Date Next Door

“My mother’s best friend. Polly Albright.”

“You don’t like her?”

“I wouldn’t want to say that, exactly,” he hedged. “She has a good heart. And she’s been a very good friend to my mother.”

“But…?”

He sighed. “You’ll just have to wait and see for yourself, I guess. But brace yourself for an inquisition. Polly has no sense of boundaries when it comes to finding out what she wants to know.”

“That seems to be fairly common around here,” Nic murmured.

He shrugged as he guided the car into one of the two garage bays. “It’s pretty common in any town, isn’t it? You know there are more than a few die-hard gossips back home.”

“True. I guess I’m just not accustomed to being the focus of their attention. They generally consider me too boring to talk about.”

“Yeah, well, they know you too well there,” he teased lightly, turning off the engine. “Here you’re fresh meat.”

“Lovely.” She reached for her door handle.

She’d been acting just a little oddly since they’d left Ethan’s house, Joel mused as he climbed out of the car. Distracted. Thoughtful.

He couldn’t help wondering what Ethan had said to her while he had been tied up on the phone. Neither Nic nor Ethan had seemed angry or sullen, but he’d gotten the sense that something had been said that had made both of them uncomfortable.

Unlike Polly, he wouldn’t pry to try to find out what Nic and Ethan had talked about. But he had a sneaking suspicion it had been about him.

His mother and her guest were exactly where he expected to find them—sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee, eating chocolates and chattering like magpies. They both looked around when he and Nic entered from the garage. The almost hungry expression on Polly’s face reminded Joel a bit too vividly of his comment about Nic being “fresh meat.”

“Joel.” Polly braced her hands on the table to help hoist her sizable girth out of the chair.

As broad as she was tall, at just over five feet, Polly had never let her size slow her down. She was active in half a dozen local organizations, still worked a couple of days a week in the local elementary school office and had raised four children and an orphaned nephew. Her heart was big, and her fascination with other people’s lives insatiable. Life was one long reality show to her, and much more interesting than the ones she watched religiously on television.

Because he really was fond of her despite her flaws, Joel smiled and leaned over to brush a kiss across her soft, puffy cheek. “Hello, Polly. You look as beautiful as ever. Don’t you ever age?”

She giggled like a schoolgirl and playfully slapped his arm. “Full of blarney as always, I see. How are you holding up, hon?”

Her voice had gone from teasing to meltingly sympathetic within the space of those two sentences. Because he was all too accustomed to that transition during his visits here, he was able to handle it with a simple nod. “I’m fine, Polly. Thanks.”

He turned immediately to Nic, drawing her forward with a motion of his hand. “Polly, I’d like you to meet a good friend of mine, Nicole Sawyer. Nic, this is Polly Albright, a dear friend of our family.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Albright.”

Her avid eyes focused intently on Nic’s face, Polly smiled. “Just call me Polly, hon. And it’s real nice to meet you. Elaine’s been telling me all about you.”

Nic shot a quick glance at Joel’s mother as if wondering what exactly had been said about her, but her smile didn’t falter.

Polly motioned toward a chair. “Sit down, sweetie, and let’s get to know each other. It’s always such a pleasure to meet Joel’s young friends.”

To give her credit, Nic didn’t let the consternation she must be feeling show in her eyes. Instead she accepted a cup of coffee from Elaine and took one of the empty seats at the kitchen table.

Joel was about to follow suit when Polly shook her head. “Go visit with your daddy, hon. I’m sure he’d like to spend time with you while you’re here. Nicky will be fine here with us girls, won’t you, dear?”

He happened to know she hated being called Nicky. And he was quite sure she would rather endure a root canal than sit in here with his mother and Polly for coffee and an inquisition. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes as he did the only thing any man with a sense of self-preservation would do. He escaped, leaving Nic to fend for herself.

She had told him he would owe her for accompanying him on this trip at all. He didn’t even want to think about how much he had just added to his tab.

Nic had just finished dressing for the party later that afternoon when her cell phone rang again. She sensed that it was Aislinn even before she checked the caller ID. Maybe she had a little psychic in her herself, she thought with a weak smile.

“I’m still okay,” she said by way of answering. “Nothing bad has happened to me.”