by Jill Shalvis
“Girl toy?”
“Yeah, Josh doesn’t bring his women home.”
Well ouch. “Okay, good.” Great. Because, hey, she’d already decided that the two of them weren’t going to do this. This being anything. So yeah, this was really great.
“Hang on,” Anna said. “I just want to share the link with everyone I know…” She hit a few keys, then smiled. “There. God, how I love it when he does something stupid. It’s so rare, you know? And then when he finally does it, he really does it right.” She unlocked the baby gate, freeing Tank just as a young boy came tearing into the kitchen. He was waving a lightsaber and making some sort of war cry as he ran circles around the kitchen table.
Tank took off right on his heels, barking so hard his back legs kept coming off the floor. Quite the feat, given that his belly swung so low.
The kid was wearing a Star Wars T-shirt. His jeans were streaked with dirt and low enough on his narrow little hips to reveal his underwear waistband, which was also Star Wars. His battered athletic shoes lit up with each step he made, and the right one was untied. He was maybe five, with dark hair that definitely hadn’t seen a brush that morning, and his melting, dark chocolate eyes matched Dr. Josh Scott’s. He stopped short at the sight of Grace, and Tank plowed into the back of his feet, then fell to his butt and gave out a little startled yelp.
“Toby,” Anna said. “You’re going to stay here with Grace. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Wait…what?” Grace shook her head. “No, I’m just the dog babysitter.”
“Yeah?” Anna asked. “Are you babysitting the dog right now?”
“Well, yeah, but—” She broke off at Anna’s amused look and whirled around to find the puppy chewing on the kitchen table leg. Crap. “Hey,” she said. “No chewing on that.”
Tank kept chewing. Grace went over there and pried him loose but she was too late. He’d left deep gouges in the beautiful wood.
Anna tugged affectionately on a lock of Toby’s hair. “The dogsitter will make you an after-school snack. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Slugger.”
Grace was still shaking her head. A dog was one thing. But a kid? There was no counting the number of ways she could screw this one up. “Wait a minute.”
But Anna wasn’t waiting. She was actually at the door. “No worries, he’s easy. The regular nanny, Katy, ditched Toby today, so we picked him up from school, but I’ve got things to do, so…”
“We?”
A horn sounded from out front. Grace looked out the window and saw a rusty pickup truck.
“Gotta go,” Anna said, and wheeled out.
“But…” But nothing. Anna was gone, gone, gone. And Grace had just been promoted to a job for which she had absolutely no qualifications. She looked at Toby.
Toby looked at her right back, solemn-faced, his dark eyes giving nothing away.
“Hi,” Grace said.
“Arf,” he said.
“Arf,” Tank said, dragging a running shoe that was bigger than himself. He’d already chewed a hole in the toe. Eyes bulging, tongue lolling out the side of his smashed-in face, Tank sat and panted proudly at the prize he offered her.
It was going to be a long hour. She liberated the shoe and searched her brain for some way to relate to a five-year-old kid holding a toy lightsaber. Who barked. “So are you a Jedi warrior?”
Toby swung the lightsaber wide. It lit up and went whoosh, vrrmm-whoosh.
Tank promptly went nuts, so naturally Toby swung again.
Whoosh, vrrmm-whoosh.
Toby hit a home run with a cup of juice that had been on the kitchen table, sending it flying through the air. Luckily the cup was plastic. Not so luckily, the juice was grape, and purple sticky liquid splattered like rain on the table, the floor, the counters, Grace, and both Tank and Toby. Even the ceiling took a hit.
Toby dropped the lightsaber as if it were a hot potato.
Tank scooped it up by the handle in his sharp puppy teeth and began running circles around the table again, both belly and lightsaber dragging on the ground, still lighting up, still making whooshing noises.
“It’s okay,” Grace said to a stricken-looking Toby, grabbing a roll of paper towels from the counter, swiping at the kid first. But the sticky clothes didn’t appear to bother him any because he stepped free and headed toward the fridge.
