My Lucky Groom (Summer Grooms Series) (6 page)

Elisa shot her a shy grin and raced after her brother.

Maybe this wasn’t going to be as bad as she’d thought. Kids
were kids, after all. And these were mighty cute ones.

Ricky threw his arms around her with a hug. Ventura stooped
low to embrace him, and he sweetly patted her head. “We’re so glad you’re here.”

Elisa silently stood by and nodded.

“Why, thanks, Ricky.” She hugged him back, puzzled at the
rapid turn of events. Perhaps Richard had talked to them and warned them to
mind their manners.

“Ventura,” Richard said, emerging from the door. “You made
it.”

She straightened her spine and smoothed her hair, which was
as silky as satin by now. While she opted to weary it curly most days, she now
employed a deep conditioner that gave her soft ringlets instead of frizz. She
was also getting used to wearing her contacts and had decided Mary was right.
She did look better without the glasses. More importantly, she felt better too.
Ventura didn’t know when it was that she’d completely given up on her
appearance. Though perhaps it was more accurate to say, she’d never paid that
much attention to it. Now that she was starting to, things seemed to be coming
together for her. It was like she was developing confidence in herself as a
woman for the very first time.

“It was a nice drive,” Ventura said, flipping back her hair.
She twitched suddenly, sensing something was amiss. Why did the top of her head
itch like something was on it? She raised her hand to her crown,
then
squealed in horror. “What
is
it?” she yelped as Ricky and Elisa giggled, scampering away. She
thrust her fingers into her hair and encountered a tiny solid object.
Please,
she prayed
plucking it free
,
don’t
let it be alive
.
And when
she examined it in the sunlight, she saw that it wasn’t. It was merely a little
plastic spider, the kind used to decorate cupcakes at Halloween.

“The kids must like you,” Richard told her. “With the
others, the spiders were real.”

When they entered the house, Ricky ran through the hall
chasing Elisa, who held a squishy, bug-eyed toad. “Blinkie! She’s got my
Blinkie!” Ricky cried with dismay.

“Elisa! Ricky!” Richard warned. The kids skittered across
polished hardwood floors, then tore up the steps. “Slow down! Somebody’s going
to get hurt!”

Ventura turned to Jason. “I don’t suppose it’s a plastic
frog?”

Just then, Elisa catapulted something from the top of the
stairs. She’d raced up them, taking them two at a time, paces ahead of Ricky
and her father.

Ventura stared down in horror as something landed at her
feet with a
sprong!
The life-like
toad split open, exposing electronic inner workings, tiny springs, and torn
wires.

“Looks like another trip to the cyber-pet shop,” Jason
quipped.

He disappeared for a moment,
then
returned with a broom and dustpan. “Your first clean-up mission,” Jason said,
handing it to Ventura. She looked down at the mess before her, her stomach
churning at the thought she’d imagined this thing to be real.

“I need to talk to the kids,” Richard said, excusing himself.

Two hours later, Richard sat at his large modern desk. A new
cyber toad croaked and bounced about in its cage beside his laptop computer.
None of her studies had prepared Ventura for a day this wild. The house was a
maze, the kids were a mess, and expectations for the nanny were exponential.
Richard handed over two hefty day-planners and Ventura squirmed in her chair.

“The yellow one’s Elisa’s. Purple is for Ricky.”

Ventura stared at him astounded. “These are their
schedules?”

“Hard copies. Naturally, we’ve got e-files. I’ll have Jason
upload them to your smart phone.”

“Um.”

“You do have a smart phone?”

Ventura reached in her purse and extracted her antiquated
cell, the kind that came with the most basic plan. And that was six years ago.

“No worries.” Richard shot her a soothing smile, and
Ventura’s heart stilled. How she wished he wouldn’t do that. Smile at her in
that super hot way that made her wish they were out on a date rather than
discussing her business duties. Ventura bit her bottom lip, hoping that thought
hadn’t been written all over her face. But maybe it had been.
Because at this very moment, Richard had stopped talking and was
gazing intently into her eyes.
She wondered if he sensed it too, this
secret pull between them. Or perhaps it wasn’t mutual at all, and there was no
pull—only her overworked imagination futilely tugging.

