The Date Next Door

The Date Next Door

Gina Wilkins

MILLS & BOON

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For my editor, Patience Smith, who definitely lived up to her name for this book!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Coming Next Month

Chapter One

Nicole Sawyer didn’t have to be psychic to know it wasn’t good when Brad began the conversation with, “We have to talk.” Painful experience let her predict his next words. “This isn’t about you—it’s me.”

At twenty-seven, Nic had been down this road enough to know when she was being dumped.

A few awkward but stiffly cordial minutes later, she stood on the porch of her neat frame home and watched Brad’s flashy red pickup disappear down the street of her quiet neighborhood. She was going to miss that truck, she thought wistfully. Its seats were comfortable, and the sound system was truly excellent. She had enjoyed riding around town in it, listening to the country music and classic rock they had both favored.

As for the driver…unfortunately their mutual tastes in music hadn’t been enough to keep them together. They’d been trying for almost eight months, on and off, to make it work. Brad had finally admitted defeat the day after she had canceled yet another date for work reasons.

She didn’t really need him, he had accused her regretfully. And it turned out that he needed to be needed.

Because she knew he was right, she hadn’t bothered to argue with him. Though he had tried to be tactful, he hadn’t been entirely accurate when he’d said it wasn’t her but him. It was always about her, she thought in resignation.

A car door slammed in the driveway next door, and she glanced that way. Her neighbor, Dr. Joel Brannon, stood beside his practical, ecologically friendly little sedan, studying her curiously. He must be planning to go back out that evening, she thought, or he would have parked in his garage.

She wondered fleetingly if he had a date, and if so, with whom. Not that it was any of her business, of course.

“Nic? Everything okay?” he called out.

Joel couldn’t have been more opposite from the long, lean, black-haired cowboy who had just driven away. Not particularly tall, he stood perhaps five feet ten, and his build was more sturdy than lanky. His hair was a shade somewhere between light and medium brown, and he kept it cut short because it tended to curl when it grew out. His eyes were hazel and his nose just a little snubbed, but he had a strong chin and a very nice mouth bracketed by shallow dimples.

Nic had once commented to her best friend, Aislinn Flaherty, that Joel reminded her a little of Matt Damon. Aislinn hadn’t seen the resemblance.

Because he was still waiting patiently for an answer, she prodded herself to smile and reply, “I’m fine, Joel. Thanks for asking.”

Glancing in the direction in which the red truck had disappeared, he asked, “How’s Cowboy Brad?”

“Cowboy Brad,” she replied prosaically, “is history.”

He winced. “I’m sorry. Are you sure you’re all right? Do you want to talk?”

Drawing a deep breath, she shook her head, feeling her loose dark blond ponytail brush her neck with the movement. “Thanks, but I’m on duty tonight. I think I’d rather just take a few minutes to myself before I have to change and head into work.”

“Sure. But if you need anything at all, you know where to find me.”

She nodded and turned toward her door, aware that Joel had meant the offer sincerely. He had become a true friend during the six months or so since he had moved next door to the house where she’d grown up.

It had always been easy for her to have male friends. It was trying to turn those friendships into anything more that seemed to be beyond her capabilities.

Joel straightened the knot on his tie and studied the result in his bedroom mirror. He was making a speech that evening to a civic group that met once a month at the Western Sizzlin’ Restaurant. A jacket and tie seemed to be the required uniform, though he preferred polo shirts and khakis.

Shrugging into his jacket, he looked at the silver-framed photograph on his dresser. “You always did like red ties,” he said aloud to the smiling young woman in the picture.

He didn’t feel foolish talking to a photo. He’d been doing it for so long it was simply habit now.

Turning away from the dresser, he headed for the doorway, glancing out the bedroom window on his way past. The lights were on next door, but Nic had probably left for work already. She usually left a few lights burning when she worked nights, both for security purposes and because she didn’t like returning home to a dark house.

