The Best Man's Proposal (The Hamilton Sisters)

by Wynter Daniels

  No one had ever kissed her like that before. She’d come apart at the seams as he teased and tasted, licked, and stroked. When he’d finally backed away, he’d left her breathless, desperate for more.

  And now she wanted him to kiss her again, just like that first night. He had the same thought. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in the air. All she could see was Grant; all she could smell was his clean, soapy scent. Nothing mattered but the two of them, that moment.

  Until she jumped at a sound in another part of the house.

  He must have heard it, too, because he glanced toward the bedroom door.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Probably not a turtle.”

  But before either of them could consider the source, two people burst into the room, wielding guns pointed straight at Grant and her.

  “Put your hands in the air!” the woman yelled.

  Chapter Five

  Grant shoved Niki behind him, shielding her from the gated community’s security guards. “Put those damn guns away.” God, he despised overzealous security personnel who watched too many police shows on TV.

  “Do what my partner told you,” the male guard said. The guy had to be seventy-five years old and about a hundred pounds overweight.

  Grant felt Niki trembling against him. He gritted his teeth. “Would you please lower those pistols and let me explain why we’re here? We were asked to take care of the owner’s pet turtle.”

  “Ha!” The female guard—a black woman who didn’t look old enough to drive, let alone carry a weapon—remained frozen in her stance.

  With a roll of his eyes, Grant held up his hands. “If you’ll just call the owner, he’ll tell you that Niki Hamilton is here with his permission.”

  The old man holstered his weapon. “Cops are on their way. We’ll let them decide what to do with you when they get you both in the slammer.”

  “The slammer?” Grant shook his head and almost laughed. Even his partner gave the man the side eye. “No one says that anymore. I’m not sure they ever did except in the movies.”

  The male security guard frowned. “Move out from behind your boyfriend, miss.”

  Niki did as she was told.

  “Police officer,” a male voice called from the foyer.

  “Finally.” Grant gave Niki what he hoped was a reassuring nod. “He’ll get this all cleared up, and we can leave.”

  The male security guard disappeared for a minute then returned with a real cop.

  Niki shuddered.

  “It’ll be fine,” Grant told her. “We’ll explain the situation, and he’ll send us on our way. Trust me.” Grant dealt with many police officers at work, but unfortunately, he didn’t know the middle-aged man who’d responded.

  The deep furrow in Niki’s brow told him that she wasn’t as confident as Grant, so he gave her what he hoped was a reassuring wink, which earned him the briefest smile.

  The cop whispered something to the female security guard that finally convinced her to holster her weapon. He had to admit, unlike her partner, she’d done her job in a professional, textbook fashion. Then the police officer came toward Grant and Niki. “Want to tell me what you two are doing here?”

  Grant gave the man their names and again explained the situation as the cop nodded, stopping a few times to speak into a radio at his shoulder.

  “Got any weapons on you?” the officer asked Grant.

  “Of course not.”

  The cop turned his attention to Niki. “And you, miss?”

  “Um, well…” Niki gulped loudly.

  What? Grant widened his eyes at her.

  “Place your hands behind your head and turn around, Niki. You too, Grant.” The officer moved his right hand within an inch of his holstered gun. “What do you have on you? Anything sharp that will stick me?”

  Damn it. Grant followed the cop’s instructions.

  “There’s a combination tool with a knife in my back pocket,” Niki said. “But I was only using it to try to get back the key I dropped. I swear this is my boss’s house.”

  “Yeah? Lots of people rob their employer’s residence.” The policeman patted her down.

  The male security guard came over. “I just got off the phone with the alarm company. They weren’t able to reach the owner.”

  “There’s an alarm?” Niki groaned. And a silent alarm at that. Even if she’d entered with the key, she couldn’t have avoided setting that off without knowing it existed and having the code. Who did Tristan think he was, Bill Gates? “Why didn’t he tell me that?”

