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Authors: Susan Sey

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BOOK: Taste for Trouble
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“Former
soccer god of Manchester United, more lately of the DC Statesmen,” Bob said. “Also
Kate’s next door neighbor and, after the wedding incident, her new arch enemy.”

“Yeah,
I know.” Bel gave him a sour look. “I was there for that part.” Then she
frowned. “Now wait just a minute. Why on earth would Kate want anything to do with
rehabilitating James Blake? Seems to me like she’d
want
him to get
blackballed from the league. Then he could go into bankruptcy, lose the Annex
and sink quietly into a life of abject poverty and substance abuse while Kate
indulged in a private chuckle, after which she would bask in her skyrocketing
property value.”

“See,
that’s why you got fired.” Bob aimed a finger her way. “You don’t understand
your boss.”

Bel
frowned and dragged herself away from the satisfying mental image of James
Blake’s downfall. “I don’t?”

“Come
on, Bel. Think. This guy fucked up Kate’s season premiere, her protégée’s
wedding day and her retirement plans in one fell swoop. You think watching him
suffer from afar is going to satisfy
Kate
?” He huffed out a soft laugh. “I’m
sorry, have you even
met
the woman?”

Understanding
detonated in her head like an atom bomb and she froze. “Revenge,” she said, her
voice hollow. “Kate wants to twist the knife.” On James, of course, but on her,
too. God, Bob was right. She
was
slow.

“Is
this going to be a problem for you?” he asked, his eyes narrow and stern.

“What?
Kate demanding her pound of flesh in exchange for a second chance?” she asked. “Or
spending every waking minute of the next month with James Blake and his band of
merry idiots?”

“Either.”
Bob watched her steadily. “Both.”

She
laughed bitterly. “Does it matter?”

“Yeah.
It does.”

Bel
blinked, startled out of her momentary wallow. “Excuse me?”

“You
say the word and it’s off the table, the whole deal.” His face was as hard and
closed as always but his eyes, she saw with a shock, were full of troubled
concern. Her mouth dropped open and he held up a flat hand. “Don’t
misunderstand, now. That Dear Jane letter is always a possibility. Kate came
first, and business is business. But if you think you’ll drop off my radar,
you’re wrong. You’re talented, Bel. Beyond talented. You’ll land just fine. You
have my word on that.” He leaned back in his chair and held her gaze. “The
question is, is that what you want?”

Her
throat cinched tight on a rush of mortifying tears and she swallowed hard. Bob
believed in her. In her talent, anyway. That was enough right there to make her
cry, that anybody believed in her anymore. But coming from Bob? This was the rough
equivalent of a request to adopt her.

“No,”
she said when she was sure her voice wouldn’t wobble. She refused to reward his
faith by weeping all over his starchy shirt. “I don’t want that. I want to whip
James Blake’s frat-boy ass into shape for Kate’s viewing pleasure.”

“Excellent.”
Bob’s smile flashed sharp and hard but his eyes laughed. “Go pick out your
bedroom, kiddo.”

Bel
frowned, and for one wild moment she wondered if Bob was actually adopting her.
“My bedroom?”

“At
the Annex.” He propped an ankle on his knee, enjoying himself. “Nannies live
in, Bel. Plus you’re currently homeless, so what’s the problem?”

“No
problem,” Bel said again if a bit more faintly. “Just...okay.” She gave herself
a mental slap and a stern warning to get it together. Eyes on the prize, she
thought. Eyes on the prize.

“Fine.
Now get out of here,” Bob said, dialing. “I need to deal with some irate
sponsors.”

“Right.”
She gazed at him, searching for any hint of the tired, worn man she’d seen when
she first walked in. Any hint of the fatherly concern she’d seen just a minute
ago. Nothing. Now he was just kicking her out so he could work the phone.

“Don’t
forget about the pie,” she said slowly. “You could stand a slice or two, and I
don’t want to come back here in two weeks to find it growing moss on your
credenza.”

He stuck
his phone to his ear and waved her away in the same motion. “Yeah, okay.”

