The King Next Door

Okay, it wasn’t the noise that was bothering him. Hell, he’d been known to sleep through a fireworks display, complete with M-80 rockets. No, it had been picturing Nicole, blond hair tousled, bare feet whispering across the floor, that was doing it to him. He wondered what she slept in. Nightgown? T-shirt? Nothing? He’d seen enough of her body in the tank tops and shorts she wore to know that he’d like to see more.

Knowing he couldn’t was annoying the hell out of him.

But he could do this. Play the white knight. Offer her sanctuary, a place to stay, and he could do it all without groping or seducing her. Didn’t sound like much fun, but he could do it.

She was a mother, for God’s sake. And then there was Katie’s threat to consider. Besides, he was thirty-three now. That was the magic number. The age he’d decided would be the end of his days as a player. The age when he would damn well mature whether he wanted to or not.

“And I really don’t want to.”

“Are you talking to yourself?”

He glanced up as Nicole came into the kitchen, Connor on her hip. She was wearing white shorts and a bright pink tank top with matching pink polish on her toes. Her hair was tucked behind her ears and twin silver hoops winked at him in the early sunlight.

“What? No.” He shook his head and focused on the cup of coffee he held between his palms. “I’m just thinking.”

“Wow, you’re a noisy thinker.”

Connor shouted, “Down!”

Griffin winced. It was too early for conversation and way too early for chipper.

“Want some milk, baby?” Nicole asked.

Griffin almost said no thanks.

Connor shouted, “Milk! And cookies!”

Nicole laughed. “No cookies for breakfast.”

Griffin looked at the boy. Such a cute kid. Would it be wrong to put tape across his mouth?

Nicole brought Connor some milk, then took eggs from the fridge and a skillet from the cupboard. She was as comfortable in Katie’s kitchen as she was in her own. “Can I make you something?”

“No, I never eat breakfast,” he mumbled, concentrating on the coffee. Caffeine. The secret to survival.

“It’s Connor’s favorite meal,” she said, and started scrambling eggs, setting the skillet on the stove and in general making a clatter of noise that had Griffin clenching his teeth.

“I’ve decided that I’m going to look at this whole situation as a gift,” Nicole said from her place at the stove.

“Is that right?” Griffin reached out and took away the spoon Connor was beating against the tabletop. The little boy’s features screwed up, his bottom lip poked out and a sheen of tears filled small blue eyes. Griffin sighed and handed the spoon back.

Just keep drinking coffee, he told himself and stood up to get a refill.

“Well, like you said,” Nicole continued, “I have to have it fixed anyway, so I’ve decided to try and look at it like redecorating rather than rebuilding.”

“Probably a good idea,” he allowed as he took his seat again. Connor grinned at him and pounded that spoon with all the fervor of a rock-band drummer.

Griffin was not a morning person. He preferred conversations over a late supper with plenty of wine. He never spent the night with any of the women he … dated, so the morning-after chat had never been on his agenda. Now, not only did he have a woman to talk to, but a two-year-old to endure.

Usually he greeted morning with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner facing execution. Today, even more so.

Nicole set scrambled eggs in front of Connor and the little boy used his fingers to eat while he continued to pound the spoon. Griffin sighed, then asked himself just when exactly he’d turned into an old crank.

“Connor has preschool,” Nicole was saying, “so as soon as I drop him off, I’ll be back here to make some phone calls to the insurance company and a contractor …”

Griffin took a sip of coffee. “You take care of calling the insurance company and I’ll call King Construction,” he offered. “They’ll take care of it and give you a better deal than you’d get anywhere else.”

He watched her and saw refusal glint in her eye a moment before she nodded and said, “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

She might appreciate it, he told himself, but she also didn’t like having to accept favors. He could understand that even as he would have swept right past her refusal if she had argued with him.

“No problem. What’s the point of having family if you can’t call on them when you need ’em? With Rafe out of town, I’ll talk to Lucas. He can probably come over today for a look around.”

“Okay.” She handed Connor a cup of milk at the same time Griffin slipped the spoon from the boy’s hand.

“Not used to dealing with kids, are you?” she asked with a half smile.

“Not at the crack of dawn,” he admitted, feeling a little guilty now at snatching away Connor’s spoon again. Resigned, he gave it back.

“It’s eight o’clock.”

“My point exactly.” When his world hadn’t been turned upside down, Griffin would just now be sitting down for his first cup of coffee. He’d be on the balcony of his condo, staring out at the water, letting the silence sink into him. Then he’d shower, get dressed and arrive at King Security a little after nine.

Ironic, he thought, that his working schedule suddenly looked so much more relaxing than his vacation.

Shaking her head, Nicole focused on her son. Taking another sip of his coffee, Griffin watched her with the boy, saw her eyes sparkle with interest and humor as Connor prattled, half coherent, half in some weird baby speak that Nicole seemed to understand. Morning sunlight lay across the table and shone in her hair and something hot and hard settled in the pit of his stomach—then dropped lower. Any woman who could affect him like this first thing in the morning was dangerous.

Oh, yeah. Them living here together was going to work out great, he told himself with a heavy sigh.

He needed to make that call to King Construction fast. The quicker he got Nicole out of arm’s reach, the better it would be.

For all of them.

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