The Summer Of Sunshine And Margot. Susan Mallery

helping people deal with our ever-shrinking world.”

      “Hmm, yes, that’s fascinating, but what’s your background? Where are you from? Who raised you?”

      A different question than “tell me about your parents.” It was almost as if Bianca knew there hadn’t been parents. “My maternal great-grandmother,” she said slowly. “She owned a beauty and charm school for nearly fifty years. She trained pageant contestants.”

      “Were you in pageants?”

      “No. I’m lacking certain skills.” Like the ability to speak to a group. Margot still remembered the first time Francine had made her get up on the mock stage they had in the workroom and address the group. She’d barely taken her place when she’d projectile vomited and promptly fainted. It had been a fairly quick end to any hopes her great-grandmother had had about Margot taking the crown.

      Margot had forced herself to overcome her deficiency and could now give a decent lecture, but she would never be a natural up on stage. Not that she’d ever aspired to be a beauty queen. She just wanted to do her job and live her life. Oh, and not be dumb about men, because she’d already done that enough already.

      “Alec picked you,” Bianca said. “He looked over all the people at your agency and he picked you. Now I see why.”

      Did she? Margot hadn’t known he’d been the one to make the decision. Why her? She wasn’t an obvious choice, was she?

      “Can you do it?” Bianca asked before Margot could question her statement. “Can you help me be who I need to be so I don’t embarrass Wesley?”

      “Yes.”

      “You promise?”

      Margot leaned forward. “I will use every technique I have, and if those don’t work, I will create new ones. I will work tirelessly to get you to a place where you are comfortable in Wesley’s world.”

      “That’s not a promise.”

      “I know. I don’t make promises when I can’t be sure of the outcome.”

      Bianca looked away. “I make promises all the time. I rarely keep them. It’s just that in the moment, I want the person to be happy.”

      “And later?”

      Bianca shrugged again. “They always forgive me. Even Alec.” The smile returned. “All right. Let’s do this. Alec thinks I need about two months of instruction. You’ll have to move in here. There are a few guest rooms upstairs. I have the big one and I’m sorry but I’m not moving out for you.”

      “I wouldn’t expect you to.” Margot looked at her potential client. “Bianca, I don’t live that far from here. I could easily drive over—”

      “No. You have to stay here. It’ll be like we’re on location. Alec doesn’t care. He rarely looks up from his work to notice anything. The house is beautiful. You’ll love it and I’d feel better if you were close.”

      Margot nodded slowly. She’d lived in before. She didn’t prefer it but when the client insisted, she agreed.

      “As you wish. I’ll send over the contract as soon as I get back to the office. Once it’s signed and you’ve paid the retainer, I’ll be in touch to discuss a start date.”

      “Monday!” Bianca sprang to her feet and raced around the table. She crouched in front of Margot, took both her hands and smiled. “We’ll start Monday. Oh, this is going to be fun. We’ll be best friends and have a wonderful time.”

      Bianca rose and twirled, then ran to the house, her laughter trailing after her.

      Margot watched her go. There was something, she thought, some secret driving Bianca. Margot wasn’t sure if she was running to something or away from it, but whatever it was, it was the key to the problem. Finding out what it was would be difficult, but she knew in her gut if she could figure out the mystery, she could teach Bianca what she needed to know and be gone in far less time than two months.

      She glanced around at the beautiful gardens and the monastery’s worn, red-tiled roof and reminded herself that whatever she might have to deal with while helping Bianca, at least her living quarters were going to be extraordinary. Perhaps, if she were lucky, she might even run into a ghost monk or two.

      Chapter Two

      Sunshine Baxter was done with love at first sight. D. O. N. E. More times than she could count, she’d looked deeply into a pair of—insert any color here—eyes and immediately given her heart. The relationships had all ended in disaster and she’d hated herself for being so incredibly stupid over and over again, so she decided she was finished with the falling in love concept. Over it. Moving on.

      Except...

      “I’ve decided,” Connor said, pushing up his glasses, his dark brown eyes staring intently into hers.

      Sunshine leaned close, knowing that once again she’d foolishly fallen for an inappropriate guy. “Tell me.”

      “Ants.”

      Sunshine smiled. “Are you sure?”

      “Yes. I’ve read three books on ants and they’re very smart and they work hard. I want to build the world’s biggest ant farm.”

      “Okay, then. That’s what we’ll do. We should probably start small,” she told him. “Get a regular-size ant farm and see if we can make it work. Then we’ll add on.”

      His mouth began to curve in the most delightful smile. “I thought girls didn’t like ants.”

      “I don’t want them crawling in my bed, but I think an ant farm is super cool.”

      The smile fully blossomed. Connor ran toward her. She pulled the eight-year-old close and hugged him, telling herself if adoring her new charge qualified as breaking her no-heart-giving rule, then she was willing to live with the disappointment. Connor was irresistible.

      He released her and stepped back, nearly slipping off the path and into a tall, aggressive-looking succulent that no doubt had an impressively long Latin name. Sunshine shifted her weight, gently grabbed his arm and spun him out of the way of impalement. Connor barely noticed.

      “You’re going to tell me that you have to ask my dad, huh?”

      “I am. We’re talking about being responsible for several hundred life-forms. That’s a big deal.”

      “You’re right.” He paused, then giggled. “Can I be their king?”

      “Of course. Maybe we can teach them to chant ‘All hail Connor.’”

      Connor laughed. The desert garden section at The Huntington’s acres of gardens was his favorite. Given that Connor’s father was a landscape architect, Connor and Sunshine both had memberships and in her three weeks of employment as Connor’s nanny, they’d been four times. So far all they’d visited was the desert garden, but she was okay with that. Eventually Connor’s interests would broaden.

      He squatted in front of a reddish plant apparently called terrestrial bromeliad and studied it.

      “You start school on Monday,” he said.

      Something Sunshine didn’t want to think about. Part of her plan to avoid bad relationships and shift her life onto a happier and more positive course meant going to college. Not back so much, as that implied she’d been at one in the first place.

      “I do.”

      He glanced at her. “Are you scared?”

      “I am. Well, maybe scared is strong. I’m nervous.”

      “Do you think all the other kids will be smarter than you?”

      She grinned. “I wouldn’t have put it like that, but yes, in part. And they’ll be younger.”

      He