Taming Mad Max by Theresa Ragan Read Free Book Online Page A

Mr. Right...precious time that could be well spent with my beautiful baby.”
    A knock sounded at the door just as the twins ran back into the living room to announce in identical voices that the toilet was overflowing.
    “I’ll get the toilet,” Kari told Lindsay, “you get the door.”
    A few minutes later Lindsay joined Kari in the bathroom. “It’s a done deal,” Lindsay said as she watched Kari plunge. “Brenda’s rat-bastard husband has run off with another woman. Wait until Patti Bertram hears about this.”
    It took a moment for Kari to remember that Patti Bertram was a popular advice columnist. “Have you been writing letters to the LA Times again?”
    “Of course. I never stopped writing letters to them. It’s therapeutic. I always change the names to protect the innocent, but somebody needs to let women out there know the truth about men...snakes all of them...slithering, coiling tongue-flickers.”
    Kari laughed. “Tongue-flickers?”
    “Yes. I mean come on, the twins’ mother Brenda works full-time, she picks up the kids, she makes dinner every night, she takes care of herself. She looks better than most twenty-year olds. I don’t get it.”
    “She’s also smart,” Kari said, focusing on the job at hand. “She’ll know what to do.”
    “I hope she takes that two-timer for all he’s got.”
    “She has the boys,” Kari said right before she flushed the toilet and went to the sink to wash her hands. “They may be a handful, but we both know how fast they grow. If you ask me, she’s won already.”
    Lindsay thought about it for a moment. “You’re right. Those boys are her gold at the end of the rainbow. At least until they turn into men. After that, I just don’t know.”
    Kari shook her head at Lindsay’s stubbornness when it came to men and what Lindsay usually referred to as their thieving conniving, lying, cheating ways. But Kari knew better than anyone, maybe even better than Lindsay, that a lot of her talk was just that...talk. Although Lindsay would never admit it, she liked men. She just hadn’t found the right guy. Lindsay needed a man who would stand up to her without trying to beat her down, a man who could match her wit for wit, a man who had a few tricks up his sleeve.
    “So tell me about Mad Max,” Lindsay said in a low voice so Molly wouldn’t overhear. “Why don’t you like him?”
    Kari groaned. “Not you, too. I like him just fine.”
    “Wasn’t Max the boy you had a crush on when you first moved into the neighborhood, you know, when he was a paperboy and you were only ten?”
    “I don’t remember,” she lied. “I don’t think so. The only boy I had a crush on was...er...Frank. Yeah, Frank Hunsaker, who lived a few doors down.”
    Lindsay scratched her head. “Frank Hunsaker...really? The guy in our chemistry class? The one with the thick-rimmed glasses and wiry hair?”
    “That’s the one.” She shrugged. “Go figure.”
    “Well you can do better than Frank Hunsaker. If you’re really lucky, maybe you’ll meet the man of your dreams tonight at Carol’s bachelorette party.”
    Kari frowned. “I almost forgot for the second time today.”
    “Come on Cinderella. The party is being held at the Roosevelt Hotel. Put down the plunger and get dressed. We’re already late.”
     

 

     
     

    CHAPTER 4
     
     
    That same night, Max sat at one of four chairs circling a stone-top table at the Tropicana Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. In the chair next to him, was his blind date, a woman Cole Fletcher, good friend and starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Condors, had rounded up for him to meet.
    Across from Max sat Cole and a buxom blonde who would have rated a ten if she had forgone the silver hoops piercing her eyebrow and right nostril.
    Max turned to his date, Brooke Channing, a pretty brunette with cute dimples, small turned up nose, and just enough cleavage to keep him guessing. Too bad the slight nasally whine in her