gonna have to—”

      “Gonna have to what?” Kate taunted as she came around the side of the house and gave Brad and Riley a good squirt with the garden hose.

      “Show you who’s boss!” Riley shouted, followed with a rebel yell as he and Brad whipped loaded Super Soaker water pistols from their belts, confirming Kate’s guess that their earlier pranks had just been a warmup to their much-anticipated grand finale. Still whooping, they let her have it. Kev and Lewis—who’d been lingering uncertainly on the front porch—jumped out to join the melee.

      Grinning, Kate gave back as good as they gave her, even as they all dashed around madly and soaked each other from head to toe. If she and the boys were going to have it out, they might as well do it now. And maybe that was just what these boys needed, a rousing fight with their new sitter. Fortunately for her, she had an endless supply of water—they didn’t.

      “Run for the house!” Lewis directed, taking charge as the Super Soaker pistols emptied. “She can’t get us there!”

      “Want to bet?” Kate shouted as she merrily gave chase, still spraying them madly all the while. The boys shrieked and howled and stumbled over one another as they scrambled up on the porch, climbing over the railing that edged it in an attempt to get to safety.

      “Cowards!” Kate teased as she ran up the front steps and joyously squirted them again. Dashing forward, she put herself between them and the front door. Still aiming the hose at the boys, she effectively kept them from getting inside. And that was when she heard the powerful motor of Sam’s limo pulling into the driveway.

      THAT QUICKLY, everyone froze in mid-mischief, the laughter dying in their throats, the smiles fading from their faces. Kate lowered the hose as Sam stepped out of the rear of the vehicle. Ever so casually, he leaned back toward the car, and said something to his driver through the open window. The driver nodded, backed out of the drive, and drove away, while Sam started for them, his lips set, his eyes hard.

      “Oh, man, are we in for it now,” Brad groaned, wiping his forearm across his drenched brow.

      And that, Kate thought glumly, water dripping down her face as she watched Sam coolly and methodically close the distance between them, just about summed it up. Suddenly she felt as if she’d been transported back to the Old West and it was high noon in the middle of the street. She was the cowboy—or girl—in the white hat that everyone was relying on to get them out of the mess they were in. Sam was the much-feared gunslinger.

      A muscle working in his jaw, Sam stopped just short of her.

      Kate smiled with as much charm as she could muster and, garden hose still in hand, stepped off the front porch. The boys may have started this, but the fact they’d been caught whooping it up red-handed was just as much her fault as theirs. “So, Sam,” she said cheerfully, as if such a riot as this were to be commended instead of denigrated. “What brings you home this early?”

      “Instinct,” Sam retorted grimly. “I had a feeling something might happen.” His eyes ruthlessly swept the group before returning to Kate’s. “Just what in blazes is going on here?” he demanded furiously.

      The boys exchanged uneasy glances, and much to Kate’s surprise, couldn’t seem to wait to leap to her defense. “We were just horsing around, Dad,” they claimed, surprising Sam, too.

      Seeing no point in involving Sam in what was essentially a power struggle between her and the boys, Kate inserted glibly, “And now that we’re finished—”

      “Boys. Inside. Now!” Sam commanded. Hands braced on his waist, he regarded them all sternly. “Unless I miss my guess you have a lot to undo in there.”

      Uh-oh. Work fast, guys, Kate thought.

      She turned to go, too. Maybe if she lent a hand, things wouldn’t look so bad.

      Unfortunately, Sam moved with her, blocking her way. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

      Aw, heck.

      His hand curved over her shoulder, grabbing a fistful of drenched pale blue cotton. “I want to talk to you.”

      SAM WAITED UNTIL THE BOYS had all gone inside before he continued. “What do you think you’re doing?”

      “Having a little fun?” Kate said cheekily. Unfortunately, the irony in her voice was lost on him.

      “This was precisely the kind of behavior I had hoped to avoid by having you stay here.”

      Abruptly aware her shirt was clinging damply to her breasts in a way that was much too revealing, Kate grabbed a handful of fabric and pulled it away from her body. “If you don’t mind, Sam, I’d like to change clothes…” Maybe by the time she was dry, she’d have figured out how to handle him.

      He remained much too close to her. “I do mind,” he said, his brown eyes boring into hers. “What possessed you to get down to their level?”

      Kate decided to put some distance between them and moved away from him to replace the distributor cap on Brad’s Mustang. “Maybe because I wanted to pass initiation,” she said over her shoulder. She paused long enough to see his eyes soften, his posture relax. “You don’t look surprised,” she said as she replaced the hose at the side of the house.

      Sam sighed, looking no less unhappy but a little less fierce as he told her, “They’ve put everyone who’s worked for me through some kind of test, though never to this extent.” His glance traveling over her from head to toe, he continued to regard her with disapproval.