Mr Right Next Door. Teresa Hill

made all too often.

      He was fairly certain she was innocent in all this. Way too trusting and falling in love too easily and just not taking the kind of care with her emotions that she should take.

      Of course, he couldn’t tell her any of that. She couldn’t even know he was watching.

      And he had to keep doing this, night after night, just like this.

      Did she take a bath every night? he wondered.

      Did she always wear the robe and put lotion on herself like that?

      He was doomed, Nick decided.

      Doomed.

      * * *

      Kim got up early, ate an apple, talked to her sister Kate on the phone, then dressed in a little T-shirt, shorts and sandals.

      She planned to take a walk to the nearby Falls Park to check out the fountain she was redoing as a summer art project with some of the kids from Big Brothers Big Sisters. But as she left her apartment, she happened to glance over at Mrs. Baker’s and there, sitting on the patio all by himself, was Nick Cavanaugh, not moving at all, not even… Was he even awake?

      Kim waited, standing just on the other side of the low hedge that separated Mrs. Baker’s property from Kim’s landlady’s.

      He was so still she wasn’t even sure he was breathing. He sat in one of the big, comfy, cushioned Adirondack chairs, his head leaning against the back of it, a dark pair of sunglasses on and… No, wait… Every now and then she could see his chest rise and fall, so he was breathing at least. Deeply and slowly. She knew because she watched.

      Just to the right of where he sat, a curtain in the window was pushed aside. Mrs. Baker looked out, saw Kim, then motioned for her to wait; Mrs. Baker was coming out.

      She stopped opposite Kim, on the other side of the hedge, stared back at Nick, shook her head and whispered, “Poor man. I don’t think he’s well.”

      “Really?”

      Mrs. Baker nodded. “I was stripping wallpaper in the dining room until all hours and I was being quiet because that room is right below his bedroom. He kept getting up, walking around, going back to bed. Getting up, walking around, going back to bed. Couldn’t sleep at all. I went to the door and knocked, asked him if he was all right and he swore that he was, but I’m not so sure. He practically begged for a room here. Said he’d been up all night on an overnight flight from South America, hadn’t gotten any rest and had a bad back, I think. Or maybe his shoulder. He seems to be favoring both. And he was limping, too. When he couldn’t sleep I wondered if he was in pain or something. And for him to be sleeping outside this morning… I thought the poor man must be simply exhausted when he first came, but now I’m worried it might be something more. Something serious.”

      “He wouldn’t tell you what was wrong last night?” Kim asked.

      “No. Not a word. Do you think he’s all right over there? I mean, he’s just sleeping, right? I don’t want my first official guest collapsing here or well…you know? I can’t lose my first guest. That would be a terrible omen.”

      Kim frowned.

      Mrs. Baker tended to worry too much and Kim didn’t think Nick Cavanaugh was dying. Granted, there was something a little off about him and he seemed tired yesterday and a little bit… Not grumpy. Rattled? Distracted? Easily confused? No, not that. Just…off.

      But she liked Mrs. Baker a lot and the woman put a lot of stock in her omens and little twinges and all sorts of things like that.

      “Would you go make sure he’s okay?” Mrs. Baker asked. “I’d do it myself, but I don’t think he appreciated my concern when I asked him last night. It was like I’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t or… Well, that’s the way it felt to me.”

      “Okay. I’ll talk to him,” Kim said.

      “I’ll bring you two some tea, to give you an excuse to sit and talk awhile.”

      Mrs. Baker went inside to make tea. Kim walked around the hedges and onto Mrs. Baker’s patio, pausing there, trying to decide what to do. She didn’t want to startle him. If he had been up all night in pain, he probably needed his rest this morning. And it wasn’t like the man wasn’t breathing.

      Kim sat down in the chair next to his, leaned back and propped her feet up on the comfy stool in front of her chair to wait. If he wasn’t awake when Mrs. Baker came out with their tea, she’d wake him up. Until then, it was a gorgeous, early-summer morning. The sky was a happy shade of light blue, the sun was beaming down on them. There was a perfect, slight breeze and the temperatures hadn’t yet climbed too high.

      She could almost imagine she was back on the ship, before the pirates hit, when she hadn’t had a care in the world.

      Kim leaned back and closed her eyes, picturing Eric’s handsome face, trying not to worry that she hadn’t heard from him.

      She’d been sure he’d call last night but he hadn’t, and she hadn’t been able to reach him at the number he gave her. Oh, he could have been stuck on a plane somewhere and gotten in really late, especially considering the time difference on the West Coast. That was probably it. Surely he’d call today.