The Man Next Door

by Gina Wilkins

  “What?”

  “Would you like to go with me?”

  Chapter Six

  Teague wasn’t entirely sure he’d understood her correctly. “You’re asking me to go with you? To Atlanta?”

  She nodded. “I don’t like the thought of leaving you here alone, especially in the condition you’re in. I’m driving to Atlanta tomorrow morning, and I plan to come back Saturday or Sunday. My family would love to have you join us for Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “You’re asking me to join your family for Thanksgiving.”

  “Why do you keep repeating that?” she asked somewhat impatiently.

  “I guess I’m just having a little trouble believing you would take me all the way to Atlanta to horn in on your holiday plans with your family just because you’d worry about me if you left me here.”

  She shrugged, looking a bit self-conscious. “I would do the same for Mrs. Parsons or Hannah if they were injured and alone for the holiday. My family loves having company. They’re nice people, even though my mother and grandmother tend to be overly curious—and have a little trouble respecting privacy boundaries at times. But if they get too nosy, all you have to do is change the subject and they usually get the message. I think you’d like my brother-in-law, Mark, and he’d enjoy having another guy besides my kid brother there to talk to. So, will you think about it?”

  Teague had a firm rule about spending holidays with other people’s families. He tended to avoid doing so at almost any cost. He was perfectly content spending Thanksgivings and Christmases and Fourth of Julys and Arbor Days the way he spent every other day of the year. Content with his own company for the most part, working and hanging out with friends when he felt like it. Eating takeout or the simple meals he prepared for himself, maybe going to one of his favorite diners or fast-food joints. When he was in the mood for family, he went to Florida to see his stepmother, the only family he had left. That was fine with him.

  Going to other people’s family events was weird and awkward. When he went with his guy friends, he got grilled as to why he hadn’t married and started a family of his own by now. When he accompanied a woman friend, everyone started making unfounded assumptions about their relationship. It was just easier all around to routinely, politely decline all such invitations.

  So why was he tempted to bend his own rules this time? Why did Dani’s concern for him touch him so much that he was reluctant to turn her down? “I don’t know…”

  Looking down at her plate, she shrugged a little and said brusquely, “I’d understand if you’d rather not. I’m not big on spending time with strangers myself. I just wanted to make the offer, if you’d be interested. And when I told my mother that I have a friend who’s been hurt and has no place else to go for the holiday, she insisted I invite you to join us.”

  “That’s very kind of you both.”

  She shrugged again. “It’s not entirely unselfish on my part,” she confessed. “I’d enjoy the company for the drive. And you’d be a shield, of sorts, between me and my family. I mean, I love them dearly, but they drive me crazy sometimes. Giving them someone else to focus on would keep them from obsessing about my business for a change.”

  He grinned, cheered somehow by her admission. As much as he disliked being seen as injured and alone, which sounded kind of pitiful, he didn’t particularly mind being used as a human shield between her and her family. For some reason, that made him feel a little more manly. Still not entirely inclined to accept, however.

  He actually started to decline. But then it occurred to him that if he accepted, he would be spending eight—no, sixteen hours alone in a car with Dani. That could be both risky and intriguing. Because he had never been afraid of taking risks and had always been drawn to the intriguing, he was tempted to accept, despite the family-dinner thing.

  “Let me think about it,” he requested.

  “Of course. I did sort of spring it on you, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah. Kind of. Are you sure you want me to go with you?”

  “Yes,” she said immediately, then added a bit more hesitantly, “I think so.”

  She couldn’t be less positive—and she made no particular effort to hide it. And oddly enough, that pleased him again. He wanted her to be honest with him. She wasn’t at all certain about inviting him to her home for Thanksgiving, but she had done so for a variety of reasons she probably didn’t want to examine too closely herself.

  He liked not being the only one conflicted about their developing relationship. He liked having her care about whether he would be alone for Thanksgiving. He liked her—very much. And that realization made him almost as reluctant to accept her invitation as he was tempted.

  Deciding to take time to talk himself out of it, he finished his dinner in near silence. Dani didn’t have much to say, either. Whether she was regretting her invitation, he couldn’t say, but he would bet she was having second thoughts. And third, and probably fourth.

  “Oh, I made dessert,” she said, after she had cleared away their emptied dinner plates. She turned away and in a few moments returned with a small plate that she slid in front of him. “Chocolate pie. I hope you like it.”

  He took one look at the meringue-topped treat and said, “Okay, I’ll go.”

  She paused on her way to refill his tea glass. “Um, what?”

  “I said I’ll go.” He picked up his fork. “I hope your family doesn’t really mind an extra guest at the Thanksgiving table.”

  Turning to face him fully, she asked, “What made you decide?”

  He scooped a bite of creamy chocolate and meringue into his mouth and almost sighed in pleasure. “I really like chocolate pie.”

  “You’re going to Atlanta because I made you chocolate pie?”

  He shrugged, already slicing into the dessert again. “It’s as good a reason as any.”

  “You think?”

  “Mmm.” He swallowed. “I think. Good pie.”

