Teresa Hill - Mr Right Next Door

Okay, he was going to make nice with the Bakers of Baker B&B if it killed him; beg for a shower then spy on their nice neighbor next door.

He put on what he hoped was a mild-mannered but tired-to-the-verge-of-exhausted, plain-old-businessman smile, trying to look nonthreatening and ordinary, definitely not grumpy. Like he’d be no trouble at all as a guest of a not-quite-open B&B.

A woman in sweats, a T-shirt and holding a dust mop answered the door.

Cleaning lady or Mrs. Baker?

He had to decide quick.

He’d insult her if she was Mrs. Baker and he thought she was the cleaning lady and he couldn’t insult her and get a room.

“Ma’am,” Harry said. “Just say ma’am. It’s what all good Southern boys do.”

So Harry was watching. The rat.

Still, Harry wouldn’t steer him wrong when it came to spying. Nick went with it.

“Ma’am,” he said, respectfully tipping his head to her. “Am I too early to get a room?”

“Oh, my.” She frowned, then started trying to dust herself, succeeding only in creating a cloud of dust between them. “We’re really not open yet. Not until next week.”

“That’s what I heard in town, but I was hoping I could change your mind. I love old houses. So much charm and character.” He managed not to choke on the words. He even, he thought, sounded remotely sincere. “And yours looks so inviting.”

“Thank you,” she said warily. “It’s just that we have so much to get done before we actually open…”

“Oh, I won’t get in your way. Not in the least. I’m very self-sufficient. And I don’t even eat breakfast—”

“You don’t?”

Nick fell silent, not used to strangers asking about his eating habits. He’d only said that to be nice, to make her think he would cause no trouble at all as a guest. Did she expect an answer?

He gleaned from her expression that she did.

“Well…no,” he said. “Not usually.”

“We all need a good breakfast,” she said, taking on a tone he might expect from a maiden aunt, if he had a maiden aunt.

Nick frowned. He might have a maiden aunt. He couldn’t quite remember. There were all sorts of relatives on his mother’s side of the family who he hardly ever saw. He was doing good if he saw his mother every now and then, let alone anyone else he might be related to.

“We can’t have you running around without breakfast all the time. No wonder you look so. Well, so…”

Her words trailed off.

He gathered that she might want to take care of him?

Nick didn’t understand. She didn’t even know him. Why would she want to take care of him?

Still, this was not a bad thing considering what he wanted from her: a room next to his pretty blonde.

Nick tried to look in need of sympathy and a hot breakfast, but at the same time, like a man who’d cause no trouble at all in an unopened B&B full of dust.

“Tired?” he suggested. “I look tired?”

The woman nodded, as if to say that didn’t nearly cover what she thought he looked like.

“Overnight flight from Brazil,” he said. “Hate those. Absolutely hate them. Getting way too old for them.”

Harry chuckled in his ear.

Nick struggled to show no signs of conversing with two people at once, one of whom the woman couldn’t see.

“Honey,” she said, “if you’re too old, I should be in my grave soon.”

To which Nick had no idea what to say.

He stood there looking puzzled, tired but not sickly, he hoped, and in need of sympathy and some kindhearted womanly care, which he thought she could provide if she felt sorry for him, which he hoped she did.

“Still, I really don’t know,” she began.

“Sure. I understand,” he said, telling himself not to beg. “I had a room downtown at the…the…”

“Bluebird Inn,” Harry supplied.

There was a Bluebird Inn ?

“Bluebird Inn,” Nick tried.

“Yes. Lovely place,” Mrs. Baker said. “They’ll take good care of you—”

“Oh, I’m sure they would have,” Nick said. “They just… Well, there was a little problem with the electricity.”

“Electricity?” Harry said. “Sure. Okay. We can do that. Power’s going out at the Bluebird in minutes. I’m on it.”

“They don’t have any power,” Nick said. Harry could make it true. “Don’t know when it’ll be back up and they wouldn’t let me check in, not knowing if they’d have electricity.”

“Oh, well… You poor thing,” she said.

Nick tried hard to look like a poor thing.

He feared it wouldn’t take much effort.

“On that plane all night and now you don’t even have a room,” Mrs. Baker said, shaking her head sympathetically. “And you’re hurt?”

It was only then that he realized he was rubbing his sore shoulder.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Really, ma’am.”

Hurt, tired, no room and no breakfast, unless she took him in.

He stood there and let it all sink in.

He could limp a little if he had to.

“Well, we can’t leave you in such a sad state with no place to stay,” she said. “If you don’t care that the place is not quite ready, I guess I don’t, either.”

Okay .

He was in.

“So, would you happen to have a room that gets morning sun? I’m an early riser, love morning sunshine,” he said, trying not to choke on the words as he went inside.

Nick feared he would indeed be able to look into Kim Cassidy’s living room window from his room.

God help him.

He tugged on his tie, which was absolutely too tight when he thought about what he might see of her in those windows, in what she believed was the privacy of her own living room.

“You dog,” Harry said, when he told him about the view.

Please let her close her blinds very tightly at night. Please .

As it was, he could glance over and see her moving around in there. The blinds were tilted at an angle that would have blocked any view from the street, but the second floor of the B&B was higher than the second floor of her house, and he was afraid the angle coupled with a light being left on inside once it got dark would prove devastating to a man who’d been looking at her for way too long already.

“I’ve got to get some air,” he told Harry, abandoning the unpacking and hiding of his little spy toys, in case he couldn’t convince Mrs. Baker not to clean his room.

He bolted from the room, down the stairs, startling her as she swept the kitchen.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just need some air.”

“Oh, well try the patio. The backyard is glorious this time of year.”

“Okay.”

Out he went, finding himself on a flagstone patio complete with a wrought iron table and chairs, plus a chaise lounge. He considered collapsing upon the lounge chair, but after doing such a great sell job on being exhausted and hurt, his landlady would probably call EMS for him. So he stayed on his feet, trying not to pace too obviously and maybe muttering to himself. He couldn’t quite be sure, just hoped it wasn’t classified information coming out of his mouth.

He got to one end of the stone patio, lined with all sorts of blooming things in big stone planters, then pivoted to head in the other direction. Back and forth he went, until he pivoted for the last time and…

Nearly found himself with an armful of woman.

“Ahhh.” She caught her breath.

He did, too.

Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? Sleeping right now?

Nick shook his head to clear it, but the image before him remained stubbornly the same.

Her .

His pretty, distracting blonde, right here in front of him.

She tried to back up but couldn’t because he held her by her arms. Because he’d been afraid of knocking her over. And then she smiled up at him.