Tank dropped the lightsaber, redirecting his reign of terror to licking the floor.
“Toby?” Grace asked. “Where’s the trash?”
The boy made a vague gesture over his shoulder toward the back door and stuck his head into the fridge.
Grace went to wipe down the table and instead stared at the stack of twenties, underneath a grape-splotched sticky note that had Grace scrawled across it in bold print. She picked up the money and started counting. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty…One hundred and sixty bucks. It took her a minute to figure it out—forty for yesterday, triple that for today.
It was ridiculous, of course, and yet…the things she could do with a hundred and sixty bucks. Staring at it longingly, she thought of her overloaded credit card, her student loans, and the weekly rent she had coming due at the B&B where she’d been living.
Not to mention the cleaning bill for getting grape juice out of today’s sundress. Shaking her head, she pocketed forty. Nothing for yesterday since she’d screwed up, and forty for today. Because she wouldn’t screw today up. Leaving the rest, she stepped out the back door with the sticky paper towels, which she dumped into the trash can. Now that she had a moment of privacy, she pulled out her cell phone and hit Josh’s number to fill him in.
He picked up, sounding harried. “Dr. Scott.”
Her brain stuttered at the sound of his low voice, the same low voice that had prompted her into a moment of insanity earlier. That kiss…“One hundred and sixty bucks?” she said in disbelief. “What exactly are you expecting for this hundred and sixty bucks?”
There was a beat of silence. She figured he was probably wondering who the crazy lady was, so she decided to clarify. “It’s Grace,” she said, trying for calm efficiency. She was used to calm efficiency, after all. Used to order. Used to things balancing.
Or she had been used to those things, back when she’d been gainfully employed, making something of herself, something very big and very important. Back way before she’d come to Lucky Harbor and taken on the first job she’d ever had that was completely over her head.
“You needed the money,” Josh said. “Right?”
“Well, yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “But a hundred and sixty dollars?”
“It’s what we agreed on, triple yesterday’s pay.”
“I didn’t mean to accept that. The kiss was my payment.” The crazy, wild kiss. The crazy, wild, wonderful kiss. She turned back to the door, which had shut behind her.
It was locked. Uh-oh.
“What?” he asked.
Had she said that out loud? “Nothing.” She peered into the window, thankful that the shades on it were open, but didn’t see Toby in the kitchen. “Well, nothing except your sister brought Toby home, and I’m watching him for her for an hour or so.”
There was another beat of silence while Josh processed this. Though he was a guy, and therefore a master at hiding his emotions, his thoughts weren’t all that hard to decode. Surprise and shock that somehow the same person who’d lost his dog yesterday was now in charge of his kid, and irritation at his sister. “Anna left you in charge of Toby?”
“I guess your nanny got sick, and Anna’s boyfriend picked Toby up from school.”
Nothing about that sentence seemed to bring him comfort. And it wasn’t even the worst bit of news she had to tell him. That honor belonged to the Facebook photo, which she decided he didn’t need to know about right now. Or ever. “It’s only for an hour,” she said, trying to make the best of the situation. “How much can happen in an hour?” She tried the door again. Still locked. She knocked.
Tank came tearing back
into the kitchen, running more circles around the table with the lightsaber. But still no sign of Toby. She knocked again.
Tank stopped running in circles and panted at her. Then he turned his attention to the cabinet under the sink, where he started nosing around with what appeared to be a small trash container.
The container wobbled but didn’t tip.
Tank then sank his teeth into the plastic liner and tugged until the thing fell over, spilling trash across the kitchen floor. Crap. Grace looked around her. She was in the side yard, with two gates at either end—both locked. “I have to go,” she said.
“Don’t even think about it. What’s wrong?”
Oh, so many, many things. Tank was going to town on the trash, inhaling whatever he could get at. Toby was still nowhere in sight. That couldn’t be good. She knocked again, harder this time.