  She set his refilled glass on the table. “I’m leaving at 6:00 a.m.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “My, um—my mother’s probably going to assume we’re a couple. No matter how much we insist we’re just friends. And she probably won’t trust you right away. Don’t let it bother you, okay? I’ve got sort of a…well, a history of getting involved with the wrong type of man, so she has good reason to be suspicious. And no, I don’t want to talk about my past. I just want you to be warned.”

  “Your mom will hate me. Okay, I’ll brace myself for that.”

  “She won’t hate you. She’ll just be a little wary of you.”

  “That won’t last long. Not once she gets a taste of my irresistible charm.”

  This time her laugh was more natural. “Well, there is that.”

  He grinned up at her after swallowing the last bite of pie. “It never fails.”

  Seeming to take that as a challenge, she raised her eyebrows. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Then we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” he murmured, lifting his tea glass to his lips with a slight smile.

  Dani made sure Teague was as comfortable as possible in her vehicle for the long drive the next morning, pushing the passenger seat back as far as it would go, propping his injured foot on a soft pillow, providing a U-shaped pillow to cradle his head. A plastic cup of cold water with a built-in straw sat in one of the two drink holders at his elbow, within easy reach, and she’d even brought oatmeal-raisin cookies for a quick snack if he got hungry along the way. She’d brought that morning’s newspaper, a couple of Sudoku books and a few audio discs of recent bestselling mystery novels for his entertainment.

  “Is there anything else you need before we get under way?” she fretted when he was settled and belted in to the passenger seat.

  “How about a big-screen TV and a football game broadcast?” he asked ironically. “Surround-sound speakers? Scantily clad cheerleaders to serve me beer and nachos?”

  “Very funny,” she mut
tered, fastening her own seat belt with a loud click.

  “I’m fine,” he assured her. “You’ve thought of everything I could possibly need. I’m hardly an invalid, you know.”

  She shrugged self-consciously. “Still, you can’t be comfortable strapped into that seat with all your injuries. I just wanted to make the trip as tolerable as possible.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ve made much less comfortable trips in much worse condition.”

  She couldn’t help wondering about his background. Just how many dangerous or uncomfortable situations had his job placed him in? Maybe it was better if she didn’t know.

  She had worried about the long hours trapped alone in a car with him. Had been concerned that it might be awkward. Stilted. Boring, maybe. It turned out it was none of those things. When they talked, it was easy, casual, entertaining. When they didn’t, it was comfortable. Pleasant.

  They listened to music, they argued cheerfully about the best musical groups of the past decade, they discovered some tastes they had in common, others that couldn’t be more diverse.

  They tried a book-on-disc, but neither could concentrate on it enough to enjoy it, so they turned it off and put the music back on. They munched on cookies and reminisced about some of their favorite treats from childhood. And then they just rode in silence, enjoying the passing scenery.

  Dani stopped every couple of hours to stretch her legs, since she was doing all the driving. Teague apologized for not being able to help with that, but the pain pills he was taking were not recommended for driving. He should be able to drive part of the way back, he added, saying that he had no intention of taking the pills for more than a day or two.

  Dani assured him that she didn’t mind driving. She actually enjoyed it, she added.

  “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a compact SUV type,” Teague commented, shifting his long legs into a more comfortable position in the space provided. “I’d have thought you’d drive something sportier.”

  She thought wistfully of the atomic-red wannabe sports car she had driven in Atlanta. She had sold it to help finance her move, and had bought this little, used SUV from her sister, who had upgraded to a larger model for hauling all the things she needed for her decorating business. “Yes, well, I got a good deal on this one,” she said vaguely. “I like your car, by the way.”

  He chuckled. “Totally impractical, of course. But I saw it and fell in love. I downgraded a lot of things earlier this year, selling a bunch of stuff I just didn’t need anymore, moving into a less expensive apartment, putting more money into retirement funds—but I just couldn’t give up my car.”

  “Was there a particular reason for that transformation?” she asked, thinking of the drastic changes she’d made in her own life last year.

  Shrugging, he said, “I realized I was spending everything I was making and not doing a very good job of planning for the future. I guess when I turned thirty-five earlier this year, I realized I wasn’t going to be young forever. FBI agents don’t exactly get rich, you know,” he added with a wry laugh. “I like my job, but I didn’t go into it for the money. I was paying for a fancy condo I hardly ever slept in, owned more stuff than any single guy needed and generally acted like there was no tomorrow. So…I made some changes.”

  “Sounds sort of like what I did when I moved to Little Rock,” she murmured. “I had to make some changes, too. Moving away from my family, going back to school, starting my own part-time business—those were all things I needed to do to feel like an independent adult.”

  She saw from her peripheral vision that he had turned his head on the high back of his seat to study her profile. “I wouldn’t have thought being independent was a problem for you. You seem to take care of yourself pretty well.”

  She heard the slightly bitter edge to her laugh. He would very likely learn a bit too much about her during the next few days. She saw no need to share too much just now. “So, turning thirty-five was a life-changing event for you, huh?”

  He grimaced. “Yeah, you could say that. My so-called buddies threw me a surprise party. Black balloons. ‘Over-the-hill’ decorations. A cake shaped like a gravestone with my name and birth date on it. ‘Clever’ gag gifts that included things like denture paste and adult diapers.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Exactly. I decided I needed some new friends while I was making changes.”