It was a shame about her breakup with the man Joel had nicknamed Cowboy Brad, though he couldn’t honestly say it was a surprise. He had been predicting this outcome almost since the day he’d met his neighbor’s on-again, off-again boyfriend.

Brad was a decent guy with the type of dark good looks and lazy smiles that seemed to appeal to most women, but he and Nic couldn’t have been more mismatched. Though obviously attracted to her fresh-scrubbed sweetness and vibrant personality, Brad had been visibly frustrated with Nic’s stubborn independence and deeply ingrained self-sufficiency. He probably wouldn’t admit it, but Brad was a very traditional man who would be happiest with a woman who saw him as a protector and a hero.

Officer Nicole Sawyer wasn’t that woman.

Wandering into his living room, Joel picked up a small stack of note cards from the coffee table and slipped them into his inside jacket pocket. There was no need to go over his speech; it was a standard spiel about raising safe and healthy children. He had given it a dozen times before. A glance at his watch told him he still had about ten minutes before he needed to leave. Not long enough to do anything much except pace to kill time.

He found his thoughts turning to Nic again. He wondered how she felt about the breakup. As well as Joel thought he understood Brad, he couldn’t quite say the same about Nic.

He liked her very much. She was bright, amusing, generous—almost the ideal neighbor. They had often sat on her front porch or his own, taking breaks from yard work and sipping iced tea, chatting with the ease of longtime acquaintances.

Yet those casual conversations had rarely turned personal. They’d shared general information about their families and childhoods but hadn’t delved into old wounds. They talked mostly about local gossip and politics, about their jobs as a pediatrician and a police officer, about sports or television programs they both watched.

He knew she lived in the house where she’d grown up. And that she’d lived there alone since her widowed mother moved to Europe eighteen months earlier to live with Nic’s older brother, who worked in an American embassy. Nic knew Joel had grown up in North Carolina and Alabama and had moved to Arkansas after a medical school classmate offered him a partnership in a fledgling pediatrics clinic.

He had told her he’d chosen to buy the house next door to her while driving around aimlessly looking for a neighborhood that felt “right” to him. She hadn’t teased him about his method of home shopping; it seemed to have made sense to her when he said that he’d seen the For Sale sign in the yard of this house and had made an offer the next morning.

Nor had she asked, as quite a few others had, why he wasn’t interested in living in a more upscale, moneyed area—say, on a golf course or in a gated lakeside lot. Nic seemed to understand that he’d been looking for a private retreat, not a showplace—and for now, that was here.

Joel still couldn’t say whether Nic had been in love with her cowboy or had just considered him a pleasant diversion from the demands of her job. He suspected the latter, but since she wasn’t one to share her deepest feelings, he couldn’t say for sure.

He hoped she hadn’t been badly hurt. Nic was too nice a person to have her heart broken. His doctoring skills didn’t extend to repairing that particularly painful condition.

He hadn’t even been able to fix his own.

“And then he had the nerve to offer me twenty dollars to tell him who’s going to win the football game Monday night. Twenty dollars!”

With indulgent amusement, Nic watched her friend Aislinn Flaherty furiously pace the living room. Aislinn’s near-black hair was escaping its neat up-twist, so that long, wispy curls bounced around her indignant face. The midcalf-length tiered brown skirt she wore with a belted camel-colored tunic top whipped around her shapely legs with each forceful turn.

Aislinn made a habit of dressing conservatively almost to the point of blandness, but her efforts were pretty much wasted. She was still striking enough to draw more attention to herself than she would have liked.

“What did you say to that offer?” Nic asked—as if she didn’t already know.

“I told him that if I were psychic—which, of course, I am not—I would hardly sell my services so cheaply. And then I told him that if I had been psychic, I’d have known better than to agree to a blind date with him.”

“So what you’re saying is that your date didn’t go very well,” Nic drawled, smothering a grin.

Aislinn shot her a look of reproval. “This isn’t funny, Nic. It was a miserable evening.”

Relenting, Nic shook her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it. But you have to admit both of us have had some pretty disastrous dates lately.”

