“You really didn’t have to do this,” Grace’s father insists as I drop the hood of his SUV back in place. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I feel like a real goofhead for making you do manual labor on Christmas Eve.”
Dragging a clean rag over my chin to wipe a streak of motor oil off, I try my hardest not to laugh. I like Tim Ivers a hell of a lot, but there’s something very disconcerting about a grown man who uses words like “goofhead.”
In the four years I’ve been dating his daughter, I can count on one hand the times I’ve heard the man curse, a drastic contrast to my own upbringing. I grew up with an alcoholic father whose every other word was an expletive. My poor mom once had to come in for a meeting with my kindergarten teacher because I’d called another kid a “fucking shit-face.” Oh, those were the days… The very bad, unhappy days.
Luckily, everything’s changed since then. My dad has been sober for nearly four years, and although we haven’t completely mended fences, at least I don’t hate him anymore.
If I’m being honest, these days I view Grace’s dad as a father figure. He’s a decent guy, if you overlook the fact that he prefers football to hockey. But nobody’s perfect.
“Tim. My man. I’m not going to let my kinda dad pay money to get an oil change when I can do it for free,” I inform him. “I grew up working in our garage. I can change oil with my eyes closed.”
“Are you sure?” he pushes, readjusting his wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. “You know I would never take advantage, son.”
Son. Damn, that does me in every time. There’s no good reason Tim should call me that. It’s not like Grace and I are married or anything. Back when we first started dating, I thought maybe he was the kind of man who called every younger guy “son.” But nope. Just me. And I can’t deny I love hearing it.
“I know you wouldn’t, which is why I offered,” I assure him. “And like I said before, don’t you dare go to that money-sucking dealership of yours for repairs ever again. My brother will take care of you. No charge.”
“How is your brother these days?” Grace’s dad locks his car before heading to the garage door.
I follow him out to the driveway, where the chill in the air instantly cools my face. It still hasn’t snowed in Hastings yet this winter, but Grace said the forecast is calling for a huge dump of it tomorrow morning. Perfect. I love a white Christmas.
“Jeff’s good,” I answer. “He told me to wish you a happy holiday. They’re sorry they couldn’t be here for dinner tonight.”
My brother and his wife, Kylie, are spending the holidays in Mexico this year with Kylie’s family. It’s her parents’ fortieth anniversary, so they decided to do a huge sunny destination celebration. My mom and stepdad, David, are joining us tonight, though, which should be fun. Grace and I always get a kick out of watching her straitlaced molecular biologist father converse with my incredibly bland accountant stepfather. Last year we had a bet to see how many boring subjects they could discuss in one evening. Grace won with a total of twelve. I’d guessed ten, but I underestimated Tim’s new fascination with antique milk bottles and David’s new ceramic elephant collection.
“Josie’s sorry she couldn’t make it either,” Tim says, referring to Grace’s mother, who lives in Paris. Although Tim and Josie divorced years ago, they’re still very close.
Unlike my folks, who can’t be in the same room together, even with my dad being sober now. Grace and I have had numerous conversations about what’ll happen when we get married—when, not if, because come on now. We’re end game and we both know it. But we’ve stressed about it, wondering how we’d handle the issue of wedding invites. Eventually, we decided we’d probably elope to avoid all the drama, because there’s no way Mom will attend if Dad is there.
Not that I blame my mother. Dad made her life a living hell during their marriage. She was the one who dealt with years of drunken tantrums, blackouts, and rehab stints while trying to raise two sons essentially on her own. I don’t think she’ll ever come around. It’s a miracle Jeff and I managed to find some forgiveness for him.
“Do you know yet if your schedule will allow you to go to Paris with Grace this summer?” he asks as we round the side of the house toward the wraparound porch.
“It all depends if the team makes the playoffs. I mean, on one hand, spending two months in Paris sounds lit. But that would mean us not playing in the post-season, which sucks balls.”
Tim chuckles. “See, if you played football, the season would be done in February, and you’d be able to make the trip…”
“One of these days, sir, I’m going to strap you to a chair and force you to watch hockey games on a loop until you have no choice but to love it.”
“Still wouldn’t work,” he says cheerfully.
I grin. “You need to have more faith in my torture abilities.”
Just as we reach the porch steps, a big brown van pulls up at the curb in front of the house. For a second I’m confused, thinking it’s Mom and David, until I glimpse the UPS logo.
“They’re still making deliveries?” Tim marvels. “At six o’clock on Christmas Eve? Poor fellow.”
