Teresa Hill - Mr Right Next Door

Harry was howling.

Nick gulped. He had no idea what to say.

“You want some more coffee?” Darlene asked, smiling in that understanding way of hers.

“Sure,” Nick said, so that maybe she’d go away and not come back again anytime soon, so that he wouldn’t have to decide whether she was flirting with him or making fun of him and his feebleness. He really wasn’t sure. He really didn’t want to know.

His head hurt. His shoulder and his back hurt. His knee hurt. And he just wanted to go to sleep but was afraid he’d dream about Kim and things a man ten years younger than him might be able to do to her to make her make that sound Nick had never heard before from a woman in bed.

Darlene poured his coffee and walked away.

“That was the funniest damned thing I’ve heard all week,” Harry proclaimed. “Maybe so far this year—”

“Shut up, Harry,” Nick said. Then, in disgust over having Harry and his smart-ass comments in his ear, Nick hit a button and cut off the connection. It wasn’t like Harry was helping.

Nick sat there, pretending to eat, watching as Kim continued to greet the two women—who had to be her sisters from the resemblance between the three of them—and a petite brunette. Most of the squealing had stopped, but the hugging hadn’t and the women were chattering like mad, all at the same time. He couldn’t make out anything, really, and he was only two tables away.

He’d spotted her sisters the minute he’d walked into the diner. It was frightening to think there were two other women in the world who looked nearly as good as her. Really scary. Same shade of blond hair, same young, happy, girl-next-door sexy looks. They must have driven the men in this town nuts for years. He was scared to be in the same room with the three of them, but he had to. So Nick planted himself at a table nearby and expected to be able to hear everything. He had very good hearing. Unlike his knee, his hearing wasn’t going, yet.

And he was sure there was good stuff to hear. He just couldn’t keep up, because he could swear every one of the four women was talking at once. He stared, thinking that looking at them as they talked might make it easier to follow the conversation.

It swirled around him in a practically indistinguishable blob of chatter.

“Really in love—?”

“Knew the minute you saw him—?”

“Just like that—?”

“Scared—?”

“Hear all about the attack—”

“So brave—”

“Protect you—?”

“Ever get home—?”

“Worse than that time in Vienna—?”

Vienna?

What had she done in Vienna?

The pirate ring might have been in Vienna recently. They weren’t sure. They were still checking.

Vienna?

Nick had lost at least a dozen lines of dialogue just thinking of it. Vienna?

“Can’t wait to meet him—”

“Coming here—?”

Wait a minute. What was that?

Had she said he was coming here?

Her pirate/terrorist/lover boy?

Did he make her squeal?

“Ahhhh!” Nick closed his eyes and groaned, disgusted to even think his thoughts had gone in that direction—her and the pirate wannabe in bed, her making those sounds, him with too bad a back or shoulder or knee to even think of doing things like that with her or anyone else.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Darlene and one of the waitresses huddled in the corner looking at him strangely. Like they might be a little bit afraid of him.

Couldn’t have that.

Nick smiled his best I’m-just-an-ordinary-boring-old-guy smile, his harmless-as-can-be look.

Darlene and the waitress didn’t appear to be buying it.

Which meant Nick had to be more careful.

Which meant keeping his mind on his own business was a good idea.

Which shouldn’t be that hard.

She was just a woman, after all.

Nick hadn’t met a woman yet that he couldn’t handle.

Kim sat there with her sisters, Kate and Kathie, as well as Jax’s wife, Gwen, who was very much a sister now, feeling happy as could be, as if absolutely all was right with the world. She was home. She was surrounded by her family and she was in love.

“So…tell us everything!” Kate commanded.

“Well, it was like all of a sudden he was all I could see, you know?”

The three of them nodded in unison, happy, girl-talk looks on their faces.

She was the only one of the three who was still single, the only one who’d never been in love. She’d been afraid it might never happen to her and now that it had, it was like it filled her entire body, like she was overflowing with this silly, giddy, bubbly, happy feeling. Like she couldn’t even contain it.

She was babbling, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t even want to help it. She wanted the whole world to know! Especially her sisters.

“Everything on the ship just got a little crazy and then there he was, right in front of me. He didn’t look scared at all. He didn’t even look surprised. He just looked like whatever happened, he could handle it, you know?”

They all sighed appreciatively.

“Self-confidence is just soooo sexy in a man,” Gwen said.

Kathie nodded. “There’s just something about a man who can handle anything. One you know you can count on.”

“Yes,” Kim said.

More sighs all around.

They were a bunch of happy women. Syrupy, gooey, mushy happy. It was that bad. And that good.

“So what did he do? The pirates attacked and then what?” Kate asked.

“He pushed me down on the deck, out of the way, because they had guns and were firing at the ship! Can you believe it?”

“No,” they all said.

“No one could believe it,” Kim said. “I thought it was fireworks at first or maybe a kid’s game. The crew had some great games for the kids. I kept expecting an army of five-year-olds with toy guns to come running at any minute, explaining the noise and the commotion. And then we heard the bullets bouncing off the metal of the ship and people started screaming. It was crazy.”

“Were you really scared?” Gwen asked.

“I don’t know. I guess so… I mean, I don’t know if I even had time to be scared. I’d just started to believe that maybe I should be scared and then…there he was.” She grinned widely. It was like her face should hurt already, from grinning so much. She was just so ridiculously happy. “He pushed me down onto the deck and told me to stay down, then he put his own body between me and the pirates, like no matter what, he wasn’t going to let them hurt me. We were on the lowest deck, not far at all from the surface of the water, right out in the open. It was the main sun deck, so it was full of space for lounge chairs and things. There was just nowhere to go for cover and he wouldn’t let me move anyway.”

Heavy, heavy sighs.

“Wow,” Kathie said. “I’m so glad he was there to take care of you.”

“Me, too,” Kim said.

What would she have done without him? Maybe gotten herself shot, that’s what.

“He stayed with me the whole time, until the entire thing was over and told me to stay calm, that everything would be all right, that he’d take care of me. He was wonderful!”

Nick heard that and thought he was going to puke.

Wonderful!

Near as they could tell, her Mr. Wonderful was on board to help the pirates board the ship, if the attack had gone just a little better. If Nick and his crew hadn’t been waiting for them. Then Mr. Wonderful would have used pretty Kim Cassidy as cover while he helped his friends board the ship.

Nick could just see her with a gun at her head, Mr. Wonderful’s arms wrapped around her, not to shield her but to keep her from getting away while the coward used her body to protect him and the thugs he worked with.