Actually, Nic had only been out twice since her breakup with Brad in July, three months ago. Neither outing had been successful enough for a second date with either guy. Since available singles were pretty hard to find in a town the size of Cabot, Arkansas, her social life wasn’t looking too promising for the foreseeable future.

“Tell me about it.” Plopping onto Nic’s brown leather sofa, Aislinn crossed her arms over her shapely chest and pouted. “I should have known better than to let Pamela set me up. She thinks it’s so funny to tell everyone I’m…well, different. But I thought I had convinced her to quit saying that.”

“You know Pamela. She thinks it’s cool to claim to know an honest-to-goodness psychic.”

Aislinn sighed gustily. She had been trying for almost all her twenty-eight years to convince everyone that she had no supernatural abilities. She just had “feelings” sometimes, she always added earnestly. Feelings that had an uncanny record of coming true. Nothing more than somewhat-better-than-average intuition, she said.

Having known Aislinn since kindergarten, Nic thought the truth lay somewhere in the middle. She couldn’t explain it any better than Aislinn—but she had learned to take her friend’s “feelings” seriously.

Aislinn shook her head impatiently. “Enough about my lousy date. How are things going with you?”

Nic unbuckled her heavy utility belt and wearily set her weapon aside. She had gotten home less than twenty minutes earlier, arriving just in time to greet Aislinn, who had been invited for an evening of pizza and gossip. “Long day.”

“The Castleberry break-in?” Aislinn asked sympathetically.

“Yeah. We found evidence that it was Mr. Castleberry’s nephew who ransacked the place. Kid’s an addict with a record of B and E, but Castleberry couldn’t believe the boy would rob the only relative who has stood up for him during the past few years. I think I finally convinced him that there’s no room for love or loyalty when drugs take over someone’s life.”

“I had a feeling it was a male relative. I guess I watch too many of those TV crime shows, despite you making fun of me for it.”

“Yeah. Probably.” Stretching, Nic rose from the chair she had fallen into to listen to Aislinn’s account of last night’s unsuccessful date. “Why don’t you order the pizza while I change out of my uniform? Help yourself to something to drink—I’ve got sodas and wine in the fridge.”

It was one of the many benefits of being friends for so long, she thought as she emerged from a ten-minute shower and climbed into a pair of purple plaid cotton drawstring pants and a lavender baby T-shirt. She didn’t have to stand on formality with Aislinn or bother to entertain her every moment. Leaving her collar-length naturally blond-and-brown hair to dry in a tousled bob, she slid her feet into purple slippers and wandered into the kitchen to rejoin her friend.

Aislinn sat at the kitchen table with a glass of white wine and the morning newspaper, which Nic hadn’t yet had a chance to open. It didn’t surprise her that Aislinn had bypassed the headlines and was reading the comic strips instead. Aislinn tended to shy away from crime reports. She never said why, exactly, but Nic suspected it was because Aislinn got too many unsettling “feelings” when she read those grim accounts.

“So did you finish that monster cake today?” she asked, opening the refrigerator to take out a diet soda for herself. “The funky blue one?”

“It isn’t blue. It’s aquamarine.”

“Whatever.” Nic carried her soda to the table and helped herself to the sports pages as she took a chair across from Aislinn. “It looked blue to me.”

“Trust me. The bride would be very upset if the cake she ordered to exactly match her bridesmaids’ hideous aquamarine dresses came out too blue. It matches exactly. And, yes, I finished it.”

“How many hours did you put into that one?”

“More than I want to count,” Aislinn replied with a groan. “I never again want to see another aquamarine frosting rose.”

“The cake really should have been horribly ugly,” Nic commented as she glanced over the football scores. “But somehow you made it look really nice—at least, from what I could tell when I saw it yesterday.”

Visibly pleased, Aislinn smiled. “Thanks, Nic.”

The doorbell rang, and Nic pushed away from the table. “That’ll be the pizza. I’ll get it.”

