The King Next Door (3 page)

Nicole didn’t have an answer for that. Yet. She’d figure something out, though. She always had. Her gaze shifted to Connor, sitting in the shade, singing to himself as he piled dirt from the flowerbed onto the grass. Everything in her softened and toughened up at the same time. She would do whatever she had to. For her son. “This is my house, Griffin. Where else am I supposed to go?”

“Next door with me.”

“What?”
Her gaze shot to his.

He pushed one hand through his hair and this time Nicole was so stupefied by everything else around her that she barely noticed the flex of his muscles or the dip of his board shorts at the movement.

“The fire was my fault.”

“True,” she said, then shook her head when he winced. “I mean, no. It’s not. Not completely.”

One black eyebrow lifted and she idly wondered how people managed that. Then she sighed. “You were trying to help.”

“And burned down your kitchen.”

She gave him a wry smile. “I didn’t say you
had
helped. I said you were trying.”

He smiled, too. “Look, Rafe and Katie’s place is huge.”

“I know,” Nicole said. “Ever since they got married, Katie complains that she’s never sure what her house is going to look like from one day to the next. Rafe is always adding something or tearing something else out and building bigger…”

She’d never envied Katie the financial security she’d gained by marrying into the King family. But sometimes, late at night when she was alone, Nicole silently admitted to being jealous of the love Katie had found. The security of knowing she didn’t have to handle everything on her own. She and Rafe were so good together that Nicole couldn’t help wishing that somehow, someday, she might find that same kind of love for herself.

Of course, her romantic history read like a Greek tragedy, so she’d accepted the fact that the chances of that happening were slim to none.

But, she had always consoled herself, she had her son. Her business. Her home.

Well, until today she’d had a home. She looked over her shoulder at the house that wouldn’t be livable for weeks.

“Nicole, you know it’s the best answer. Hell, the house is so big, we won’t be in each other’s way.” Griffin moved in closer. “You can’t stay here. It’s not safe. For you or for Connor.”

“Probably not…”

Clearly exasperated, he asked, “You really want to live in a hotel while this place is fixed?”

No, she really didn’t. Not only was the thought of trying to keep her nearly three-year-old son contained in a tiny hotel room exhausting, but there was the cost to consider. She couldn’t afford to fix the kitchen
and
live in a hotel.

“Besides,” Griffin added, “this way, you’ll be close by while they’re working on your place and you can stay on top of things.”

True. All true. But she hated owing someone. She took care of herself and her son and she’d done a damn good job of it, if she had to be the one to say it. Depending on someone, accepting favors from anyone, was just something Nicole didn’t do. Not anymore. Not since her ex-husband had taught her the hard way that the only person you could count on was yourself.

She looked up at Griffin and ground her teeth together. He looked so sure of himself, fresh irritation spiked inside her. Mainly because, though she didn’t want to admit it, Nicole knew she didn’t have a choice, and she
really
hated that.

But, she told herself, the truth was, if this had happened when Katie and Rafe were at home, Katie would have insisted that Nicole and Connor move in. So having Griffin extend the invitation wasn’t really much different, was it?

Her mind laughed at the pitiful rationalization. Hmm. Happily married couple offering her a place to stay, or a matching offer from a gorgeous, single guy who made every one of her hormones stand up to do a fast boogie. Sure. Exactly the same situation.

Frowning, she pushed that thought aside.

Boogying had not been a part of the offer, sadly.

Besides, she reminded herself, Griffin
had
started the fire in her kitchen.

“You know it’s the only solution,” he said.

“Yeah, it is.” Nodding, she glanced back at the kitchen and tried not to picture what it looked like in there. Instead, she imagined it after the work was done. Maybe, if it wasn’t too expensive, she could upgrade it a little. Maybe this would turn out to be a good thing.

Then her gaze shifted to Griffin, who was watching her out of brilliant blue eyes. His tanned, muscled chest caught her attention for one wild second. If he had been temptation living next door…what was it going to be like living
with
him?

*

It was a nightmare.

The next morning, Griffin rubbed eyes gritty from lack of sleep and told himself he might as well get used to it. Sure, Rafe and Katie’s house was big. But he’d been exaggerating a little when he’d assured Nicole that there was plenty of room for all of them.

