Shotgun Nanny (4 page)

“Because he knew his parents would make him give it back!” cried Emily.

Groans and laughter greeted her joke, and even after the attention switched away from Emily, the quiet glow in her face remained.

Mark backed into the kitchen and pulled the cake out of the fridge. It was a clown cake to match the theme of the party. He’d even found a clown candle in the shape of an eight. This birthday party was just one in a line of hurdles he’d had to leap since Emily came to live with him. The whole thing was so baffling. What was in, what was out, what was too juvenile, what was too old. He wasn’t even sure about the clown cake anymore—

maybe he should have gone with the princess.

As he was getting cake plates out, the phone rang.

“I just wanted to wish Emily a happy birthday,” Bea croaked. Her normally dour voice sounded like that of a witch. Then a coughing fit rattled down the line.

“How are you feeling, Bea?” he asked, hoping his nanny-housekeeper would have a miracle recovery by Monday. He was swamped with work. He needed someone to take care of the house and watch over Emily.

“It’s pneumonia. The doctor says I have to stay in bed two or three weeks. I’m sorry, Mr. Saunders.”

Damn. He didn’t have time to do a security check on a temporary housekeeper. Not by Monday.

“You just rest, Bea. Don’t worry about a thing,” he said with false joviality. “I’ll get Emily.”

What the hell was he going to do? The timing couldn’t have been worse. His company had been selected to handle security for a big Pacific Rim trading conference just two weeks away. He’d be working harder than ever.

He was barely into his first day of home life without Bea and he was only coping because he’d convinced the clown woman to stay. Not that she was much use in the kitchen, but she kept the girls occupied, and Emily clearly adored her.

The cake server clattered onto the stacked plates as inspiration hit him. Of course, the clown had already passed his rigorous security screening—and Emily adored her. He peeked around the doorway into the dining room. The clown’s huge smile was smudging. She’d left her pizza crusts on her plate—she was as bad as the girls. Still, it was only temporary.

She wasn’t the woman he would have chosen, but the woman in the purple and yellow wig was about to become Emily’s new companion.

3

“BUT I’ M NOT a nanny. I’m a professional entertainer,” Annie protested.

She shook her head so violently her wig slipped, which reminded her how itchy her scalp felt. She wanted nothing more than to get home and take all the scratchy clothes and mucky paint off her face and body, then step into a nice, long shower. The last thing she needed was some big jerk treating her like a baby-sitter.

“So, entertain Emily,” Mark Saunders argued. “You’ll never have a better audience. She thinks you’re fantastic.”

Annie softened for a second. “She’s one great kid,” she admitted.

“It’s only for a couple of weeks, and I’ll pay you the equivalent of two parties a day.”

Annie’s plastic eyelashes scratched her forehead as she widened her eyes in surprise. “That’s pretty expensive baby-sitting.”

They were in the front hallway. She’d been about to leave when he halted her with his request.

Most of the girls had gone home after cake and presents, but a couple had stayed to watch a video with Emily. After the noise of the party, the house seemed amazingly quiet with just the mumble of the TV coming from the direction of the family room.

He ran a hand across his chin. “Look, it’s not just that I’m desperate. I…I liked what you did for Emily today. Your first priority is her safety of course, but—”

“Safety? Is Emily in some kind of danger?” She remembered the elaborate precautions to get into the party and felt a prickle of unease and a protective fear for that sweet little girl.

“No more than anyone else,” he said shortly. “I just know it’s a dangerous world.”

“That’s right. You used to be a Mountie.”

It was his turn to look surprised. He straightened and got all uptight again. “How do you know that?”

Annie smiled mischievously. “We’ve met before. In fact, I’d better come clean so you can withdraw the job offer.”

“I thought I knew you.” He peered closely at her face, obviously trying to work out who she was beneath the costume and paint. His nearness sent a weird kind of slurpy feeling through her belly. Which was odd, because big, uptight guys just weren’t her type outside a film canister. She always went for the artsy, lyrical ones whose promises were poetry, even if they never came through.

