Christmas From Hell (20 page)

A brownie wasn’t worth your life no matter how delicious it was.

It just wasn’t and sooner or later her grandfather was going to figure it out, or she’d simply have him committed to that lovely senior citizen home down the street that was known for its lovely salad bar and strict rules against meat. That should be more than enough to get the old man to take his health a little more seriously, she tried telling herself as she walked towards the van even though she knew that the man was already set in his ways and that nothing and no one, especially her, was going to be able to make him listen to reason.

He was just so damn stu-

“
Ah!” she screamed as she threw her heavy backpack at her would-be assailant’s face, turned and ran back towards the solid black door that was locked, making her wish that her first reaction hadn’t been to throw her bag at whoever that was so that she could have grabbed her keys before she’d gone into defense mode, but she’d have to move on and let that go, especially since she had the really pissed off man chasing after her now.

As her foot caught on some barely visible black ice and she went flying, her last thoughts before she slammed into the brick wall and knocked herself out were, “Of course this was how she was going to die,” dryly and she would have rolled her eyes, but by that point she’d already slammed her head into the wall, not on purpose of course, and managed to knock herself out like the klutz that she was.

Chapter 22

“
What the hell was that?” one of his asshole cousin’s asked, but Duncan didn’t stop to explain, because he knew that scream too damn well to ignore it.

“
Mother fucker!” one of them snapped as Duncan shoved past him and headed for the front door of the bakery where several of his cousins were standing, blocking his entrance and starting to look nervous and for damn good reason.

There was nothing on this earth that was going to stand between him and his little klutz. The second scream had him changing direction to the right, and saving his cousins who had looked seconds away from diving out of his way, because there had been no doubt in any of their minds that he would have slammed through them to get to her.

“
Duncan!” Reese yelled close behind him, but he wasn’t paying attention to his brother.

As soon as he came to the locked chain-linked fence, he jumped up, grabbed onto the unforgiving rusty metal links and used the hold to pull himself over the fence. His feet had barely hit the ground when he broke out into a full-out run and ran between the two large brick buildings towards what looked liked a back parking lot.

The second that he turned the corner, he realized that he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison for killing the asshole standing over Necie, hugging her bag to his chest and looking terrified.

He didn’t stop to think, ask questions or see if this was just a misunderstanding. He punched the man, laying him out flat and then just as quickly shifted his attention to the small woman pressing her hand to her head and wincing as she slowly moved to stand up, her pale cheeks quickly filling with blood when she spotted him.

She opened her mouth, closed her eyes and winced as she moved to sit back down, apparently decided that sitting hurt less. Since he had no idea how the adorable little klutz hurt herself, he resisted the need to pick her up and hold her. So, instead he released the EMT in him, knelt by her side and quickly checked her over.

“
Did you lose consciousness?” he asked, moving her hand away from her forehead just long enough to see that she had a small gash that wasn’t going to need stitches.

Relieved at least at that much, he grabbed the pocket flashlight from his pocket and quickly checked the dilation of her eyes. From there he moved onto her pulse, palpated her from head to toe, looking for injuries all while he ignored her annoyed demands that he leave her alone because she was fine.

“
Let me have a look,” Aidan said, kneeling down beside him and since he trusted his brother, he moved back with a nod, turned around and launched himself at the bastard who’d finally regained consciousness and punched him until a few of his cousins managed to grab him and pull him off.

“
Let me go!” Duncan snapped, determined to kill the bastard.

“
Oh, my God, don’t let him go!” the bastard bleeding on the ground screeched as he assumed the fetal position and kicked away Necie’s bag as though that would somehow save him.

“
Let me go!” Duncan yelled, managing to free one arm as he struggled to free his other arm so that he could finish beating the shit out of the asshole.

“
Please don’t!” the guy curled up on the ground screamed.

“
What the hell is going on here?” Mr. Dixon demanded as he walked outside, slamming the large metal door behind him and looking absolutely stunned at the scene before him.

“
I quit!” the guy on the ground screamed hysterically as he suddenly found the balls to scramble to his feet and make a run for it.

Eyes narrowing on the little bastard, Duncan watched as he ran straight for the gate and then awkwardly climbed over it, dropped down, fell on his ass, stood up and limped/ran towards what he probably considered freedom. The moment the little shit was out of the picture, Duncan shifted his glare to old man Dixon to find him standing there with a sheepish smile on his face as he peered down at his granddaughter.

Mr. Dixon cleared his throat and gestured with the kitchen towel in his hands towards the general direction the guy just ran off to and shrugged. “I guess Tom won’t be coming back,” he said with a careless shrug as Duncan glared at the old bastard.

“
What the hell was he doing out here?” Necie demanded, shaking her head at something that Aidan said as she got to her feet, waved off any more help from Aidan, which probably saved his little brother’s ass, awkwardly bent over to grab her bag all while she made her way towards him.

