Page 51 of Puck the Holidays

“Mother fucker,” I mutter, bringing the phone closer to my face to be sure I’m seeing what I think I am.

“Shep, you ok? Have you seen him?”

“I talked to him,” I mostly whisper in disgusted astonishment. “He was trying to get inside the building a few weeks ago as a flower delivery guy. With flowersfor Hattie. I fucking had him right there, Rand.”

“Hey, there’s no way you could have known.”

“What’s his name?” I ask, my right hand tightening into a fist so tightly my knuckles turn white beneath my tattoos.

“Josh. Josh Alcott.”

The bottom drops out and I can’t breathe as everything comes together in a resounding clash inside my head.

“That’s…oh fuck, Rand, that’s Hattie’s psycho ex-boyfriend, Josh. He was stalking her before she left Texas.”

“Fuck,” Rand grounds out.

Then a thought hits me and my heart thunders loudly in my ears, my rage suddenly burning ice cold as fear slithers up my spine: was Hattie actually back at my place? I haven’t heard from her since she told me she was running by her place, and Rand hasn’t been able to get ahold of her…

“I gotta check something. I’ll call you right back.”

I don’t wait for a response before I hang up and pull up my security system app. I pull up the feed of the driveway and garages and my entire body goes numb, that icy fear reaching outward and seeming to coat my entire body.

Hattie’s car isn’t there.

I peel back onto the road, tires spitting gravel and squealing as I cut across both lanes and pull a slightly illegal and definitely unsafe U-turn, and fly like a bat out of hell the other direction. I call Hattie again, holding my breath.

“Come on, Hads, pick up.” I’m probably overreacting. She’s probably fine. But when the phone just rings and rings and eventually goes to voicemail, a sick feeling settles in my gut, heavy and sour and poisonous. So I call again. And again. And again.

But she never answers.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hattie

I try yet again to free my hands from the plastic ties, but all I’m doing is slicing my wrists to pieces even more. I’d seen a Clipper video about getting out of these things, but it only worked if your hands were bound in front of you. Josh, of course, has mine zipped securely behind my back. My shoulders ache from the strain already, my muscles burning.

I’d really thought I was done for after he tackled me in the hallway, but Josh had merely yanked me up, tied my hands, and tossed me on the oversized chair by the fireplace, the one Connor had moved in here for me. My eyes water at the thought of Connor, of never seeing him again, but I try to focus on nothing but Josh and how the hell I can get out of this situation.

I have no idea what Josh plans to do with me and every time I ask, he either deflects the question or doesn’t even seem to hear me. He keeps flip flopping between acting like a doting boyfriend and an angry psychopath seconds away from losing his shit, and I honestly don’t understand what’s happening. He’s obviously drunk, but there’s something else going on too, like he’s fighting different voices in his head. Thankfully, at least one of those voices seems tonotwant to slice me up like a Christmas ham with his giant knife, so that’s a plus, I guess. But I have the distinct feeling that one wrong move will set him off and the other voice, the one that seems to be full of bitter, scorching rage, will take charge and I won’t like what happens then.

Josh stokes the wood in the fire, building up the flames so a rush of heat washes over me.

“There, is that better? I know my girl doesn’t like to be cold.”Doting boyfriend voice back in charge apparently.He smiles at me, and I can see the ghost of the handsome man beneath all of his fatigue and desperation. There’s the large cut across his eyebrow from the lamp I smashed into his face, a smeared line of dried blood across his cheek. “See, baby? I can take care of you. I know I didn’t do it right before, but I can fix it now. I’m passing your test.”

I want to scream at him that me moving across the country without a word or leaving a trace of where I’d gone wasn’t a fuckingtest, it was a desperate attempt to escape him, but instead I just say, “Josh, you need to untie me.” I try for a calm, placating tone, but I don’t know how well I’m managing it. “Let’s just talk—”

“Talk?!” he roars, springing up from the fireplace and whirling on me, eyes wild with rage.Doting boyfriend gone.“I tried to talk to you for months and you refused.Months, Hattie. You left me and thought you could just disappear and that I would justletthat happen?” He leans in close, making me shrink back into the chair, desperate to get away from him. He reeks of stale tequila and cigarettes and I don’t think that he’s showered in days. “And then when I finally track you down, I find you here,fucking some God damn hockey player?!”

“I wasn’t—” But I don’t finish my sentence. Josh backhands me hard enough to send my entire body tumbling into the side of the chair. My ears ring and I see stars for a second, my cheek burning like it’s on fire. Tears immediately spring to my eyes and I taste blood where I bit my tongue. I gasp as he yanks me back upright, gripping my face hard, fingers digging into my cheek and probably leaving bruises.

“Don’t. Lie. To. Me,” he whispers in an icy voice. He points an accusatory finger at the lingerie strewn across the floor where he’d dumped my bag. I could tell him that I wasn’t actually fucking Connor when he first got here to stalk me some more, but there’s no point. “You think I haven’t seen you with him? You think I don’t know why you’re packing lingerie to take back to his place, you little slut?!”

I swallow hard as he pulls the knife back out of the holster at his belt, wondering if this is the time he loses it completely. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to pull away as he runs the flat edge lightly down my face, but he’s still gripping my face and I can’t move. I force myself to open my eyes again and he finally releases my face. I work my jaw and wince at the pain.

“Tell me I was better, Hattie,” he says in a deadly cold whisper, twirling the tip of the knife on the pad of his thumb. “Tell me you didn’t like fucking that asshole.” I don’t say anything, but flinch backwards when he screams, “TELL ME!” He’s getting close to the edge, I know it. Is playing along the right call? It’s really my only choice. My mouth feels like sandpaper so I have to swallow several times before I can get the words out.

“You were better, Josh. Of course you were. I didn’t like fucking him. I—I thought about you the whole time. I was just trying to make you jealous so that you’d come for me.” I want to vomit. I feel disgusting playing into his sick little fantasy, but if it keeps my heart beating and my blood flowing, I’ll do it.

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