  Grant inwardly winced. “Can you let Niki try to phone the owner?” It was worth a shot. He’d been around enough crime scenes to know that if something drastic didn’t happen, they were going to jail.

  The cop set Niki’s cell phone and a small Swiss Army knife on the night table, and then frisked Grant.

  Grant tipped his chin toward the tool. “That’s not even a weapon. It’s a…Crackerjack prize.”

  The officer nodded his agreement. “My wife has one. I’ll tell you what: you call the owner. Have him give you the alarm code word, then I’ll talk to him, and we’ll have him phone the security company so we can all be sure it’s him. Then we can get out of here.”

  The only problem was that the security company hadn’t been able to reach Tristan. It was their only chance though.

  The policeman watched Niki scroll to her boss’s number on her cell. “Put it on speaker,” he ordered her.

  “This is Tristan Montgomery. Leave a message, and I’ll ring you back at my earliest convenience.”

  Niki’s lower lip quivered. “Tristin, damn it, why didn’t you tell me there was an alarm on your house? Now the police are here. Call me. No, my phone’s almost dead. Call the Miami police, or your alarm company.”

  The cop relieved her of her phone. “Sorry, folks. I’m placing you both under arrest for breaking and entering.”

  Niki’s eyes brimmed with tears that ripped a hole in Grant’s chest. He took a step toward the policeman to read the name on his badge. “Look, Officer McCuskey, I work for Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue.” He pointed at the logo on his tee. “Seriously, this is a big misunderstanding.”

  McCuskey had his service revolver out and pointed at Grant in an instant. “Maybe it is, son, but I’m sure you don’t want to add Battery on a LEO to your charges, so if I were you, I’d back up, turn around, and put your hands behind your back.”

  Grant knew better than to argue.

  Niki let out a whimper as the officer used plastic quick cuffs to handcuff Grant. “Oh, God, Grant, I’m so sorry. Am I going to mess up your job with this?” She swiveled her head toward the officer. “Please let him go. He just came because I asked him to help me feed the damn turtle. He really loves animals.”

  “Now you, ma’am,” McCuskey told Niki.

  “Wait a second,” Grant said. “Can’t you let her go?” He’d seen the county jail when his unit had responded to calls there. It was no place for someone like Niki, even for a little while.

  But his request fell upon deaf ears. McCuskey took them to the jail, where Niki again attempted to phone Tristan. Grant couldn’t hear her conversation, although apparently she reached him because less than twenty minutes later both Grant and Niki were being un-arrested by McCuskey’s sergeant.

  Grant held open the glass door for Niki as they exited the building. “I’ll call a cab.”

  She shook her head. “Amy should be here soon. I texted her before my phone died. She’ll drop us at Tristan’s house. And I swear, if the turtle weren’t an innocent party to all of this, I would let her starve out of spite. But I still have to feed her.”

  Drawing a deep breath of humid afternoon air, he thought he detected a hint of urine wafting from the jail building. Not surprising. He had a sudden urge for a long shower. All Tristan’s fault. If he ever met the man in person, he was going to set his undoubtedly fancy car on fire and then tell all of the rescue squads across
the city to take their sweet damn time responding to his 911 call.

  Amy pulled up to the curb in a red Jetta and honked the horn.

  As soon as they got in the car, Niki gave Amy directions to Tristan’s house.

  “Did your boss apologize at least?” Amy asked.

  Grant, seated behind Amy, watched Niki. She raised her eyebrows at the question. “Well, technically it was my fault, not Tristan’s. But when I told him what a mess it had turned into, mostly because he hadn’t given me the alarm code, he backpedaled and said he was sorry.”

  Little consolation, Grant wanted to say, but he kept quiet. “Come on, Niki. Nothing about this was your fault.”

  Niki’s chuckle was unconvincing. “But here’s the thing. He didn’t have the alarm set on the front door, so he saw no need to tell me the alarm code. It was only the windows and other doors that were protected. He feels terrible. He told me to apologize to you, too, Grant.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Grant suspected she’d never find fault with anything Tristan did, regardless of how it impacted her. Fucking Tristan.

