Page 2 of Holiday Grief

A bed?

But she wasn’t in bed. Shouldn’t be in bed. It was daytime. Right?

Confusion swirled along with the dizziness in her head, and she felt sick again.

Turning her head, she emptied the meager contents of her stomach, and there was a howl she swore didn't come from her own lips, and then more pain exploded in her cheek.

Things still didn't make sense, but she did seem to have the wherewithal to wonder how she knew the contents of her stomach would be meager.

Because …

She hadn't eaten much today?

She’d been nervous about the interview?

What interview?

The answer hovered just outside the edges of her mind.

Jasmine tried her best to reach for it and … a hint of a memory filtered into her mind.

Red.

Red?

Christmas?

Santa?

Those three things went together.

Didn't they?

But why was she thinking about Santa when there was a … person … on top of her?

Was she dying?

Was that why she felt so awful?

Maybe the person was going to do CPR?

Only their hands weren't on her chest, positioned above her heart, they were … on the waistband of her jeans, unzipping them and yanking them down over her hips.

Like a flip had been switched the world suddenly snapped back into focus.

She wasn’t blind and she wasn’t going deaf, her eyes had simply been closed. Her head hurt so badly because she’d been hit in the head by the man she was interviewing to play the new Santa Claus at the Christmas farm she owned and ran.

The interview hadn't gone well, and it wasn’t just because meeting new people gave her serious anxiety, it was because the man gave her the creeps. No way could she imagine letting him work at the farm she had dedicated so many hours to building. He wasn’t fit to be around children, and she’d known the second he walked in the door that she wouldn’t hire him.

Still, she’d gone through with the interview, telling herself she’d have a nice big bowl of pasta as a reward for peopleing when she was done.

Only that had never happened.

As she’d been showing him out, he’d grabbed her shoulders and slammed her small frame into the door. Her head had taken the brunt of the impact, and she must have passed out. Likely she had a concussion, and with her out of commission, he’d brought her up to her bedroom.

Her bedroom.

A space that was supposed to be safe.

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