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"I'm heading home." Mikayla sighed in resignation as she stared back at her stillsilent friend. "I'm taking your advice."
"It's about time," Deirdre informed Mikayla. "Give him hell, sweetheart. He might walk away, but I promise, he'll never forget you."
Just as she wouldn't forget him. She had a very bad feeling he was going to become the one who got away no matter what she did. Her reaction to him went too deep; her need for him was too strong.
She could have done without whatever quirk of fate had set Nik in her path. She could have happily lived her life not knowing such pleasure existed. No, she amended. She couldn't have. She wouldn't have wanted to miss this, wouldn't have wanted to exist in a state of ignorance. She knew now why no relationship she'd had so far had worked. Because that kind of incredible pleasure had been missing. And now it was walking right out of her life before she'd ever known what it was supposed to be.
Nik watched from behind the sheer curtains of the window looking out to the front of the house as Mikayla's Jeep pulled into the drive next door. She was dressed as pristinely as ever, he noticed as she walked to her front door. That beautiful long wheat gold hair was done expertly in a French braid that fell down her back, only her bangs left uncontained. The soft summer sleeveless blouse she wore in a soft cream complemented the mint green above-the-knees skirt and cream-colored heels 76
she wore. Her purse was the same mint green as her skirt.
Damn woman was always color coordinated and perfectly put together. She gave the impression that there wasn't a damned thing in hell that could ruffle her perfectly layered feathers.
Until he got her aroused.
She burned in a man's arms then.
Or rather, she burned in his arms.
"Nelson's son came to her shop before she left," Eleanor Longstrom, the owner of the antique store across the street from Mikayla's, stated behind him. Eleanor had no idea who or what Nik was a part of, despite her former classified position with the CIA before her retirement ten years ago.
All Eleanor knew was that she had been "asked" to cooperate with Travis Caine and Nik Steele when they had been in town several weeks before. Nik had pulled her in for intel this time as well, knowing one set of eyes wouldn't be nearly enough. It was the reason she had arrived this evening, to deliver information, unaware that he was leaving and that, as far as he was concerned, this job was completed.
"Do you know why he was there?" Nik asked as he glanced over his shoulder at the spritely grandmotherly woman who watched him with a knowing smile.
"He was rather angry, I heard," she stated. "I stepped in and spoke to Deirdre when Mikayla left. Luke was very insulting. He seemed to believe Mikayla was lowering herself to sleep with you."
Why did he want to know this? And why was he listening?
Nik grunted at the thought. "She just arrived home," he mused. "Where did she go after she left the shop?"
"She stopped by her father's office for a while," Eleanor reported. "Her mother was there. Mikayla and her parents are very close. Any man Mikayla falls in love with, or begins seeing seriously, will have to become close with her family." Another reason to leave, Nik thought. He wasn't a family man--at least he wasn't anymore. He was a loner now. Mikayla didn't need a man who had sworn to never put down roots again.
"This isn't my business," he told Eleanor. "I'm leaving."
"And that's a shame." Eleanor sighed. "She needs you right now. If for no other reason than to figure out what is going on."
"She's in a hell of a mess," Nik stated as he st
epped back from the window. "No one believes Maddix killed his foreman. Hell, even I don't believe it was Maddix she saw. But I don't believe she was lying. There are no leads, no suspects. It's a dead end."
"Mikayla's not a liar." Eleanor shrugged her graceful shoulders as she watched Nik with thoughtful blue eyes. "I used to babysit her father, and I've known Mikayla all her life. She's not as wild as her brothers and they're all basically honest, but Mikayla holds herself to a higher standard. She always has. She's a good girl, Nik, and she's in trouble."
"Is that a warning, Mrs. Longstrom?" He arched his brow at the disapproving look on her face.
Her lips tightened.
"On second thought, I think it's a good thing for Mikayla that you're leaving," Eleanor said somberly. "She doesn't deserve a broken heart along with the rest of the 77
trouble she's had to deal with."
No, she didn't. And Nik didn't need to add to the regrets in his life, either.
"Do you have any further information?" Nik asked, making certain his tone indicated that their meeting was over.
"There's nothing more to report, Nik." She shook her head, the short cut of her gray hair brushing against the nape of her neck. "But as I told you when you arrived, Maddix was definitely in that meeting when Eddie Foreman was killed. It was an impromptu meeting that arose when the council members learned property they had been trying to buy for a city project was coming up for sale. It was actually arranged within hours of the actual meeting. Maddix has several neighbors who witnessed their arrival as well as the fact that Maddix answered the door himself when each arrived." There had to be something he was missing, Nik thought. He'd investigated this as far as he could go. His job was to find out why Mikayla would lie about what she had seen. He couldn't give an answer, because she was certain she had seen Maddix. It was unfortunate that Nik hadn't been able to resolve the problem and whoever had killed Eddie Foreman had gotten away with it.
"I'm leaving now," Eleanor announced. "If you need anything else, then you only have to let me know. It's unfortunate you can't stick around and figure out who murdered Eddie. He wasn't always a nice person, but he didn't deserve to be murdered."
