Shotgun Nanny

by Nancy Warren

  As little as they’d been together in the past few days, she’d felt his presence every moment he was in the house. Glanced up to find his eyes on her, so deeply blue and smoldering she felt scorched.

  And

  frustrated.

  She wasn’t like this. She was a normal, uncomplicated woman who liked sex. All this denial was definitely not healthy. He had a door that locked, and she had an escape hatch in the form of a trip to Asia.

  A brief, uncomplicated affair was what they both needed. And tonight seemed like a good time to get started.

  Once the decision was made, a delicious thrill of anticipation washed over her.

  He was the one with the Mountie training, but she was the one about to get her man.

  Just as Annie and Emily were leaving the house, the phone rang. Emily answered it. “Hi, Brodie.” She listened for a moment then turned to Annie. “Uncle Mark’s’s friend Brodie left his tennis racket here. He’s going to play tennis and he wants to come pick it up.”

  “But we’re just leaving.”

  Emily handed her the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Hello?”

  “I hear you’re beautiful,” said the confident masculine voice on the other end.

  She laughed. “Have you been talking to my mother?”

  “No. To the most serious man in the world. If he says you’re beautiful, you are. How ’bout I come round and see for myself?”

  Mark had told his friend she was beautiful? She felt the compliment and was more flattered than she cared to admit. His friend was the kind of man she understood. Easy and casual. She knew instinctively he’d never try to tie her down. Quite the opposite, she suspected. Her kind of guy.

  But not today. “Sorry, Emily and I are just on our way out.”

  He cursed softly. “I booked a game for this afternoon and forgot my racket was at Mark’s place.”

  “Why don’t I leave it outside the door?”

  “It’s a very expensive racket.”

  “I’ll hide it behind the juniper bush out front, then,” she said, improvising.

  He sighed noisily. “I’d rather you gave it to me in person.”

  She glanced at Em, already waiting by the door, Kitsu on his leash. “Maybe another time.”

  “You got a date, babe.”

  “What are you laughing about?” Em wanted to know when Annie put down the receiver.

  “Men, honey. Men.”

  After they found the racket and hid it behind the bush they got into Annie’s little car and backed out. Only then did she remember the cursed security gate. Brodie was on his way, and she had no way of getting hold of him. She tapped the steering wheel in frustration, determined not to give up their afternoon outing because of Mark and his security paranoia.

  Glancing around the car for inspiration, she noticed she’d left her white trainers in the back. Perfect. After backing the car out past the gate, she grabbed a shoe and hopped out, then wedged it into the gate so it couldn’t close completely. The door of Fort Knox was still locked, so there was no way burglars could get in. With a clear conscience she drove to the beach, where they’d never yet seen a squirrel.

  While they walked Kitsu, keeping pockets of jujubes handy and a weather eye out for furry-tailed creatures, Annie plotted Mountie seduction.

  She didn’t own a negligee and somehow disliked the idea of a contrived seduction scene. She finally decided she’d beard the lion in his den, as it were. She’d go knock on his door once he was in bed. She had a strong feeling that would get her man. Especially if she walked in on him in her usual night attire.

  Nothing at all.

  A brisk wind churned the choppy waves, and dark clouds scudded across the sky, but Kitsu was well behaved, and Em had an idea for a new trick. She wanted to make pencils disappear when she brought Annie to school.

  “That’s pretty easy,” Annie assured her. “We’ll need a big handkerchief and a few hours’ practice. We can also pluck an eraser from behind your teacher’s ear if you want.”

  They giggled and planned until the first fat drops of rain plopped on their bare heads. “We should have brought an umbrella,” Em wailed as the smattering of rain turned into a downpour.

  “I don’t own an umbrella.”

  “Uncle Mark does. He has lots.”

  “Why am I not surprised? Come on, let’s run for the car.”

  “BAD NEWS, M ARK. He’s confirmed,” said Amanda Kelly, his executive assistant, sighing and leaning into his office.

  “The

  dictator?”

  She nodded. Amanda looked as tired as he felt.

  “Damn.” He rubbed the back of his neck. Security planning for the conference had been going too smoothly. Now they’d have to add extra security for the unpopular dictator whose health had been failing and whom Mark had hoped would stay home. Mentally he began reviewing the extra precautions he’d need to take.

  There’d be more political and law-enforcement liaisons to be added to the equation, tighter security all around. His job had just got a lot bigger. “Right. Set up a meeting with—”

  He was interrupted by a redheaded, red-faced home security monitor, who brushed past Amanda. “Mark, your home gate’s been breached.”

  He was on his feet and running. His team knew what to do without being told. What he needed to do was get home. An overwhelming fear began to build in his chest as he raced to protect his girls.

