Happy New Year--Baby!

Nicole blew out a breath as she looked at Dennis. “There’s such a thing as being too neighborly. Don’t worry about it.”

The woman had more courage than brains. There was no doubt in his mind that she hadn’t seen the last of Standish. “Do you want me to stay here tonight?”

Nicole stared at him. Where had that come from? She was exhausted and hugely pregnant. That should have turned anyone off.

“No.” As soon as she turned him down, something small within Nicole wavered, afraid. She buried it quickly. She was a big girl now, and had been on her own for a long time.

The offer seemed like the right thing to say. Besides, though he was next door, he didn’t like the idea of her remaining alone for the night. Standish might decide that a week was too long to wait and return in the middle of the night. If the man entered through the door, it would trip the alarm system he had rigged, but if he entered through the sliding patio door, Standish could harm Logan’s widow before he had a chance to reach her.

“Would you rather stay at my place?” He kept the suggestion low-key. “I’ve got a sofa that folds out in the den. You could have my bed.”

God, he almost sounded chivalrous, but she knew better. No man was altruistic. They always wanted something in return. “No.”

She was being difficult. It only stood to reason that she’d feel better with someone she knew. “Do you have any other place to stay?”

“If I wanted to.” Her eyes met his. She saw the question he was about to ask. “I don’t want to. It’ll be all right,” she added with an assurance she only hoped was true. Maybe if she said it a few times, she would eventually believe it.

He’d hidden his surveillance equipment while the delivery was being made, but he was going to set it up again as soon as he left her. And it looked as if he were going to be staying up late tonight. He knew that Dombrowski would cover for him while he slept, but somehow, that didn’t seem good enough just now.

Dennis noticed a pen in the corner of the counter. Leaning over the table, he pulled out a blue napkin from the plastic holder and wrote seven digits on it.

“Here.” He held out the napkin to her.

She stared at it, making no move to take it. “What is it?”

It was like trying to lead a mustang to water. He was getting kicked for his trouble. Dennis took her hand by the wrist and placed the napkin into her palm. “My phone number.”

She wasn’t helpless and she didn’t accept aid from a stranger under any circumstances. Despite the meal they’d shared, that’s what they were. Strangers. She didn’t know any more about him than she knew about Standish.

Except that he didn’t make her blood run cold, the way Standish did. And he smelled good.

“Why would I want that?”

This one put a new spin on stubbornness. He wondered if it was her pregnancy that had her behaving this way, or if she had always been so bullheaded. “So you can call me in case you have any strange visitors in the night that don’t go ‘Ho-ho-ho.”’

Nicole frowned at the napkin, but she didn’t crumple it and throw it away the way he half expected her to. Instead, she folded it in half as she looked at him.

“Why would you want to get involved in this?” she challenged.

There was nothing in it for him. She had long since passed the point where she was dazzled by a sexy smile and a drop-dead body. And if she had once wished for love and acceptance, well, that had fallen by the wayside as well. The price tag was too high and the returns too low on the emotional investment that was required of her. Love was a highly overrated emotion. So what was he doing, offering to be her protector?

She was suspicious of his motives. He wondered if she had something to hide, or if she was just being prudent. If that was the case, he couldn’t say he blamed her. Craig Logan might have been a winner on the track, but he was a real loser otherwise. He could understand her being leery of men.

“Let’s just say I’ve always had a secret fantasy about rescuing a damsel in distress.”

Nicole’s frown deepened. Did he really expect her to believe him? “In this case, the damsel probably outweighs you.”

Dennis laughed. She was large, there was no disputing that, but she was also petite and that exaggerated the image. Having seen a photograph of Nicole before she had become pregnant, he knew exactly how stunning she could be.

“I sincerely doubt that. I hit the scales at 185.”

And all of it looked pretty solidly built from what she could see. Nicole shook off the thought. She was being adolescent. “If you think I’m telling you what my scale says, you’re more naive than I thought.”

Naive, now there was a word that wouldn’t have described him, not since he was nine years old. Children of gamblers grew up quickly.

He leaned against the doorjamb and smiled engagingly. “And why would I be naive?”

She glanced at the remainder of their meal. “For getting involved with a pregnant widow whose late husband seemed to have ran afoul of the wrong crowd.”

He lifted a shoulder and let it drop casually. “What’s life without a challenge?”

