Undercover Nanny

D.J. knew her curiosity was a tad more than professional. Aside from being big and strong and darkly gorgeous, Max appeared to have boundless patience with his kids. He really enjoyed them, which made D.J. endlessly curious about the woman whose absence was forcing him to secure child care. Where was she? Was she coming back?

Unfortunately, D.J. sensed already that Max was not a spill-his-guts-on-the-first-date kind of guy, so she would keep everything casual for the next day or so. It wasn’t going to be easy. Protective of her own information, D.J. nonetheless had a natural curiosity about other people—how they’d been raised, what their families were like, how they lived. In high school she’d frequently been in trouble for talking too much, and in one of her first jobs, as a cashier, she’d almost been canned for interrogating her customers. She’d developed more subtlety since then.

To convey a relaxed attitude, she unsnapped her suitcase, intending to unpack while she spoke. “So are you completely on your own with the kids?”

“Yeah.” Max had hesitated a second before he answered.

Taking a chance, she pressed just a bit. “Has it been that way for long?”

Max hovered near the door. He spotted some loose change lying on the dresser, scooped it up and put it in his pocket. D.J. sensed he was stalling. “It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later. Right now I’ve got to get back to the tavern. My lead bartender fell off a damn roof and broke his ankle this morning, so I’ve got the night shift until he can work or I can find someone to cover.”

“You’re leaving?” The rush of pure fear that shot through her veins amazed D.J. Not being able to question Max further didn’t bother her nearly as much as the thought of being left alone with the kids so soon. “Uh, I’d hoped you could stick around, acquaint me with the routine.”

“You’ve probably gathered by now that there isn’t one.” He smiled, and for a moment the one-sided quirk of his lips completely distracted her. “Besides, with your background, you’ll be able to teach me a thing or two. Thirteen brothers and sisters.” Max whistled softly. “I was an only child, so to me four kids is the equivalent of a preschool. I was able to get hold of your former employers, by the way. They gave you glowing recommendations. Said you’re a crackerjack waitress. Very organized and good with people. I’d say those are excellent qualities to apply to child care.”

D.J. smiled a little weakly. “I’d say so.”

Max leaned a shoulder onto the door frame. “Don’t worry about anything. The kids seemed to like you.”

Au contraire. The kids had stared at her with big eyes and distinct doubt when he’d introduced her as their nanny. She couldn’t show fear, trembling and trepidation, though. Not after the song and dance she’d given him.

“Okay. Yeah, we’ll have a great time. Hope your bartender’s better soon.”

Still seated on Max’s bed a full ten minutes after he’d left the house, D.J. clasped her hands on her knees, back rigid as a steel girder. She felt as though she was waiting outside the principal’s office. She couldn’t seem to get the information from her head to her gut that from here on in she was the principal.

Max had started a video for the kids, who were still in the living room and still quiet, but she knew she had to get out there soon. For one thing, she’d conned him into believing her housekeeping skills were on a par with her child care abilities. Which they were.

Unfortunately.

Slapping her knees, D.J. stood and shook the nerves from her body. Time to sally forth and set a few precedents for running this house; she couldn’t spend all her time corralling children. Matter of fact, she’d have to come up with a few clean-up projects to keep the kids busy so she could focus on Max when he was home.

Cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders to loosen up, D.J. commanded her feet to move toward the door. She’d work in a quiet yoga session later, but now it was time to get out there.

Wishing she’d thought to buy a couple of toys, utterly willing to resort to bribery right off the bat, she walked sprightly down the hall, clapping her hands as she neared the living room. “Okay, kiddos, ready to have some fun? I… Ah!” The sight that greeted D.J. stopped her dead in her tracks and elicited a swear word before she could censor herself.

Four children and one can of whipped topping had wreaked havoc on the already disrupted living room. Ribbons and clouds of the stuff covered the coffee table, sofa, windowsills. “What are you doing?” Heaven help her, but she swore again.

One of the twins responded. “You said a baddie.”

