Page 44 of Oh No, My Kidnapper Is Hot!

The next day, we woke up to Archie’s enraged howling. When we ran outside we found his porch and yard completely covered in eggs. White, brown, blue, green – they were everywhere. Archie was in the midst of them, hopping from place to place with his feet covered in yolk.

Baz and Heidi came strolling toward us from their house at the end of the street.

“Beautiful day for a walk!” Heidi called, grinning ear to ear. Even Baz looked cheery in his Baz way – his lip turned up half a millimeter on one side, and his eyes were the slightest bit crinkly. It’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him when he isn’t looking at Heidi. I beamed.

“An absolutely wonderful day!”

We spent the rest of that absolutely wonderful day helping Archie pick up eggs and eggshells from his yard. It took hours – andhours.

Totally worth it.

Afterward, Archie begrudgingly forgave me, which I suspect Stryker had a hand in. All the pranking was taking up a lot of my time, which was not conducive to Stryker’s plans for me. It’s very hard to woo a lady when she’s busy plotting the best way to annoy your neighbor and making escape attempts in between.

The Escape Chronicles, as Stryker calls them, have been embarrassingly unsuccessful. I’ve made twelve attempts. Eleven times, I didn’t make it out of the cabin. On the one occasion Ididmanage to get out, I was caught before I could even step off the porch.

They have been humbling, to say the least.

Stryker finds them amusing. He findsmeamusing, and he has no qualms about letting me know it. He laughs whenhe catches me sneaking through the cabin in the middle of the night, bent on escape. He chuckles as we walk the dogs in the mornings and I make a point of taking them to Archie’s yard to do their business. He grins when I argue with Heidi aboutMiraculousand smiles as he drags me out of bed, grumbling and angry, the moment the sun is in the sky.

He refuses to fight with me, choosing laughter instead.

It’s infuriating.

Not to say that grouchy Stryker is completely gone – he makes himself known occasionally. Like right now, for instance, as he drags me back to his bedroom after my thirteenth escape attempt. I made it to the gravel road this time, and he isnothappy about it.

“I’d like to be able to go back to my home at some point, Millie!” he snaps. My eyebrows furrow, and I look around the cabin as we walk through it.

“You are home?” I ask, confused. He stops, turning on his heel sharply so we’re face to face. Or, well, face to chest. Face to broad, muscley chest. I gulp.

“This is not my home,” he tells me, sounding confused that I’m confused.

“But… you live here?” I ask, not understanding. He lifts one arm, bicep flexing as he runs his hand through his hair. I turn my eyes to the wall. He’s not catching me off guard with those things again. No, sir. No way.

“Millie, darlin’,” he starts. I tense. Not the “Millie, darlin’”. “Millie, darlin’” is always followed by something insane that I don’t want to hear.

“This is not my cabin,” he says. “This is your cabin.”

Yep, something insane.

“Mycabin?” I ask, wishing I wasn’t. This conversation is not going to end in a good place for my mental health. I can feel it.

“Of course. You thought I’d have you staying in my cabin? That would be inappropriate,” he says, sounding genuinely offended.

Inappropriate? Hekidnappedme!

“You kidnapped me!” I exclaim. He sighs.

“I’m not a brute,” he says. My eyes bug out of my head. “Whose house did you think we were getting the dogs from?” he asks.

“I don’t know! I thought they had their own house or something.”

“You thought I gave my dogs their ownhouse?” The incredulity in his voice is frankly offensive.

“You’re rich! Rich people give their pets all sorts of crazy things.” What else was I supposed to think when he stays in this cabin every night?

“Millie, I’m livin’ out of duffle bags and sleeping on a cot. What part of that seems like this is my home?”

Well… when he puts it that way, it does sound a little weird. Am I going to admit that to him, though? Absolutely not.

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