Christmas From Hell (25 page)

Duncan wasn’t good enough for Necie and never would be. He needed to stay the hell away from his granddaughter before-

“
You need to be sure,” Mr. Dixon said firmly.

“
What?” Duncan asked, opening his eyes, because he really hadn’t expected that. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“
Necie doesn’t deserve to be another one of your playthings, Duncan,” Mr. Dixon said evenly as he met Duncan’s gaze and held it as he sat there, reminding himself that he wasn’t the type of asshole to punch an elderly man.

“
I don’t have
playthings
,” he bit out, beyond fucking offended.

“
No, but you are a Bradford.”

“
Meaning?”

Mr. Dixon leveled a glare on him as he said, “You know exactly what that means the same as I do.”

“
Apparently not. So, why don’t you do us both a favor and explain it to me,” he demanded through clenched teeth, because if there was one thing that he wouldn’t take, it was someone bashing his family.

Whether they deserved it or not.

“
I’ve lived in this town my entire life, son, and I’ve seen what you Bradford boys are capable of and if you’re not to the point where you’re willing to risk everything for my granddaughter,” Mr. Dixon said softly, taking him by surprise for a second time that night, “then I’m going to need you to leave her alone, because she won’t be able to handle getting her heart broken by you.”

“
I’m not going to break her heart,” he swore even as a small part of him had to wonder if that’s exactly what he was going to end up doing.

He was a Bradford after all and he was nowhere near the point of losing his fucking mind in order to keep her.

*-*-*-*

Tuesday, December 15
^th
.

“
Oh, my God,” she said, slowly rolling over and wincing when the effort caused her burnt hand to sting, “I am never drinking again.”

When she realized that she was now face to face with a black leather seat and that the seat was also moving, she realized something was off about this situation. Then of course came the reminder that she didn’t drink, not since high school when she stole one of Grandpa’s beers and after he’d caught her, he’d made her drink the entire six pack until she swore that she was going to die.

It was not an experience that she would ever willingly go through again.

So, that made her wonder how she’d got here in the first place and why she felt so damn groggy. She tried to sit up, but there was a dull persist headache that was making that damn near impossible, that and apparently her hands and feet were tied together.

Either she was twelve again and her grandfather was trying to teach her a lesson on what could happen if she answered the door unprepared or she’d been kidnapped by someone who really liked food. Sighing, with a bit of a wince because of that persistent, dull headache that she couldn’t quite explain, she carefully rolled over, noted the brown bags of food that were on the floor and the empty food wrappers strewn about, the hint of smoke and the cologne that drove her crazy and sighed.

“
Why exactly am I tied up?” she asked Duncan, grateful that it hadn’t been her grandfather who’d tied her up, because she really hadn’t been looking forward to following through with her threats of having him committed.

Something about the man just told her that he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“
Oh,” Duncan said, looking back with the sweetest smile, “you’re awake.”

“
And apparently tied up,” she said, raising her hands pointedly.

“
Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, not really sounding all that sorry about tying her up. In fact, his tone suggested that it was really no big deal, which kind of freaked her out a little bit.

“
T-that’s okay,” she said, admittedly a little nervously since she’d just realized that her boyfriend, the guy that she was sleeping with or whatever he was to her, had just kidnapped her.

This wasn’t exactly a relationship building moment.

“
How’s your head?” he asked, bringing this moment to a whole new level of disturbing.

“
Fine…why?” she asked hesitantly, narrowing her eyes suspiciously on the large bastard and wondering if he actually had the balls to drug her fo-

But, when he rolled his eyes and sighed heavily in that way of his, she wasn’t exactly surprised when he said, “You fell off the bed while I was gone.”

Oh, well, sadly that made sense since she did have a tendency of falling off her own bed, which was sadly, often. Something he said, brought her attention right back to him.

“
Why were you gone?”

“
Because your grandfather kidnapped me at gunpoint,” he said with another one of those shrugs that was actually starting to creep her out.

Chapter 29

“
Do you think that you could untie me now?” Necie asked with a hopeful expression as she held up her hands so that he could free her, but…

“
Sorry, but I don’t think that I can do that,” he admitted.

With another one of those confused frowns, she dropped her hands and asked, “Why not?”

With a frown of his own, he said, “Because I think it’s against the rules.”

“
What rules?” she asked slowly with that look that told him that she was starting to question his sanity when it should be more than obvious what he was doing.

“
It’s not important,” he said, instead of explaining the rules since there was a good possibility that they could come back and bite him in the ass at a later date.

“
Okay,” she said much more slowly this time as she slowly sat up and moved closer to the passenger door, but he was prepared for this possibility.

“
The child safety locks are on,” he said, loving her adorable little disappointed sigh that escaped her lips when she realized that he’d thwarted her one and only means of escape.

“
I see,” she said absently as she looked around his SUV, looking for another means of escape, something that her grandfather had warned him of, so of course he’d prepared for every single escape possibility.

The ones that he’d missed, Mr. Dixon had found, so he seriously doubted that he was going to have to worry about this sweet little thing getting away before he could figure out if she was the one.

*-*-*-*

“
Necie!” he screamed a bit hysterically as he ran past her hiding spot, again.

Shaking her head, because seriously this had just been way too easy, she held her bound hands in front of her and bit a small cut into the blue painter’s tape that he’d used, which of course was telling. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, which was why he’d used tape that was easy to rip off and wouldn’t hurt as much as duct tape. For future kidnappings he might seriously want to reconsider his choice in tape, she thought as she pushed back on the branch, using the snow dusted branches and twigs as cover while she watched him.

“
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.