by J.D. Tynan
CHARLIE FORD
MEETS
SECRET AGENT MAN
By
J.D. Tynan
W & B Publishers
USA
CHARLIE FORD MEETS SECRET AGENT MAN All Rights Reserved © 2016 By J.D. Tynan
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ISBN: 9781942981572
Book Cover designed by Melissa Carrigee
~Dedication~
For Matthew O’Neill who kept me laughing and taught me how much fun it was to love someone again. No matter what happens in this crazy life, I will always, always love you. Thank you for your companionship, kindness, and friendship when I needed it most.
~Acknowledgements~
Thanks again and again to my sisters, Cyndy and Jen. It’s a true blessing to have sisters like you, who are the best people I know. I look up to both of you for your strength, courage and conviction and am proud to be the middle sister.
A special thank you to Bill for believing in me and Charlie Ford!
Chapter One
The grass is always greener. Isn't that how the old adage goes? In my case, the meaning is quite literal because the next-door neighbor,
Mr. Jenkins, spends his golden years fertilizing, weeding, raking, and aerating his perfectly manicured front lawn. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is how Rick Newman from across the street gawks at Lewis Riley every morning as the man kisses his perfect wife and waves to his two-point-five kids who play with the dog just beyond the white picket fence that lines their yard in a land we all call Suburbia.
Sure, Lewis Riley's life seems wonderful to a singleton like Rick and it wouldn't bother me so much if Lewis didn't do the same damn thing. Just this morning I caught Lewis staring out the window in envy as Rick washed and waxed his Porsche 911, his boat, his matching pair of jet-skis and then turned and kissed his one-night-stand goodbye on the front lawn. Lewis looked as if his tongue was about to fall right out of his slack-jawed mouth. It happens all the time and even I can admit that I look at Jennifer Lopez and think she must have an amazing life. After all, she gets romanced by Hollywood's sexiest hotties. Well, with the exception of the puffy-guy. What was she thinking? Anyway, she's beautiful and talented and seems genuinely nice. And she gets to get married whenever she wants.
The point I'm trying to make here is that I don't think anyone has ever looked at me and thought the grass was greener over at my place. Yes, I hate to say it, but I doubt that Jennifer Lopez has ever uttered the words, "That Charlie Ford has the perfect life."
I'm just feeling sorry for myself because I just dropped my toast on the tile floor. Jelly side down of all things. Hell, my morning couldn't get any worse.
Or so I thought.
"Charlie," my fabulously supportive father yelled down from his den. "Phone."
A man of few words: That is my father. Unless of course, he is preaching to me about how badly I screwed up again. Then he can monologue like the best of them.
"Hello," I mumbled into the phone.
The shrillness of her voice had me holding the phone a good six inches from my ear.
"YOU GOT FIRED!" my mother yelled from the Acapulco deck of The Love Boat.
I rolled my eyes so far back into my head, that I actually saw my ass from a completely new perspective.
"Mom," I started to say, but her slurred ranting continued.
"AGAIN?" she finished off; and I swear I heard her slurp down an entire frozen drink in fifteen seconds flat.
"Blah, blah, blah."
I stopped listening because Rick was outside waxing his Porsche. I don't know which one I liked looking at more, the black shiny car or the tall, bronze hunk. I stared harder and plastered my nose up against the glass.
It is definitely the car.
"Mom," I had to cut her off because I feared that she might ask me to repeat what she had just said to me. "I have another call," I lied and hung up on my mom.
I'm going to hell.
***
The guest bathroom of my parents' house is where I showered. Then I made the bed up that they so kindly let me sleep in. I did it so dad wouldn't have to be reminded that I was actually staying in his house. Again. Needless to say, this wasn't the first time I'd come home after losing my job. At least this time my mother was in the Caribbean with her college sorority sisters; something she does every year to escape my father's lecherous appendages and her job at the hospital.
My father is a surgeon. She's a neonatal nurse. They met in the emergency room and it's been love in bloom ever since. It kind of makes me nauseous sometimes.
My first order of business for the day was to walk Ruger. Ruger is my dog when he craps in the yard, and my dad's dog when he's quietly sleeping on the floor. He's half Bull Mastiff and half Rottweiler. He's black and deep chestnut brown, and he's the most magnificent creature I have ever seen. Someday I will do right by him, and I will take him away from these kooky people.
My parents live in a newer subdivision just south of Bend, Oregon. Bend offers an array of out-door sporting events: Mt. Bachelor for skiing, a myriad of lakes for water sports and more golf courses than I can count. I have never met anyone who has ever had a problem with its clean, crisp air or towering pine trees. It's pretty amazing to live in Bend and I have done it most of my life. With the exception of the past twelve years, of course.
***
Mr. Hollendale, my former high-school anatomy teacher, lives three houses down and I always make time to stop and chat with him. He's the sexiest fifty-year-old I have ever seen.
