Free Full Blast by Janet Evanovich & Charlotte Hughes

the wind wouldn’t mess up her hair so badly.”
    “I can’t wait to see that.” He glanced around the room. “Tell you what. We’ll wait until the birthday cake is served, then slip out and drive to the office.” He suddenly smiled. “Unless you need to get your date home in time for his curfew.”
    Jamie shot him one of her looks.
     
    FRANKIE’S CAKE WAS ROLLED OUT ON A SERVING cart an hour later, and the guests gathered around and sang “Happy Birthday,” even as some gasped at the sight of the naked figure of a woman with size-D breasts. Frankie blew out his candles and hugged Dee Dee as everyone clapped. Snakeman made a production of removing the nipple ring with his teeth and received a rousing applause.
    “Speech!” someone shouted from across the room.
    Frankie laughed. “I’d have thought you guys had heard enough of my speeches during the mayoral campaign,” he said. “Okay, but I’ll make it short. First of all, I’d like to thank you all for being here to share my birthday. Dee Dee and I are very lucky to have so many friends. And because we consider all of you friends, I would like to make an important announcement.”
    Max and Jamie looked at each other and shrugged.
    Frankie paused and smiled tenderly at Dee Dee. She beamed. “After all these years, my wife and I are expecting a baby.”
    Everyone clapped. Jamie looked at Max. “Well, there goes that perfect figure she’s worked so hard to keep,” she said, knowing Dee Dee went bananas if she gained a pound.
    Max merely grinned. “Sounds like she and Frankie have been eating brownies.”
     
    MAX AND JAMIE LEFT THE PARTY SHORTLY AFTERward, but not before they’d offered Frankie and Dee Dee their congratulations.
    “I’m going to be an uncle,” Max said, his tone incredulous, as they pulled away from the Fontana house, which was really an estate. An estate on which sat a salmon-colored house that Frankie claimed was pink and caused a lot of snickering from his wrestling buddies who referred to it as the Pink Palace.
    Jamie still couldn’t believe the news. “Dee Dee is going to have to give up her rigid dieting. She’s eating for two now.”
    “Hello, Jamie,” a voice called from the dashboard. “What’s this about Max being an uncle?”
    Jamie smiled. “Hey, I’ve missed you, Muffin,” she said to the voice-recognition computer that ran Max’s business from a dashboard that was more complicated than most jets; thanks to a team of first-rate computer whizzes. Max had hired them away from top government contractors, and with his help, they’d created the car’s instrumentation using state-of-the-art equipment.
    Spread out among luxury automotive goodies like a tachometer, an altimeter, and a global positioning satellite system were a highly enhanced PDA, a keyboard, a digital speech-recognition module, a photo-quality printer, fax, satellite phone, HDTV display screen, and a full video-conferencing suite, all operated by a high-powered computer that was smaller than an ashtray. “She” had a Marilyn Monroe voice, but because she was constantly fed information from a team of experts, she was the only one capable of matching Max’s genius.
    Not only that, Max had created in her technology that was able to make judgment calls, not based on data but on simple human emotion. His competitors, including the federal government, claimed it couldn’t be done. Now they wanted to buy that technology.
    “Dee Dee’s pregnant,” Jamie said at last.
    “Uh-oh.”
    “My thoughts exactly,” Max said. “We can expect drastic changes in the Fontana household.”
    “Wait a minute,” Muffin said, “I thought she was going through menopause.”
    Jamie smiled, although she was still stunned by the news. “You ever heard of a change-of-life baby? It happens.”
    “How’s she taking the news?”
    “She looked thrilled,” Jamie said, “and I think she’ll make a wonderful mother. Dee Dee is very softhearted. And Frankie is going