“Well, you should!” Jill cried. “You could be the one to lead that poor man out of the fog of his grief. You could be the one to change his life.” She pinned her with a look. “Kellie, you could be the one.”
“The one,” she repeated. “Oh, good grief. Who says I want to be the one? Anyone’s one? I happen to like being single.”
“You’re all about your career,” she said knowingly. “Well, okay then. But just so you know, there isn’t a single woman in this mall, sixteen to sixty, who wouldn’t die to go out with him.”
“I’d like to think he would bypass the sixteen-year-old,” Kellie observed. “If not, wouldn’t that be against the law?”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Jill muttered impatiently. “I’m just telling you that he’s a catch. I’ve never heard a negative word about the man. He’s chivalrous when chivalry is dead.”
She pondered that briefly. Chivalrous? Had she mistaken chivalry for sarcasm or condescension? She shrugged off the question. “Well, it’s back to work for me,” she said brightly.
Jill sighed heavily as she returned to her office. But her assistant wasn’t above a final, parting shot. “You could be the one!”
Chapter Three
Kellie ran a hand across her brow, leaving a trail of black gunk on her forehead. She caught sight of the glue-like grease on her hand as she attempted to put one metal frame bed piece at a ninety degree angle to another, in hopes the two might magically fit.
“Arrgggh,” she groaned. “Nothing fits.” She swiped her hand on her jeans, leaving a trail of gunk on them too.
Rising up from her bedroom floor, she glanced around the room. It was spacious, with a huge walk-in closet, attached master bathroom, and bay window. While the perimeter of the room was a study in chic, the interior currently housed a heap of bed frame components, as well as the assembly instructions. They were splayed out in sequential order, but unfortunately, nothing seemed to make sense to her.
“How hard can it be?” she muttered in frustration. “It’s a square, for heaven’s sakes.”
She surveyed her meager collection of tools and decided she’d better retrieve her tool box from the trunk of her car. She spun on her heel and hurried out of the bedroom, down a long hall, past her great room and kitchen, and out the front door. Since she was engrossed in studying the grease on her hands, she didn’t see the man step out of the condo nearest hers—until she collided with him.
She felt as if she’d run smack into a rock wall, her forehead taking the brunt of the impact. Had it not been for two strong arms reaching out to steady her, she might have taken a backwards tumble into the still open doorway of her condo.
“Careful there!” warned a cheerful, deeply masculine voice.
Shaken by the encounter, Kellie glanced up and found herself face to face with … Miles Blake. A broad grin crossed his handsome face. “Hi,” he said, still holding onto her arms.
Kellie suddenly registered who had a hold of her. “Oh, hi.”
When he didn’t immediately release her, she realized he was watching her intently, as if assessing whether their collision had injured her in some way. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, I’m good. You can let go.”
“Are you sure?” He cocked his head, studying her with concern. “You seem a little…”
She laughed and gave a dismissive wave. “No brain injury,” she assured him. “I’m just preoccupied.”
“I see that. Anything I can do?”
“Nope.” She roused herself. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
The instant she said the words, she realized they didn’t sound particularly friendly, and might even be construed as suspicion on her part—as if she might be thinking he was some kind of a stalker.
He finally released her, but kept his hands poised in front of her for a brief few seconds, apparently in case she toppled over. He hitched a thumb at the door just across from her front door. “I was just dropping Daniel off,” he told her, and then glanced at her open door. “Do you live here?”
“Just moved in. So Daniel and his mother are my neighbors?”
He nodded. “Yes, they are.”
“I was just on my way to my car to grab my tool box,” she said.
He weighed the declaration with a nod. “So your plans for the evening involve a tool box.”
She gave him a curious look, unsure what he meant by the remark, but suddenly, his meaning hit her like a mallet upside her head. “Oh.” She chuckled ruefully. “Okay, so my plans aren’t particularly exciting, since they do involve my toolbox, but…” She raised a finger for emphasis. “If I’m going to get off my air mattress and onto a real mattress tonight…”
“No need to explain,” he assured her. “Need any help?”
“I don’t want to impose…” she said, letting the words hang in the air.
“It’s not a problem. Why don’t I have a look and then we’ll assess which tools we need.”
She turned to enter her condo, when he spun on his heel and began jogging away. He turned back briefly and called out, “Be right back.”
She watched after him, and her eyes widened when he crossed the street and entered the condo directly across from her own. He was gone all of two minutes. When he retuned to find her waiting in her doorway, he grinned. “By the way, I’m your neighbor too.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond. So he was her neighbor? Talk about a coincidence. But then, she realized the condominiums were ideally located, being so close to the mall.
Her unit’s close proximity had been the reason she had selected it. If need be, she could easily walk to work. Perhaps its nearness to his workplace was the same reason he had chosen to live in this particular condominium community, she speculated.
“Well, this is a surprise,” she said with a smile. “We’re … neighbors.”
He nodded. “I think you’ll like it here,” he told her. “The community has great amenities, and my squad car parked across the way serves as a handy, dandy deterrent to would-be burglars.”