She didn’t need a challenge. She needed a little smooth sailing for a while. Maybe forever.

“Life is challenge enough,” she murmured, looking out the window. She hoped that Standish would keep his word and stay away for a week. Maybe by then she’d be able to find whatever it was that he was looking for.

It would have helped if he had been more specific. Dennis saw the worried look flitter through her eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want—”

“I’m sure,” she said abruptly, cutting him off before he could try to change her mind. This time, she might just let him. “Thank you for dinner.”

He enveloped her hand between his. It felt small, frail. Her manner had almost made him forget just what a delicate woman she really was. “The pleasure was all mine.”

He was being incredibly polite. Her mood at dinner had been rather surly and then Standish had made his appearance. All in all, it didn’t make anyone’s listing of top ten evenings.

“Then I would say that you have a very low threshold of pleasure, Mr. Lincoln—”

He arched a brow. “It’s Dennis, remember?”

She sighed and nodded. “I remember.”

“And my threshold isn’t low at all.” He had a feeling that she had very little to smile about. Maybe he could do something about that. His smile widened beguilingly. “Maybe we can discuss that threshold some time.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, closing the door behind him. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you,” she added quietly.

Nicole tucked the napkin with his phone number into her pocket and went to clear the table.

Surveillance equipment in place, Dennis maintained vigil until two in the morning. He knew that Dombrowski had spelled Winston in the converted VW van that was inconspicuously parked in the carport. Two sets of eyes were better than one.

Accustomed to snatching catnaps whenever he could and able to run on next to no sleep, he managed to get a few hours in the recliner beside his monitors. Even then, he slept lightly, anticipating the telephone ringing at any moment.

It didn’t.

When he opened his eyes again, it was a little past seven. Immediately, he looked at the monitors. Nothing had changed in the parking lot. The same cars that had been there last night were still in their designated spots. The second monitor showed only an empty room. Nicole wasn’t anywhere in sight.

Dennis sat up. Rotating his shoulders and stretching, he was instantly awake, instantly alert.

That was due to his training. By nature, he wasn’t really a morning person. His sister Moira was one of those. Bright and cheerful before her first cup of coffee. He didn’t understand it.

He needed a cup of coffee now, he thought. A strong one.

Still wearing the jeans he’d had on last night, Dennis padded out to the kitchen. He turned on the coffeemaker and opened the front door to get the paper.

As he bent over the mat, reaching for the newspaper, he heard her.

There was a gasp, followed by a cry of anguish and then a few choice words that could have only been evoked under duress.

She was in trouble. Damn, how had Standish managed to get in without either he or Dombrowski seeing the man?

Moot point, he admonished himself.

She hadn’t called him, but then maybe she hadn’t had the opportunity. Maybe she had been overpowered instantly. It was the only thing that made sense.

Adrenaline pumping, Dennis banged his fist on Nicole’s door.

“Nicole, are you all right?” he demanded. There was no reply. He pounded on it again. “Nicole, open the door!”

It was a fire door. He could dead lift twice his body weight, but there was absolutely no way he could force the door open. But he could break open a window.

Dennis turned away from the door and toward the kitchen window when the door swung open.

She stood in the doorway, wearing a pink dress that was far more cheerful that she was at the moment. The apron that no longer fit around her waist was slung over her right shoulder.

Exasperation filled her voice as she snapped, “No, I am not all right and why are you yelling like that?” He’d scared her half to death, banging on her door. She thought it was Standish.

Her sharp tone faded a little as she realized that he was wearing only his jeans and that he had failed to close the snap. It hovered more than an inch below his navel, adhering to tapered hips that belonged in an exercise video. She’d already guessed last night that he was muscular, but she hadn’t realized just how well developed those muscles were. His torso had almost perfect definition. If her hands weren’t already damp, they would have become so.

“What’s wrong?” Dennis demanded as he looked beyond her shoulder into the apartment. There was no one there.

She wiped her hands on the edge of the apron. “You’re the one yelling and banging, you tell me.”

Whatever the problem was, it wasn’t Standish. “I heard you gasp and cry out.”

Her brows drew together as she fisted her hands where her waist used to be. “What are you doing, standing at my door and listening?”