He’d forgotten that all of the bedrooms led off the same hallway. His room was directly across the hall from Nicole’s, and he could have sworn he heard every move she made during the night.

She’d paced, then sat on the bed with a telltale squeak. Then she’d been up and pacing again. Several times she opened her bedroom door and took the four steps to the room where Connor was sleeping. She’d open that door, walk across the wood floor, pause. Then back across the room, close the door and pace in her own room again.

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.

Three

“M
an, you did a number on this place.” Lucas King moved through Nicole’s kitchen later that afternoon, noting every bit of damage with a practiced eye, missing nothing. In minutes he had examined the room, checking every outlet, every piece of missing plaster. The power was still off, of course, but Lucas had checked that as well, not trusting anyone else’s word for it.

“I didn’t exactly put a torch to it,” Griffin argued, leaning back against the ruined kitchen counter.

“Might as well have.” Lucas’s voice was muffled. Standing on a metal ladder, he had his head poked through the hole in the ceiling while he shifted the beam of his flashlight across the area.

Griffin thought about giving the ladder a shove, just on principle. But, since his cousin was actually using a
stable
ladder rather than the one Griffin had toppled off, it probably wouldn’t do any good.

“You did all this by falling off a ladder?”

“Yeah,” Griffin said tightly. He heard the amusement in his cousin’s voice and knew damn well that Lucas would be telling this story to the rest of the family. “I grabbed the light fixture, hoping to steady myself, and instead…”

Lucas snorted. “Ripped it right out of the wall, didn’t you?”

“Seriously?” Scowling at his cousin’s back, Griffin added, “I didn’t bring you here to rag on me. Just to look at the kitchen.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lucas said, voice still muffled as he continued his examination. “The ragging on you is the fun part of all this.”

“Happy to help,” Griffin said in a tone that made it plain he
wasn’t
happy. “How bad is it?”

“Like a bad horror movie up here. The wiring is antique,” Lucas muttered. “Even from a distance I can see spots that are frayed. It’s a wonder the place didn’t catch fire years ago.”

That thought gave Griffin cold chills. He thought of Nicole and her son living here alone. What if there’d been an electrical fire in the middle of the night? Even with the smoke alarms, there was no guarantee Nicole and Connor would have gotten out. He scraped one hand across his face as a sense of uneasiness rolled through the pit of his stomach.

“Guess we can’t lay this one all on you,” Lucas commented as he came down the ladder, metal groaning and creaking with his every step, to stand in the center of the devastated kitchen.

He squinted into the sunlight streaming through the window over the sink. “The wiring in the whole damn house is about a breath away from whoosh.”

Griffin shook his head. “Whoosh?”

“That’s a technical term.” Lucas grinned. “The sound a fire makes when it whooshes into life.”

“Great. Disaster humor.” Griffin didn’t think it was funny. He’d actually
heard
that sound, right after the series of pops when the wiring burst into flame. He remembered the smell of the smoke, too, and tried to push those memories out of his mind. The kitchen was wrecked, but they’d all gotten out in one piece. That was the important part. And from what Lucas was saying, they were lucky the whole house hadn’t been turned into a pile of rubble.

Griffin pushed away from the counter and tucked his hands into his pockets. He took a quick look around the room and saw things he hadn’t noticed when he’d been here before—pictures of Connor on the fridge. A teakettle in the shape of a rooster on the soot-covered stove. Small green glass vases, knocked off the windowsill, now shattered on the scarred countertop, the flowers they’d held lying wilted and dead beside them.

It wasn’t just a room, he thought, it was Nicole’s
home,
and more of a home than he had. Visions of his condo leaped into his mind. Hell, all he ever used the place for was to store his clothes, to sleep and occasionally to nuke a takeout dinner. He frowned to himself as a nibble of guilt chewed at him. She’d lost so much, and he had more than he needed or used.

Didn’t seem to matter that Lucas had told him the wiring was ready to blow at any time. The plain truth was, Griffin had pulled those wires loose. Griffin had caused the damn fire that had put Nicole and her son out of their house. And
Griffin
was the one who had to make it right.

Whether Nicole liked it or not.

“So what do you want to do?” Lucas asked, making notes on a computer tablet.

“I want her place fixed.”

“We can do that,” his cousin assured him. “I’m assuming she’s got insurance?”