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

Despite
the early fall sun pouring into the van like melted butter, Bel’s fingers were
cold and stiff on the wheel as she pulled into James Blake’s courtyard. For one
weak moment, she allowed herself to wonder if she was making a mistake. But no.
Last resorts were, by definition, never mistakes. When one had no choice, one
couldn’t choose badly, right?

Still,
what had seemed like a workable idea in Bob’s office felt a bit less reasonable
outside James Blake’s front door. She concentrated on her breathing as she parked
next to the Italian fountain that had nearly given Kate a stroke when she’d
seen it go up last fall.
Did you hear that thud, Belinda? That was my
property value falling. Thank you, nouveau riche redneck neighbors
.

Bel
actually didn’t mind the fountain. She got out of the van and patted the ample
backside of one of its naked frolickers. The world could use a few more women
who didn’t look at a Tic Tac and see lunch.

Speaking
of which, Bel retrieved a grocery sack from the passenger seat of her van with
a twitch of relief. She could handle hotel living—the strange beds, the cheap
sheets, the generic showers. But having no place to put her milk, butter and
eggs? That unleashed a blind panic in her, cracked the door on the swirling
chaos she’d worked so hard to banish.

But
she’d bet good money James wasn’t using his fridge for anything but cooling
beer, and her groceries needed a home. So she gathered them into her arms and marched
up to the twenty-foot tall double doors. She pressed her free hand to her jumping
stomach then rang the bell.

“Mamas
Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” bonged solemnly inside the house
and Bel’s stomach settled somewhat. Surely she could handle a guy who
programmed his doorbell to sing Willie Nelson.

She
waited a moment, then pressed the bell again. Patsy Cline this time. “Walking
After Midnight.” Huh. She pressed again. Hank Williams. “Down on the Bayou.”

She
was reaching for the button a fourth time, just to see how deep her knowledge
of country music legends really went, when James Blake himself wrenched open
the door.

He
wasn’t a huge man, maybe three or four inches taller than Bel’s own five-eight,
but his presence filled up the doorway and spilled out onto the veranda just
the way she remembered. His hair was like shaggy sunshine, all mashed up on the
one side as if he’d just rolled out of bed. It spiked down over shockingly dark
eyebrows and a nose that had clearly seen the business end of a fist or two. His
mouth was perfection, though, even poised to snarl. That deeply bowed upper
lip, the full curve of the lower. Too pretty for a man but that magnificent
beaky nose balanced it out, Bel decided. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but she
could see why his face ended up in the papers so often. Women would always love
pirates.

“For
the love of Pete,” he barked, “
what
?”

Even
pissed off, he stretched the words like taffy. Twelve years chasing a soccer
ball around Europe (okay, so she’d Googled him) hadn’t touched that West Texas
drawl.

“Um,
hi.” Bel gave herself a mental kick in the butt.
Nice. Very good start
. In
her defense, however, he
was
shirtless. He was perhaps a bit softer
about the midsection than Bel would have expected from a professional athlete but
his arms and chest were all leanly muscled gold and a lot to contend with on a
nervous stomach. A tiny, unwelcome shock rippled through her and she clutched
the bag of groceries tighter to her chest.

“I’m
sorry,” he said, frowning. “Do I know you?”

“Well,
that’s lowering. You destroy my career and you don’t even remember me?” She
gave him a chilly smile. “Belinda West. You single-handedly derailed my wedding
about two weeks ago now.” Her smile sharpened. “On live TV.”

He
squinted into the late morning light and pressed a thumb to the center of his
forehead as if the very sight of her gave him a headache. “Oh. That was you?”

“That
was me.” She brushed past him into a soaring marble and gilt foyer, complete
with a curving staircase that cried out for hoop skirts and grand entrances.

“No,
I insist,” he said to the empty doorway. “Do come in.”

“Thanks.”
Bel gazed around the foyer. “I haven’t been in the Annex before. Is the entire
house decorated like this?”

“Like
what?”

