A Midsummer Night's Romp by Katie MacAlister Read Free Book Online Page B

doesn’t mean I am everyone’s bitch. Roger’s not paying me enough to run around and fix everything!”
    â€œThat’s exactly what you
are
being paid for,” the disembodied voice said out of the radio. “And if you don’t want the job, we can find someone else—”
    â€œYou push me any harder, and you’re going to have to! I’ll see to this, but it’s the last straw, do you hear me? I have digging to do this afternoon!” Fidencia viciously turned off the radio with a little snarl. “A waste of a perfectly good education . . . I can’t stay to babysit you,” she said, giving me a shove toward the line of RVs. “Evidently I must now go deal with some sort of issue catering has with the grills. I swear to god, no amount of money is worth this aggravation.”
    â€œSorry. I’ll find my way to him just fine. You go deal with catering.”
    She stormed off, muttering rude things under her breath. With a growing sense of worry, I hustled my way to the RVs, which were lined up nose to tail. I whipped around the farthest one, intent on things I would say to Roger if he insisted I do some playacting for the camera, but the sight of a man on a scooter about to mow me down drove all thoughts from my head.
    â€œAck!” I yelled, and tried to leap to the left, but the man jerked the handlebars at the same time, with the result that he drove right over the top of my foot.

Chapter 5
    â€œB loody, buggery hell!” I shouted, clutching my poor abused foot, and hopping in pain.
    Tears pricked in my eyes, which is probably one reason for what happened next. The aforementioned propensity for escapades is another, and lastly, the scooter driver’s decision to circle around was the final nail in the coffin of my supposed grace and elegance. In midhop, my ankle twisted, and when I landed, I listed to the side, about to fall hard on the ground, except the man on the scooter was in the way, which meant I ended up draped across his lap, and clutching his shoulders to keep from sliding off.
    â€œHullo,” he said, and wrapped both arms around me to hoist me up so I was sitting across him. “I can’t apologize enough for running over you. You just seemed to come out of nowhere, but that’s no excuse. How bad is your foot? Is it broken? I hope not, because I can tellyou from firsthand knowledge that a broken foot is the very devil. Can you wiggle your toes?”
    It was the brother of the owner, the very man with the long hair, chiseled jaw, and sexy profile who had Daria drooling. I gazed up into his pale blue eyes, absently noting that they were ringed in black, which made them quite noticeable. And attractive. Oh, who was I fooling? He was downright gorgeous, and his driving skills notwithstanding, I almost enjoyed sitting so intimately across his lap, with his arms around me, and those stunning eyes peering concernedly at me.
    â€œFoot,” I said, unable to get my brain working. “Hurt.”
    His forehead wrinkled. “I knew it. I did hurt you. I’ll take you up to the house and we’ll call a doctor. Just stay where you are—assuming you don’t mind sitting on my lap, that is.”
    â€œFoot,” I said stupidly, but as the scooter jerked forward, my wits suddenly returned and I realized that I was being transported toward the castle. “Oh, man alive. No, you don’t need to take me to a doctor—I’m fine, really. Your tires are pretty big, and although my foot does hurt, I don’t think anything is broken. See? I can wiggle my toes.”
    He stopped and we both looked at my foot.
    â€œYou have a boot on. I can’t see your toes.”
    â€œNo, but you can take it from me they’re wiggling.” I winced as I did, in fact, move my toes around. “The steel toe saved them, although the top of my foot is a bit tender. But nothing’s