more.

She could be a woman constantly getting into trouble of one sort or another. Man trouble. The kind that came from making really bad decisions and not thinking things through. Or from just being young and impulsive.

Innocent .

She could be completely innocent, a victim in all of this.

Nick frowned.

He’d watched her on the ship in a way that had nothing to do with his job, simply hadn’t been able to help himself.

The older and more jaded he got, the more he needed to believe that there were still people like her in this world or, at least, people like she appeared to be. Young, innocent, carefree. Happy. Sexy in a sweetly inviting way, nothing cold or calculating in the least about her.

Not that he could imagine her giving him the time of day or him accepting such an offer.

She was not a creature of his world and he wasn’t a man of hers. And he’d bet she wasn’t the kind of woman to have a quick, thoroughly satisfying fling with a man like him, despite what he’d seen on that ship.

She and her brother got into the police cruiser and pulled out into traffic. Nick followed them, all the while telling himself to treat her as he would any other woman he met in the course of an investigation.

No, to treat her better than that.

To try to stay the hell away from her and not break her heart too badly when he showed her how foolish it was to fall in love with a man she knew nothing about.

Atlanta traffic turned out to be brutal and the cop drove like a bat out of hell. If Nick didn’t know better, he would have sworn half the drivers on the freeway had gone through the same defensive-driving training he had.

No, more like offensive-driving training. He’d had that, too, but maybe not as much as the other drivers on the road had.

Damn .

He’d been cut off ruthlessly more times than he could count and when traffic got really annoying, the brother wasn’t shy about applying his siren to get out of it, a luxury Nick didn’t have.

If Harry had seen him, he’d have howled.

Honestly, the day he couldn’t manage to follow a small-town cop successfully was the day he gave up government work and started fishing for a living or contemplating his navel or some other ridiculously worthless form of life.

They made it to Magnolia Falls in an hour and twenty-seven mind-boggling minutes on the road. Truth was, Nick wasn’t absolutely sure the brother hadn’t picked up on the fact that he was being tailed.

It was sad really, the depths to which Nick’s life had sunk.

His knee hurt. He hadn’t slept for more than a few hours in two days, and he was as grumpy as… well, as an old man, much as it pained him to admit it.

His pretty blonde was delivered to the address Harry had given him, the one listed on her driver’s license.

It turned out to be an old monstrosity of a house that, from her address—2B—he’d guess had been cut up into apartments. Either that or the blonde was clearly not living on a beginning teacher’s salary.

Nick parked half a block down the road and watched the brother carry in her bags and then leave. Harry, he knew, would be working on getting a tap on Ms. Kim Cassidy’s home phone. With luck, they could zero in on some of her cell phone calls, too. Nick would have backup from a team of agents as soon as they could be put into place, but for the moment, the blonde was all his.

He frowned, thinking about virtually living out of a car this small and what that would do to his screwy knee, thinking of nosy small-town neighbors and being pestered by small-town cops.

Already, he thought a little old lady from the house across the street was staring at him through her front window.

Did these people have nothing else to do other than monitor traffic on the street?

“Harry,” he said into the mike in his headset, “I think the old woman across the street’s made me. I’m going to have to move.”

His knee said so clearly. Move, move, move .

“You’re in luck. The house next door to the blonde has just been converted into a bed-and-breakfast. I called to try and book a room but they said they’re not officially opening until next week. I bet if you’re sweet, you can show up at the door and talk them into giving you a room now anyway.”

Nick offered up a quick thanks to the universe on behalf of his knee, hoping he hadn’t entirely lost his power of sweet-talking. It had never been his strong point and he wasn’t feeling even remotely syrupy at the moment. Hell, he never did.

“Tell them you’re an early riser and that you’d like a room that gets morning sunshine,” Harry said.

“Do I look like a guy who gives a crap about morning sunshine?”

Harry just laughed. “That’ll put you on the side of the house facing our pretty blonde’s apartment. Get a room on the second floor and you might be able to look in her windows.”

No way Nick wanted to look in her windows. He was starting to sweat just thinking about it. And he wondered how long Harry’d known about the B&B but left him sitting in the cramped car. He fought the urge to bang his head against the steering wheel in a general expression of dismay about most everything in his life at the moment, most of all this assignment and the woman upstairs with the innocent eyes and the body that just wouldn’t quit.

The one who made him feel about a hundred and sixty years old.

He started his toy of a car and tried to prepare himself for what might pass for sweet talk to the owners of the new B&B.

Nick finger-combed his dark brown hair, which had grown too long for him and was desperately in need of a trim, then ran a hand along his jaw. A shave was definitely in order. Clean clothes, a shower, a real bed…these were the things of his dreams.

If he could just knock out the blonde and ensure that she’d be unconscious for a few hours, he could take a nap, but he really didn’t want to try to sneak up behind her and do the Vulcan neck-pinch thing and get caught. Plus, it would definitely put her on the defensive when she woke up and he didn’t want that. He wanted her to relax and tell him everything—or at least tell someone in such a way that Nick could eavesdrop on the conversation.

Which meant no Vulcan neck pinch.

No nap anywhere in his near future.

He was grumpy as an old bear.

He grimaced as he started his toy car and peeled off down the street and into the driveway of the B&B.

“Harry, you there?” he said into his headpiece.

“Yeah. Try not to scare the nice people with the nice, soft bed and the hot shower, Nickie.”

“Why would I scare them?”

“’Cause you’re a scary guy,” Harry quipped.

Nick got out of the car, scanning the area even more carefully than before. “Are you looking at me right now, Harry?”

“Why? You see me?”

“No, I haven’t spotted you.”

“Then I’m not looking at you, Nick.”

Shaking his head and swearing, Nick gabbed his carry-on, popped the trunk and pulled out his suitcase, trying not to grimace at the way it pulled tight something deep inside his sore shoulder. Dammit .

“So before, you were just guessing about the expression I might have on my face?” Nick asked.

“Nah, just knowing your sweet disposition and thinking about how much we need this room next door to the pretty blonde, that’s all. Trying to look out for you, give you some helpful hints to make the job easier.”

“Gee, thanks,” Nick grumbled, making his way to the front door.

It was made of leaded glass and highly polished oak. A discreet aged-brass plate to the left of the door said, Baker B&B, Main & Vine, Magnolia Falls, Ga.