“No, I was getting the paper.” He raised it to substantiate his story. “When I heard you gasp I thought that maybe Standish had forgotten how to count and turned up. I was worried,” he added for good measure. It irritated him that it was partially true.

What he said made her feel guilty. He didn’t deserve to be the target of her waspish tongue. It wasn’t Dennis’s fault that her garbage disposal had decided to pick today to throw up. Lately, that seemed to be the way her life was going.

She sighed, dragging a hand through her hair, her expression softening. “Well, you can rest easy. No one took a contract out on me during the night. Except, maybe, for my garbage disposal.” She glanced over her shoulder. “It seems that it’s not up to grinding chicken bones anymore and has sought retribution by clogging up my sink.”

The tension created by the spontaneous flow of adrenaline began to ease from his body. A grin lazily crept over his lips. “They run independently of each other.”

She didn’t want logic at a time like this. She wanted an unclogged sink. Annoyance raised its hoary head again.

“Well, something is clogging up my sink.” She gestured toward the kitchen floor angrily. “I was rinsing out a frying pan and suddenly, I’ve got a lily pond in my kitchen.”

Not waiting for an invitation, Dennis walked into her apartment. Barefoot, he picked his way gingerly across the wet floor to the sink. He flipped the switch closest to the door and was rewarded with a whining noise that sounded like a car slipping a gear. A moment later, a wisp of smoke emerged from the midst of the rubber covering over the in-sink eradicator.

He shut off the disposal quickly. Squatting, Dennis opened the cabinet doors beneath the sink and looked in. He began moving aside an army of cleansers as he worked his way to the wall.

Nicole tried to bend down and peer over his shoulder. The ache in her back curtailed the effort. “What are you doing?”

He found the cord and followed it to the plug. He worked it free from the wall. “Unplugging your disposal before you have a fire.”

She looked down at the floor. It wasn’t exactly a lily pond, but there was enough water to remove the wax shine. Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed.

“The water would put it out,” she said wearily.

Dennis rose, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “Got a mop?”

“Of course I’ve got a mop,” she said defensively. Just because she wasn’t a neat freak like Marlene didn’t mean she was an utter slob. “Why?”

Justifying everything to her was getting a little old. “I want to dry the floor before one of us lands on our butts.”

He said “us” but he meant her. She could tell by the way he looked at her. She didn’t need someone inferring that she was a klutz. “Well, leave and then you won’t be in danger.”

He only laughed and shook his head. “Nicole, you are definitely a challenge to be neighborly to.”

All right, so she was being grumpy, but she couldn’t help it. She was always grumpy when she was tired. Stubborn about maintaining her independence, she’d remained up most of the night, listening to every noise that didn’t sound as if it belonged. In a garden complex of 203 apartments there were a lot of noises that sounded as if they didn’t belong.

She gestured toward his apartment. “It’s Saturday. Why aren’t you watching your new TV?”

He had a simple enough answer for that. “I don’t watch cartoons.”

“You don’t have a VCR?”

He thought of all the electronic equipment in his apartment. Equipment trained to document her life. For the first time, he wondered what she would have said if she knew.

“I haven’t hooked it up yet,” he said evasively.

“Well maybe you should do just that.” Her tone was dismissive. Nicole picked up the telephone receiver. “And I’ll call maintenance about this.”

Confident that she was sending him on his way, she tapped out the numbers to the rental office.

Amused, Dennis crossed his arms before his chest and leaned a shoulder against the wall. He knew it wouldn’t be long. Briefed on everything surrounding her complex, he knew that maintenance had a reputation of always being somewhere else when they were needed.

Three minutes later, Nicole sighed and hung up the phone.

“Nobody there?” he asked innocently.

She slanted an annoyed look at him. “Just the machine.” But she had a feeling that Dennis already knew that.

Dennis hooked his thumbs on the loops of his jeans. “I don’t think it’s been programmed to fix disposals.” This couldn’t have worked out better if he had planned it. “So, do you want my help?”

She hated asking, but it was either that, or start washing dishes in the bathtub. “Yes.”

With a satisfied nod, Dennis turned toward the door. “Okay, just let me get my tools.”

She picked her way carefully to the broom closet for the mop. “And get a shirt while you’re at it.”

He turned in the doorway, surprised by the request. “Why?”

“Because you’re too distracting running around without one.” She saw him raise an amused brow. “I might be pregnant, but I’m not dead.”

