Under different circumstances she would have taken pleasure in setting him straight on that account.
The men seemed to have stopped right outside the vehicle. Her heart racing uncontrollably, she tugged one corner of the blanket down and peered up and out.
Her heart did stop then. A man who bore an unfortunate resemblance to a giant stood on the sidewalk, inches from the vehicle window.
But it never occurred to him to look in the car.
He moved on, face set in an angry scowl, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
She would wait five minutes. In fact, she would look at her watch right now and time it, because five minutes was going to seem like an eternity. She would wait five minutes, then sit up carefully, look around and, if the coast was clear, go back to her hotel and call the police.
And tell them what?
“One thing at a time,” she instructed herself tersely. She wasn’t anywhere near a phone yet.
She had to swallow a shriek when she suddenly heard the front door tested.
They’d found her!
She put her head back under the blanket.
Click. The door opened.
Make a run for it. No, wait.
A bag came tumbling over the back seat, followed by a second one. The springs of the front seat creaked as weight settled into them. A delicious aroma filled the vehicle—of sunshine and aftershave. A smell one hundred percent male.
What had she done? Jumped from the frying pan into the fire? He could be a serial killer. A rapist, a...
Calm yourself, she ordered silently. Surely fate would not put her squarely in the path of danger twice in one day.
Look at the car seat. And the teddy bear. This was somebody’s daddy going home after a hard day’s work to his wife and his baby. A serial killer wouldn’t smell quite so...heavealy.
The car purred to life.
With sudden relief, she realized she’d been given a better escape than she could have dreamed up herself. Daddy longlegs there in the front seat would drive her safely out to suburbia When he got out of the car and was safely in his house with his nice little wife and baby, she could make her exit. Find a phone booth, call a cab and be back at her hotel in no time. A call to the police and then, with a little luck on her side, she could probably make the red-eye flight back to San Diego tonight.
Luck. Wasn’t that what the ring was supposed to bring her?
The car pulled smoothly out into traffic.
A plump little man, she told herself firmly, in a slightly rumpled suit. Glasses, a few hairs combed over a bald spot
He turned on some music. A mournful voice sang about a renegade horse and a bad woman. He hummed absently along.
His voice reassured her, though it wasn’t a plump voice. It was definitely a daddy’s voice. Nice and deep and calm.
She noted the racing of her heart stilling somewhat. She pulled the blanket quietly back from her nose so it wouldn’t tickle. She tried to figure out where they were, but it was absolutely impossible, even if she had been familiar with the city, which she was not.
The minutes ticked by. She looked at her watch, reminding herself every minute would seem like an hour. But after an hour, she began to get a little nervous.
Large cities had traffic snarls, but where did he live? She couldn’t very well change her plan now. What was she going to do? Leap up from the back seat and say “Boo”? “Surprise”? She’d probably kill them both.
Half an hour more, she thought. That was it. Then she’d have to put plan B into action, if she had one by then.
She was exhausted even though the.tension continued to knot her shoulders as the car purred along, stopping and starting at lights, moving smoothly in and out of traffic.
It was bloody uncomfortable being crammed into that narrow space on the rear floorboard.
Her mother had always taught her to look for something to be thankful for, even in the bleakest moments. She felt quite bleak right now, being carried away to parts unknown, life suddenly wrested right out of her control.
Danger had been evaded. She shivered just thinking of those men, thinking of the little proprietor quaking in their grasp. She had escaped.
That was something to be grateful for.
That and the fact she didn’t have to sneeze. Or go to the bathroom.
She could have been trying to lie on the floor of a shrimpy little import car instead of this large and rather luxurious one.
Oh, her mother had taught her well. She felt a wonderful lassitude creeping through tense muscles. Daddy driver’s scent and his deep voice humming wrapped around her.
Please, God, she prayed silently, don’t let me go to sleep. Let us get to wherever we are going fast.
She absolutely could not go to sleep. Absolutely not... The last thing she remembered hearing was the radio announcer saying, “And now, Garth Brooks with ‘Unanswered prayers.”’
Garret Boyd resisted the impulse to honk at the little red sedan that cut him off.
It was the car seat in the back of the little car that made him curb the impulse to vent his temper with his horn.
He knew all about how small children could rattle a person. The harried mother driving that miniature car too fast was probably rushing to get to the day care.
Just like him, really. Except that his day care was ninety minutes away once he cleared the city, and it wasn’t officially a day care. Officially, it was taking advantage of the neighbor’s good nature.
Which he could only hope was going to hold, since his mission here had failed. Miserably.
He’d come to interview Mrs. Ching about the nanny position. Despite the language barrier when he’d spoken to her on the phone yesterday, he’d liked her. She’d sounded sweet and gentle and old.
She had been sweet and gentle and old. Her apartment, over some stores in busy Chinatown, had been impeccably clean.
Things had started to unravel when she introduced her granddaughter. Lily had been wearing a leather jacket and a leather miniskirt. She had a safety pin through her nose and a chain wrapped around her wrist.
Thankfully, she had looked every bit as horrified as he had when her grandmother nodded at her approvingly and announced she was the candidate for nanny.
The ensuing argument had taken place in Chinese, but he’d had a pretty good idea of what it was about. He’d slipped out the door at about the point the girl had said, in a sudden change to English, where her grandmother could put Eliza.
The town he
