Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 04 - Chocolate Mousse Attack Read Online Free Page A

kill. If it’s your mother, we might be able to work something out.”
    He tried to smile again, but it got stuck halfway. “It’s nothing really. You’ll probably enjoy it.”
    Paula, waiting at the front door, key in hand, ready to close up as soon as we could get rid of Rick, shook her head firmly.
    “What do you want that’s going to be so enjoyable for me you have to pay me ten thousand dollars to enjoy it?”
    “Just one little favor. I need you to babysit Rickie for a couple of weeks while Ginger and I are in Hawaii.”
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
    “You want me to babysit your son? Not for all the chocolate on the planet!”
    Rick looked uncomfortable. I liked that look on him. “Please? Grace just dumped him on me. She’s off on a honeymoon with some creep who’s only interested in her because she’s getting an outrageous amount of child support from me, enough you’d think she could hire a babysitter. But, no, she dropped the little…” He stopped and compressed his lips to hold back the name he’d been about to call his son. Demon child? Brat? Unholy terror? “She left him on my front porch and drove away.”
    I tried unsuccessfully to keep the smile off my face. “That’s your problem, not mine.”
    “He’s your stepson!”
    My chin fell straight to the floor. “Excuse me? I never met that child until a few months ago and even then you said he wasn’t yours until DNA proved he is! No, he is not my stepson and I’m not going to babysit him!”
    Rick put on his pitiful expression. “What am I supposed to do? The tickets to Hawaii are nonrefundable.”
    “You have two choices. Get on Craig’s List and find a babysitter or eat the tickets.” I nodded to Paula, and she opened the door. “Neither of those involves me. Good-bye.” I lifted the mop threateningly again.
    Rick stepped back, moving in the direction of the open door. “What am I going to do if I get a babysitter and when Grace finds out I left her son with a stranger, she takes away my visitation rights?”
    I laughed. “Off the top of my head, I’d guess you’d celebrate.”
    “One day, Lindsay, you’ll need a favor from me, and I’ll remember this.”
    “You will remember? Been taking your ginkgo biloba, have you?”
    He turned and headed for the door but not before I saw his angry expression. Rick doesn’t like not getting his way. You’d think after eight years of marriage to me and one year of divorce he’d be used to it.
    *~*~*
    I left work, got in my little red Celica and called Trent before I pulled out of the parking lot. “Have I got some stories to tell you,” I said as soon as he answered the phone. Because we both work crazy hours, we sometimes can’t get together until the weekends. It was only Wednesday.
    “Are you driving while talking on your cell phone?” he asked. As I said, sometimes he takes the business of following the rules way too seriously.
    I put on my blinker to move over a lane. The car behind me sped up so I couldn’t. “ I’m not going fast enough to worry about it, thanks to traffic, stoplights and jerks. Anyway, I’m on my Bluetooth, and I was sitting in the parking lot when I hit your speed dial. I can make chocolate chip cookies and talk to Paula at the same time. I really think I can handle driving home and talking to you at the same time.”
    The car in front of me, the one being herded down the street by a young girl with a cell phone stuck to her ear, slowed. I tensed. The traffic light ahead was still green, but if she dinked around long enough, it would eventually turn red and stay red for a long time.
    The light turned yellow and she stopped.
    I sighed. “I’m currently parked at a two-hour red light,” I said to Trent. “Do you want to hear my stories or not?”
    “I want to hear your stories. I just don’t want to hear the sound of crunching metal.”
    The light finally turned to green, but the idiot in front of me was paying more attention to her conversation