Yes, she had. And now she was speechless.

“She sa-id—” The other curly headed brother began a singsong recounting of her indiscretion, using the word several times in succession.

“James, stop that,” D.J. ordered.

“I’m Sean! And you sa-id—”

The youngest child, Livie, sat on the sofa with a huge teddy bear at her feet, clumsily ladling ice cream out of a half-gallon container. Both the bear and the child, D.J. noticed, had ice cream mustaches. “She said a baddie, she said a baddie…” Livie chanted, kicking her feet.

“All right, everybody stop saying that.” All she needed was for Max to come home the first day to find that his kids had increased their vocabulary by one colorful curse.

Anabel, the older girl, sat in a chair, her eyes glued to the TV. One of the twins, the one who wasn’t Sean, started squirting the table again.

“Hey!” D.J. sprang into action, hopping over assorted toys to grab the offending item from James’s hand. “What is this?” She turned the plastic container over in her hands. “Squeezable mayonnaise?”

“We ranned out of whip cream.”

“All right, give me anything edible.” They stared at her dumbly. “Fork over the food!” She held out her hands and motioned to the little dears. “All of it. Right now.” Collecting the can of whipped cream from Sean and the ice cream from Livie, whose lower lip started to quiver sadly, D.J. said, “There will be no more gourmet art as long as I’m here. Food belongs in bellies, not on tables or any other furniture. Is that understood?”

She received no response, other than big-eyed stares from the three younger children. Anabel continued to watch the TV. “Excuse me,” D.J. said, stepping into her line of vision. “You seem somewhat normal. May I ask what you were doing while your brothers and sisters were destroying the living room?”

Brown eyes, large and beautiful behind a pair of silver-rimmed glasses, and dramatically more solemn than the dancing blue eyes of the other children, gazed at D.J. “I was waiting for you to come out of the bedroom.”

Right. Anabel: one. D.J.: zero. “Well, I’m out now, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to clean up this living room. Then—”

“I’m hungry,” James said.

Sean echoed immediately, “Me, too. I’m starving.”

Livie said plaintively, “Is it time for dinner yet?”

D.J. stared. Were they joking? You could start a burger franchise with what they’d spread on the coffee table. “Didn’t you eat anything while you were doing that?” She pointed to what looked like a model of Mt. Everest.

Sean shook his head. “That was for Livie’s bear. It’s his birthday.”

The little girl nodded hard. “He wanted to play ice cream parlor.”

With a heavy sigh and a shake of her exotically dark head, Anabel slid off her chair to approach D.J. “I’ll take these things to the kitchen,” she said, removing the ice cream and other weapons of living room destruction from D.J.’s arms. “You’d better get the kids something to eat before they have a major meltdown.”

The girl trooped off to the kitchen, and D.J. felt a ridiculous urge to call out, “Don’t leave me!” despite the fact that Anabel, too, was only a child. But at least she seemed to know what she was doing. Taking a deep breath, D.J. said, “All right. We’ll clean up here, and then we’ll eat some dinner. Okay?”

Ending with a question was her first mistake. Sean leaped up. “Jamie’s starving,” he informed in a sudden show of brotherly support.

“So’s Livie.” Jamie jumped up, too.

Swinging her legs, Livie picked up her previous chant. “You said a baddie…you said a baddie….”

D.J. wanted Max to come back. Right now. In the restaurant he had juggled all four kids, kept his sense of humor and managed to appear relatively sane. Of course, he’d had practice at this. He’d given her his cell phone number; she could call him for a little five-minute-advice session. She could imagine him responding in that half-wry, half-soothing tone he had and felt better already.

Unfortunately, she could also imagine him wondering what kind of wimp he had hired, and that did not sit well at all.

Whipped cream and mayonnaise slipped in glops from the table to the carpet. Livie’s bear dripped ice cream onto the sofa.

The boys joined their sister’s chant.

And D.J. realized she wasn’t nearly as tough as she’d thought.

Chapter Three