Page 74 of The Nanny and the Hothead
This lady knew everyone!
“And Ines, what a pleasure it is,” Madelyn continued, exchanging air kisses with the woman.
“And I’m Oscar! Say cheese,” his son called, taking a picture with his Polaroid camera, then removing the spatula from his back pocket and wielding the utensil like a sword.
Mitch surveyed the scene wide-eyed. His life was getting more surreal by the second.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, young man,” Madelyn replied, shaking Oscar’s hand before his son skipped off to have an imaginary spatula sword fight near Louise.
Madelyn smiled at the boy, then schooled her features. “Now, what’s this about a food truck? Forgive me for eavesdropping. I couldn’t help but hear your conversation. Mitch, please explain to me why you can’t start tomorrow?”
He blew out an audible breath. “Food,” he blathered like an idiot. Was he the only damn person who understood it was pretty hard to make a signature sandwich without the ingredients?
“What about it?” she tossed back.
Was this happening?
“To make the Louise sandwich, that’s the signature sandwich we started out with, I’d need—”
“Plenty of butter, cheddar cheese, that special apple butter from the nice farmer, Dijon mustard, and sourdough bread,” Oscar answered, punctuating each ingredient with a swipe of the spatula.
And again, Mitch’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t even noticed Oscar had drifted back toward the group. But the kid was correct.
“How do you know that?” he pressed.
Oscar continued spatula-fighting his invisible opponent. “Mom used to make them for me. She’d say,here’s Louise, and then she’d set the sandwich on my plate. And she’d always cut it into—”
“Triangles,” he finished, remembering the first time he’d made the Louise back when he was a screwed-up juvenile delinquent.
“Yeah, two triangles,” Oscar answered, grinning up at him.
Mitch swallowed hard. He could hear the knife crackling through the freshly toasted bread. But they couldn’t start tomorrow. There was too much to prep.
He threw up his hands. “I don’t have the ingredients. I’d need to put in an order and check with my suppliers.”
“Actually, you have those ingredients here at your home,” Madelyn answered with that coy grin of hers.
He respected the woman. She had her nanny match ways, and he got that. But this was cooking, and he was the only chef in the room.
“No, Madelyn, I don’t. I think I’d know if I had one hundred pounds of cheddar cheese hanging around my house. A lunch rush can easily go through that much.”
She demurely tucked a dark lock of hair threaded with a pronounced silver streak behind her ear. “You do. My people brought it to your place last night. I hope you don’t mind.”
What was she now—a nanny matchmaker and a cheesemonger?
“Your people brought that much cheddar cheese to my house?” He had to double-check that he’d heard her correctly. This conversation was quickly bordering on bonkers.
“They were on their way here to take care of some finishing touches on Oscar’s room. I didn’t think it would be a problem to drop off the cheese. You do have a completely empty industrial-sized refrigerator.”
He glanced at Charlotte, who shrugged her confusion. At least he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t able to connect the dots.
“But why would you have that much cheese, and where did you get it?” he pressed.
“From your restaurant, of course,” she answered with a wave of her hand as if pilfering a small fortune in dairy products was part of her daily routine.
What the hell?
“You got it from my restaurant?” he shot back.