“Good to know,” she said, nodding her head up and down in measured intervals. “Does that mean, in the event of an emergency, I can call you rather than 911?”
Kellie immediately regretted the question. It sounded like a flirtatious question, and she truly hadn’t intended it to. She felt her cheeks flame with embarrassment.
She suspected he noticed, since he smiled. “I’m at your disposal,” he said agreeably, meeting her gaze.
She gulped. Since he was standing so close to her, she realized his proximity was doing strange things to her pulse rate. What was wrong with her? she wondered. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t met attractive men before. She met them all the time in her line of work.
But as far as serious romantic entanglements, she’d avoided them like the plague. Career came first—always had. Much to her mother’s chagrin, her single-minded devotion to her job had assured her success and she had, at the age of twenty-nine, achieved her lifelong goal—to be a mall manager before the dawn of her thirtieth birthday.
She was lost to her thoughts and didn’t realize Miles was watching her curiously. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
To her surprise, he reached a hand toward her and gently scrubbed his thumb across her forehead. The gesture, although anything but sexual, still caused her heart to give an erratic thump. She pulled back as if she’d been scorched.
He gave her an even more curious glance. “You have a black mark on your forehead,” he explained. “Looks like some kind of grease.”
“Oh,” was all she could manage, and then she roused herself. “You’re out of uniform,” she announced.
He grinned. “Yes. I usually change out of my uniform when I’m not working. Are … you … sure you’re okay?”
Kellie didn’t immediately respond, but instead, studied him without realizing she was doing it. Curiously, she found him even more imposing dressed in civilian clothing than
she had when he was in uniform. He wore jeans and a teal t-shirt and she could more easily see the breadth of his muscular chest and the impressive size of his biceps. Although the t-shirt was loose fitting and didn’t hug his stomach, there was no disguising the six pack beneath the fabric.
He eyed her with concern. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“No. Yes. I mean, I’m not used to seeing you out of uniform.”
Did she really just say that? She nearly groaned. What a ridiculous thing to say.
“You’re not used to seeing me in my uniform,” he pointed out with a chuckle. “We just met today.”
Her cheeks really flamed then. She raised a tentative hand to her head. “Maybe I did sustain a brain injury,” she remarked absently. Her eyes widened when she found a goose egg had erupted on her forehead. “Ouch,” she murmured.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, startling her when he gently probed her forehead with his fingers.
“It’s fine,” she assured him, pulling back. “What’s a little frontal lobe damage?” He grimaced and she laughed. “I’m fine, really.”
He still watched after her with concern as he followed her inside the condo. She gestured toward the stacks of unpacked boxes. So far, she had only unpacked the bare essentials. “Excuse the mess.”
“Moving is a big job,” he said with understanding. “I like your place.” He flashed a quick grin. “But then, I should, since it’s exactly like mine.”
“Really?”
“Yep, but my kitchen is…” He surveyed the space and aimed a finger to the opposite wall. “My kitchen is over there.”
Kellie paused briefly to study the space. “I love it,” she said with a smile. “I can’t wait to start painting and making it my own.”
“Adding your personal stamp.”
She nodded. “Yes.” She directed him toward her bedroom, but he made a beeline for her freezer.
“Any ice up here?” he asked.
“There’s a dispenser on the door,” she told him.
“Do you have a zip loc bag?”
“I might.” She began ruffling through a box in the kitchen and found a small box of sandwich bags. She pulled one out. “Will this work?”
He nodded and took it from her. He filled it with ice, sealed it, and to her surprise, crossed the distance between them and held the ice bag against her forehead.
“Oh, that’s what you wanted it for,” she said. “I didn’t see that coming.”
He searched her face then. He held up two fingers. “How many fingers?” he asked urgently.
“Four,” she told him, biting back a chuckle.
His eyes widened in alarm and he looked so stricken, Kellie quickly corrected herself. “Kidding! Two. You’re holding up two fingers.”
He heaved a sigh of relief. “For a second there, I figured we’d be spending the next several hours at the hospital having your brain scanned.”
“I have a hard head,” she assured him. “I have brothers.”
He gave her a puzzled glance.
“My brothers were forever conking me upside my head. I managed to live through it.”
He gave a rueful laugh. “I have little sisters. I barely lived through it.”
She continued toward the bedroom, where Miles promptly scooped up the instructions to the bed frame. “Looks easy enough,” he said finally. When she gave him a chagrined glance, he smiled. “Er, I mean, wow, this looks complicated.”
“That’s better,” she murmured. “At least pretend I’m not a moron.”
“Hey, enough of that talk,” he said with a chuckle, and then quickly got down to business. He had the frame assembled in no time.
He was just finishing up tightening the last bolt attaching the headboard to the frame when Kellie heard her doorbell ring. It wasn’t until she swung open the door and saw the delivery man holding out a pizza to her that she remembered she’d called in an order. “Oh, hold on just a sec,” she told him.