If Mark Saunders ever made a promise he’d stick to it or die trying, which made her feel trapped. Just like he did. No, it couldn’t be attraction making her feel this way. She must have drunk too much soda pop.

Resisting the urge to step out of range of all that macho sexiness, she said, “Not really, we sort of, ah, bumped into each other at Granville Island.”

“Granville Island…” His puzzled gaze scanned her up and down then narrowed in concentration. She knew the moment he figured it out—an expression of pure horror crossed his face. “You’re not the girl with the life-and-death postcard?”

“Yep!”

He groaned. He actually groaned.

“I had a great time. Thanks for having me today.” She held her hand over the pocket where she’d tucked that huge check, wanting to leave before he demanded it back. She put her hand on the doorknob and turned it, but the door wouldn’t open.

He was standing there looking as if somebody had just told him his parents were really aliens from Mars.

“The door seems to be stuck,” she said.

He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. He opened a panel in the wall—

Annie wouldn’t have known it was there—and punched a series of numbers onto a keypad. This time when she turned the knob the door opened.

“So, will you let me know tomorrow?”

“Let you know what?”

“If you’ll take the job.”

“You still want me?”

He paused for a moment as if doubting his sanity. She could understand his need to check. Then he shrugged. “I’m desperate.”

She bit her lower lip to keep from laughing and got a mouthful of stale greasepaint.

Did she want to wait for Bobbie or didn’t she? She’d already sublet her apartment—the guy was due to move in in a week. She had a few bookings that she hadn’t had the heart to cancel. If she took the nanny job she could wait for Bobbie and still do a few clown gigs. Truth was, she could use the extra money for her trip.

She leaned against the door, thinking. He said he was desperate, but was she really his only option? “I know this isn’t my business, but couldn’t Emily’s mother help out?”

A spasm of pain crossed his face. “Emily’s mother is dead.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” No wonder he gazed at the little girl in pain. She must remind him of his dead wife. “You must have loved her very much.”

He nodded. “Emily’s all I have left of Christy. She and her husband were both killed a year ago.”

“Your wife was a bigamist?”
Wow.

“No. An archaeologist. And Christy was my little sister, not my wife. She and her husband were on a dig together in Africa. They caught some kind of jungle fever.”

“So Emily’s your—”

“Niece. That’s why I have to take extra good care of her. Her mother entrusted me with her most precious possession. I can’t let her down.”

Annie’s mind was made up in that instant. Mark Saunders might not be able to do a somersault, but he’d taken on a child when he could so easily have sloughed off the responsibility. “I’ll need weekends and evenings off for my clown work.”

“I don’t have a problem with that.”

“What exactly would I have to do?”

“You have to get Emily ready in the morning and drive her to school. Pick her up at the end of school, drive her to her music and dance lessons, prepare dinner. Keep the house neat. School ends in a couple of weeks. If Bea’s still sick, it would be a full-day thing.”

She could see a couple of flaws in the plan already. Cooking and cleaning weren’t high on her list of things she did well. And the word “morning” snagged her attention in an unpleasant sort of way. “When you say morning, what did you have in mind?”

“You arrive at seven. You’ll prepare her breakfast, make sure she has everything she needs and drive her to school by nine.”

She thought it over. She could make it work. Earn some extra cash and wait for Bobbie. “I’ll have to sleep over.”

“Uh—”

Yep. She could definitely make it work. “You have a deal,” she said.

“Do you know any self-defense?”

Her chin jutted up, making the wig itch. “I can take care of myself.”

“And while we’re on the subject, that postcard mentioned life and death.”

“I already told you that was just a joke. I’m planning a backpacking trip to Asia. I was trying to hurry my friend up.”

A gleam of amusement entered his eyes. “I can see that would be a life-or-death situation.” He leaned back on his heels, hands in his pockets, and her attention was caught once more by that brick-wall chest of his. A little springy hair peeked out from the vee of his shirt.
Mmm
. It looked good.

“Come tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll go over some basic self-defense moves.” His words dragged her gaze to his face.

“You’re

kidding!”

“I never kid about Emily’s safety.”