Poor fellow indeed. The delivery man looks frazzled and exhausted as he bounds up the path toward us. He’s got a cardboard box in one hand, a bulky phone in the other.
“Hello, folks,” he says when he reaches us. “Happy holidays, and sorry to disturb you. You’re my last delivery of the day—it’s for Grace Ivers?”
“Happy holidays,” Tim says. “And that would be my daughter. She’s inside, but I can run in and get her if she needs to sign for that?”
“No need. Any signature from the household will do.” He hands over the phone and a plastic pen. After Grace’s dad scribbles his signature, the delivery man bids us goodbye and hurries back to his truck. No doubt eager to get home and see his family.
“Who’s it from?” I ask.
Tim checks the return label. “No name. Just a P.O. Box in Boston.”
The package is about two by two feet, and when Tim gives it to me, I notice it doesn’t have much heft. I narrow my eyes. “What if it’s a bomb?”
“Then it will explode and we’ll die, and the atoms of which we are composed will find new uses elsewhere in the universe.”
“And Merry Christmas to us all!” I say with exaggerated holiday cheer, before rolling my eyes at him. “You’re a real buzzkill, sir, you know that?”
“What’s that?” Grace demands when we enter the living room of the big Victorian home.
“Not sure. It just showed up.” I hold out the box. “For you.”
Grace does that cute lip-biting thing she does when she’s thinking. Her gaze travels to the beautifully decorated tree and piles of perfectly wrapped presents beneath it. “I don’t think we can put it under there,” she finally decides. “My OCD would never allow me to get through tomorrow morning knowing there’s one stupid box that doesn’t look magical.”
I snort. “I can go wrap it if you want.”
“There’s no wrapping paper left.”
“So I’ll use newspaper. Or parchment paper.”
My girlfriend stares at me. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”
Her father laughs, because he’s a traitor.
“Fine, then just open it now,” I tell her. “We don’t even know who it’s from, so technically it might not be an official Christmas present. Fifty percent of me thinks it’s a bomb, but don’t worry, gorgeous, your father assured me our atoms will be repurposed after we explode.”
Grace sighs. “I don’t understand you sometimes.”
Then she flounces off to the kitchen to look for scissors.
I admire her ass, which looks great in her bright red leggings. She paired the leggings with a red-and-white striped sweater. Her dad is clad in a similar sweater, but his is green and red and has a badly knitted representation of a reindeer, which I first thought was a cat when he strolled in earlier wearing it. Apparently Grace’s mom knit the horrific thing for him when Grace was little. As someone who didn’t have many good holidays with my family, I have to admit I’m really into the weird Ivers traditions.
“All right, let’s see what we’ve got here.” Grace sounds excited as she slices through the strip of packing tape on the box.
Me, I’m on guard, because I haven’t completely ruled out the notion that this could be an assassination attempt.
She opens the cardboard flaps and pulls out a small notecard. A frown furrows her brow.
“What does it say?” I demand.
“It says ‘I missed you.’”
My guard shoots up ten feet higher. What the fuck? Who the hell is sending my girlfriend gifts with cards that say I missed you?
“Maybe it’s from your mom?” Tim guesses, looking equally perplexed.
Grace reaches inside and rummages through a sea of packing paper. The frown deepens when her fingers connect with whatever’s inside. A moment later, her hand emerges with its prize. All I glimpse is a flash of white, blue, and black, before Grace shrieks and drops the item as if it burned her palm.
“No!” she growls. “No. No. No. No, no, no, no.” Her rageful gaze turns to me. She jabs her finger in the air. “Get rid of him, John.”
Oh boy. Realization dawns as I approach the box. I have a pretty good sense now of what it contains, and—yep.
It’s Alexander.
Grace’s father wrinkles his forehead as I lift the porcelain doll from the cardboard. “What is that?” he inquires.
“No,” Grace is still saying, pointing at me. “I want him gone. Now.”
“What exactly would you like me to do?” I counter. “Throw him in the trash?”
She pales at the suggestion. “You can’t do that. What if it makes him angry?”
“Of course it will make him angry. Look at him. He’s perpetually angry.”
Trying not to shudder, I force myself to look at Alexander’s face. I can’t believe it’s been almost seven blissful months since I’ve seen it. As far as disturbing antique dolls go, this one tops the list. With a porcelain face so white it looks unnatural, he’s got big lifeless blue eyes, weirdly thick black eyebrows, a tiny red mouth, and black hair with an extravagant widow’s peak. He’s wearing a blue tunic, white neckerchief, black jacket and shorts, and shiny red shoes.
He is the creepiest thing I ever did see.