  She could tell he was only kidding about the last part. Mostly.

  “Yeah. Me, too.” And she was only half joking, as well.

  “You know, the more time we spend together, the more it seems we have in common.”

  She laughed shortly. “The FBI agent and the piano teacher? Hardly.”

  He rode in silence for a few minutes, then asked quietly, “Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you to make you leave Atlanta?”

  She glanced at him in surprise. “I told you. I moved to Little Rock to get my degree in music education.”

  “There’s a lot more to it than that.” He wasn’t smiling now. “I’m not trying to pry. Exactly. I’m just trying to understand you a little better.”

  She focused intently on the road ahead. “I’m not that hard to understand.”

  “You think?”

  She shrugged. “I’m a piano teacher and a college student. Hardly an enigma.”

  He reached out to brush a strand of hair away from her cheek, leaving a shiver behind. “I would guess that there’s a lot more to you than that.”

  “Yes, well, you’d be mistaken. Oh, I like this song,” she said without pausing, reaching out to turn up the volume on the radio. “I’m a big Foo Fighters fan.”

  After only a beat, he chuckled and said, “Bet you can’t say that three times fast.”

  She appreciated that he’d decided to take the hint that she didn’t really want to talk about her past. She was basically taking him there, for pity’s sake. Wasn’t that revealing enough?

  Dani had told Teague when they’d left Little Rock that they would be staying with her sister and brother-in-law rather than her mother during the visit. “Mark and Rachel have more room,” she had explained. “They’re leaving for a visit with his family in Alabama on Friday, but they told us to stay through Sunday, if we want, at their place.”

  “Nice of them. Your family wouldn’t mind if you and I stayed at your sister’s house alone?”

  Dani had looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I’m twenty-eight years old, Teague. They know that if you and I were going to sleep together, we’d do it in Little Rock where we live across the hall from each other.”

  Teague thought of that conversation as Dani drove into the driveway of a tidy red brick Georgian home just outside Atlanta late that afternoon. It was a nice neighborhood filled with similar houses, all of which might as well have been marked with signs proclaiming “young professionals on the rise.” He remembered that Dani’s brother-in-law was a physician, having become a partner in a family-practice clinic just over a year ago. Dani’s sister had met him when he’d hired her to decorate his new home, and they had married not long afterward.

  “Nice place,” he commented as Dani turned off the engine.

  “Yes, it is. Rachel’s done a beautiful job of decorating it, and Mark hired a landscaper to put in all these flower beds. It’s pretty now, but it’s even prettier in the summer when the flowers are in bloom.”

  “Is this what you want, eventually?” he asked impulsively. “An impressive house in a soccer-mom community? Couple of kids to fill some of those bedrooms?”

  “What makes you ask that now?”

  He shrugged and reached for his door handle. “I was just wondering if you’re jealous of your sister. Not having any brothers or sisters of my own, I’m always curious about the dynamics of sibling rivalry.”

  Did that sound as inane to her as it did to him? He didn’t really care about sibling rivalry in general—he was just curious about how Dani felt about her sister. The simple fact was, he was interested in
everything about Dani, and he wasn’t sure he was doing a very good job of hiding that fact.

  “I’m not jealous of my sister,” Dani muttered when they met at the front of the car. “I’m happy for her, but I don’t want her life.”

  He wondered if that was really true. If so, just what did Dani want for her own future?

  The front door opened before they even had a chance to make it to the porch. A woman rushed out to greet them, a huge smile on her face as she ran toward Dani. Teague had time only to note that she had brown hair and eyes, that she was attractive, though not as striking as Dani. He also saw how overjoyed she seemed to see her sister for the first time in several months.

  The women hugged while he stood back, watching, studying Dani’s face and trying to read the nuances of her expression. And then they turned to him. Extremely self-conscious of his battered face, he tilted his still-sore mouth into a smile. He knew he didn’t exactly look like the kind of guy anyone would want their sister to bring home for the holidays. Even if he was just a friend.

  “Rachel, this is my friend Teague McCauley. Teague, my sister, Rachel Brannon.”

  So this was how a nematode felt beneath a microscope. He didn’t remember ever being examined more closely—and he hadn’t even met Dani’s mother and grandmother yet, he remembered uncomfortably. “It’s nice to meet you, Rachel.”

  She shook his hand. “Dani told us you’re an FBI agent and you were hurt on your job. I can see she understated the extent of your injuries.”

  “It looks worse than it is,” he assured her, ignoring the myriad stabbing pains resulting from the long car ride. The thought of a hot drink and a horizontal surface was incredibly seductive at the moment, but he could bluff his way through a couple of hours of socializing. He wasn’t going to fall on his face anytime soon. He hoped.

  “I should hope so. Come inside. I’m sure you’d like to freshen up from your trip. I’ve just put on a fresh pot of coffee, if you’d like some.”

  “I would like that very much,” Teague replied gratefully, deciding right then that he and Rachel Brannon were going to be friends. He’d been fantasizing about coffee for the past hour.