Glancing over the recipes in the food section of the newspaper, Aislinn nodded absently.

Five minutes later, Nic entered the kitchen again, eying her friend quizzically. “Were you especially hungry when you ordered? Since when have we eaten two pizzas in one night? And why is the second one pepperoni? We always get mushroom and black olive or extra cheese.”

Aislinn folded the paper and shrugged. “I just thought we might need extra tonight. If there are any leftovers, we’ll divvy them up for cold pizza breakfasts tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds good to me.” Nic figured it was a good thing she liked cold pizza for breakfast, since it was a safe bet there would be leftovers. Pepperoni wasn’t her favorite—or Aislinn’s, either, for that matter—but it was food, which pretty well fit her criteria for a meal. She’d never been a picky eater.

She had just set two plates on the table when someone tapped on the back door. She knew that tap. A smile spreading on her face, she moved to respond.

As she had guessed, Joel Brannon stood on her doorstep, his own smile a bit weary but as infectious as ever. There were slight shadows beneath his clear hazel eyes, evidence that he’d been working long hours lately—not that there was anything unusual about that.

“Hi, Joel.”

“Hey, Nic,” he responded in his pleasant, deep Southern drawl. “I brought back your car vacuum. Thanks for letting me borrow it. I’m buying one to replace my dead one this weekend.”

Accepting the small appliance from him, she nodded. “You’re welcome.”

He glanced past her and noticed her friend still sitting at the kitchen table. “Oh. Hi, Aislinn. It’s nice to see you again.”

“Hi, Joel. Have you eaten? Nic and I were just about to have some pizza and we have more than enough if you want to join us.”

Though he looked tempted, Joel said, “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“We really do have too much just for the two of us,” Nic assured him with only a glance at Aislinn. “You would be doing us a favor to eat some of this pizza.”

“Well, since you put it that way…” He closed the door behind him and sniffed the air appreciatively. “Hmm. Smells like pepperoni. My favorite.”

Nic didn’t even bother to look at Aislinn that time. She simply reached into the cabinet for another plate.

After a ten-hour day at work, it felt good to relax with warm pizza, cold wine and a couple of attractive women—even if one of them made him nervous and the other frequently made him crazy.

Joel glanced at Aislinn Flaherty—the one who made him nervous. And it wasn’t just because she was drop-dead gorgeous with her glossy black hair, flawless fair skin, rich chocolate eyes and curvy figure that her bland layered clothing couldn’t conceal.

He hadn’t spent much time with her, knowing her only because she was a fairly frequent visitor to his next-door neighbor, but there was something different about Aislinn. He couldn’t explain it, exactly. He actually liked her—but sometimes when she looked at him, he had the unsettling sensation that she could see right through him. Much more than he was comfortable revealing.

Nic, on the other hand, was so different from Aislinn that it amazed him sometimes that they were such good friends. There was nothing in the least fey about practical, down-to-earth Nicole Sawyer. Blunt and impatient, Nic was a good cop, a great neighbor and a loyal friend—but not someone he would want as an enemy.

Aislinn interrupted his thoughts with a friendly smile. “Nic and I have been doing all the talking this evening, Joel. I’m afraid we haven’t given you much of an opportunity to say anything.”

“I’ve been too busy eating,” he replied, indicating his nearly empty plate. “I missed lunch today and I was starving.”

“Then it’s a good thing we ordered so much, isn’t it?” Nic commented, glancing at Aislinn as she spoke.

Aislinn shrugged, but she didn’t look away from Joel. “Was it a rough day for you?”

“More long than rough. There’s a virus running through several of the local day-care centers, so my waiting room was full of cranky, dehydrated kids.”

Nic shook her head. “You’ve just described my worst nightmare. I’d almost rather face an armed crack addict than a room full of sick, whiny toddlers and their hysterical mothers.”

“The toddlers were whiny,” he conceded, “but none of the mothers was actually hysterical. And I’ve got to admit I have absolutely no desire to strap on a gun and face an armed crack addict.”