"Hi." I batted my eyelashes and prayed his wife wasn't home.
"Charlie Ford." He looked happy to see me, but not surprised.
Shit. My dad can't keep a secret to save his life.
"I hear you're back in town for a while." He shook his head as if I had just failed his mid-term.
I felt small all of a sudden.
"Drugs, Charlie?"
Yep. Just as I suspected. I'd been home for approximately… I glanced down at my watch and scowled… twelve whole hours and my father had already told the teacher on me.
"It's not what you think," I tried to explain, but it was like talking to a wall. Brett Hollendale is an upstanding pillar in the community and all, but surely he wanted to hear my side of the story before sending me to the guillotine. "I…"
His sideways glance at his wife pulling into the driveway had me turning to see what he was looking at.
"Mrs. Hollendale," I said through clenched teeth. I've always hated that woman. She is a big….female dog, to put it nicely. I smiled and turned on my heel and let Ruger goose her with his slimy snout before yanking on his chain. "Sorry," I mumbled before heading down the street.
Great. Now I felt like the entire neighborhood was watching me from their windows; afraid to come outside because the Fords' drugged-out daughter just got fired…. again. "Sorry, Ruger," I said to the dog and headed back home.
***
My father was on his way to the hospital for a late morning back surgery and I thought I could squeeze in a quick heart- to-heart before he left.
"Dad," I said from behind my bottle of Evian. "I wasn't doi
ng drugs."
"Charlie. I think it's time you went to college."
FUUUCCKKKKK.
Okay, a little background about that. When I was seventeen years old, I told my dad that I didn't want to go to college.
He said, "Fine, then join the Army."
I laughed because I thought he was joking.
He glared and I stopped laughing. In fact, I don't think I have laughed in front of him ever since.
That was my father's way of making me do something that I didn't want to do. He knew I hated following orders more than I hated the idea of going to college. And I did hate the idea of going to college. My grades were mediocre, I didn't get scholarships like my brothers did and I did not want to be a Beaver. Yuck. My brothers were both Ducks, but my SAT scores weren't good enough to be a Duck. Good enough to be a Beaver, but not a Duck.
Needless to say, my brothers are both over-achievers and both played football for the Pac-Ten. Josh went on to play arena football in Austria. Dave is now a doctor.
Dad likes Dave the best. Go figure.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I stood my ground, dug my toenails into my Adidas tennis shoes and said, "Fine. Where do I sign up?"
My father's eyeballs actually protruded past the confines of their sockets. I had never seen anything like it before in my life.
I joined the Army a week after I graduated from high school, and here I was twelve-years later, having the same discussion.
"Dad," I warned. "We've been through this before. You can't make me go to college."
"Charlie," his head shook in contempt. "You have to grow up eventually."
And eventually I plan to. But not until I'm thirty and I still have three more months until that is going to happen.
"I'll get another job," I said with confidence. After all, I worked for a wonderful agency that had taken wonderful care of me for the past three and a half years. They hadn't let me down yet.
***
Later that day after my father left, still shaking his head at me for not listening to him, I called Parker Rooney at the agency that often places me.
"What do you mean, 'No?'" I practically shouted into the phone. "Parker, I wasn't stoned."
"Then why did you tell Mr. Ludlow that?" he asked very skeptically; knowing that no one in their right mind would yell that out as an explanation as to why they had sideswiped another car. It just didn't make sense. Hell, it still didn't make sense to me. But I did it just the same.
It all happened two days ago, in Greenwich, Connecticut. I was taking the twins to see the newest Pooh movie on the big screen and I was driving the fabulous BMW X5—one of those wonderfully posh new SUVs, with leather seats, a retractable sunroof and a DVD to keep the kids happy on long trips.
I loved working for the Ludlow family. I had my own private wing in their mansion. I flew with them to St. Martin for a weekend of fun just because the weatherman said it was going to rain in Greenwich and Mrs. Ludlow hated getting her hair wet…and the twins? Oh those little boys were the apples of my eye.
Okay, so they were little hellions, but I was making good progress. I had only been with the family for three months and it usually took me about four months to break the kids' spirits and get them to behave appropriately. I was on the cusp. I was so close, but then it happened. The defining moment of my life, in which I saw my life flash before my eyes and I really, really thought I was going to die.
(I'm kind of a drama queen.)
The car I sideswiped belonged to a very nice old woman, and although she wasn't in the car when it happened, she did claim that she got whiplash just from watching. Now, there was a drama queen.
Mr. Ludlow was called to the hospital by an overeager young resident who wanted to make absolutely sure that the boys were all right before releasing them. I got yelled at in the hall for crashing their new SUV. I got yelled at in the cafeteria for being so stupid. And then I got yelled at that night by Mrs. Ludlow who had to get drunk (actually she gets drunk when she breaks a fingernail, so that didn't surprise me) to deal with the fact that her nanny actually had the nerve to get into an accident while her precious three-year- olds were in the back. Like I would have planned that.
