The King Next Door. Maureen Child

is it, Connor?” Nicole’s voice floated in the warm, late-June air. As busy as she always was, Griffin had never heard an edge of tired impatience in her voice.

      “Wanna dig,” the little boy shouted and waved a lime-green plastic trowel in the air like a Viking with a sword.

      Griffin grinned, thinking about just how many holes he and his brothers had dug in their mother’s flowerbeds. And how many hours of penance they’d all paid for every dead rose and daisy.

      “Soon, sweetie,” Nicole told the boy and tossed a quick glance over the fence at Griffin.

      He lifted his beer in salute.

      She frowned, shook her head and turned back to her son. “Let Mommy get the trays of plants from the garage, okay?”

      “Need some help?” Griffin shouted.

      She shifted her gaze back to him. Wryly, she said, “I wouldn’t want to tear you away from the hot tub.”

      Griffin smiled. She made it sound like he was hosting a drunken orgy. “Oh, I can always get back in.”

      “So it seems,” she muttered, then said more loudly, “that’s okay, Griffin. I can do it.”

      “All right then. If you change your mind, give a shout. I’ll be right here.”

      “Where you are every day,” she muttered.

      “What was that?” he asked, though he’d heard her just fine.

      “Nothing,” she said and headed for her garage, her son racing after her like a much-shorter shadow.

      Grinning, Griffin had another drink of his beer. He knew what Nicole thought of him. Lazy was no doubt first in her mind, which sort of bothered him, since this was the first vacation he’d taken in five years.

      The security firm he and his twin, Garrett, owned and operated was the biggest of its kind in the world—which meant the King brothers were always on call. Well, they had been, until Garrett had married Princess Alexis of Cadria several months back. Now Garrett ran their European operation and Griffin had control of the U.S. business.

      But even workaholics needed a break eventually, and Griffin had decided to take his now—while a real-estate agent was parading people through his beachside condo. He had no idea yet where he’d move—he wanted to stay somewhere close to the beach. Maybe a place like Rafe and Katie’s. All he knew for sure was that his condo had suddenly seemed a little too … sterile for him. Tastefully decorated by a woman Griffin had once dated, the place had never really felt like a home, and with Garrett making some major changes in his life, it had struck Griffin that maybe it was time he did some changing of his own.

      He scowled to himself and took another drink of his beer.

      Strange that he hadn’t realized it before now, but Garrett getting married had precipitated all of the recent changes in Griffin’s life. Not that he was in any hurry to race down an aisle or anything. All he wanted to do was shake up things in his life a little. Get a new house. Take a vacation.

      That last part wasn’t working out so well, though. He’d only been “relaxing” at Rafe and Katie’s house for a few days and already he was getting itchy for something to do. He phoned the office so often—just to check on things—that his assistant had actually threatened to quit if he didn’t stop calling.

      It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his people. It was just that with nothing to do, nothing to accomplish, Griffin was quietly going a little whacked. He was coming to realize that he had no idea how to relax. He just wasn’t made to sit still and do nothing. In fact, Garrett had bet him five hundred dollars that Griffin’s vacation wouldn’t last ten days, that he’d be racing back to work and burying himself in timetables and schedules.

      Since Griffin wasn’t about to willingly lose a bet, that wager pretty much insured that he was going to take his full three weeks off even if it killed him.

      It just might.

      Frowning, he took another sip of beer. What the hell did people do when they weren’t working?

      He knew what he’d like to do, he thought, letting his gaze slide over Nicole’s trim, curvy body again. But it wasn’t only Nicole’s son that had Griffin dialing down his impulses. It was the fact that Rafe’s wife, Katie, had made it plain a year ago—to all of the King cousins—that Nicole was off-limits. Hell, he could practically hear her even now.

      “Nicole has been through a lot, with her rat bastard of an ex-husband,” Katie had said, giving each of the King men at her engagement party a hard look. “So none of you are going to make a move on her, okay? I don’t want my best friend getting hurt by a member of my new family.”

      And since there were millions of available women in the world, the King cousins had agreed to steer clear of Nicole Baxter. It hadn’t been a hardship for Griffin, of course, because of the single-mother thing. At least, it hadn’t until recently. The problem was, he thought, that he had too much free time. With nothing to do, naturally his brain was going to wander to a pretty woman. And of course his body was only too willing to remind him that he’d been so busy since Garrett’s marriage that dating and sex had taken a backseat.

      It didn’t help the situation any to know that while he was watching Nicole, she was watching him. And it wasn’t irritation he saw on her features as much as attraction. He wasn’t an idiot. He could tell when a woman was interested in him. Usually, he’d be the first one to make a move in this situation.

      Pretty woman. Close proximity. All good.

      And at least then he’d have something to do.

      But he knew boredom wasn’t Nicole’s problem. The woman seemed to be constantly in motion. When she came back out of the garage, awkwardly balancing a huge tray of brightly colored flowers, Griffin scowled. No doubt she wouldn’t thank him for his help, but he couldn’t just stay where he was and watch while she staggered under the heavy weight. He set his beer down and bolted from the hot tub. He was across the patio and through the gate separating the two yards an instant later.

      “Give me those,” he said, snatching the surprisingly heavy flat from her.

      Nicole swayed a bit when he took the carefully balanced weight from her so quickly. But she recovered fast. Lifting her gaze to his, she said, “I don’t need your help. I can manage on my own.”

      “Yeah, I know,” Griffin said amiably. “You are woman. You don’t need a man. Let’s just pretend we had this argument already and that you won. Now, where do you want me to put these?”

      He glanced around the yard, spotted the bags of potting soil and headed for them. The grass was warm and soft under his bare feet and water ran in rivulets down his legs from the hem of his bathing suit. The sun felt good on his back, in spite of the fact that he also felt Nicole’s gaze firing jagged pieces of ice at him.

      Setting the tray down, he straightened up and turned to find her standing where he’d left her, across the yard, Connor’s hand in hers. The tiny boy was grinning at him, but Nicole wasn’t. Shaking his head, Griffin asked, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

      “What?”

      “Accepting help,” he said.

      “I suppose not, and I should thank you even though I didn’t ask for your help or need it,” Nicole told him.

      “Well, very gracious. You’re welcome.”

      He laughed a little and headed back toward the fence, the hot tub and his beer. She’d made it clear enough that he wasn’t welcome on her side of the fence. So if he needed something to do later, he’d call his assistant again and bug the hell out of her.

      He was almost to the gate when her voice stopped him.

      “Griffin, wait.”

      He looked over his shoulder at her.