She quickly retrieved her purse and paid him. After depositing the pizza box onto the island in her kitchen, she hurried back to check on Miles. She found him wiping black gunk off his hands. “All done,” he told her. “Where’s your mattress?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll put the bed together later.”
“Really, it’s not a problem. Why don’t we get it done?”
She glanced back toward the kitchen. “I ordered a pizza earlier and it’s here. Are you hungry?”
He smiled. “Looks like you’re springing for dinner after all.”
“It’s the least I can do,” she said. “I really appreciate…”
He waved off her gratitude. “Not a problem.”
She directed him to the only piece of furniture in her living room—her sofa, while she pulled up a box to serve as a table and then retrieved paper plates and the pizza. After putting the items onto the makeshift table, she grabbed sodas from the refrigerator. “I hope you like root beer,” she said, “since it’s all I’ve got.”
“Root beer’s great.”
The two visited while they ate the pepperoni pizza, and Kellie found herself enjoying Miles’ company. She learned he’d been a deputy for twelve years, and had been a commander for the last two of those years.
“What’s next for you?” she asked. “Do you plan on continuing your rise up the chain of command?”
He considered the question. “I’m not sure. I like where I’m at. How about you? What’s next? The Mall of America?”
She chuckled. “You never know.”
They sat companionably for a moment longer, but he startled her when he reached out to check the bump on her head. Suddenly, he rose to retrieve a napkin, which he doused with dish soap. He returned and began gently scrubbing the black mark off her forehead. She quickly took the rag from him.
“What the heck is that stuff?” he said.
“Something off the bed frame,” she told him. “Why?”
“It’s stubborn, and I want a look at the goose egg on your head. If I’m not mistaken, it’s turning an angry shade of purple.”
“Ah, well,” she said dismissively. “I’ll live.”
Just the same, she rose and went to the powder room to check out the damage. She gasped. She looked horrible. She’d forgotten she was dressed in well-worn jeans, an old t-shirt, and socks that had seen better days. By the time her eyes traveled to her forehead, she’d already decided she looked a fright. But the knot on the forehead added emphasis to her rough appearance.
She hastily scrubbed away the rest of the stubborn grease, exposing the lump that was indeed purple. She hadn’t realized how hard a blow she’d sustained. When she returned to Miles, his eyes widened. “Great,” he muttered worriedly, “welcome to the neighborhood.”
“It’s nothing,” she assured him. “Besides, it was my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“What day is it?” he demanded.
She gave him a puzzled glance. “Uh, Thursday. Wait, no, it’s Friday.”
“Name the president of the United States.”
She shook her head. “Really, I’m fine.”
He appeared skeptical, and he continued watching her carefully as they finished eating. Once they were done, she put the leftovers in the fridge.
“Let’s get that bed put together,” he said.
“Oh, it can wait,” she told him, suddenly feeling tired. “One more night on the floor isn’t going to kill me.”
He shook his head adamantly. “It’s going to be cold tonight. You’d be better off in a warm bed, off the floor.”
His concern was so genuine, she couldn’t help smiling. “If you’re sure you don’t mind…”
“Not at all. Where’s the box spring and mattress?”
She had hauled both into the second bedroom, and directed him to it. He retrieved the items one at a time and had the bed assembled in moments, refusing to let her help. He even assisted her in putting on the sheets and blankets.
>
“No comforter?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I have my eye on a new one at the linen store in the mall.”
She led the way back to the living room, where she glanced around. Suddenly, she felt self-conscious again, particularly when she discovered him watching her. To her surprise, he took her hand and led her toward the front door. He paused and met her questioning gaze. “Grab your keys.”
She gave him another puzzled glance. “Where are we going?”
“To my place,” he told her. “What is it they say? If someone has a head injury, they shouldn’t sleep for an hour.”
“I didn’t plan on sleeping in the next hour,” she told him, and then frowned. “Wait, I think you’re thinking of swimming after eating. Don’t they say you shouldn’t swim for an hour after you’ve eaten?”
He looked puzzled. “Yeah, I’ve heard that. But I’m sure I’ve also heard something about it being a bad idea to sleep soon after sustaining a blow to the head.”
“Well, either way, I don’t plan on sleeping anytime soon.”
“I don’t know,” he said worriedly. “You look tired to me.”
She raised a hand to smooth her hair back. “Well, I mean, I know I look awful, but…”
He gave her an alarmed glance. “You do not look awful. Injured, but not awful.” He searched her face and his lips twitched into a smile. “Definitely not awful.”
Some sort of silent communication passed between them, something charged with the current of what she later realized was attraction, but at that moment, Kellie couldn’t discern what it was or what it meant. Maybe the blow to her head had made her slow on the uptake. She had just met him and he was a distraction she suspected she could do without, considering she was just starting a new job. She needed focus. Focus.
She shook off her concerns for the time being. “Why is it we’re going to your place?” she asked, hoping for clarification. “I can stay awake at home as well as at your place, I would think.”
“I have ice cream,” he said succinctly.
She weighed his answer with a nod of her head. “Oh. Good.”
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