Page 100 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
“After the Ass-in-Nine race and Sebastian’s seventh birthday,” Briggs continued with a nod to the boy. “The countdown begins for the fight of the century. I don’t need to remind you that this is the highest Pay-Per-View event ever recorded, and it’s just weeks away. This is truly a moment in heavyweight boxing. And with that, I think the weather will allow for one last question for the Lion and the Lamb.”
The Lion and the Lamb.
Just as the man finished talking, a muddy white truck pulling an equally muck-covered trailer gunned it up the drive, then hit the brakes. Pebbles skipped across the rocky land as a swirl of dust welcomed the visitor, and an older, portly gentleman in a cowboy hat with a bushy white beard emerged from the vehicle.
“Can we help you, sir? Do you have a question?” Briggs asked.
The man surveyed the media spectacle. “Oh, I have a question.”
“And what would that be?”
The newcomer removed his hat and stared directly at Libby.
“Do you know him, Raz?” Libby asked under her breath.
“I have no idea who he is.”
For an old-timer, the bloke looked bloody intimidating, like a hardened Colorado cowboy.
Just as he answered, the man took a few wobbly steps forward and pointed to them. “You two,” he called.
“Yes, sir?” Libby answered, coming to attention.
“I need some answers,” he barked.
“About what, sir?” she eked out.
The man’s bushy white beard twitched as he leaned against the dusty truck. “Which one of you is going to tell me what’s really going on with Beefcake and Plum?”
Raz’s jaw dropped as he caught Libby’s eye. Dumbstruck, she shook her head, looking as clueless as he felt.
Who was this old codger?
Fifteen
Libby
Beefcake and Plum?
Libby blinked as the dust settled, and she drank in the older gentleman. The crusty senior citizen, dressed in boots and head-to-toe denim, looked like he’d moseyed on out of a Wild West saloon.
Was she hallucinating? Was this discombobulated state the karmic response to creating an entirely new school of yoga on the fly? Had she tipped the cosmic scales and descended into a catatonic meditative state?
She wasn’t sure. All she could do was stare at the new arrival.
As if he were made of stone, the bearded man kept his gaze trained on them as the press remained silent. Good to know that even mouthy sports journalists found the guy formidable. Honestly, after the last ten days, she was lucky she could put a coherent thought together. And the events of the last hour hadn’t helped. It was as if her chi had gone from being mixed up, to leveling out, to getting thrust into a super-charged spin cycle, to now being scrutinized by a salty character in a Western flick.
The man cocked his head to the side, continuing his silent assessment as the reporters’ gazes bobbed back and forth between where she, Raz, and Sebastian stood and the gentleman with a cantankerous air. No, cantankerous wasn’t the correct description. The man’s energy wasn’t angry. He had more of a steady, no-nonsense vibe, and there was something strangely familiar about him.
Then again, who was she to interpret anyone’s vibe?
She was still flying high from the Pun-chi yoga demo. Yes, it had started as a bunch of make-believe yoga babble. Still, somewhere between leading the horde of reporters in a five-minute yoga class and busting out into the one-handed handstand to rock some punches, the overarching concept of Pun-chi yoga solidified in her mind. There appeared to be merit to marrying the vastly different concepts of yoga and boxing.
“We seem to have a local in our midst,” Briggs whispered as if the dude who rolled up was from another planet.
And maybe he was from another galaxy.
How in the world could some random person in Rickety Rock, Colorado, have known their nicknames? She’d called Raz a beefcake in the viral video, but this local didn’t look as if he spent his days glued to social media. Not only that—there was no way he could have known that Raz called her plum.