  When they arrived at Tristan’s house, Amy whistled her approval. “Damn, girl. I might be willing to forgive the guy for neglecting to give me an alarm code, too, if he lived in a place like this. Is he hot?”

  “He’s all right.” Niki let out a nervous cough, fishing her car keys out of her purse. “Thanks for the ride, Amy. I still have to go to Heatwave and pick up Tristan’s spare house key, so I can feed his stinkin’ turtle. I wish he’d answered the phone when I called the first time, so I’d have known he kept one there. That would have saved Grant and me a whole lot of hassle today.”

  Grant rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, that might have been nice to know.”

  After Amy drove off, he loaded his ladder into the bed of his truck then walked Niki to her car. “I hope Tristan appreciates you.” Like I do.

  “Me too.”

  He opened her car door.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she said.

  “Anything.”

  “Why’d you lower the price on your house?”

  He swallowed. “Last time I spoke to my mom, she told me that my dad’s health isn’t great. They need more help now with their farm.” A place where city-girl Niki would never consider being.

  “Is that the only reason?” Why did her eyes have to look so blue, and her lips so scarlet?

  He avoided her gaze. “Yeah, that’s it.” No reason he had to tell her that she was a big part of the cause, that being around her all the time and not kissing her was torture, that watching old musicals with her was the highlight of many of his days, and that seeing her play with his cat touched a part of his heart that he’d thought was dead.

  “Okay. Well, I’m sorry about today.”

  Starting away, he stopped. “Hey, what was the alarm code word?”

  Niki groaned. “Melanie.”

  Did he dare hope that Tristan had a woman in his life? Judging by Niki’s reaction, she didn’t care for whoever Melanie was. “Who’s that?”

  “The turtle.”

  “Too bad.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What does that mean?”

  Straightening, he realized he’d spoken his private thought aloud. “Nothing, sorry. I was…thinking about something else. See you later.”

  His feelings for Niki were messing with his head. He wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe it was good that he’d be getting away from her for a few days when he went home for his grandparents’ party. Deep inside, though, he knew the relief of not seeing her would be greatly outweighed by the empty hole her absence in his life would cause.

  He had to get used to it. Soon enough, Niki would be out of his life for good, like it or not.

  …

  Three days after the incident at Tristan’s house, Niki sat in a staff meeting at Heatwave while Tristan amused the troops with the story of her arrest and release. She pasted on a smile as her coworkers and her boss laughed until some of them cried. Little had she known that Tristan would share her embarrassment with everyone from vendors to the maintenance crew to the bar staff. She kept thinking Grant would never have done something so thoughtless.

  After Tristan adjourned the meeting, he gestured for Niki to join him in his office. Now that he’d humiliated her, did he plan to mete out some other punishment as well? She sat on the edge of a chair and braced herself for a demotion to file clerk or bar back. And if that was the case, she wasn’t going down without telling him exactly what kind of self-absorbed, manipulative pig he was. In fact, if he didn’t apologize to her, she was going to tell him anyway, demotion or not. “Yes, Tristan?”

  He leaned against his desk and stared down at her, frowning. She’d never noticed how small and close-set his eyes were. “I fear I’ve been too hard on you, love. I didn’t realize until I noticed how uncomfortable you looked in the meeting. And I’m sorry about not giving you the alarm code to my house. I hate that my omission caused you such grief. Please accept my heartfelt apologies.”

  Relief washed over her. She smiled in earnest for the first time since Tristan’s return to the club that morning, all of her earlier insults drifting away on his apology.

  “Accepted.”

  She still felt a tiny bit bitter at the hellish afternoon he’d put her and Grant through, but at least he’d had the decency to apologize. Maybe things were looking up.

  He shook his head. “Not good enough. Let me take you out. How about dinner tomorrow night?”

