Curvy Nanny for the Grumpy Single Dad (Small Town Nannies #1)
1. Lucy
Chapter 1
Lucy
“ T hanks for driving today, Luce. My head hurts like a son of a bitch.” My friend and temporary roommate, Toni Stafford, gripped her head, and I could tell she was wincing even behind giant black and gold sunglasses.
I laughed and shook my head. “Drank a little too much last night?” Toni liked to have a good time when she wasn’t working, and for the past week we had both been between nanny jobs.
Toni nodded, her red ponytail bounced and she froze, clutching her head once again. “It was ill-advised I know, but the Hissy Fits were playing last night, and the last two times they were in Texas I was busy working,” she explained. “The only good thing about Ethan starting fifth grade is that I finally caught a live show.” She’d been taking care of Ethan since he was three, but now that he was ten years old, his mom had decided that he no longer needed a nanny.
“I have painkillers in my purse. Take two and chug that bottle of water you haven’t even opened yet. Serenity will flip if you show up looking hungover.” Serenity Majors was our boss at the Elite Nanny Service which catered to rich parents who didn’t have time for the day to day duties of parenthood. She was a good boss, but she had her limits.
Toni laughed. “I can be hungover as long as I don’t look it, and that’s why I made sure to look good today.” She ran a hand over her ponytail. “Except the hair, I couldn’t be bothered.”
“You look fine,” I assured her. Toni was curvy, borderline voluptuous, and she rocked it in her standard uniform of skintight jeans, plain t-shirt or tank top, and her leather jacket. She was a tough girl through and through and gave off a don’t fuck with me vibe that I admired. “Better than fine, and you know it.” Ours was an unlikely friendship, but when my last nanny job ended I had needed a place to stay, and Toni offered up her extra bedroom.
“Thanks babe, you’re the best.”
“I try,” I assured her with a smile as traffic slowed up ahead. “Is there another event in town or something?” Our small town of Lucky was on the outskirts of Houston, so the traffic wasn’t what you’d expect for a small town, but we were headed in the opposite direction of the city and traffic was still atrocious.
“Not that I know of. Probably road work, or maybe the cows or horses broke free from one of the nearby ranches.”
I let out a sigh and relaxed into my seat, because one thing I learned from my time in Texas was that the animals rushed for no one. No amount of honking or wishing would get a stubborn four legged creature to move if he or she didn’t want to be moved.
“All right, then. Did you meet anyone at the show last night?”
“Plenty,” she grunted. “Not one of them quality material. In fact I think I need to reconsider my love of the Hissy Fits if that’s the kind of men their music attracts.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Or maybe those guys want the kind of girls the Hissy Fits’ music attracts.”
Toni groaned. “That makes it worse, I think.”
I smiled and laughed as traffic crawled forward while Toni recounted her night of being hit on by Crypto Bros, Finance Bros and her least favorite of the bunch, thisclose to hitting it big wannabe musicians.
“But none of them were hot enough for a night or two?”
“That’s the worst part,” she scoffed. “So many of them were absolutely delicious, definitely worth a night between the sheets. But after a few minutes of one-sided conversation, I knew naked time would be just as one-sided.”
“Too bad.”
“What did you do last night?”
I shrugged. “I made egg rolls and fried rice, curled up on the sofa and watched…are you freaking kidding me!” A luxury red SUV crossed double lines to cut me off and then brake checked me. My abrupt stop caused the car behind me to rear end me. “Seriously!” I let out a long string of expletives that would have made my older brother and his Army buddies proud.
“Wow,” Toni sighed. “That was some impressive profanity, even coming from your sweet little mouth.” She laughed to herself and then stopped to clutch her head.
“This fucking guy,” I growled and a second later I was out of my little sedan and marching towards his bright red monstrosity. I knocked on the back window, keeping my distance but fully prepared to give this jerk a piece of my mind.
The man who stepped out was the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen in my whole damn life.
Thick black hair that was slightly more stylish than his uptight suit suggested, and deep green eyes that looked like marble swirl. And the suit, designer of course, fit him perfectly to highlight his best features including his broad shoulders, long, thick thighs and a chest that was just perfect to curl up against after a long day. Wait, what? I blinked out of my stupor when the man took a step forward and I took a wary step back.
“What the hell is your problem?”
Long thick fingers, which I tried not to notice, raked through that thick wavy black hair and he let out a frustrated sigh. “You were going too slow.” His words were deep and even, but I heard the accusation in his tone.
I had to laugh at his outrageous words. “So ten miles over the speed limit is too slow?” I felt slightly hysterical at the idea. “Another impatient businessman who thinks his time is more valuable than everybody else’s. Typical.” There was no use trying to make him see sense, you couldn’t reason with crazy, and it was a lesson I’d had to learn the hard way over the years.
“Are you always this understanding?” He shouted the question to my back, but the amusement in his tone didn’t help my mood.
“Understanding?” My feet froze and I whirled on the handsome jerk. “You want understanding because you were so impatient that you just had to get ahead by one car length, which resulted in not one, but two accidents.” I pointed to the pickup truck behind me. “What I understand is that you are an entitled prick.” With the sweetest smile I could muster, I arched a brow and turned away, determined to forget the good-looking jerk’s face and get on with my day.
“I don’t have time for this,” he grumbled under his breath, and even though I knew I should’ve just kept going towards the waiting pickup driver, I didn’t. Maybe it was the Irish on my mom’s side that made me speak up, or maybe he’d just caught me on a sassy day.
I turned again with the same smile. “Just imagine, if you’d just shown a bit of patience you might be at your destination by now. Hell, all of us might be where we were headed if not for one impatient…driver. Now it’s going to take all of us even longer to get where we were going.” I smiled a little wider because taking this guy down a notch had improved my mood.
Thankfully the pickup driver was more reasonable than the hottie in the SUV, and twenty minutes later, traffic—caused by runaway cows—cleared up, and we were well on our way to Elite Nanny Service.
“Holy hell that guy was hot,” Toni said eventually.
I laughed. “How long have you been waiting to let that out?”
“Since he stepped out of the car, but I wanted to give you time to calm down first.”
“Thanks for that,” I chuckled. “He was gorgeous. Too bad he’s one of those guys who thinks the world should just move out of his way and bow to his whims.”
Toni groaned. “That sucks, but to be fair, I’d totally bow before all that hotness. Naked of course.”
“Of course,” I repeated and rolled my eyes. “Thanks, that’s just what I needed to think about for the rest of the day.”
“Anytime,” Toni said with a laugh as I pulled into a parking spot in the lot dedicated to Elite Nanny Service. “Now let’s hope we leave this joint with new assignments.”
“Serenity wouldn’t have called us in otherwise, but I hope to get a long-term assignment, at least a few years.” That kind of job security would be nice after a string of high paying live-in gigs. They tended to be unstable and short-lived due to job transfers and promotions that took the family away from the area, which was exactly how I found myself in search of another placement.
As we stepped inside the air conditioned building, I let my shoulders relax, and I put all thoughts of mister tall, dark and arrogant out of my mind for good.