Richard seemed to snap himself out of it, picking up on his
earlier thought. “We’ll work all that out. You’ll definitely need high-tech
communication to be part of our team.” Ventura thought of her decrepit old
laptop but didn’t mention it. “I’ll get Jason to set you up with a new phone
tomorrow.”

“You mean like a company phone?” she queried.

“You can keep it for personal use as well. We’ll cover the
charges as long as you’re employed.”

“Thanks, that’s very nice.” She looked down at the huge day-planners
in her lap,
then
opened the purple one on top.
An enormous spreadsheet accordianed out of its front pocket.
“Wow.”

“Kids need structure,” Richard assured her. “Keeps them
busy.”

“Very,” Ventura said, unable to stop herself, as she opened
Elisa’s folder and another enormous spreadsheet tumbled out.

Richard cleared his throat. “You’re not suggesting the kids
are overscheduled?”

“Not at all,” she said quickly. “It’s just that…” She
studied Elisa’s list. “Ballet… Piano… Soccer… Karate…? How old is Elisa again?”

“Five. Oh, I know!” he said, apparently misreading her look.
“She should really be a brown belt by now. I had no clue I was supposed to
start her in PeeWee K at age three.”

Ventura gulped. She had no doubt that Richard loved his children,
but it appeared they scarcely had any time to be kids.

His handsome face took on a touch of melancholy. “Vicky used
to handle everything,” he confided. “If it hadn’t been for Jason, I never would
have been able to keep things together.”

Her heart ached for him. It was hard to imagine what that
might have been like, being left on his own with two little babies. So maybe he
did
overschedule them, but was that
really his fault? Richard was simply being a good dad in the only way he knew
how
—
by being super
organized. “I’m sorry, Richard,” she said sincerely. “That sounds rough.”

He met her gaze with soulful eyes. “At times, it has been.”

She wasn’t sure what else to say. Suddenly things between
them seemed to have gone from professional to personal. But maybe that’s how it
was going to be. It would be difficult not to develop some kind of personal
relationship with Richard if they were both working in the interest of the same
thing
—
the benefit
of his children.

“In any case,” he said after a beat, “the system we’ve put
together seems to work reasonably well. Jason’s a master at scheduling. Even
coordinated both kids’ activities in a way to minimize driving time.”

Ventura’s heart skipped a beat. “Maybe I should have told
you. I don’t own a car.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to drive your own,” he said, nabbing a
set of keys off the holder on his desk.

Ventura stared out the front window. The shiny blue
convertible Jason had picked her up in sat at the curb. “I’m not sure I should
drive that.”

Richard laughed. “That one’s not suited to car seats. You’ll
take the Lexus.” He handed over the keychain, and their palms brushed. It was
just the slightest touch, but Ventura felt electrified by it just the same.
Richard held her gaze, reddening slightly at the temples. “You are a good
driver? No accidents?”

“Not even a parking ticket.”

“Great, because this baby’s brand new. We wouldn’t want
history repeating itself.”

“What happened to the last one?”

“The nanny totaled it.”

There was a loud pounding from upstairs in the hall and then
the rising sound of Jason’s voice, “Hey, kids! I said open up!”

“Uh-oh.” Richard rose from his chair. “I’d better go
investigate.”

Ventura eyed the cage on his desk. “Another frog?”

He strode quickly from the room. “Another clog’s more like
it.”

Richard and Ventura arrived in the upstairs hall just as
Jason prepared to thrust his shoulder into the bathroom door. “Stand back!” he
warned the kids. “I’m coming through on three! One… Two… Oomph!” He threw his
weight into the door, and it swung open, ricocheting against the claw-foot tub.

At the opposite end of the room, Ricky and Elisa stood on
either side of the
commode,
their little mouths
dropped open. Toilet paper littered the floor along with empty shampoo bottles,
several empty cracker boxes and
—
Ventura
could scarcely believe it
—
an
open jar of peanut butter! Elisa stood her with her arms frozen over the toilet
in midair, her hands clutching an upside-down potato chip bag. Ricky, who’d
been squirting whipped cream around the rim of the bowl, held the can straight
out in front of him and pointed it in their direction.