She sighed. Short-term pain… “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I CAN’T BREATHE!” Annie complained, trying to hoist the muscular bulk of Mark Saunders off her solar plexus. It was getting to be a bad habit.

He rolled smoothly to his feet. “That was better. You put up more of a struggle. Let’s try it again. The trick is to go for my vulnerable areas and get me unbalanced.”

“You don’t have any vulnerable areas. And I’m the one who must be unbalanced!

Besides, you’re three times my size.” She grabbed his outstretched hand and hauled herself to her feet with a groan. “This is hopeless.”

“I’ll give you a hint. The bad guys don’t usually go for people bigger and tougher than they are. They go for the smaller and weaker.”

“Hey, I’m not weak!” she said, stung. “I take yoga and I run.”
Sometimes.
He was starting to tick her off with his cocksure attitude, tossing her around his basement gym like a rag doll. Just once, she was determined to land
him
on
his
back.

“That’s what this little exercise is all about.” He talked to her as if she were completely dense, which ticked her off even more. “Sure, I’m bigger. But you’re quicker and more agile. You can use those things to your advantage.”

“And I can do a somersault,” she replied cheekily.

He rolled his eyes. “That should come in real handy if you’re being attacked.”

She felt hot and sticky. She yanked off her sweatshirt. Under the cropped tank top, her sports bra was maiming what it was meant to support. She slipped her hands under her shirt and tried to rearrange things. A dark vee of sweat marked the front of her top, and she was breathing heavily.

Mark Saunders’s gray T-shirt hadn’t even come untucked from his sweatpants.

With a prickle of awareness, she noticed that he’d stopped talking and stilled. She glanced up to find his gaze aimed at where she was rearranging her underwear. Which upped her irritation level another notch.

“See something you like?” she asked with saccharine sweetness.

His gaze dropped lower, from embarrassment, she was certain. Then his eyes widened. “What is that?”

“My birthstone. A diamond for April.” She fiddled with the gem nestling in her pierced navel. “Actually, it’s a zircon. Can’t afford a real diamond. Like it?”

He seemed transfixed. “You let Emily get one of those things and you’re a dead woman.” His voice was ferocious, but he couldn’t drag his gaze from her glinting belly.

She might know squat about judo, but she knew when a man was getting turned on by her. A testosterone haze shimmered around him like an aura.

She swayed her hips with gusto, hoping the jewel in her navel would catch the light and blind him while she moved toward him as seductively as she knew how.

Letting her mind drift to Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Hedy Lamarr, she imitated exotic and smoldering.

It appeared to work. He seemed completely mesmerized. In that moment, control of the situation began to shift her way.

“Did anyone ever tell you you should relax a little?” she murmured in a throaty purr.

“Frequently.” His voice was unsteady, and for the first time since the self-defense lesson started, his breathing was fast.

She glided to a stop in front of him, gazed into eyes that were sending her a whole host of steamy messages. Her breath caught as responsive shivers raced over her skin. Damn. Hedy, Ava and Rita had taken over her mind. Big, tough he-man Mark was their kind of guy. Not hers. She had a point to make, she reminded herself. But still, she was kind of getting into this.

Those cool blue eyes could turn amazingly hot, scorching everywhere they gazed. He might be a bit of a stuffed shirt on the outside, but those eyes hinted at something wild hiding inside. Something that could be altogether exciting, and maybe just a bit scary.

She smiled her sexiest smile and leaned into him. For just a moment she let herself enjoy the way he made her feel—safe, feminine, wanted. It was a totally sexy combination, and if she didn’t do something soon, she’d forget to make her point.

That mesmerizing gaze held hers, and he lowered his head slowly. Her lips parted all by themselves, tingling with the anticipation of his kiss.

Hanging on fiercely to her self-control, she hooked her leg around the back of his calf, pushed against his chest and toppled him like a three-hundred-year-old redwood.

“Timber!” she called softly as he crashed to the floor.

4

“NOW, CONCENTRATE.” Mark had his security expert voice on again, and it probably fit him better than his birthday suit. She’d been concentrating so long her brain felt like it was going to implode. “When you leave the house, enter the security code to open the door.”