“She says so,” Griffin told him. “But I’m guessing she’s got a big deductible, too.”

“Probably.” Lucas nodded thoughtfully. “Single moms don’t usually have a hell of a lot of extra cash lying around.”

“That’s what I think, too.” Griffin glanced over at the house next door, where Nicole was working in the dining room with her laptop—thankfully undamaged by either the fire or water. She knew Lucas was here, but she hadn’t been in a hurry to walk back through the destruction, so she had stayed where she was, waiting to talk to Lucas when the inspection was over.

Turning back to his cousin, he said, “I’ll take care of the deductible and any extra it runs.”

Lucas’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that right?”

Griffin saw the interested look in his cousin’s eyes and sneered. “Don’t get any ideas. There’s nothing going on between me and Nicole. But I caused this. The least I can do is fix it.”

“She won’t like it.”

“She doesn’t have to know.”

Lucas laughed shortly. “Dude, you are out of your mind if you really think Nicole won’t find out what you’re up to.”

“Please.” Griffin tugged his hands from his pockets and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m in the security business, remember? We know how to keep secrets.”

“Not from women you don’t.” Lucas shook his head. “It’s spooky, I swear. Every time I think I put one over on Rose, she nails me with it. It’s like female radar or something. Built into the whole double X chromosome or whatever.”

Griffin just stared at him. “You’re delusional.”

“No, I’m married.”

“Same thing.”

“You’re a sad, sad man,” Lucas said, shaking his head and grinning.

“Yeah,” Griffin shot back, his smile wide and self-satisfied. “Poor me. Different woman every week. Nobody making demands on my time. Sex whenever I want it.”

“Uh, hello?” Lucas scowled at him. “I get sex whenever I want it, too, you know.
And
I don’t have to leave home to get it.”

“Yeah?” Griffin laughed. “How’s the sex life these days?”

Lucas’s wife was pregnant with their second child. Just like most of the King family, Lucas had turned from a player into a husband and father. The Kings were falling, one by one, like a row of dominoes bowing to gravity. Pitiful. Just pitiful.

“You should have it so good.” Lucas gave him a wicked grin.

Possibly true. For all his big talk, Griffin knew that his cousin had a point. Hell, over the last few months, Griffin had been less and less interested in living the lifestyle that had been his for years. Dozens of different women had come and gone from his life, barely making an impression.
Different.
He laughed silently at that, because though the faces and names had changed, they’d all been the same.

Beautiful and boring.

Try having a conversation with any of them. Hell, after the first five minutes, he’d been zoned out and barely listening to talk that centered on the hottest club, the newest designer or the best place to get a spray-on tan.

But then, he hadn’t dated them for their ability to discuss art and literature, had he? Griffin could admit that all he’d wanted from them—
any
of them—was a quick romp in the sheets. So he really had no room for complaints, did he?

Damn. This whole maturing thing was a pain in the ass.

“So when do you want us to get started?” Lucas asked with another glance around the kitchen.

“This afternoon work for you?”

Lucas laughed. “Got it. You want it done fast.” Nodding, he made a few notes on his computer tablet. “We’re spread a little thin right now—we’ve got at least a half dozen jobs up and running, not to mention that Rosie’s got me building shelves in Danny’s room when I’m not working. But two of our jobs are winding down.”

“Man. Rafe left town for a vacation when you’ve got that much work piled up?” Out of character for a King, Griffin thought.

“Yeah, well.” Lucas shrugged. “Things change when you’ve got a wife and a
life.
Besides, Rafe wanted to take Katie on that tour of Europe while she was still feeling well enough to travel.”

“Katie?” Fear reached up and closed a hand around the base of Griffin’s throat. Staring at his cousin, he demanded, “Is there something wrong with Katie? Why doesn’t the family know about it?”

“Damn it.” Lucas lifted one hand. “Power down. Nothing’s wrong with Katie. She’s pregnant, is all. And nobody’s supposed to know yet, so keep your big mouth shut. Katie and Rafe are gonna have a family deal when they get back and let everybody know.”

Relief spilled through Griffin. “I already told you, I know how to keep a secret.”

“Right.” Lucas nodded. “Anyway, Rafe wanted them to have some time together before their lives really get busy. Nothing sucks up your time like kids.”