“That’s it,” Grace says. “You’re not allowed to be friends with Garrett anymore. I’m serious.”
“In his defense, Dean started it,” I point out.
“You can’t be friends with him either. Tucker’s okay to keep because I know he hates this as much as I do.”
“And you think I like it?” I gape at her. “Look at this thing!” I wave Alexander in front of Grace, who ducks and dodges to avoid his flailing stubby arms.
“I don’t understand,” Tim hedges, reaching for the doll. “This is phenomenal! Look at the craftsmanship.” He admires the doll, while his daughter and I stare at him in horror.
“Goddamn it, Dad,” Grace sighs. “Now he knows your touch.”
“Was this manufactured in Germany?” He continues examining Alexander. “Looks German-made. Nineteenth century?”
“I am very disturbed by your knowledge of antique dolls,” I say frankly. “And we’re not kidding, sir. Put him down before he imprints on you. It’s too late for us—he already knows us. But you still have time to save yourself.”
“From what?”
“He’s haunted,” Grace answers glumly.
I nod. “Sometimes he blinks at you.”
Tim runs his fingers over the movable eyelids. “This mechanism is centuries old. If the eyes are opening and closing of their own volition, it’s likely due to wear and tear.”
“Stop touching him,” Grace pleads.
For real. Does he have a death wish or something? I mean, I know Garrett does, because clearly he wants me to murder him next time I see him. I love Garrett Graham like a brother. He’s my closest friend. He’s a teammate. He’s fucking awesome. But to do this to us on Christmas?
Granted, I did abuse my spare key privileges a few months ago to sneak Alexander into Garrett and his girlfriend’s house for Hannah’s birthday. But still.
“Do you mind if I take photos and try to find the value of it?” Tim asks, the geeky academic in him rearing its head.
“Don’t bother. He cost four grand,” I supply.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Four thousand dollars?”
Grace nods in confirmation. “That’s another reason we can’t throw him out. It feels wrong to throw away that much money.”
“Dean bought him a couple years ago at some antique auction,” I explain. “The listing said he was haunted, so Dean thought it would be hilarious to get the doll for Tuck’s daughter, who was, like, a baby at the time. Sabrina lost her shit, so she waited till Dean and Allie were in town a couple months later and paid off someone at their hotel to leave the doll on Dean’s pillow.”
Grace giggles. “Allie said he screamed like a little girl when he turned on the light and saw Alexander there.”
“And now it’s a thing,” I finish with a half-grin, half-sigh. “Basically, we all ship Alexander to one another when the other person least expects it.”
“What did the seller say about it?” Tim asks curiously. “Does it have a backstory?”
Grace shakes her head. “Dad. Please stop calling him an ‘it.’ He can hear you.”
“He came with some sort of information card,” I answer with a shrug. “Can’t remember who has it now. But basically, his name is Alexander. He belonged to a little kid named Willie who died on the California Trail back in Gold Rush times. Apparently, the entire family starved to death, except for Willie. Poor kid wandered around for days looking for help and eventually fell down a ravine, broke his leg, and lay there until he died of exposure.”
Grace shudders. “They found him clutching Alexander against his chest. The psychotic doll seller said Willie’s spirit went into Alexander right before he died.”
Tim’s eyes widen. “Jeez. That is fucking dark.”
My jaw drops. “Sir. Did you just curse?”
“How could I not?” He sets Alexander back in the box and closes the flaps. “Why don’t we take him up to the attic? Jean and David will be here any minute. We don’t want to expose them to it.”
Nodding decisively, Tim Ivers marches off with the box in hand. I honestly don’t know if he’s serious or just humoring us.
My lips twitch with laughter as I turn to Grace. “There. Alexander’s been banished to the attic. Feel better?”
“Is he still in the house?”
“Well, yeah—”
“Then, no. I don’t feel better.”
Grinning, I grasp her by the waist and pull her toward me. Then I lower my head and brush my lips over hers. “How about now?” I murmur.
“Slightly better,” she amends.
When I kiss her again, she melts against me and loops her arms around my neck. Fuck. I miss this so much when I’m on the road. I knew the pro hockey lifestyle would be tough, but I hadn’t anticipated how much I’d miss Grace every time I had to leave town.
“I hate that you have to leave again,” she says against my lips. Evidently her thoughts are echoing my own.
“Not for a few days,” I remind her.
She bites her lip and presses her cheek against my left pec. “Still not enough time,” she says, so softly I barely hear her.
I breathe in the sweet scent of her hair and hold her closer. She’s right. It’s not nearly enough time.
