Baddest Bad Boys

Baddest Bad Boys

Shannon McKenna & E. C. Sheedy & Cate Noble


1


The phones had gone nuts, and she was following right behind. Robin MacNamara stabbed the buttons, repeating, “Crowne Royale Group, please hold,” in her best cheerful chirp until she’d gotten the whole pesky lot of them distributed onto the switchboard and waiting their own freaking turns. Whew. She cracked a mental whip. Take that.

She stared at the row of flashing lights and sighed. A woman needed a cool head, a detail-oriented brain and nerves of steel to work a crazy-busy switchboard. She herself had none of those things. A fact which she repeated constantly to her stubborn brothers, in her ongoing campaign to get herself honestly fired. Which was to say, liberated.

So far, they ignored her, and she hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to tell them she was quitting for good. Soon. Danny and Mac were an intimidating pair. Particularly when they ganged up on her, which was always. And worse, agreed with each other, which was relatively rare.

On this point, though, they were as one. They wanted their little sister to discover a calling for the hotel industry, and they were willing to bully and nag without rest until it happened. Forever, if need be.

They would not accept what she really wanted to do. No, rephrase that. What she had decided to do. They thought being a professional clown was a joke. Ha ha. That wacky Robin. What will she think of next.

She had yet to find the nerve to tell them her amazing, stunning, nerve-tingling career news that they so would not get. She’d auditioned six months ago in San Francisco, and hooray, she’d been accepted into the Circo della Luna Rossa, a hot, sexy, new circus show from Italy that was getting rave reviews and sold-out crowds the world over. That she was starting the training program in San Francisco in less than a month. That it was a coup, an incredible accomplishment, an amazing opportunity. That they should be proud of her.

Uh-huh. Like they were going to see it that way. But even so. Until she told her brothers, it was not going to seem real. Or be real.

She took a deep breath, stabbed Line 1. “Thanks for holding, how may I direct your call?” Stock phrases singsonged out of her. “I’m sorry, he’s out of the office, would you like his voicemail? I’m sorry, she’s in a meeting, may I take a message?”

She was so not made for this. She would rather wait tables, wash dishes, walk dogs, scoop poop for her day job, until she could make it as a full time clown. Anything but this. Anything at all.

She plodded all the way down to the last one, Line 10, and hit it. “Thanks for holding,” she sang out. “How may I direct your call?”

“Danny MacNamara, please. Jon Amendola calling.”

She froze, and then her stomach flip-twirled and did that weird, freefall thing. Jon. Oh, God. His deep voice sent pulses of excitement up her body. “One moment, please,” she squeaked, and hit Hold again.

Don’t be the receptionist from hell. He’s already been waiting for five minutes, she told herself, but she was so rattled, she had to hug herself to squeeze that stuttering-fluttering-breathless feeling that any fleeting contact with that guy set off in her body. One…two…three breaths. OK. Get a grip. She was a big girl. She buzzed Danny’s office.

“What is it, Robin?” Danny’s voice was crabby, which was normal.

“It’s Jon,” she told him.

“Put him through,” Danny rapped out, as she knew he would.

Danny never kept Jon waiting. They’d been roommates their freshman year in college, and best buddies ever since. Danny had brought Jon home for the Christmas and spring breaks, he being an orphan, just like the MacNamaras. She’d been eleven—and smitten.

Jon was tough, cynical, foul-mouthed, funny, and flat-out, drop dead gorgeous. He’d grown up knocking from foster home to foster home on the mean streets of North Portland, but he was smart and ambitious. He’d wangled himself a scholarship to U-Dub, studying criminal psych, and now he was Detective Amendola of the PPD.

And she’d been in love with him ever since she laid eyes on him.

Hopeless puppy love, impossible to hide. She’d never been able to hide her feelings. She was a blusher. But it didn’t matter. They hadn’t taken her seriously. She was just wacky little Robin, the clown, to them.

But she wasn’t. Not anymore. Even if her brothers couldn’t see it.

She was nine years younger than Jon. Twenty-five now, and all grown up, but probably he still thought of her as a gangly adolescent with glasses and orthodontic problems. The adult braces had been a big, fat fashion challenge. She’d been so glad to bid farewell to them forever last year, in exchange for straight, lovely teeth. So glad.

And that fluttery, stuttering thing was not abating, not while Line 10 was lit up. Not that she wanted it to. She actively sought out that feeling by sneaking often into Danny’s office whenever possible to peek at the photo of Jon, Danny and herself, taken a few years ago, one of the times the guys had climbed Rainier. All of them grinning. Sunlight flashed off her braces. Other than that stupid detail, the picture rocked.

And if she didn’t want to walk that far, she could just flip open her wallet and fish out the color photocopy she’d made of that same shot. She’d cut out herself and Danny, and slipped the Jon part into a plastic envelope. Just his face, laughing open-mouthed, head thrown back. Those perfect white teeth flashing, the crinkles around his electric blue eyes creased from laughing. The man was crazy gorgeous.