Naughty Nanny Series-Free Loving

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright© 2009
Shara Azod

Cover Artist: Shara Azod

Editor:  Jennifer Puckett

Editor:  Laura Guevara

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Due to copyright laws you cannot trade, sell or give any ebooks away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter One

            Trish was gone. Again. Travis knew his sister well enough to know she wasn’t coming back any time soon. She never stayed in one place very long, always on the move looking for the next big party. He had hoped having a child would change her; he had wished in any event. But Trish had been getting increasingly restless, wanting nothing to do with her new born daughter. Travis sighed; at least she had carried the baby to term and did not give her away or worse. Once she gave birth, Trish left the baby’s care up to him, the feedings, the changing, the loving.  A book on how to care for newborns was his constant companion, though he had bought it for Trish.  Travis had tried to get her involved but she wouldn’t even look at the baby.

            Where had he gone wrong? He had tried to raise his baby sister the best way he knew how, but he knew he had missed something crucial along the way. Why else would Trish be so flighty, so completely irresponsible and unstable? He had done his best, but apparently that hadn’t been good enough. Private schools, private tutors, boarding schools, nothing worked.  What use was all the money he had earned if nothing seemed to work. Their parents had been killed in a deadly twister when Trish had only been eight years old.

Running his fingers agitatedly through his hair he paced the nursery trying to figure out what he was going to do. Baby Lorelei slept peacefully completely unaware that her mother had walked out on her, not that she knew her mother at all. Trish had rarely held the baby, never talked to her. That surely couldn’t be good. A baby needed the love and warmth of its mother. What was more, Travis was due back in Hollywood to begin production on what he had decided was to be his final film in two weeks. The precious three month old needed a nanny.  Looking down at the beautiful sleeping angel in the bassinet, he vowed he would not fail Lorelei.  That was why he was quitting show business, so he could raise Lorelei himself.  He would make sure that he gave her all the love and attention that he hadn’t given Trish.     

Travis never wanted to be a movie star, but it had been the only way he could support his sister after his parents were killed. Trish was just too young to help him with the tiny horse ranch that had been in their family for several generations, and he couldn’t afford to hire on help. At nineteen, no one was willing to extend him credit.  With no source of income, the bills just kept piling up. When they lost the ranch he decided to pack up Trish and make the trek to California from Kentucky.  By pure fate, he was “discovered” in true Hollywood fantasy fashion after they had been in California less than two weeks. Hell, they weren’t even in Los Angeles. He had moved to Corona before the major building boom, and had been hired on by a nice elderly couple whose children wanted no part of smelly horses or the hard work involved with working their horse ranch. Who knew that the old couple just happened to be the parents of the biggest movie agent on earth? 

            Travis found himself groomed and starring in major motion picture blockbusters at the tender age of nineteen, all the while trying to raise an increasingly wild tween who missed her parents and decided to show it by going through puberty in the most painful ways imaginable. It had been a huge mistake to rely on babysitters he had barely known to take care of his baby sister. With long shoots and constant travelling he spent the majority of time away from his sister – not being there for her when she needed him the most.   

            Trish took full advantage of Travis’ frequent absences. She partied, stayed out all night and took nothing seriously. By the time Travis purchased a ranch of his own it was too late to rein in the wild girl. She was eighteen, he couldn’t make her move from L.A. to Corona and no matter how much he threatened he couldn’t cut her off. Terrible things happened to girls with no money and no way to support themselves in a place as heartless and cruel as Southern California could be.  Months would go by without hearing from her, showing up only when she needed more money or a hardnosed attorney to get her out of whatever problem she was in.  Travis never denied her anything.  He didn’t know if it was guilt or what but he just couldn’t say no to her.      

            It was Trish’s latest episode that had put Travis in his current bind. When his sister had shown up eight and half months pregnant, he had hoped it was the incentive she needed to turn her life around. Instead, she had snuck out in the middle of the night two weeks after the baby girl had been born and Travis hadn’t heard from her since. That had been three months ago.

            His sister hadn’t even bothered to name the baby, Travis had done that. Lorelei wasn’t exactly a common name for a native California girl, not that his little angel was complaining. Then again, she couldn’t talk yet. Travis was determined not to make the same mistakes he had made with his sister. He wasn't going to be an absent guardian, depending on others to care for her as much as he did with Trish. Thus, his current problem; he needed to find a reliable nanny before he started shooting his next movie.  Time was running out.

            “Travis, you have to be in LA next week! Shooting starts Tuesday, and believe you me honey buns they will replace you in a heartbeat.”

            Travis held his cell away from his ear. His agent, Liz, had a bad habit of shouting while on her cell.

            “Yeah, I know,” he sighed, tickling Lorelei’s stomach. “But that last nanny you sent out here was far more interested in crawling into my bed than she was taking care of a baby. Stop sending me bubble headed gold diggers and maybe I can start preparing for my role.”

            Of the three nannies Liz had sent him, all three had been far more interested in becoming the lover of Travis Carter than taking care of Lorelei. It had gotten so bad with the last one, he had to not only lock his bedroom door at night, he had to move the crib inside his room because the woman refused to interrupt her “beauty sleep” to care for the child. None of the three lasted more than a week.

            “I am bringing you a nanny right now,” Liz hollered into the cell. “A real one this time! You’re gonna love her! You just get ready for the movie!”

            In typical Liz fashion, she didn’t give him the opportunity to respond. Liz was as tenacious as a pit bull when she had her mind set on something, and this upcoming film was something she was adamant about. Unlike his usual blockbuster action movies, this one Liz swore had Oscar potential written all over it. It was an epic love story set in a time of the Apocalypse. The script was good, the love story was hot, but Oscar worthy? Travis didn’t see it.

            But they were offering him a hell of a lot of money. It was the last movie Travis planned on doing. He already had more money than he could ever spend, and owned a slice of heaven on earth right here in Corona with his land and his horses. The extra money would guarantee that Lorelei had a secure future and he would never have to work again.  He had never really enjoyed the bright lights of stardom. He planned to just go quietly into the proverbial night and live his life in peaceful quiet. Let one of the other up and coming heartthrobs take his place, he didn’t care.   

            It was bad enough he couldn’t go to the store without someone mobbing him, but he would never find someone to settle down with while he was still acting. All the Hollywood relationships he’d seen left a lot to be desired. Travis didn’t want or need to be in competition with his real life love interest. Rampant cheating and lies on both ends where as rampant as they were disheartening. And the media ate it up.  Sure there were exceptions, but that wasn't the life he wanted. No more having his face plastered on magazines or billboards.  No more having to answer questions or dispel rumors.  No more needing security to keep the groupies at bay.  All he needed was peace, solitude, a woman who loved him for himself and would help raise Lorelei.

            Well, eventually. He was only thirty-two, no need to rush. Besides, he had a little girl to raise, and she was the most important thing in his life right now. He would raise her outside the deceptive glam and false glitter he had to deal with in his career. Lorelei deserved a real childhood, one he hadn’t been able to give his sister. This time, he was determined to get it right.

Chapter Two

            Free wasn’t sure she wanted to be here at all. She took early childhood development seriously, she wasn’t too sure a movie star would. Free was only twenty-five, but she boasted a doctorate in Education with a focus on early childhood. It was her firm belief that children began learning from birth, and you could teach them so much more than the current education system allowed – far earlier, in fact. The human brain had an enormous capacity to learn before humans taught it to be lazy. It was her goal to start a small school for children from about six months through high school to prove it.