Their respective professions were the basis of a series of running jokes between them. Joel conceded without hesitation that she could probably take him down despite her smaller size.

He was as easygoing as she was intense, as mild-mannered as she was fiery-tempered. He wasn’t really intimidated by her, since he knew the kind heart and generous spirit behind her posturing—but he didn’t particularly want to make her angry, either.

Aislinn was still looking at him—not rudely but with what appeared to be concern. “Perhaps you’re just tired, but there seems to be something bothering you. Is there anything we can do?”

He didn’t know how she did it. Maybe, as she insisted, she was simply more intuitive than most people, better able to read facial expressions and body language.

“There’s something bugging me a little,” he admitted, “but I’ll work it out.”

The way she studied his face made him wonder if she could actually read his mind. But of course she couldn’t, he assured himself a bit too quickly. Her extrasensory talents, if that’s what they were, seemed to be more precognitive than telepathic. Not that he believed in stuff like that, of course.

“Nic and I are pretty good at brainstorming,” she said. “Why don’t you try us?”

“Yeah, Joel,” Nic seconded. “Aislinn and I are always dumping problems on each other and usually we come up with some sort of solution. We’d be happy to talk about what’s bothering you if you want to discuss it. If not, just tell us to butt out and we’ll change the subject.”

He had always found it easy to be with Nic. Comfortable. He liked the way she treated him. Like a regular guy. Not an eligible bachelor-doctor. Or worse—a tragically romantic figure. Women usually classified him as one or the other, sometimes an uncomfortable combination. Nic simply saw him as her neighbor and friend.

Maybe she would understand the dilemma that had been weighing on him for the past couple of weeks….

“What happened?” she asked encouragingly. “Is it one of your patients?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s—this is going to sound pretty silly,” he said with an irritated shake of his head.

“Try us.”

He looked into the two inquiring faces turned toward him and sighed.

“My high school class back in Alabama is having an informal fifteen-year reunion in a couple of weeks. They’re attending the homecoming football game, which is against a big rival, and then having several activities and a dance the next day, followed by a farewell breakfast on Sunday morning. I’m just dreading it, that’s all.”

Aislinn’s expression didn’t change in response to Joel’s revelation. Nic looked surprised, but he couldn’t blame her for that. He doubted that she had expected a mere high school reunion to be his dilemma. But then, she didn’t know the whole story.

“A fifteen-year reunion?” she repeated.

He nodded. “Our class secretary was Heidi Pearl. Heidi Rosenbaum now. If it were up to her, we’d get together every year. Thank goodness the class confines her to having reunions only once every five years.”

“Did you go to the last one?”

“Yeah.” He figured his tone gave her an indication of how awful that had been.

Nic shrugged. “Last I heard, there’s no law that says you have to attend high school reunions. I’m not sure I’ll go to my ten-year reunion next summer. I’ve got better things to do than to sit around with a bunch of people I barely know now, talking about embarrassing adolescent memories. Aislinn’s the only friend I held on to from high school, and she and I see each other often enough.”

“Yeah, but I’m kind of expected to go. I was the class president.”

“Of course you were,” Nic murmured.

He gave her a mild look, then added, “Besides, Heidi works for my dad. There aren’t any excuses that would hold up to her daily inquisitions.”

“She sounds kind of scary.”

“Trust me. She’s terrifying.”

Nic chuckled, then shook her head. “Still. You should just tell them you aren’t interested this time.”

“I wish I could.”

“Why can’t you?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” she said again.

“I think she will understand,” Aislinn said, making him wonder if she had somehow already guessed his quandary. Good intuition, he reminded himself. Nothing more.

The funny thing was, he thought maybe Nic would understand. One of the few women in the small-town Arkansas police department where she worked, she was well accustomed to trying to meet everyone else’s expectations.

“Judging from past experience,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully, “if I go, I’ll be greeted with cloying sympathy and treated like some kind of tragic hero. If I don’t go, everyone will be even more convinced that I’m an emotional basket case.”