The puppy looked up from his mission of destroying the world and growled at her.
Grace whirled around, searching for a doormat. Everyone hid a key beneath a doormat. But there was no mat. Most likely because it was safer for Anna in her chair that way. So where would they hide a key?
“Grace.”
She gave up. “Okay, where is it?” she asked him. “Where do you hide the key for the stupid people who get locked out?”
“You got locked out?”
“No, I’m just asking for the stupid people.”
“Where’s Toby?”
She took another peek in the window, and oh thank God, there he was, standing on the other side of the door, staring up at her with those big eyes. She pointed to the door.
Toby just looked at her.
Grace sighed. “He’s in the kitchen.”
“Go to the second planter from the porch,” Josh instructed. “Reach into the sprinkler valve box.”
Holding the phone in the crook of her neck, Grace smiled at Toby in what she hoped was a reassuring manner and again pointed to the door handle, gesturing for him to let her in.
Instead, he turned and walked out of the kitchen for parts unknown, his shoelace trailing on the floor, his little Star Wars undies sticking out of his jeans in a way that he’d probably spend the next fifteen years purposely trying to mimic.
“Toby!” she called. “Toby, don’t leave the kitchen. Toby?”
“Hurry, Grace,” Josh said in her ear.
She rushed to the second planter and at the sight there, she dropped her phone. There was a very large spiderweb guarding the valve box. Heart pounding, she scrambled to pick up her phone. “Sorry. You there?”
Nothing. She smacked her phone on her thigh and tried again. “Josh?”
“Yeah. Do you see the key? It’s in the metal hide-a-key.”
Yeah, she saw the metal hide-a-key. She also saw the spiderweb. The massive spiderweb. She toed it and a big, fat, hairy brown spider crawled with badass authority into her line of sight, giving her the evil eye. He was ready to rumble. Gulp. Not much truly terrified Grace. Well, aside from clowns and glass elevators. But spiders? Spiders topped her list, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
“Grace?”
“Yeah?” she whispered. Was it her imagination or was the spider giving her a “bring it” gesture with two of its spindly legs?
“There’s a pool out back,” Josh said. “You can’t get to it from the side yard where you are. Toby can swim, but…”
Oh, God. The image of Toby running outside and into the pool on his own was too awful to bear. She closed her eyes, plunged her hand into the sprinkler box while silently chanting “pleasedon’tbitemepleasedon’tbiteme,” and pulled out the hide-a-key.
Without getting bitten.
She ran to the back door and let herself in, racing through the kitchen, skidding to a halt in the living room, where Toby was standing on the couch, lightsaber once again in hand, whipping it around.
Whoosh, vrrmm-whoosh.
Grace nearly collapsed with relief. She’d handled millions of dollars of other people’s money without breaking a sweat, and yet at this, just one little boy and a puppy, she needed a nap. “Well, that was a fun fire drill.”
“Toby?” Josh asked in her ear.
“All in one piece.” She sank to the couch and put her head between her knees. “Your house is a little crazy, Dr. Scott.”
“You must feel right at home, then.”
She heard herself let out a weak laugh. “Hey, you’re the crazy one.” She fingered the money in her pocket. “You can’t go around paying people so much money for menial work. They’ll take advantage of you.”
“I’m not easy to take advantage of.”
Okay, so that was undoubtedly true, she thought. “But—”
“Did you lose Tank?”
Only for a minute… “No.”
“Did he shit in the house?”
“No.”
“Then you’re worth every penny,” Josh assured her. “Listen, I’m sorry about Anna. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“But—”
But nothing. He was gone. She lifted her head and found Toby standing there, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead, lightsaber still in one hand, a squirming Tank in the other.
He really was pretty damn cute, she thought. This would be okay. She could totally do this for an hour. It’d be like the time she had to babysit the guys in payroll.
Toby wrinkled his nose like something was stinky, then hastily set Tank down.