“Like
the mausoleum where they buried restraint and good taste?”

He
pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is this my punishment for giving your runaway
groom a couple beers and a bucket of balls? You’re going to ring the bejesus
out of my doorbell at the crack of dawn and insult my decorator until I
repent?”

“I
have a few other duties as well, but I’m sure Bob explained them all.”

“Bob?”

“Bob
Beck. Our mutual agent?”

“Bob’s
your agent, too?”

She
stared at him. “He didn’t call you?”

“About
what?”

“You
don’t know what I’m doing here, do you?”

“Besides
being confusing and, I’m going to be honest here, just a tad inconvenient? Sorry,
no.”

She
gripped her groceries and prayed for Bob’s untimely demise. “We should start
over.”

He rubbed
the back of his neck and pursed up that gorgeous mouth. “Do we have to?”

She
shifted the bag to her hip and stuck out her hand. “Hello, Mr. Blake. I’m
Belinda West. Your new nanny.”

 

James
squinted at this woman in his foyer. All long legs, deep dimples and impossibly
soft-looking skin, Belinda West—Bel, if he remembered—looked like an angel. The
tidy sort of angel that made a man wonder what it would take to get her to set
aside that halo for a minute or two. Even at whatever o’clock on a Saturday
morning.

But
then she’d started throwing around words like
Bob Beck
and
good taste
and—God—
new nanny
. Any vague ideas about mussed angels and crooked halos
vanished in the face of his first coherent thought of the morning.

As
usual these days, it was
wait, what
?

God,
he was getting old. Time was he could match Will drink for drink and still play
out of his mind the next day. Now he was getting to be as big a pussy as Drew,
who fell in love with every pretty waitress who smiled at him. He shook his
head in brotherly disgust but stopped when his skull threatened to explode. God,
what
had he drunk last night? He forced his focus back to the situation
at hand.

“Bob
hired
you
to be my new assistant?” he asked.

“I
believe the term he used was babysitter. Live in.” Bel gave him a prim little
smile that barely played peek-a-boo with those killer dimples. Between them,
that butter-soft skin and the creases he’d bet good money she ironed into her
jeans every morning, she was a damn pretty picture. But James knew exactly what
pictures like her cost—a big, fat diamond solitaire and total obedience to a
color-coded calendar.

The
diamond he could afford, no problem. But the calendar? He got hives just
thinking about it.

“Why?”
he asked, cursing the hangover that had his normally glib tongue thick and
stupid.

“Why
do you need a babysitter? Bob said something about another red card and a morals
clause.” She fixed him with a bright, inquisitive gaze that made him feel like
the proverbial worm to her early bird.

“I meant
why you?” he asked. “And why would you say yes? You seem like a nice enough
girl and it’s bound to be a thankless task.”

She
gave him a hard look. “Are you planning to give me trouble, Mr. Blake?”

He gave
her his best shot at a roguish grin. “Not you personally. But I do have a
powerful dislike for schedules. Calendars, too. Systems, methods, rules. Authority
of all kinds, really.” He spread his hands. “It’s been a trial all my life.”

“I’m
sure.”

“But
my brothers? Why, they’re barely housebroken. Why on earth would you want to
muck around with the likes of us?”

“It
seemed only fair that you give me a job,” she said. “Since you got me fired
from my last one.”

“Oh.”
James’ head thumped like a disco. He cast around for something charming and
apologetic to say but came up empty. If she was keeping score, and she looked
like the sort who would, he’d also cost her a groom. Was she going to demand a
replacement there as well?

“Wow,”
he said finally. “I’m...sorry.”

“Thanks.
Listen, do you mind if we continue our little chat in the kitchen?” She jiggled
the paper sack in her arms. “I have perishables here.”

“Oh.
Right. Sure.” He waved down a short hallway to the swinging door to the
kitchen. “Through there.” A change of venue might be a good idea, actually. Maybe
just standing next to the coffee pot would put a dent in this vicious and
well-deserved headache.

BOOK: Taste for Trouble
7.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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