Page 54 of The Perfect Heart

Not that Nash would mind if I were late, but I was determined not to let our relationship get in the way of being a good employee. I didn’t need another reason for anyone to dislike me or think I was receiving special treatment, though Nicole was a lost cause.

I was just picking up my purse when I noticed the card sticking out from between several stems. I plucked it out, wondering what sweet message I would find.

But the moment I saw the handwriting, my blood froze to ice in my veins, my stomach plummeting to my toes.

‘Peek a boo, I found you. Did you really think you could hide from me forever, Hal?’

Horror rooted me to the spot, my mind and lungs refusing to work as I reread the note. I didn’t need a signature to tell me who it was from.

Jack had found me, and he was here.

That terrifying thought kicked my brain into gear. I checked that the locks were in place as I dove for my phone, still in my purse, and dialed Nash’s number with shaking hands. But he didn’t pick up. He didn’t pick up the next time I called him, or the time after that.

“Come on, Nash. Please pick up. Please.” The room blurred as tears filled my eyes, the endless ringing echoing in my head, and I tried to figure out what to do. Did I barricade myself in here? Hope Jack wouldn’t try to bust his way in this far from town where no one would hear me scream?

Or did I try to make it to town and safety?

Chapter 27

Halle

THE FIFTEEN MINUTES it took to walk to town were interminable, panic racing through me, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end with the feeling that someone was following me, though I didn’t see or hear anything. But I spent every minute with my stomach doing somersaults, expecting something or someone to come out of nowhere at any moment.

By the time I neared the Tipsy Tiki, I was breathing like I’d run a marathon and felt the same way, sticky with sweat beneath my coat and hat. The town was still quiet this early in the morning, with only a few shops open and visitors still tucked up in their hotel or BnB rooms against the cold. Just this once, I wished there were a million people here to hide among, a crowd to get lost in, people I could hide behind who would call out anyone harassing me.

I almost ducked into the bakery through the back door, the smells of baked goods wafting from inside even with the door closed. But then what would I do? Stay there all day?

Jack was here. He hadn’t given up as I’d hoped and prayed, and he wouldn’t give up just because I disappeared into a bakery. That might even make it worse. No one but Nash knew my story, and Jack was nothing if not charming. He might tell some story about looking for me because I’d gone off my meds and run away, and he was simply taking me home, caring for me as any loving husband would. And then what?

Everyone always believed Jack.

The back door of the bar within my sight, I fumbled for my keys, knowing it was locked. Nash had doubled his security measures since the fire, even updating the security cameras and the system that went along with them, thanks to a connection through a friend.

I managed to get the keys out of my purse, but I had to stop to find the right one, sorting through the large ring Nash had given me with frantic fingers, my breath coming in short gasps.

That door represented safety. I didn’t know what I would do once I got in there; it wasn’t some magical gateway to a world without Jack. But Nash would know what to do, and Joseph and the cook Will, who had taken up the role of bouncer occasionally, would be there. Nicole might happily serve me to the wolves, but I knew my two male coworkers would stand up for me.

Not to mention Nash. He might have been slighter of build than the other two, but I’d seen that body unclothed and knew the strength hidden there. Never mind that he played hockey and learned not only how to hit but how to take a hit, too.

I let out an “ah” as my fingers finally managed to pull out the correct key, the words an icy cloud in the air, sanctuary finally in my grasp, my arm and the keyring extended.

One second, I was about to fit the key in the lock. The next I was hitting the ground, the air leaving my lungs in a grunted woosh. For a moment, the only thing I could do was lie there staring up at the strip of sky between buildings, my stunned mind trying to understand what had just happened, gasping for air like a fish out of water.

It wasn’t until I was able to draw in my first deep breath that I was suddenly very aware I was in a prone position, that something had knocked me down with a blow to my side—the throbbing pain beat a sickish agony in time to my heartbeat.

A shadow fell over me, and for a moment, I thought I was in a nightmare. Jack was leering down at me, his grin triumphant, amused.

“Darling, did you think I wouldn’t find you?”

It was the voice of my harshest inner critic, the one that stopped me from believing in myself, that kept me small and quiet. It was the voice out of my nightmares, the one that haunted me whether I was awake or asleep, that sent shivers down my back and kept me looking over my shoulder, afraid of just this moment.

But the pain in my side, the dirty snow melting into my clothes, the scent of trash, and Jack’s expensive but cloying cologne told me this wasn’t a nightmare—it was real.

I scrambled up even as my side protested with pain, scrabbling backward until my back hit the dumpster. Jack stood between me and the door, my keys lying discarded in the gray slush. He also stood between the exit and me, and my heart, already racing, started pounding its way out of my chest at the realization that I was trapped.

“How did you find me?” I gasped, the only question I could grasp in my frantically running mind.

“I knew you’d come back here,” he replied, his broad, all-American shoulders to match his all-American looks rising in a shrug underneath his coat. “You were always small-town trash. I just found you and made you better, but I knew you’d return to your trash roots. It didn’t take me long to track you down. Now let’s stop this nonsense and go home.”