Wendy Warren – Undercover Nanny (страница 3)

You snooze, you lose, Daisy June.

It was a plain fact that no one got anywhere by mulling her options over and over. Sometimes you had to act first, mull second.

If you need anything else, just whistle….

As she sauntered from the bar, D.J. puckered up and blew.

Max walked the seven blocks from his work to his home with a sense of purpose, thinking only about the night ahead. As much as he could, he kept his mind on images that were safe, like the inch-thick Black Angus sirloin and the ice-cold Olympia beer—still the best beer—that figured heavily in his evening’s plans. And a muscle-relaxing soak in a tub that would, he decided, be as steaming hot as the brewski was cold.

And a cigar. Yeah.

A smile curved his lips. One of the mellow Cuban beauties he’d ordered off the Internet for his birthday.

If his plans seemed more suited to a phlegmatic retiree than a thirty-two-year-old virile male who could just as easily have been planning a night of outrageous sex, well, so be it. The one thing Max did not want to think about tonight—not even for a little while—was the lady in red. Too tempting. Too complicated. Strictly off-limits.

For the past several months women had ranked low on Max’s list of priorities. Not that he would lack for female company if he wanted it. On the contrary, he knew that women were never very far away.

What he’d lacked in his life up to now was purpose. He’d made money; he’d traveled the world. He’d played hard with few regrets when the mood struck. But he had never felt a driving reason to get up every morning, to be responsible all day, to live for something larger than his own interests.

He had a reason now. He had four.

Unconsciously Max increased his pace, anxious to end the day and begin the evening.

Turning up the cracked cement path leading to his front door, he felt his shoulders begin to relax for the first time all week. To say the past three months had been chaotic was an understatement. Every day he’d felt like he was juggling balls that refused to stay in the air. As of yesterday, though, thanks to a goddess named Ella Carmichael, Max had finally been able to restore order to his home life. Tomorrow he would begin in earnest the extensive remodel he planned on the restaurant and bar he had recently purchased, but tonight…

Max grinned. Ah, tonight his biggest dilemma would be deciding whether to eat first or take his bath. Fitting his key in the front lock, he turned the knob and opened the door to his sanctuary.

“Give me back my wizard wand or I’ll zap you with my laser stick!”

The shrill demand rent the air, slapping Max in the face like a stun gun.

“No! It’s mine. You stole it from me, you poo-poo doo-doo brain!”

“You’re not allowed to call me that! You’re a poo-poo doo-doo brain, you poo-poo doo-doo brain fart head.”

The arguing mounted rapidly in both urgency and volume. Max raised his hands as two small but surprisingly strong bodies hurled themselves at his legs with enough forward momentum to shatter his kneecaps. His breath hissed between gritted teeth as he held back the curse that wanted desperately to explode free. Small hands flailed about his legs. Max tried to grab at least one of them.

“Whoa!” he commanded when he trusted himself to speak without swearing. “Knock it off!” His demand went unheeded. Taking full advantage of his baritone, he hollered over the din. “What is going on?”

A pair of deceptively angelic faces surrounded by ruffles of blond curls looked up at him, for this one moment, silent. Then Sean’s hand shot out, pointing at his twin brother, James. “He did it!”

And the quarrel raged again.

Max clamped a hand over the mouth of each twin. “Where’s Mrs. Carmichael?” He’d hired the stalwart nanny three days ago because she had assured him that no domestic challenge was too daunting. She would easily—but with great love, of course—put order to the chaos that had become his life. Today was her first day, and upon waking this morning, Max had felt a degree of gratitude he’d never quite experienced before.

Slowly, with trepidation, he let go of James’s mouth first. James was generally the more amenable twin, but you couldn’t be too sure. Max looked at him with what he hoped was warning in his eye. Don’t mess with me, kid. Just give it to me straight.

“She’s in the kitchen, cleaning up the dinner.”

Cleaning up the dinner. Max’s brows swooped together. So, that’s what he smelled. “Did it burn?”

James shrugged.

“Where are your sisters?” Before the boy could answer, the steel-haired dynamo who’d promised him a miracle marched out of the kitchen.

