LITMIR.BIZ

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him a bit.

      “No. Not all of them,” Lily said, and then thought that meant she’d spent all day watching his house from her kitchen window.

      Wait…no. That she’d looked at all the cards that came with the food.

      She hoped that’s what he thought she meant.

      Not that she was spying.

      “They’re just…always happy to welcome a new neighbor,” she said.

      New man, she’d meant, but hadn’t said it. Though he had to know that’s what she meant. He could have a different woman for every day of the week, if he wanted, if she was any judge of what just happened today.

      Did he want that? A rotation of different women from Sunday to Saturday?

      Was he that kind of guy?

      And what about Jake? Surely he wouldn’t have women parading through the house with Jake here?

      “Well, Jake is certainly happy,” he said finally. “Unfortunately, I’m not much of a cook and neither is he.”

      “So, this is a good thing. All this…friendliness and neighborliness.”

      Was that even a word? Neighborliness?

      Like this was about nothing but food.

      Lily was embarrassing herself and a little confused.

      Did the man not know how good he looked? Especially with his shirt off? Surely this wasn’t the only place where women flirted with him?

      Was there a world out there somewhere, outside of Lily’s existence in the suburbs, where this man wouldn’t be admired for his physique?

      She couldn’t imagine that there was.

      Granted, she’d lived a fairly sheltered existence of kids’ birthday parties and neighborhood cookouts and volunteering at her kids’ schools, but she wasn’t that out of it. Was she?

      Not that she was going to ask him about any of this.

      He probably thought she was one of them.

      Not as blatant as Audrey Graham and her little jog-bra, but still one of them.

      And maybe Lily was.

      “Well, I’d better get back,” Lily said, slipping past him and out the door, trying not to look like she was fleeing.

      “Thanks for everything,” Nick said.

      “You’re welcome. I hope the two of you like it here.” Not a woman-a-day kind of like it here, but…like it. She blushed just thinking about him and what he might do with all those women. “I’ll send Jake right home.”

       Chapter Three

      Four days later, Nick waited just inside the front door of his new house. It was just before sunrise, and he was dressed to go running, but instead he was peeking out the front window like a man expecting to be accosted in the early-morning light, right here in one of the quietest subdivisions in town.

      Not by a mugger, but a grown woman in a jog-bra.

      She’d followed him for the whole five miles he’d run two days ago, followed him through the quiet streets, talking the whole time, when he’d been counting on clearing out his head of everything, on having a time when he had to do nothing but keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. And if that wasn’t enough, the woman had followed him home, followed him inside.

      Before he’d known what she was up to, she’d been all over him, right there in the kitchen. Okay, he’d been pretty sure what she was up to. He just didn’t expect to be attacked in his own kitchen that morning, and before he could do anything about it, Jake had walked in. Though starving and still half-asleep, the kid had nearly gotten an eyeful.

      Something Nick did not care to repeat.

      He also didn’t want anybody chattering to him the whole time he ran.

      Which was why he was staring out the window, wondering if Audrey Graham was out there, waiting for him, despite the fact that he’d told her—politely but plainly—that he wasn’t interested.

      Obviously, whatever he’d said, it hadn’t been enough.

      “What are you doing?” Jake asked from behind him.

      Nick nearly jumped out of his skin.

      Too many years in the army before he joined the FBI.

      Jake yawned. “Sorry. I forgot.”

      “One day, you’re going to sneak up on me, and I’m going to crush your throat before I figure out who you are,” Nick told him.

      “You can really do that?” Jake asked admiringly.

      “In a heartbeat,” Nick boasted, hoping the kid would believe him and remember the warning next time. He’d really come close to hurting him once already when Jake startled him.

      “Sorry. I thought you heard me.” Jake shrugged, like the possibility of a crushed throat was no big deal. “So, what are you doing? Did you go run?”

      “Not yet.”

      All of a sudden, Jake looked very interested. “Wait a minute? You’re not…you know. Sneaking somebody out of the house, are you?”

      “Sneaking someone out?” Nick repeated.

      “You know. Like…a woman?”

      “No, I am not sneaking a woman out of the house,” Nick said.

      “’Cause, if you want somebody to sleep over, I’m fine with that. Is it that Audrey woman? The one with the giant—” Jake lifted his hands up and held them about a foot away from his chest. “And the really cute daughter? ’Cause, I’d really like to know the daughter.”

      “No, it’s not her. It’s not anybody.”

      “Not anybody I know, huh? Okay—” Jake looked way too interested.

      “Not anyone at all. No one was here. I wouldn’t do that.”

      Nick started to say not with Jake in the house, but that sounded a bit hypocritical. Was he supposed to pretend to be a monk? Just because he was single and raising a kid? One who happened to be a teenage boy, no doubt with raging hormones of his own?

      Nick didn’t think so, but what did he know about the etiquette of single parents and their sex lives?

      Not much.

      He’d never been seriously involved with a woman with kids.

      Hardly been seriously involved with any woman.

      “So, you’re just going to do without until I’m eighteen?” Jake asked, like he couldn’t quite believe it. “’Cause I thought you’d be really cool about things like that. I thought…you know. You’d bring your ladies over here, and I’d bring mine, and we’d both be cool with that.”

      Nick did a double take. “You have ladies? Plural?”

      “Well, not exactly,” Jake said. “Not at the moment.”

      “Okay, one? You have one? Who you intend to entertain in your bedroom? At fifteen?”

      “Well…maybe.”

      “No way that’s gonna happen,” Nick insisted.

      “Really?” He looked crushed.

      “Really,” Nick said, barking out the word.

      “Jeez,” Jake grumbled, looking all put out. “I thought—”

      “Well, you thought wrong.”

      Jake grumbled as he made his way into the kitchen, no doubt hungry already. After all, it had been a whole six

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