Another King becoming a father. Finding a life. Finding…something more. Something that Griffin wasn’t sure he’d ever find for himself and, if he did, he didn’t know that he’d want it. Which said what, exactly, about him? Griffin frowned to himself.

“Another King bites the dust,” he muttered to cover up the unexpected emotions crowding him.

“Call it what you want,” Lucas said, a little on the defensive side. “But we don’t see it that way.”

“You used to,” Griffin reminded him. “In fact,” he continued, “I remember a poker game a few years ago when we were talking about Adam and Travis getting married and you said—”

Lucas huffed out a breath. “I remember.”

“—you said,” Griffin went on, “that getting married was like being buried, only you didn’t have the sense to lie down and be dead.”

Shaking his head, Lucas muttered, “Yeah, well, things change.”

“Damn straight they do,” Griffin told him, and felt his own wayward emotions coming back into line. Maturing was one thing, he told himself sternly. Going crazy over one woman and signing up for a lifetime of marriage was something else again. He wasn’t about to set himself up to be one of the many Kings ready for a fall. Let his cousins go from happy bachelors to husbands and fathers. Let his own
twin,
for God’s sake, make that move, but not him. “Things change, cousin, but only if you
let
them.”

Lucas snorted. “Whatever you say, cuz.”

Griffin knew sarcasm when he heard it. “Just figure out who you can get in here to fix up this place. And do it fast.”

“You got it,” Lucas said. “We’ll take care of permits from the city. I’ll have some plans drawn up and email them to Nicole for approval.” He turned off the tablet and tucked it beneath his arm. “Tell her I’ll let her know when she needs to decide on flooring, paint and appliances.”

“Fine.” And whatever she picked, Griffin promised silently, he’d be upgrading. He paid his debts, and he’d be damned if he was going to let Nicole have a half-assed remodel because of her pride.

Chuckling softly, Lucas headed for the back door. “You know…sometimes things change whether you want them to or not. And not even a King can stop it.”

Griffin didn’t bother saying aloud what he was thinking.
You can stop anything
—
if you never let it get started.

Trouble was, Griffin told himself as he walked out of the destruction into the summer sunlight, as far as Nicole was concerned, he had a feeling it was already too late.

Something had already started between them.

Putting the brakes on might not be as easy as he’d like.

*

Nothing said summer more than the scent of hamburgers on a grill.

Nicole stepped out of Katie’s kitchen, carrying a bowl of potato salad and a plate filled with sliced tomatoes, onions and cheese for the burgers Griffin was flipping on the grill.

Her gaze slid across the grass until she spotted her son, playing in the sandbox table Griffin had retrieved from her yard. Connor was completely entranced with pushing his toy dinosaurs through sand mountains, so she set the potato salad down under the umbrella shading the redwood table, then she walked to Griffin.

She studied him as she got closer and, as usual, her gaze did the up-and-down thing until she’d examined every really gorgeous inch of him. He was wearing those board shorts again and his bare back was broad and tanned to a dark gold. His hips were narrow, his muscular legs long, and his black hair curled at the nape of his neck.

A flutter of something interesting wafted through her and Nicole had to take a deep breath to steady herself. Seriously, didn’t the man own a shirt?

“Dinner’s almost ready,” he said as she approached.

“Good. I’m starving.” In more ways than one, she realized.

“Barbecuing is the one kind of cooking I can do without having to call the fire department.” As soon as he said it, he winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She waved off the apology even as she shrugged off the memories the mention of the fire department had caused. After all, it had only been a single day since her house had become uninhabitable. Not surprising that she was still a little touchy on the subject of fire. Heck, she hadn’t even watched Griffin as he turned on the propane flames on the barbecue.

“Lucas emailed me a brief proposal,” she said, setting the plate of cheese and vegetables down on the workbench alongside the truly impressive grill Rafe had built the summer he and Katie first got together.

She thought about Lucas’s proposal and had to muffle a whine. Even cutting the cost down to the bone—which she knew Lucas had done because of Nicole’s friendship with Katie King—the total had staggered her. She was going to have to either take out a small home-equity loan to cover her deductible, or maybe she could work out a payment schedule with King Construction. Something to think about, anyway.

“Good.” Griffin glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the burgers on the grill. He reached for the cheese and slapped a slice on each burger. “Lucas said he could have a crew out here starting the teardown as early as tomorrow.”