Shotgun Nanny Read Free Page A

honey, can you fix my car this weekend?’ You ask her what’s wrong with it and she says, ‘Oh, honey, I don’t know. I think the engine fell out.”’

    Mark grunted agreement.

    “I’ll never figure women.” Brodie sighed. “But it’s fun trying.”

    “I’ll drink to that.” Mark picked up the frosty mug that had been delivered and drank deeply.

    “What did she look like?” Brodie asked.

    Mark closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Caucasian, five-seven, about one-thirty, eyes green, hair brown, age…” He wrinkled his brow. This was always the toughest one. “I’d say twenty-five to thirty.”
    “Looker?”

    “Oh, yeah.” He snorted; he was beginning to see the funny side himself. “She must think I’m one terrific guy….”

    “You acted just like you were trained to. If she’d been in trouble you might have saved her life.”
    “You’re
    not
    helping.”

    “Maybe this’ll help. Two tickets to the Grizzlies game Saturday.” He pulled tickets from his shirt pocket and waved them in front of Mark’s nose. “Basketball’s not like women. There are rules in basketball. The same ones for both teams. And there’s no talking about it.”

    Mark grinned. “You’re still steamed at Shelley, huh?”

    “Don’t get me started. She wanted me to see a relationship counselor. Says I’m shallow and can’t commit to one woman. This from a gal who makes her living taking her clothes off in front of hundreds of men.”

    Saturday afternoon at a basketball game. He didn’t even let himself think about how much he wanted to go. He shook his head. “I can’t. Emily.”
    “Can’t
    your
    black-belt-in-judo nanny watch her?”

    “It’s her birthday party. The first one since…”

    “Sure.” Brodie stuck the tickets in his pocket. “Did you call that clown friend of Shelley’s?”

    “She’s an ex-stripper. That’s how Shelley knew her.”

    Brodie’s eyes widened. “No. How’d you find out?”

    “Standard background check.”

    His friend choked on his beer. “You did a security check on a birthday-party clown?”

    “Good thing, too. Another family recommended a clown who checked out. I got her instead.”

    “Her? Is she good-looking?”

    Mark rolled his eyes. “Did you ever see a good-looking clown?”

    “No. But then I didn’t catch the stripping clown. That could be interesting. Do you still have her number?”

    “I don’t know where you find the energy.”

    Brodie shrugged. “My motto is never pass on a pretty woman. You don’t know when the next one’s coming along.”

    Immediately, an image of the woman with the postcard rose in Mark’s mind. Damn. He hadn’t even asked her name. “I wish you’d told me that an hour ago.”

    “What? The life-and-death babe?”
    “Yeah.”

    His buddy shook his head. “Uh-uh. You made a total ass of yourself in front of that one. My other motto is, if you fall flat on your face in front of a pretty woman, stay facedown until she’s long gone. The good news about Ms. Life and Death is, you’ll never see her again!”

    2

    ANNIE TUCKED a stray purple and yellow curl behind her ear, but it promptly boinged out to poke into her ear canal where it would tickle every time she moved. She grimaced with annoyance in the rearview mirror, making her huge red smile look like a burst sausage.

    The hottest day of the year, and she was stuck in the tiniest car ever invented—
    you couldn’t fit air-conditioning in it even if you could afford it—and the biggest wig.
    “Gertrude, honey,” she told her clown reflection, “we need a vacation.”

    The little car crawled up the hill to an address high on the slopes of North Vancouver, just as she’d been told. Told over the phone, which was standard procedure when she took a clown booking for a birthday party, then told again in a follow-up letter containing detailed instructions on how to get to the house where the party was to be held and how to gain