He sighed with relief as he shook off the hold keeping him away from her. Relieved that she was okay, he walked over to her, stepped to the side when the confused woman went to knee him in the balls and swept her off her feet. As he carried her back towards the way that he came, he thought perhaps with her head injury and all that he should probably be carrying her in his arms instead of over his shoulder, but with the way that she was kicking and punching him, he decided that this way was probably for the best.

*-*-*-*

“
Excuse me,” Necie said, putting her hand over the mouthpiece of her cellphone when the waitress came over to their table, “but could you please tell me the address for this lovely establishment?”

She ignored the long-suffering sigh that came from across the table and focused on keeping her smile casual and carefree so that she didn’t accidentally clue the waitress into the fact that there was a kidnapping going on under her nose and unnecessarily frightening her.

Calm and relaxed, Necie reminded herself as she kept that smile forced on her face and waited for the answer that would save her.

With a putout sigh that she really didn’t appreciate, the waitress pointed towards the bottom of the menu that Necie had been holding like a shield for the past twenty minutes.

“
Now, are you ready to order?” the woman asked, deciding to ignore Necie and focus all of her attention on Duncan, who had the balls to look amused.

“
We’ll have six of my usual cheeseburgers and two Cokes,” he said, keeping his bemused eyes locked on her as he reached over, plucked the menu that she’d been using to protect herself and handed it over to the annoyed looking waitress.

The address!

“
Wait!” she said, desperate for the address that was printed on the bottom of the menu.

“
Ma’am? Ma’am?”
the emergency dispatcher waiting for the information that they would need in order to save her, said, trying to get her attention.
“Do you know where you are yet?”

Sighing heavily, Duncan reached over, plucked the phone out of her hands and ruined her call for help. “Hey, Jim,” Duncan said, sounding bored as he settled back against bench. “She’s at Roxie’s Dinner.”

Her eyes narrowed on him as she pulled her foot up and slammed it down on his booted food, but he simply continued to sit there, chatting it up with the man whose job it was to help her. Instead, they were talking about the game, Jim’s wife, his kids and an upcoming class that they both had to take. When he was done and the bottom of her foot was starting to hurt from trying to beat the bastard into submission, he ended the call and placed the cellphone on the table next to her.

“
I’m sure that if you called your grandfather that he’d probably come save you from me,” he said with a chuckle and a devilish wink that almost earned him another kick beneath the table.

“
I’m fine,” she bit out, refusing to call her grandfather since her foot was too sore to kick the old bastard right now.

He’d actually had the nerve to hire someone to watch her every move, she thought as she angrily ripped apart a napkin even as she tried to remind herself that she would get her revenge later and that right now she needed to focus on how to escape.

“
I have to use the bathroom,” she said evenly, slowly sliding towards the end of the bench so that she didn’t alert him of her plans.

“
To the back and then to the right,” he said calmly, clearly not aware that she was seconds away from making her escape and very possibly changing her identity, moving out of town and joining the Witness Protection program.

“
You’ll never make it,” he said calmly, even adding a shrug as he sat back as the first wave of cheeseburger platters were placed in front of him.

She blinked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, struggling against the urge to seek out the exit sign and calculate her chances of making it to the door before-

“
Damn, how the hell did I miss that before?” he asked in an awed tone that drew her attention back to him.

“
Miss what?” she asked, not even trying to hide her confusion.

Locking his emerald eyes on her, he said, “Just how beautiful you are.”

“
I see,” she mumbled uncomfortably, licking her suddenly dry lips as she turned around and inadvertently helped the waitress deliver the cokes to Duncan’s groin when she accidentally tripped the woman and sent her flying.

Chapter 23

“
Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Necie said as she grabbed the stack of napkins held loosely in his hand as he struggled against the need to groan.

God, did she have any idea what she was fucking doing to him? he wondered as he licked his lips and somehow resisted the urge to push up against her hand. He shouldn’t be allowing her to do this, normally he would never let a woman that he was trying to apologize to, inadvertently give him a hand job as she was nervously dabbing at his crotch, trying her best to dry his pants after she’d helped dump about a half gallon of Coke on his lap.

“
Did I hurt you?” innocent gray eyes looked up and met his as she stopped what she was doing. She looked so fucking adorable in the moonlight.

“
No,” he groaned, unable to help himself as he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers.

He shouldn’t be doing this.

He should have just dropped her off at her grandfather’s house when she’d asked him to bring her home. Hell, he should have handed her over to her grandfather back at the parking lot when the bastard had demanded that he get his fucking hands off her, but he hadn’t done any of those things. He’d been so fucking determined to do right by her that he’d dragged her across town to his favorite diner, made sure that it was too fucking cold for her to walk home and had sat there like a moron trying think about anything but the way it had felt sliding inside her the other night.