  While he drove home as fast as he dared, he tried Annie’s cell. No answer. His home phone. The service.

  He decided to drive by his house and make a visual assessment of the situation, then he’d put a plan of action together based on what he could see.

  He drove by the house, careful not to draw attention to himself by traveling too slowly, and squinted against the ominous gray clouds.

  It didn’t take long. A familiar running shoe propped the gate open. He slammed on the brakes and began cursing. And put an immediate plan together. Simple and expedient.

  Fire the damn nanny.

  9

  “YIPPEE, Uncle Mark’s home,” squealed Emily as they drove through the gate.

  A delicious quiver of anticipation danced in Annie’s belly. He’d come home early today of all days. It was like a sign that they were meant to get up close and personal tonight. She had all evening to seduce him in subtle little ways. She could hardly wait to get started.

  Even Kitsu was happy. He leaped from the tiny hatchback and jumped and danced toward the front door. He acted more like a puppy and less like a guard dog every day, she was pleased to note.

  Checking to make sure her belly ring was in plain view and suddenly not minding so much that her shirt had got plastered to her body by the rain, she followed, wondering who belonged to the red sports car parked beside Mark’s SUV and very much hoping the owner wasn’t female.

  Emily was in the door ahead of her, the dog bounding behind. “Hi, Uncle Mark. Hi, Brodie,” she called in her singsong voice.

  When she followed Em into the kitchen where two powerfully built men were drinking beer, Annie discovered two things. One, Brodie matched his voice. He was slick, from his groomed mustache to the tennis whites he managed to wear with a rakish air. From his position, lounging against the counter, predatory hazel eyes scanned her openly and shouted, “Come to bed,” loud and clear.

  The second thing she noticed was that Mark was in a fine temper. His eyes were cold, hard, blue ice chips in a face of stone, the jaw so powerfully clamped she was surprised she couldn’t hear his teeth cracking under the strain.

  There were dents in the beer can he was gripping—dents just about the size of his fingers—and, far from lounging, he paced until he caught sight of her, then stood rigid as a totem pole and glared at her.

  Seemed like her seduction wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d planned.

  “Hi,” she said breezily.

  “I see my friend here didn’t lie. Hi, beautiful, I’m Brodie.” He c
ame forward with a cocky stride and an easy grin. Handshakes weren’t usually sexy in her experience, but he managed to make his a come-on.

  Mark reminded her forcibly of a volcano about to blow. “Don’t you have a tennis date?” he asked his friend pointedly.

  Brodie gestured with his beer can toward the nearest window, where drops of water splattered the pane. “Rained out. Besides, I wanted to meet Annie.” He shot her a killer grin.

  She returned it.

  And heard a metallic ding as Mark added another dent to his beer can. “You’ll have to postpone it. I need to talk to Annie.”

  “Look, buddy, it’s my fault. I forgot about the gate. How was she supposed to know emergency alarms would go off at mission control?” Brodie asked in a tone that suggested he was repeating himself.

  Alarms? Mission control? Oh, no. She’d done it again. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she conceded that propping Mark’s high-tech security gate open with a shoe probably hadn’t been all that smart. She faced her stone-faced employer. “I’m really sorry. I never thought—”

  “That’s exactly the problem. You never do think. You just take off from one irresponsible, harebrained act to another.” His words blasted her like a blowtorch.

  “Uncle Mark, she didn’t—”

  “Go to your room, Emily. This doesn’t concern you.”

  Both females stared at him in shock. He’d never used that tone with his niece before.

  “Don’t you yell at Emily!”

  “She’s my niece, not yours!” he shouted back.

  “You better not do anything mean to Annie,” Emily contributed. And with that she burst into tears and dashed out of the room.

  Kitsu, not to be left out, rushed into the fray barking and growling at all of them indiscriminately. Then, catching sight of his rubber squirrel in the corner, he took his frustrations out on that, gripping it fiercely in his teeth and shaking it back and forth, growling ferociously the entire time. Having made his point, he glared at the three adults and trotted after Emily, the mauled and sorry-looking rubber squirrel hanging from his mouth.

  “The dog takes that round,” Brodie commented.

  Mark glared at him. “Would you take a hike?”

  “Uh-uh. I wouldn’t miss this for anything,” Brodie said, lounging once more.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Annie said, starting to get seriously steamed.

  “The doors to the house were all locked.”

  Mark took a step toward her, and she fought an impulse to step back. She’d never seen him so mad. “The deal is, one—” he slapped one forefinger against the other “—

  when you breach the system you compromise everybody’s safety. Two—” he banged his middle finger “—false alarms are expensive and time-consuming. Three—” his ring finger took the strike “—I’ve got a dictator coming to town—”

  “To take lessons from you?” she interrupted.