  Was he asking her out on a date? Eeeuw. She waited, hoping he’d make his intentions more clear.

  “Unless you already have plans.” Tristan sat behind his desk and reached into the mini-fridge there. For a moment, she thought he was going to offer her one of the high-end bottles of water he kept there, but after he took one for himself, he closed the fridge. “That bloke who helped you into my house and got arrested with you, was that your boyfriend? Because I wouldn’t want to step on his toes.”

  “Grant?” She let out a nervous laugh and racked her brain for the right answer. It wouldn’t be any big deal to say they were romantically linked in order to keep Tristan at bay. But if she did, would he nix sending her to London, thinking she’d have too many ties to Miami to do a good job? “He’s my roommate. It’s…platonic.”

  “Good. Tomorrow night, then?”

  “Tomorrow?” She remembered that she already had plans, the family dinner.

  “It’s the only night I take off from the club, especially after being away for five days. Are you busy?”

  “My family does a dinner out every month. It’s important to my aunt and my mother, so I try not to miss it.” She bit her lip and tried to think of a way she could go to the family dinner and out with Tristan the same night. She felt about as romantic toward him as she did the mop sitting in the janitorial closet. But being on friendlier footing with the man who could send her overseas couldn’t hurt, right?

  He rolled a pen between his fingers. “Are guests permitted at their dinner?”

  All the spouses came, of course. One more person wouldn’t be any biggie. “I’m sure that would be fine.”

  The moment she left work, she phoned her mom to make sure bringing Tristan would be okay.

  “Who is this guy?” Mom asked. “Is it serious between you two?”

  Her mother’s third degree would continue tomorrow, but she could handle it. “He’s just a friend. You’ll meet him at the restaurant.”

  As she left work later, she thought about how much she’d wanted Tristan to ask her out when she’d first met him. Now the prospect of dating him was about as exciting as dating Melanie the turtle. She’d seen another side of him now, like how when he brought donuts for the staff meetings he always grabbed the best one for himself before anyone else had a chance to take one. And how he didn’t have much compassion for employees who called in sick or late. In his defense, she was probably too soft to be the boss. That still didn’t excuse the donut thing, t
hough.

  Then again, she was probably comparing him to Grant, which would make just about any guy look like a devious troll in comparison. Captain Save-the-World would do the opposite in most instances. Where Tristan thought first of himself, Grant always put others—her—first. Tristan often talked down to her, while Grant talked her up.

  Sheesh. Something had to be wrong with the man. But after living with Grant for some time, she couldn’t see it. His chipped front tooth didn’t count, because it just made him look slightly adorable. The weird hours and worry of being at home while your guy was off fighting fires might be a deal-breaker for some people, but it was so tied to who he was, she couldn’t imagine him doing anything else.

  Oh, he did leave the toilet seat up more often than she’d like. There. There was a flaw.

  That and the fact that her future was in London, or if not there, in some other exciting city. Grant would settle down to a quiet life on the farm. And she’d rather lie down and let a flock of chickens trample her to death than live that life, even with the perfect man. She had to accept that their differences were too great.

  After a stop at Amy’s to get back the royal blue dress her friend had borrowed from her a few weeks ago, she headed home.

  Grant was in the living room, still in his work clothes, surrounded by an open sleeping bag, a tackle box, and two fishing poles. Sarge walked over everything, sniffing each item and exploring them with his paw.

  “Cleaning out the garage?” she asked.

  “Camping this weekend. Want to join me? I’ve got a pole for you.” He threw her a playful grin.

  She laughed at his innuendo but refused to comment. Thinking about the two of them alone at some secluded lake with nothing and no one to interrupt them… Erotic excitement danced up her spine—a lot more than Tristan managed to elicit in her when he’d asked her out. She shook off the image. “I…don’t camp or fish, but thanks for the invitation. My plans are a bit more typical city girl.” She held up the dress. “A family dinner at The Citrus Club tomorrow.”