“Ricky!” Richard commanded. “Put that thing down!”

“Now, Elisa!” Ricky urged his sister. “Flush it! Flush it
fast!”

Ventura’s eyes traveled to the gold-plated toilet paper
holder, seeing sheets from the roll had been pulled long
—
and deposited in the toilet with
everything else.

“Don’t do it,” Richard grated between clenched teeth.

Elisa laid one finger on the handle and met Ventura
square
in the eye.

“Elisa, no!” Jason called.

Without a hint of emotion, she flushed, sending the rest of
the toilet paper on the holder spiraling into the already overloaded bowl. The
commode gurgled to life, then erupted in a wild spray that momentarily blinded
Richard. Jason beat back the stream with his hands and fell to his knees,
wrestling with the water valve on the wall. The kids wailed, apparently
terrified by their own horrific doings. Little Ricky blubbered as filthy water
repeatedly lapped at his face, while Elisa screamed and shook her soaking hair
as tears streamed from her eyes. Ventura lunged forward to pull the kids out of
the fray, but her shoe caught on a slick piece of paper. “Ahhh!” she cried,
stumbling forward and barely breaking her fall by clutching the toilet’s rim.
But it was too late
—
gravity
had already taken hold, and her face was set on a downward
trajectory—straight into the center of the nasty bowl.

Richard sat in the front seat of his car beside Ventura in
awkward silence as he drove her back across the Potomac. He’d been so mortified
by the bathroom fiasco, he must have apologized for his children a hundred
times. Ventura hadn’t said much since she’d pulled her head out of that murky
mess and he’d handed her that face towel. He hoped she wasn’t planning to sue,
but wouldn’t necessarily blame her for having those thoughts. He didn’t know
why his little angels morphed into devils half of the time, but they certainly
appeared to have a wild streak. Richard had long wondered if it was because
they’d missed a mother’s touch.

At first, he thought having a nanny around might help fix
that. Of course, it wouldn’t be nearly as nice for them as having a real mom,
but the right sort of nanny might provide a suitable substitute. But finding
the perfect caretaker for Ricky and Elisa had proved more difficult than
Richard had imagined. Even the fairly good ones had possessed some kind of
quirk, like Jasmine, who’d been great in every way apart from her penchant for
listening to rap music. He’d only learned about it by accident when little
Elisa and Ricky began spouting ghetto talk peppered with four-letter words.
That was the trouble with nannies. You had to trust them implicitly and believe
that their judgment was sound, even when it came to picking out radio stations
around the five-year-old twins.

Richard glanced at Ventura with her wild wet hair, still
flecked by tiny pieces of toilet paper, knowing she’d never make that kind of
mistake. Ventura was bright and had a good head on her shoulders. She was
educated and articulate too. She would make a fabulous role model for the kids
and appeared to be really even tempered. Any of his previous nannies would have
gone ballistic over the bathroom escapade, but Ventura had merely turned beet
red yet kept her cool. She hadn’t once raised her voice or said a negative word
against the children. She’d just accepted that towel from him, wiped her face,
and dabbed her hair, saying something about that being quite an introduction to
Old Town plumbing. Ventura had a calm way about her and a great sense of humor.
She was perfect in every way. The sad thing was, after today, he was sure she
wouldn’t stay. Richard pulled up to the curb beside her Capitol Hill townhouse,
feeling down. This was it. Another nanny was about to quit.

 
“Ventura,” he
told her quietly. “I want you to know you’ll still get your full month’s pay.”

She shot him a pained look. “You’re firing me?”

“Firing you?” Richard stumbled on the words. “Not at all.”
Then the clarity of her words hit him. He turned to her, stunned. “You mean,
you don’t quit?”

“Quit?” Her cheeks colored sweetly. “I was just getting my feet
wet.” She smiled wryly and flipped back her hair. “And other things too,
apparently.”

Richard laughed with relief, unable to believe her. How
could she be so incredibly good-natured in the face of such calamity?
“Ventura,” he said with a sigh. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say
that.”