Shit. I wanted to see Pooh rescue Tigger just as badly as the boys did. I hate hospitals and I hate people yelling at me.
Mr. Ludlow didn't come home until really late that night, so I sang the boys a song before bed and tucked them in before crawling into my own bed.
***
At seven the next morning, which just happened to be yesterday, there was a note on my door instructing me to meet Mr. Ludlow at his office in Manhattan. Yeah, I thought. I love the city and he's never yelled at me in his office. This will be a whole new adventure.
***
I arrived at his office at precisely 10:00 A.M., thanks to the private car that came around to pick me up from the fortress in Greenwich. Dale Ludlow is the president of a highly reputable municipal-fund company and his own private band of brothers usually tailed the kids and me because yes, Ludlow thinks highly of himself and thinks he is that high and mighty. I just didn't get it. To me he was just a pot-bellied, rich ass-wipe who treated me like trailer trash.
His building takes up an entire square block on Wall Street. When I got out of the posh Lincoln Town Car, I looked up and cringed. I felt like I was being escorted to the firing squad.
Ludlow's security team was assembled in the office when I arrived. I know I have Army training and all, but what did he actually think I was going to do? Come in strapped with explosives and beg his forgiveness? I don't think so.
***
"Charlene." He refused to call me Charlie, even after repeated attempts to tell him that I loathed being called Charlene. "Here is your final paycheck. You will find your belongings downstairs along with a plane ticket back to Oregon."
"Uhhhh." That was my pathetic comeback line. "But…" And there was another. Wow, I was being fired…again.
Nope, not this time.
My stomach churned and adrenaline surged through my veins. "I can explain."
"You got into a car accident with my children present. I can't tolerate that."
"But it wasn't my fault."
He looked at me with the same blank stare that he always gave me.
"It was Jacob." The minute I blurted that out, I knew I was done for. In his eyes, his little devils were angels and now I had done it. "I mean…well…" I searched for any way out and the best I could come up with was, "I'd been stoned."
His brows furrowed, he made a quick divergent gesture to his thugs and I was lifted off the ground by my armpits. I was literally being dragged out of his office by two rent-a- cops. And, boy, did that ever piss me off. I managed to get one arm free and I banged on the thick glass as we passed the outer office.
"I was stoned I tell you. I'd been stoned," I screamed out again and was dragged down the hall, into the elevator and out onto Wall Street.
Yesterday was perhaps the worst day of my life. Well, I take that back, but it was close.
So, here I was today, from the un-comfort of my parents' living room, pleading with Parker Rooney of East Coast Nanny Inc. to place me with another family.
"The kid threw a rock at my head," I explained further. Something I had wanted to tell Mr. Ludlow, but starting any sentence with, "Your kid…." is never a good idea. Parents have this defense mechanism that shuts down their common sense when someone accuses their children of such atrocities.
"I was driving and the kid threw a rock the size of his little hand right at the back of my head. Literally….I had been stoned." I said to Parker.
Okay, so it was a bad choice of words. No one except Biblical figures used that term, but it was the only thing that fit. I had been rocked just sounded somewhat perverted.
I could actually hear Parker laughing on the other end of the phone line. It sort of irritated me and had me clenching my hand into a fist, but on the other hand, it was somewhat amusing.
"I know," I said flatly. People have called me many things in my life, but lucky is not one of them. "So, can you place me?"
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather go back to the Army. Maybe you just aren't cut out for kids."
One—I refuse to believe that, because I look forward to having my own kids when I'm thirty-four and another when I'm thirty-five. Unbeknownst to my father, I do have a plan for my life.
And, two—kids are a heck of a lot easier to deal with than a Master Chief by the name of Brick.
"Noooo," I said slowly so he fully understood my intentions. "I want you to place me again, please."
Then I just had to make my father listen. I can live the rest of my life letting him think that I'm a failure, but there's no way that I want him thinking I'm a druggie and it really, really chapped my ass that Mr. Ludlow had the nerve to call my daddy to tattle about my apparent lack of judgment. I mean, really! I'm nearly thirty-years-old. What kind of crap is that?
***
"Greenwich again, I presume?" Parker did his thing on his computer and wrestled up a couple of potential employers. "How about older kids this time?" He knew that my checkered past mostly revolved around caring for toddlers and everyone knows that toddlers are brutal on new nannies.
"Ah ha," he said.
I loved the sound of that. I could feel the world lifting off my shoulders. I deserved a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
***
After inhaling a sandwich and walking Ruger again, that time with my head held high, my shoulders shrugged back with confidence and a broad smile on my face—I probably looked stoned—I went to see my father at St. Charles' Medical Center on the east side of Bend.
