Page 44 of The Nanny and the Hothead
“How long have you been a nanny?” Amy asked.
Crap! She hadn’t even thought of how to answer this question.
She straightened in her seat. “This is my first official nanny position. But I’ve worked with kids extensively in my old job.”
It wasn’t a lie!
One of the only perks to being a child’s party mermaid was that it schooled her in the art of charming children—well, most children. Grover Cleveland Schulte had been the exception, not the norm. And the truth was, she loved kids. She wanted children—lots of children—and a family of her own. A family that went on trips and shared meals at the kitchen table. A family that laughed and loved each other.
A family that didn’t ignore her. A family that saw her—really saw her.
The muscles in her chest tightened as she ignored the unwelcome memories.
“And you understand the situation with Oscar?” Amy continued.
Charlotte blinked as Amy’s question snapped her back from her gloomy walk down family memory lane. She had to put all that baggage aside and focus on the task at hand.
“I understand that Mitch is Oscar’s father. But there’s some friction between them,” she answered as a clunk and a bang came from the other side of the cabin, followed by the sound of a door slamming.
“Friction is a good way to describe it,” Amy agreed as the raised voices continued on the other side of the house. “Will you be coming back to the cabin, or do you think you’ll stay in Denver?”
That seemed like an odd question.
Charlotte scanned the kitchen. “I’m not sure. Isn’t this Oscar’s mother’s place? Won’t it go to you?”
Amy cocked her head to the side. “No, Mitch bought this place for Holly and Oscar. It belongs to him.”
That was new information. Mitch had left that out of his rapid-fire recap.
Charlotte sighed. “I’ll level with you, Amy. I’m sorry, I don’t have more answers. And I’m so sorry for your loss. This has got to be a hard time for you and for Oscar. But I’ll promise you this; I’ll do everything I can to make this transition easier on Oscar.”
“I appreciate that,” Amy said on a relieved breath. “And I wish I could help more, but I’m a flight attendant based out of Paris. There’s no way I could care for Oscar full time, and Mitch is his dad. I remember when we found that out three years ago,” the woman finished, and the breath caught in Charlotte’s throat as Amy confirmed her premonition.
They sat quietly as silence engulfed the kitchen when, over the chorus of Oscar telling Mitch he wasn’t leaving, Charlotte heard the same mechanical hum that accompanied Oscar’s rocky welcome. And instantly, she placed the sound.
“This might be an odd question,” she began, breaking the bubble of silence. “But does Oscar have one of those instant Polaroid cameras?”
A grin pulled at the corners of the woman’s mouth. “Yes, he does. He won it in some school raffle not long ago. What made you ask that?”
“I heard him take a picture with it. I heard the same sound when Mitch and I had pulled over onto the side of the road so we could…” she trailed off. Oh boy! How should she put this without sounding insane? There was no way she was about to disclose that until about an hour ago, she’d assumed she’d been kidnapped by a psychopathic chef with a basement dungeon. “We stopped so we could tie up a few loose ends,” she finished, going for vague. “And while we were talking, like normal people do on the side of the road, I thought I’d heard the sound of one of those instant Polaroid cameras,” she finished, knowing she should have left out thenormal peoplepart.
Normal people never called themselves normal people.
Luckily, Amy didn’t seem to notice, and her expression brightened. “That would be Oscar,” she answered through a little laugh. “He’s obsessed with that camera. He brings it everywhere and wants to take a picture of everything he sees. When the woman who owns the nanny service called to ask about his interests, I told her about his new hobby.”
Madelyn knew Oscar was into photography.
“Take a look,” Amy continued, then opened a wooden box on the table and removed a stack of instant Polaroid prints.
Charlotte flipped through the images and couldn’t help but smile as she admired pictures of trees, toy cars, and food. Lots of pictures of food—specifically grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Grilled cheese is my favorite, too,” Charlotte mused, staring at picture after picture of gooey, cheesy deliciousness.
“He’s an amazing kid—smart as a whip—and he likes to cook. But you probably knew that already,” Amy added.
Charlotte looked up from Oscar’s photos. “Did Mitch teach him?” she asked.
Amy narrowed her gaze. “No, Holly did. She was a chef, too. But she stopped working after Oscar was born. She, Mitch, and Seth started—”