  A soft chuckle came from Brodie’s direction. “I think Annie takes that game.”

  “Four,” Annie shouted, so angry she felt like throwing things. One bullheaded exMountie, for a start. “You are such a pigheaded, Neanderthal control freak, you can’t stand to let anybody out of your sight.”

  “Set.” Brodie mimed a tennis serve, but the two combatants were so intent on each other, neither paid attention.

  “I don’t dare—every time I turn my back you do something stupid.”

  “The only stupid thing I ever did was take this job in the first place. Let me remove my harebrained, irresponsible, stupid self from your presence. I quit.”

  She grabbed her leather bag and stormed blindly toward the door. She heard Brodie’s voice like a sports announcer’s. “And match!”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” She heard Mark stomping behind her and swung around. But before she could launch another verbal assault, Brodie was there taking her arm.

  “She’s coming for dinner with me.”

  She opened her mouth to refuse, then heard Mark say, “Oh, no she’s not.”

  She gave Brodie her most dazzling smile. “Thanks, I’d love to.”

  HE PACED the house like a caged beast. He was going to fire her.

  How dare she quit on him?

  And as for that Brodie… When he got his hands on his former friend the man was going to be sorry he was ever born. Only Emily being in the house stopped Mark from jumping in his vehicle to go after his former nanny and his former friend.

  Instead he was stuck at home, cursing and waiting, knowing she’d probably end up in Brodie’s arms for the night while Mark was the one who’d been aching for her ever since the moment he saw her. Maybe he was a Neanderthal, but if Brodie laid so much as one finger on her, he’d…well he’d think of something.

  He made his peace with Emily, assuring her Annie would be back soon and hoping beyond hope he was right.

  Then he went back to pacing. It was stupid to torture himself this way. He should start planning for the dictator’s arrival at the conference. He should do some paperwork. Work

  out.

  Get some sleep.

  Still, he paced. And wished he hadn’t gone off the deep end. It was just that he’d been so damned worried. And scared that something had happened to them.

  For the hundredth time he peered into the night. Her car was still there, so she’d have to come back sometime. He really didn’t want it to be tomorrow morning, in Brodie’s passenger seat.

  She was right. He did worry too much. And she was responsible in her own way, he had to admit. He shouldn’t have lost his cool. When she came back, he’d apologize.

  Around midnight he gave up and had a long, hot shower, hoping to ease some of his tension. Then he shaved. He didn’t stop to ask himself why. As he was drying off, he heard a car engine. A loud, in-your-face sports car engine. He knew that sound.

  Bolting naked to the window, he was in time to see the passenger door of the red car open. The indoor light came on, spotlighting what happened next.

  Brodie said something, and she turned to him. Even from this distance Mark recognized the sweet smile she turned on his old buddy. She shook her head, then leaned forward and brushed Brodie’s lips with hers before getting out and shutting the car door behind her.

  He had his bathrobe on in seconds and pounded down the stairs tying the belt.

  By the time he got the door open she’d reached her car, and Brodie was long gone. The fact that her car was her destination, rather than his house, infuriated him all over again. He stomped up to her. “Going to Brodie’s place?”

  “None of your business.”

  “You didn’t get enough? Mauling each other in his car like a couple of teenagers?” What he’d seen had been a chaste peck, nothing more, and he knew it. But damn if she was getting away before they’d finished the fight they had started.

  At first, he thought she wasn’t going to answer, then she turned to face him, and her green eyes caught the light of the moon, dazzling him. “Jealous?” she whispered in a voice that taunted even as it thrilled him. Her lips were soft and full, pursed in a sassy way.

  “Damn right I’m jealous.” He didn’t even think, just grabbed her to him tight and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

  She gave a little whimpery sigh against his lips and then wrapped herself around him.

  He thrust his tongue deeply, possessively into her mouth, and she licked up and down its length with her own, making him weak in the knees with the power of his desire.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered when he came up for air.

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped in answer, and then they were kissing again.

  Cool air currents eddied around them while the heat between them built. Then he felt cool air where it had no business being. She’d taken him in her hands beneath the parted robe.

  He groaned helplessly as she touched and caressed him, knowing he had about three seconds of conscious thought left before instinct an
d desire took over completely.

  They’d never make it upstairs, their need was too urgent, but neither would he risk even the remotest chance that Em might look out her window and see them. Annie was leaning against her little car, which wouldn’t fit a pair of mating chipmunks, never mind two grown adults.

  But his Jeep would.

  He grabbed her hands and led her to his vehicle, found the spare key in its magnetized box and opened the back door.