My Lucky Groom

to present myself professionally.”
    As they spoke, Wally and Charles drew their boat up beside them. “You girls about ready for our picnic?”
    Ventura scanned the shore to spy Richard and his kids nowhere in sight. “Sounds fine.”
    “I’m starved,” Mary agreed.
    Charles gave Ventura a warm smile. “Great. Let’s head back to the dock, then, and throw a blanket down somewhere.”
    “So much for our choosing,” Mary said as they turned their boat around.
    “What do you mean?” Ventura asked her.
    “I think Charles has a thing for you.”
    “Really?” Ventura asked, fingering her flat-ironed hair.
    “You do look dynamite in those short shorts.”
    Ventura studied her thighs and the way they pudged out sideways on the seat of the boat. “They might be a bit too short.”
    “No way! You, girlfriend, look smoking hot. And don’t think someone hasn’t noticed,” she said, angling her chin at the boat up ahead as Charles kept trying to sneak peeks at Ventura over his shoulder.
    Before she knew it, they were back at the dock and the boys had already disembarked. “Here,” Charles said to Ventura, playing the gentleman, “give me your hand.”
    Ventura stood unsteadily as the small craft rocked. Taking his hand was probably a good idea. It was going to be a little tricky climbing out of here, especially in these thigh-high shorts and with—- what ?— Richard walking right toward her! Ventura made a sudden shift, and her wet sneaker squeaked on the boat’s bottom.
    “Ventura!” Charles urged, extending his arm “Here!”
    But all she could see was Richard, with his unbelievably dark eyes and incredibly sexy smile, striding in her direction. She reached for Charles’s hand but missed it just as Richard’s surprised gaze settled on hers.
    “Ventura!” he called, rushing forth as she stepped off the boat and sank like a stone in the water. In the split second before her life vest bobbed her back up, Ventura’s whole life flashed before her.
    She felt herself spiraling down…down into the cold, her hair swirling around her like strings of seaweed. This was it — her life’s most embarrassing moment, and she was going to die from it besides. Get sucked right down into the murky depths of the Tidal Basin where she could meet the ghosts of her great political forefathers: Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy … Who else was memorialized around here? Hang on one second! It wasn’t about to be her! She held her breath and stretched up her arms, kicking and flailing her way to the surface as her life vest lifted her heavenward. She was nearly there when two strong hands grabbed her wrists and pulled her into the light. Ventura gasped for air, sucking in a deep breath.
    “Are you all right?”
    She looked up at the man holding on to her as the others crowded in with worried faces.
    “I…think so,” she said with a cough.
    Richard heaved a sigh of relief and smiled down at her. “Let me help you out of there.”
    He bent low to assist her as Ventura pressed her hands to the dock and hoisted herself out of the water. Ventura crossed her arms in front of her chest and stood there dripping. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her sunglasses dangled from where they’d been caught up in her necklace.
    “Thank you,” she told Richard as his two children stared at her agape.
    “Do you know her?” the boy asked his dad with undisguised horror.
    “Ricky, Elisa,” Richard said, grinning broadly. “I’d like you to meet Ventura, your new nanny.”
    Little Elisa threw her head back with a wail that could be heard for miles around. “ Noooooo! ”

Chapter Five

    The following Monday morning, Jason drove Ventura past the US Capitol building and toward the Washington Monument, before crossing the bridge that would lead them to Old Town Alexandria. The glistening waters of the Potomac sparkled below as sailboats with colorful spinnakers drifted by. An occasional motorboat tore across the waves, revving its engine and kicking up a wake.
    “Richard wanted me to apologize for the way his kids behaved on Saturday,” Jason offered with a genial sideways glance.
    “I’m sure I was a shock to them.”
    “Still, they went a little overboard.” Such a PR man. Ventura wondered what Richard paid him but ventured it had to be in the high five figures. “I haven’t heard of them behaving that way for a couple of nannies now.”
    “A couple?” Ventura asked in shock. “How many have there been?”
    Jason set