“Nice to know.” He disappeared inside his apartment.

Muttering under her breath, Nicole grabbed the mop and began drying her floor.

Chapter 4

N icole had barely put the mop away before she heard the quick, light rap on the door. She looked up sharply, her heart rate accelerating. Damn, this wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to feel like this in her own home, frightened by every sound. Even dead, Craig was still messing up her life.

She approached the door cautiously. “Who is it?”

“Mr. Fix-it.”

The feeling of relief at hearing Dennis’s voice was simultaneously overwhelming and annoying. She shouldn’t have to be afraid like this. And she shouldn’t have to feel as if she had to depend on anyone for anything.

Swallowing an oath meant for Standish, Nicole opened the door.

Dennis walked directly into the kitchen. He was carrying a small, rather new looking toolbox and, following her suggestion, he was wearing a shirt. It was a faded blue pullover that was missing a button at the throat.

The shirt didn’t help. Rather than serve as camouflage, it accented his muscles. The banding at each arm was clearly straining on his biceps. Both were beginning to tear at the seams.

Nicole sighed without being completely aware of why.

Dennis glanced at the floor. She’d managed to get the shine back. “Nice job.”

He placed the toolbox beside the sink and flipped open the lid. A small assortment of tools was arranged inside, black handles all facing in one direction. He rummaged through them.

“You know,” he quipped as he took out the wrench he was looking for, “my place could stand a once-over.”

Some women worked through their problems cleaning. Nicole could never understand that. To her cleaning was a problem.

“Sorry, my mop’s retired.” She thought of his apartment. It was a great deal neater than hers was right now. Saturdays were reserved for cleaning. It was getting so that she dreaded Saturdays. “Besides, don’t you have a cleaning lady?”

“Not for long.” Dennis opened the cabinet doors again and began taking out cleansers, stacking them over to one side. “Ophelia is a grandmother five times over and rabidly looking forward to spending more time with her grandchildren.” He was making it up as he went along. There was no cleaning lady, but someone like the man he was portraying would have had one. Dennis thought of his mother, who had spent years cleaning up after other people so that he and Moira could have a decent life. Spinning the rest of the story was easy. “She’s retiring this June.”

Nicole thought she detected a note of sadness in his voice, as if he actually knew the woman he was talking about well enough to carry on a conversation with her. As if he would miss her when she left.

He cleared his throat. The smell of cleansers melding irritated it. “I’m going to have to find someone to take her place.”

From early on, Nicole had always liked doing things for herself. If you did them yourself, you weren’t indebted to anyone. Housework, however, had never made that list. She would have been perfectly satisfied having someone take care of the mundane chores of cleaning for her, the way Sally had when she was growing up.

Nicole looked at the cleansers piled up on the side ruefully. Maybe she’d skip cleaning the tub this time around. It was getting more and more difficult to bend over these days.

Dusting, however, always needed to be done. She retrieved a dust cloth from the pile. “Let me know if you want to time-share,” she quipped absently.

Dennis looked at her over his shoulder. “Are you serious?”

She wished. Nicole sighed. “No, not really.” She folded the cloth in half and began rubbing away at the counter top. “I can’t afford a luxury like that at the moment.” She glanced down at her swollen stomach. “This baby is going to be all the luxury I have in my life for a while.”

Squatting on the floor, Dennis sank back on his heels and looked up at her. His expression was innocent. “I don’t mean to pry—”

Now there was an opening line. “But you will.” She advanced to another surface, rubbing hard, waiting.

He lifted one shoulder and let it drop carelessly. She expected him to say “Aw, shucks” next. “Call it conversation.”

Only in the broadest sense. He was reaching. “Euphemism.”

She wasn’t telling him to mind his own business. There was a crack forming in the wall. Dennis worked at making it larger. He grinned at her engagingly. “That too.” Without missing a beat, he began again. “I’m not a racing fan—”

Neither was she anymore. Not for a long, long time. The thrill had dissipated when she realized what the consequences were.

And they had all come to pass.

Nicole looked off into space. “I won’t hold that against you—”

Her voice was soft, distant, as if he’d disturbed something. He wondered what it was. “But your husband was pretty well-known in his class.”

Craig and class had little to do with one another. Class meant knowing when to quit. And when to hold back. Craig hadn’t known when to do either.

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