“Necie!” he yelled as he ran past her yet again, giving her a chance to figure out what she should do.
She could wait until he ran past her hiding spot again, drop to the ground, use his tracks to cover hers, hike back to the highway, hitch a ride and be home by super, or…
She could continue sitting there, watching him for her own amusement as she tried to figure out why a seemingly normal, rational guy like Duncan would suddenly lose it and kidnap her. He’d never crossed her as the serial killer type, but then again, wasn’t that the key to their success? Blending in so well that they were usually the last person that you would ever suspect of doing something so psychotically outrageous that you just couldn’t believe it when you saw them spotlighted on the ten o’clock news?
Then again, she thought as she looked down at her wrists and rubbed the slight tenderness away. It was clear that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. So, that made her wonder why he was suddenly risking her grandfather’s temper and a police record to kidnap her.
“God damn it, woman! Where the hell are you?” he asked, sounding more anxious with every passing second as she sat there, looking down at him, because this was just really sad.
It wasn’t as if she had time to hide her tracks when she took him by surprise and took off running. As soon as he’d opened the door and helped her out, she kicked him in the shin, gave him a shove, tripped over her own two feet, remembered that her feet were bound as well, ripped the cheap tape apart, climbed to her feet and ran through the fresh dusting of snow, leaving behind a clear trail to this large tree that she’d settled on for a hiding spot.
Seriously, all he had to do was to follow her messy trail marks to this tree and he would have had her. Well, that and if he had actually used something stronger than painter’s tape and not fallen for the oldest trick in the book, “I really have to use the bathroom,” and given her an opportunity to run away. By the time she was four years old her grandfather had taught her how to read tracks, find the best hiding spots and basically scare the living hell out of anyone that was foolish enough to play hide n’ go seek with her.
So, she wondered as she shifted on the large branch to get a better look at him as he ran past the tree one more time, why exactly had he bothered to kidnap her? Her grandfather had to have helped him, not by much, but just enough to get her in the car and out of the state. If this had been her grandfather kidnapping her, she’d be screwed and a little concerned about his mental facilities.
Duncan stopped close by the tree she was hiding in and sighed heavily. “Necie? Please come out?”
Taking pity on him, not only because this whole thing was just too sad to even mention just to pass the time, but because he obviously had absolutely no idea how to do this, she shifted on the branch, swung her leg over and of course fell on her ass.
“Oh, thank fucking God,” he said, sounding really relieved as he picked her off the frozen ground before she could give her ass a proper massage to ease the pain from the impact. “Don’t ever scare me like that again, woman!”
“Then don’t kidnap me,” she said absently as she shifted in his lap, trying to figure out if she’d just broken her ass or not.
It hurt, but it wasn’t an, “Oh, my God, my ass is killing me!” kind of pain so she simply shrugged it off, wrapped her arm around him and held on to him while he carried her back to the SUV.
“I really didn’t have much of a choice,” he said, sounding irritated and further piquing her curiosity.
“Why exactly did you have to kidnap me?” she asked as he helped her into the front passenger seat.
Looking embarrassed, he admitted, “I needed two weeks to figure something out.”
“And you couldn’t have just asked me to go with you?” she asked, stunned that he’d resort to kidnapping, something that he obviously had no experience with.
“It was your grandfather’s idea,” he said with a shrug as he shut the door on her surprised face and slowly made his way around the SUV and climbed inside.
“My grandfather’s?” she asked slowly, positive that she’d misheard him, because there was just no way in hell that the man that had taught her how to take down a stranger by going for his balls when she was four was going to help a man kidnap her, never mind suggest it.
Something else was definitely going on here, she decided as she watched him closely, trying to figure out what was going on since he was obviously reluctant to tell her. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to tell her anything else, she asked, “Where are we going?”
Sighing, he started the truck and threw it into reverse, “This cabin that my cousin’s grandmother-in-law owns. It’s on the ocean and perfect for this.”
“And what exactly is this?”
“A romantic getaway,” he said with that charming smile of his, but something felt off about this whole thing. There was more to it, but it was obvious that he wasn’t going to tell her.
At least not right now.
So, she focused on other important issues.
“As sweet as this is,” and she really wasn’t sure that it was sweet at all, “I can’t take time off right now. This is the busiest time of the year for us. With my help we’ll be lucky just to fill the orders that have already come in, never mind the last minute orders that we’re probably getting hit with right now.”
He shook his head as though what she’d just said wasn’t a problem. “Don’t worry about it. Your grandfather has it covered,” he said, which actually scared the hell out of her, because that meant that by the time she got back she’d be lucky if the entire staff hadn’t quit or had hysterical mental breakdowns in front of the customers like last Valentine’s Day when she’d made the mistake of leaving Grandpa in charge while she’d made a quick run to the bank to make the afternoon’s deposit before it got too busy.