Page 39 of The Nanny and the Hothead
“Let me out of here! You’re not kidnapping me. Not today!” she cried, wishing she could amend that statement. She’d prefer never to be kidnapped—today or any day. But she could not show weakness. No, sir! She was the un-kidnappable Charlotte Ames—whatever the hell that was!
“Go ahead! Who’s stopping you?” he barked, then pointed to the door.
“I will! I’m leaving! I will not be kidnapped today!” And crap! She’d said it again.
“I know! You’ve made that perfectly clear,” he answered, then pressed a button on the RV’s insanely high-tech dashboard, causing the door to swing open. The fresh mountain air whooshed inside as she got a peek at the evergreen-encased mountainous terrain.
But this wasn’t over! She wasn’t out yet. And this could be a trick.
She held the tongs like a sword. Then, moving stealthily, she slid past him and sailed out the RV door before sprinting toward a cluster of Aspen trees swaying in the breeze.
“We’re in the mountains!” she exclaimed, gesturing to…well, the mountains surrounding them on every side.
“Where the hell did you think we’d be? Bora Bora?” Mitch answered on an exasperated breath as he leaned against the camper.
She surveyed her surroundings, looking for any signs of civilization—a gas station, a roadside rest stop. But there were none to be had. “Is this an abandoned road? Is this where you take your victims?” she shrieked when, as if on cue, a minivan cruised past them, taking the wind out of her sails.
“Are you still drunk?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
She waved the tongs at him. “Not one more move! I’m flagging down the next car and calling the police.”
Mitch removed his cap and ran a hand through his hair. Pale with circles under his eyes, he looked terrible. “Charlotte, let me explain what’s going on.”
“Explain why you kidnapped me?” And eureka! She figured it out! She snapped her fingers. “It was the salad, wasn’t it? I became a mark after I hurled those vegetables at you.”
Confusion marred his expression. “A mark?”
“Yes, a potential victim. That’s what they’re called in the movies and in spy novels. You can look it up,” she shot back, smoothing her shirt—no, his shirt. Ugh! This was probably the part in her abduction where she should start running. Dissecting the inner workings of why she’d made an excellent kidnapping candidate could happen at a later date without the kidnapper staring her down.
“Charlotte, you’re not my potential victim. You’re my kid’s nanny,” he cried.
And O.M.G! This abduction kept getting weirder and weirder!
Mitch was a dad? That couldn’t be true, could it? No, this must be part of the act.
She shook her head. “Liar! You don’t have a child. I worked for you long enough to know the only thing you love is making people’s lives a living hell.”
He winced, and she almost felt bad about hurling the cruel words at him.
He paced along the side of the road. “Think, Charlotte! Did you talk to Madelyn Malone? Were you supposed to go to that bar to meet your new employer?”
She lowered the tongs a fraction. Okay, despite being a crafty, deceitful kidnapper, he wasn’t completely wrong. But he’d omitted one crucial fact. And she wasn’t sold that he could actually be Madelyn’s client. She raised the tongs. “The person I was supposed to meet regarding the nanny position never found me.”
“Yes, he did,” Mitch replied, exasperation coating the words. “Madelyn rented this RV for the nanny and me to pick up my son and then camp for the night. And she gave me this,” he finished, then removed an item from his pocket and held it out for her to see.
It was an old, rusty lock—a heart-shaped lock—but a creepy old lock just the same.
She held the tongs at the ready—still not convinced. “Is that the lock you were going to use to keep me trapped inside? You were always big on locks. You have that security lock in your office. Penny and I used to joke that’s where you kept the managers you fired. And, oh my gosh! Are they in there? Is there a secret door to a scary cellar under the Crystal Cricket?”
“For Christ’s sake, Charlotte! Do you really believe that I have a basement dungeon?”
“You’re the hothead holding a lock,” she replied, ready to chuck those salad tongs at his head and hightail it the hell out of there.
“You haven’t been kidnapped. I doubt you noticed, but your tote bag was next to the pullout bed on the floor. I even stopped and got you a latte. Didn’t you see it in the cupholder? It was next to a bottle of water and a packet of aspirin. I figured you’d have one hell of a hangover. I had no idea tequila turned you into a raving lunatic.”
“I’m not a raving lunatic!” she shrieked, sounding an awful lot like…a raving lunatic.
“I’ve explained to you why we’re here. Plus, you’re barefoot on the side of the road in nothing but my shirt, screaming about being kidnapped when, in fact, you have not been kidnapped. That’s the very definition of a raving lunatic!” he shot back, then stared up at the sky. “Penny knows you’re here,” he added on an exhausted exhale.