The puppy was panting, and his stomach looked uncomfortably full. Uh-oh. “Tank,” she said, trying to get him outside.
Too late. Tank hunched over and horked up all the trash he’d eaten.
On her feet.
“Arf,” Tank said, looking like he felt all better.
“Arf,” Toby said.
Chapter 6
There are four basic food groups: plain chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate.
One painfully long hour later, Grace was exhausted. This was nothing like babysitting the guys in payroll. First of all, Tank never stopped moving.
Or barking.
He’d found a forgotten stethoscope from somewhere and had dragged it around and around the living room. Around the couch, up and over the coffee table, until he’d inadvertently trapped the end on a chair leg and been caught up short. A sound like air leaking out of a balloon had come from his throat, and he’d fallen over, legs straight up in the air.
Grace had thought he’d killed himself and had gone running toward him, but before she’d gotten to him, he’d rebounded.
Good as new, he’d been chewing on her sandals five minutes later.
And five minutes after that, the wooden kitchen chairs.
And the wooden banister poles.
And someone’s forgotten hat…
She was considering giving him an electrical cord to chew on next when she heard the front door open. Josh stepped inside wearing a white doctor’s coat over his sexy office clothes, a stethoscope around his neck like a tie. He picked up Toby and flung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold, making the kid squeal with abandon.
Josh gave a tired smile at the sound and turned to Grace, Toby still hanging upside down behind him. “Anna?”
“Present,” Anna said, rolling in the front door. The driver of the pickup was with her. Twentysomething, with an insolent smile, he slouched against the doorjamb.
Josh nudged the guy back a step until Slacker Dude stood on the other side of the jamb. Josh then shut the door in his face.
“Josh!” Anna was horrified and pissed. “You can’t do that to Devon!”
“Just did.”
“You—”
“Later,” he said curtly.
Anna whirled in her chair and sped off down the hallway. Two seconds later, her bedroom door slammed hard enough to shake the windows.
Josh ignored this. “Thanks,” he said to Grace, who felt as rattled as the windows. Five-year-old boys, as it turned out, were aliens. They owned battery-oper
ated hamster pets called Zhu Zhus that chirped and whistled and skittered randomly, terrifying pug puppies and temp babysitters alike.
Josh reached into his pocket and pulled out some cash.
“Oh no,” she said, backing away. “You don’t have to…”
“We didn’t negotiate for babysitting fees.”
“It’s okay.”
He gave her a speculative gaze. “Is this one of those ‘I would have done it for a kiss’ deals?”
She laughed, even as her tummy quivered. “I just meant that this one’s on me.”
“No,” he said softly. “I owe you.”
The air between them did that snap-crackle-pop thing again, like static electricity on steroids, and Grace’s breath caught. “Okay,” she said, just as softly. “You owe me.”
Two days later, Grace entered the diner, still thinking about kisses, deals, and sexy doctors named Josh.
And oddly enough, her résumé. She supposed she could add dog walker to it. She’d done it four days in a row now with no mishaps, at least no major ones. She didn’t count Tank biting the mailman’s pant leg yesterday, because Tank didn’t actually break skin. Nor did she count Toby dumping his bottle of bubbles into the pool because, hey, she’d always wanted to see what would happen too. And the pool guy had come right out and fixed everything, so all was okay.
In fact, she could probably now add babysitter to her new and constantly changing résumé as well, since it went nicely with dogsitter, model, and floral delivery person.
Not that any of that went with being a banking investment specialist.
She did finally get calls for interviews. She had a Seattle appointment tomorrow morning. The Portland interview was the following day, early, and would be conducted by Skype. This worked out in her favor because this way she wouldn’t miss modeling for Lucille’s class. The budding artists were drawing feet this week, so Grace had no wardrobe worries, at least from her feet up.
She tried to imagine her mother or father modeling their bare feet, but couldn’t. Because they took life much more seriously than that. They were the real deal.
And Grace was a poser.