“Good, you’re home.” Built like a small tank in orthopedic shoes, Mrs. Carmichael nodded once, sharply. Her hands went to the apron tie at her back. Pulling the garment over her head, she shoved it at Max’s chest on her way to the door. “Good luck.”

“What?” Caught off guard, Max stared at the wadded-up apron.

“The girls are trouble, but those two—” she stabbed a quivering finger at James and Sean “—will be the death of you.” Her hand grasped the doorknob.

Max felt the boys’ shoulders tense at the housekeeper’s harsh words, but he couldn’t afford to stop and soothe them. Peeling the twins off his legs for now with the order to “Stay put,” he followed the woman out the door, catching up with her on the front lawn. “Wait, wait!” When he touched her elbow, she whirled and glared at him. Promptly he let go.

“Dinner is burned,” she said. “Somebody turned off my timer. And I hope you don’t need clean shirts tomorrow, because the laundry never got done.” She raised her chin, daring Max to complain. He didn’t intend to.

“Obviously, this wasn’t the greatest day…for any of us.” From what remained of his humor, he summoned a smile. “I wouldn’t want to repeat it myself. I tell you, dealing with contractors is a lot like dealing with kids. Everything happens on their time frame, they get to pout, and you’re the one who has to pay for it all.”

Mrs. Carmichael crossed surprisingly muscular arms over her grandmotherly bosom. The curl of her lips said it all: tell me something I will care about.

Adrenaline pumped into Max’s system. He rubbed his hands together, warming up for the old college try. “All right. First of all, do not worry about the dinner. We’ll order pizza for the kids, and you and I can sit down and—”

“Dinner is the least of your concerns, Mr. Lotorto. Those two hooligans have been acting like wild animals all day.” She pointed behind him to the two boys who had obviously not stayed put. “First they dug a hole in the garden—”

“No, it’s a time capsule,” James asserted, evidently certain this tidbit of information would cancel any wrongdoing. “We’re puttin’ Sean’s dead lizard in it.”

Max lowered his brow. “Shh.”

“Then they put shaving cream on the windows—”

“Uh-uh, it was cleaning stuff. We were helpin’ clean them,” Sean whined in protest.

Max raised a finger to his lips. He could not afford to lose the only help he had. Returning his attention to Mrs. Carmichael, he tried to commiserate. Having lived with the twins for several months, it wasn’t hard. “I can see how irritating that must have—” he began.

“And then they tried to set fire to the house.”

“Fire?” Max knew these kids. They were boisterous, a bit too creative in their play, but ultimately they were good kids trying to find their way through circumstances that would have been difficult for anyone. They weren’t delinquents. They had never deliberately hurt anyone or anything. “If they were playing with matches, I’ll deal with them.” He turned briefly to shoot both boys a warning glare. “I will definitely deal with them. But I think we ought to be careful about suggesting they intended to burn down the house—”

“They made a fire in the middle of their bedroom.”

James ran forward, accompanied by his brother, and tried to speak again. Max pressed a hand over each boy’s mouth. All he made out was a muffled “…campout…”

His head began to throb, right between the eyes. There had to be a way to deal with this firmly but calmly, rationally. “Here’s what I suggest. I think we should all go back in the house, and—”

“They used a box of your cigars for kindling.”

“—talk about—” He halted. “Cigars? Imported cigars? With a little hut…and a palm tree on the box?”

Mrs. Carmichael shrugged eloquently. “How should I know?” She shook her head. “No more box.”

The throb expanded to the top of Max’s head. He wanted badly to yell, but how could he? He was failing these kids.

The thought made him furious and frustrated, but not at them. They were innocent victims, loved by a mother who, unfortunately, had never been able to give them stability. So many times they’d been unceremoniously dumped in Max’s life—a few days here, a couple of days there. But this time, they were here for good, and though they had known Max and loved him all of their lives, they probably sensed by now that the emperor had no clothes: Max knew how to be fun for a weekend, but he didn’t know jack about being a parent.

No way could he do this alone.

His mind raced as he groped for a way to plug the hole in this sinking ship. Before he could make another gambit, however, the woman he’d hoped would be his salvation put her hands on her hips and said, “You won’t like to hear it, people never do, but what those boys need is a good horsewhipping. I’d have done it, too, but they locked themselves in the bathroom.”