Page 244 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
Libby cocked her head to the side. “Oh yeah, that is them,” she said, wondering if the crow had slipped her some psychedelics when it took her stone. Maybe she had some crazy crow flu because wherever she was, it was pretty trippy.
“What in Buddha’s name is going on?” she bellowed, raising her voice a frenzied octave at the very instant the band stopped.
For what felt like a million years, several hundred pairs of eyes focused on her.
“It’s for you, plum.”
Her heart leaped into her throat at the sound of that voice—Raz’s voice. She turned to find not only Erasmus but her father, too.
Was this happening?
She blinked, expecting to see a padded cell, but the men were still there, smiling at her like it was normal to hang out in a park doing the Chicken Dance to a brass band with astronauts.
She shook her head to clear the cosmic cobwebs. “Dad, I thought you had to get to the airport? Doesn’t your job start tomorrow?”
“It does. But Erasmus offered me the use of his jet to get to Kansas City so I could be here.”
“What’s going on, Dad?” she asked, still not even sure where she was or what the hell was going on.
“Don’t be too upset with your father, Libby. He was doing me a favor,” Raz said, looking at her like she was the answer to all his prayers.
And sweet swooning Buddha, that earnest boyish grin sent tingles straight to her lady parts, which was super weird with her father two feet away. Still, it wasn’t her fault her body wanted to ride Erasmus Cress into the sunset.
Get it together.
She needed answers, and she needed them now.
There were two ways to go about this. One way employed love and light, the other, not so much.
“I don’t know if I should punch you or kiss you, Erasmus Cress. I know what you did for my dad, and I’m grateful. But I was just fake arrested, and I demand answers,” she belted, choosing the not-so-much route.
“Will you excuse us, Connolly? I have some things I need to say to your daughter.”
“Of course,” her father answered as her brothers came to the man’s side.
“Walk with me, Libby,” Raz said, glancing at a screen with a number that seemed to be ticking up incrementally. “We’ve got a little time.”
“A little time before what?” She looked over her shoulder at her brothers and her father, trying to get a read on this situation, but the men simply smiled at her.
“I haven’t been drugged, have I?”
“No,” Raz answered.
“We’re still in Denver?”
“Yes.”
“Am I still mad at you?” she pressed.
Next, she’d be asking if the sky was blue and the grass was green because nothing was adding up.
“Come on,” Raz said, taking her hand.
She was too discombobulated to pull away, and truth be told, the warmth of his touch sent another round of tingles through her body.
“Did you get here all right?” he asked gently.
“You sent the police to bring me here?”
