The Man Next Door. GINA WILKINS

he walked across his living room an hour after he’d arrived home, headed again for the door. His hair was still wet from his shower, and he’d donned a plain white shirt and jeans, nothing fancy for tonight. He’d considered staying in once he’d gotten there, thinking an evening of crashing in front of the TV with a sandwich and a beer sounded pretty good after such a strenuous couple of months on the job. Instead, he’d talked himself into going to meet Mike. He’d gulped the sandwich, substituted soda for beer and then made himself change and shave for an evening out.

      He was too young—and too sexually deprived—to keep living like some sort of workaholic monk. When riding an elevator with his uppity-but-good-looking neighbor was the high point of his social life, it was definitely time to do something drastic. He supposed hanging out with his friend in a singles’ club, hoping to meet someone interested in a no-strings evening of fun, was better than nothing. Marginally.

      Still, he couldn’t help being amused by the way Dani had looked when he’d walked away from her in the hallway. He’d known very well that she’d more than half expected him to ask her to join him at the club he’d mentioned. When he hadn’t asked—when he had, instead, walked away as if doing so had never even crossed his mind—she’d been more than a little piqued, despite her efforts not to let her reactions show.

      Now that had been fun.

      He suspected it was past time someone rattled the princess a little. Showed her not all men were eager lap puppies hoping for a crumb of attention from her.

      He was just reaching for his keys when someone suddenly pounded on the other side of his door.

      “Teague? Mr. McCauley? Are you there? We need your help!”

      Dani, he thought immediately, all but leaping for the door. What the…?

      She stood in the hallway, her dark-blue eyes wide, her long brown hair tumbled around her shoulders. “We need your help,” she said.

      And despite everything he had thought about her earlier, he merely nodded and followed as she turned to rush away.

      Chapter Two

      Rather than leading Teague to her apartment, as he had expected, Dani rushed to Mrs. Parsons’s open door across the hall from him. Following, he stopped in the doorway, looking in amazement at the mess inside. “What on earth happened here?”

      Wondering why he hadn’t heard the crash—he must have still been in the shower when it happened—he scanned the room from the heavy bookcase lying facedown on the floor to the broken knick-knacks scattered across the carpet. A fragile-looking straight-backed chair had been knocked over when the bookcase fell, and books and magazines were tumbled all around.

      Mrs. Parsons stood in the middle of the chaos, wringing her hands. “I can’t even get to my bedroom,” she said. “The bookcase is blocking the door.”

      “She wanted to move the bookcase a few inches to the left,” Dani explained in a low voice. “I tried to tell her it was too heavy, but she just grabbed it and pulled.”

      “Was anyone hurt?”

      “No, thank goodness,” Mrs. Parsons said with a mixture of gratitude and sheepishness. “Dani pulled me out of the way just in time. I should have listened to her.”

      “If you could just help me lift the bookcase so she can get to her bedroom, I’ll help her clean up the mess,” Dani said to Teague. “She and I can’t lift it by ourselves. We took everything off the shelves before we tried to move the case, but wouldn’t you know we set them on the floor right where it fell. There’s no telling what all is broken under there.”

      Relieved that they were unharmed, he nodded. “Mrs. Parsons, stand over there, where you won’t be in any danger of being stepped on or bumped into. Dani and I can handle this.”

      “All right. I’ll, um—I’ll make coffee,” she said, and bustled toward the kitchen before Teague could stop her.

      “I’m sorry,” Dani said with an apologetic expression. “I know you have plans for this evening, but it scared me so much when the bookcase fell. I thought for sure it would land on her. Then afterward, I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask for help in lifting it.”

      “Not a problem,” he assured her, kneeling to take one corner of the heavy oak case. “Can you handle that side? Just to keep it steady while I lift.”

      She nodded. “Right here?”

      “Yeah. Lift with your knees. You don’t want to hurt your back.”

      “I know.”

      The princess obviously didn’t like being given instructions, even for her own good, he thought, judging by her rather curt tone.

      With Teague doing most of the heavy lifting, they managed to set the case upright. “Where do you want it, Mrs. Parsons?” he asked. “I’ll slide it into place for you.”

      “Right there,” she said, coming back into the room to point to a position half a foot down the wall from where the case stood now. “Just far enough so I can set this chair beside it.”

      He placed his shoulder against the end of the bookcase and shoved, bracing the front with one hand so that there wouldn’t be a repeat of the earlier catastrophe. “There?”

      “Just a little more.”

      Seeing Dani’s expression of sympathy, he smiled and pushed again.

      “Right there,” Mrs. Parsons said in satisfaction. “That’s just right. Oh, dear, look at this mess.”

      “I hope nothing too valuable was broken,” Teague said, reaching down to pick up a porcelain poodle that had been snapped neatly in half.

      “Thank you, dear, but most of it is just stuff I’ve picked up here and there. Junk, really.”

      Noting the regret in her eyes when she picked up the pieces of a porcelain rose, he said gently, “It doesn’t look like junk to me. I would guess these were things you treasured.”

      She blinked rapidly, then turned toward the kitchen. “The coffee should be ready. I’ll pour. Just leave those things, Dani. I’ll put everything in order later. Come have coffee. And I have snickerdoodles. I made them myself.”

      “I’d love to have coffee and cookies with you,” Dani said, placing unbroken curios on the shelves of the bookcase. “But Mr. McCauley has plans for the evening.”

      “I always have time for cookies,” Teague corrected her on an impulse, following the women into the kitchen. “And the name’s Teague, by the way.”

      “Oh, this is nice.” Mrs. Parsons beamed as she set a heaping serving plate on the table and pulled three mugs from a wooden mug tree. “I don’t have company very often.”

      Thinking of the near disaster that had precipitated this impromptu visit, Teague felt a little guilty that he hadn’t made more of an effort to speak to his obviously lonely neighbor when he passed her in the hallway. “I don’t have homemade snickerdoodles very often,” he said, putting two of the cinnamony cookies on the flowery dessert plate she’d set in front of him. “This is a real treat for me.”

      Dani had taken only one of the cookies for herself. She poured a drop of cream into her coffee. “I was just here last Monday, Mrs. Parsons,” she reminded the older woman. “We had pecan pie when I helped you bring your groceries in, remember?”

      “Oh, yes. We had a lovely visit, didn’t we? I told you all about that nice young single man who goes to my church. You really should let me introduce you, Dani. I think you’d like him.”

      Looking a little embarrassed, Dani studiously avoided Teague’s eyes. “Thank you, but as I told you then, I really don’t have time to meet anyone new right now. Between work and classes, I have very little free time for socializing.”

      “Oh, you’re too young to work all the time. That’s