Five's A Crowd Read Free Page B

divorcing in Nevada and her marrying in California.
    She’d done all right with Holden’s late father, the tennis-shoe magnate, but she’d hit the jackpot withher slightly reversed May-December marriage to Peter LeGrand, who’d first shown up on the pop charts in his teens and was still one of the acknowledged megastars of rock and roll. In fact, he was going out on tour with his band again this summer, which was one reason Woodstock, better known as Woody and just graduated from college, was coming east to stay with his big brother.
    Tiffany was coming along because she was eighteen now, which made her only sixteen months younger than Peter’s latest gum-popping bride—an awkward situation, to put it mildly.
    When you got right down to it, both kids were too old to look good alongside their father, who was fifty-three now, but still trying to maintain his image as a sex magnet on tour. Way too old. But, unfortunately, not too old, or even close to too mature, to need a baby-sitter while Daddy Peter was away, smashing guitars on stage.
    Holden forgot about his stepsiblings as traffic thinned out as he crossed the Ninth Street bridge into Ocean City and began looking for the turnoff to the condo Sid had rented for the summer.
    Well, at least he didn’t have to deal with Amanda Price, his girlfriend of the past six or so months—ever since they’d shot a jeans commercial together in Barbados. Amanda was a beautiful woman, a top-ranked supermodel, who looked great on his arm when he was out and about. Yes, a lovely woman. Ambitious.Maybe even driven. But without a lot of humor. And she’d been making noises about marriage lately, which always sent Holden running for the nearest exit.
    Miranda was marriage. Peter was marriage. Holden did not believe in marriage!
    Holden slowed the car as he searched out the address of the condo, peering out the passenger window to make out house numbers displayed in everything from seashells pasted onto railings to hand-painted knotty pine signs that displayed house names like Wistful Hideaway or Pop-Pop and Nana’s Nest.
    His attention was caught by the official Indy pace car parked in front of one of the larger condos—or at least it was, until a jogger passing along the sidewalk in front of the impressive car pushed all coherent thought from his mind and he nearly ran into the curb as he quickly switched his gaze to the rearview mirror.
    The sight of the jogger moving away from him was on a par with the recent vision of her coming toward him. He had, he decided, rarely before seen spandex put to such good use as it was in the hot pink shorts and halter top of the ponytailed, honey blond female just now turning the next corner and disappearing from view.
    Holden considered circling the block, eager for another, better, look at the young woman, then decidedagainst it. He was here for a rest, and to work. Playtime would have to come later, after his arm was completely healed—and after Woody and Tiffany were back in California driving Peter nuts, not him.
    “This Puritan work ethic of yours is becoming pretty damn boring, Masters,” he grumbled aloud as he pulled the car to the curb in front of a building that instantly, crazily, reminded him of his long-ago love of lime Popsicles.
    Leaving his luggage locked in the trunk, he climbed out of the car, stretched his cramped muscles—wincing as he tried to raise his arms above his head—and made his way up the brick path that led to the door at the side of the condo.
    And then, he thought, the gods smiled at him. Because, just as he was fitting his key into the lock, he caught a glimpse of hot pink spandex out of the corner of his eye, coming toward him from the back of the condo.
    “Lost the mustache, huh?” the honey blonde said, not even breathing hard as she continued to jog in place. “Can’t say as I blame you. I’ve often wondered about that thing, you know. I mean, didn’t it ever get caught on your face mask?”
    There