LITMIR.BIZ

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      CHAPTER ONE

      SAVANNAH Williams rolled over on her right side and pulled the covers over her head. It was morning, she could tell by the bright sunlight flooding her bedroom. But she was not ready to get up. She’d arrived home late last night after the airplane trip from hell. It had routed her all over the United States and got her to New York long after midnight when she’d been up before dawn on the west coast to make that first flight.

      The apartment was quiet. Her sister was on assignment. She relaxed and tried to fall back asleep. Why hadn’t she put a blackout shade on the window? She just wanted a few more hours of rest.

      The ring of the phone jarred.

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She threw back the sheet and stalked to the living room where the apartment phone was ringing. She’d turned off her cell, so naturally this phone had to ring.

      “It better be good,” she snapped into the receiver when she snatched it up.

      “Good morning, Savannah. It’s Stephanie. Did you have a good trip?” The cheerful voice was not what Savannah wanted to hear this early.

      “The cruise was okay except it snowed two days. So much for lying on the deck while the children napped. And the two darling dears of Dr. and Mrs. Lightower were not the angels the parents purported them to be. I was never so thankful to end an assignment. Talk about spoiled brats! The flight home—or should I say the flights home—were horrible. I was routed from Alaska to LA to Dallas then Chicago, then I swear I thought I was going to be sent through Atlanta, but fortunately bad weather kept that airport off the schedule, so I got sent to Boston before ending up in New York at two o’clock in the morning!” She was practically yelling the last, but only heard Stephanie’s giggles in the background. So much for sympathy.

      “I was trying to sleep in,” she grumbled.

      “Oh, poor you. Go back to sleep in a minute. You have a new assignment and the client actually postponed his trip to make sure it coincided with your availability. This one’s right up your alley—one child, a teenager. Parents are divorced, mother has custody. However, the teen is with her father now and will be for the summer apparently. Could be a bonding experience for them, I suppose.”

      “What could?” Savannah asked. She was growing wider awake the longer Stephanie kept her on the phone. For what? She was off the clock and wanted to catch up on sleep and fun before taking another assignment from Vacation Nannies.

      “Backpacking in the High Sierras,” Stephanie said.

      Savannah stared out the window to the sliver of a view of the Hudson River she and her sister enjoyed from their apartment. Glass and concrete and that tiny sliver compared to endless vistas of mountain ranges? Clear blue sky instead of the heavy layer of smog over New York?

      But backpacking?

      “How come Stacey gets to lounge around at the beach on the Med and I’m stuck lugging a heavy backpack on a trail where there won’t even be hot and cold running water?”

      “Luck of the draw. Plus you’re our resident expert on troublesome teens.”

      “Oh, joy, another challenge. When do we meet?” she asked. Rule number one of Vacation Nannies was that both parties had to agree to the assignment. Which usually worked to make sure the match between nanny and children was harmonious, but she had seriously been off with the Lightower children. Who expected them to behave so nicely at the initial meeting and then turn into terrors? Not that she hadn’t been able to cope, but the carefree cruise she’d anticipated had not been the case.

      “Friday. If everything goes okay, you’ll depart next week and be gone three weeks.”

      “How old’s the teen?” Savannah had specialized in adolescent behavior when getting her degree in education. She had a special bond for children who had reached the whacked-out stage of teenagedom, which included recalcitrant and defiant behavior.

      “She’s fourteen. Lives here in New York.”

      Savannah could hear papers being turned over, Stephanie was obviously referring to interview notes. She plopped down on the sofa, giving up any thought of going back to sleep until later. “Never mind giving me all the info. I’ll be by later to look at the file. Anything else I should know?”

      “Do you have hiking boots?”

      “Of course, remember my trip to the Adirondacks last fall? It was a glorious week tramping round the forest and enjoying at all the colorful foliage. The pair I got then are well worn in. How cold is it in the High Sierras in June?”

      “Check the national weather outlook. I’ll confirm you’ll be there on Friday at eleven. Oh, and, Savannah …” Stephanie sounded hesitant.

      Savannah sat up at her tone.

      “What?”

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