Holiday In Handcuffs

Chapter 3: Attempting Escape

Liam waited until he was sure Essie was sound asleep, along with everyone else in the house. He quietly, carefully, tiptoed to the door and slid it open. He went downstairs and systematically began searching every single cabinet, drawer, and closet, trying desperately to find keys to a vehicle, a cell phone, or some other way to communicate with the outside world. He found nothing.

In an even more desperate attempt to find freedom, he ran outside the chalet and checked all of the cars in case, by some miracle, someone left their keys in the car.

Damn! Why hadn't he ever learned to hotwire a car?

He went back inside, cold and wet for the second time in 24 hours.

And there he found Essie standing there, waiting for him.

"Liam! What were you doing? Trying to escape? I thought you were going to stay and do this for me."

"Woman, you have lost your mind! On what planet is it okay to just find a man, pull a gun on him, and force him to be your boyfriend?!"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic! I told you why I'm doing this. I'm not going to hurt you! Just two days, I promise!" Essie reasoned.

"Don't be dramatic?! Okay, then tell me how you would react if someone kidnapped you when you were just about to marry someone else, handcuffed you and forced you – at gunpoint – to be his girlfriend?!"

"I guess I'd be kind of annoyed," Essie sighed.

"Annoyed? Annoyed?! I was annoyed when you stood there like a nitwit when I wanted you to take my order at the pub-"

"Saloon," Essie corrected him.

"But I'm way past annoyed right now. I'm absolutely enraged and I will not stand for this any longer!" Before Essie knew what was happening, Liam's face was right in front of hers and he continued to yell. "Make no mistake, I will find a way to get away from you and your batshit crazy family if it's the last thing I do. And then, you my dear will go to prison!"

Essie giggled at hearing him say batshit crazy in his oh-so-proper accent.

"This is funny to you? Your father is right, you freak of nature! You will never amount to anything because you are a bona fide lunatic who has absolutely no grounding in reality! No sane man, in heaven or on earth, will ever agree to be your boyfriend or your friend. In fact, I doubt any man would willingly live in the same city as you!"

Even though she deserved every word he said, he felt remorse as soon as he said it. The look on Essie's face said it all – she was devastated.

She pursed her lips tightly and blinked back the tears. Then she simply walked away and went back to bed. She started to think that maybe prison wouldn't be so bad. She knew she had severely messed up and now she was just trying to figure out a way to make it better. Prison might be okay – a bed to sleep in, meals brought to her every day, a workout room, TV and free wi-fi.

Anything would be better than having someone rip into her the way that Liam just did.

The worst part was that she knew she deserved every single word.

In the morning, she nudged Liam, who had come back to bed some time after she had fallen back to sleep.

"Hey," she said. "I know what you were looking for last night. Don't bother trying to find the keys. I'm the key master this year and I've hidden them in a place you will never, ever find them. And the cell phones, too. My mother forces us to have an electronic-free, family-focused Christmas every year. Cell phones are strictly forbidden."