Tall, Silent and Lethal

by R. L. Mathewson

  No, she wasn’t going to think about him. Not right now when she needed to keep it together and get through this. This time when he fired her, she would nod in understanding, thank him and Marta. She’d make her goodbyes quickly before she grabbed her bags and made a run for it.

  Decision made, she picked up her duffle bag and threw it over her shoulder, grabbed the handle of her oversized suitcase and headed for the stairs. Pausing at the top of the stairs, she looked down at her watch and nearly sighed with relief. It was well after one o’clock in the afternoon, which meant that she’d slept through breakfast and lunch. Christofer now had more than enough reason to fire her, not that he really needed it today.

  Telling herself that it was better to get this over with, she started down the stairs. When she walked into the kitchen she was relieved to find Christofer washing his hands at the kitchen sink since it saved her from having to hunt him down to get him to say his two favorite words.

  “Is there something that you needed, Cloe?” he asked, not bothering to look up at her as he slowly scrubbed his hands clean.

  A little taken off guard that he hadn’t spoken those two words that he seemed to be in love with, she softly cleared her throat as she set her bags down. She opened her mouth and then abruptly closed it when she realized that she had absolutely no idea what to say. This was the first time that she’d ever tried to get fired and she had no idea how to go about achieving that without pissing him off enough to call up the agency that she worked for and complain.

  Since she decided which jobs she would accept, she wouldn’t get in trouble for quitting if that’s what she had to do now. For safety reasons they were allowed to abruptly quit. Normally they were expected to stay on until a replacement could be found, but if she told Marie, her contact at the agency, that she was uncomfortable with staying here a minute longer she would be allowed to leave immediately and still get work through the agency.

  Getting fired wouldn’t cause any problems for her since she’d never been fired before and there weren’t any criminal concerns along with her termination. The only caretakers that had to worry about termination from the agency were the ones that were habitually fired, quit every job abruptly, were accused of stealing, elderly abuse or one of a dozen offenses that the agency specifically prohibited.

  If he called up and filed a complaint about her, she wouldn’t get fired, but she would have a black mark against her that could be used against her later and that wasn’t something that she was comfortable with. She needed him to fire her without getting pissed so that she could apologize, thank him for the opportunity to work with Marta and leave.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, still not looking at her as he turned off the faucet.

  “Fine,” she said, which was mostly true thanks to the sleep she’d been able to get last night. Her nerves were frayed and she was still slightly on edge, but it was manageable.

  At least for the moment.

  Right now she had two choices to keep it together, leaving or going back on her medication. Since she refused to go back on her medication that made her choice pretty simple. She was leaving. He could fire her ass or she’d quit and hope that he didn’t try to get back at her by calling up the agency. Either way she planned to put at least ten hours between her and this house by tonight.

  He nodded absently as he dried his hands on a dishcloth. “Are you hungry?” he asked, looking at her for the first time since she’d stepped into the kitchen.

  “No,” she said, watching as he glanced down at the bags by her side.

  “Why don’t you go back upstairs and lay down? I’ll bring you something cold to drink,” he suggested, already grabbing a clean glass from the dishwasher to do just that and confusing her more than she ever thought possible.

  For the past week he’d been firing her over every little thing and now that she’d made it more than obvious that she wanted to leave, he was letting a golden opportunity to fire her ass slip by him. Worrying her bottom lip, she watched as he filled a glass with the lemonade that she’d made yesterday.

  “I’m not tired,” she said, deciding to give him another minute so that he could properly fire her.

  “I see,” he said with a slight nod as he set the glass of lemonade down on the counter.

  Good, she thought, nearly sighing with relief as she leaned over to grab her bags. Before she could manage to do more than brush her fingertips over the handles, the bags were yanked away from her and carried past her. More than a little surprised, she turned to follow him outside.

  At least he wasn’t gloating, she thought, ignoring the slight disappointment that she felt that he hadn’t at least tried to talk her out of this. He was no doubt relieved to finally be rid of her. Then again, he was probably waiting until they were outside, by her car and out of earshot of Marta so that he could gloat.

  She should say goodbye to Marta, she realized, opening her mouth to ask him to hold up a minute when he took her by surprise and walked past the backdoor and headed upstairs with her bags.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, following him upstairs to take her bags back.

  “Helping you bring your bags back to your room,” he said, taking the stairs two at a time and forcing her to practically run up the stairs to catch up with him.

  “I’m leaving,” she pointed out, rushing after him as he headed down the hall towards the bedroom she’d been using.

  “No, you’re not,” he simply said, not bothering to look at her or even slow his pace as he stepped inside the bedroom.

  “Yes, I am,” she bit out in exasperation as she finally caught up with him.

  “You’re staying,” he said, tossing her bags on the bed before she could grab them.

  With an annoyed sigh, she walked past him and grabbed her bags. “I’m really not, Christofer. You can either fire me or I quit, but I’m out of here.”

  “Wow, I didn’t know that you hated my sister that much that you’d willingly subject her to my cooking,” he said conversationally as she turned around and discovered that he was blocking the only exit from the room.

  As much as she appreciated the fact that he’d left the door open, it didn’t make her feel any less trapped. Normally she could deal with having someone standing in the doorway, but not today.

  “Move,” she said, shifting the heavy bag over her shoulder as she moved towards the door and the large man blocking it.

  Christofer shook his head. “Not until you promise not to leave.”

  “If you’re not going to fire me, Christofer, then I quit. So please move away from the door so that I can say goodbye to Marta and be on my way,” she said, forcing herself to ignore the panic that began crawling up her spine and the breaths that were coming too quickly to do her any good.

  “Cloe?” Christofer said, sounding worried and so far away.

  “I’m leaving, Christofer,” she said, noting that her words sounded slurred right around the time that she stumbled slightly to the right.

  Her arms and legs went numb, the bags dropped to the ground seconds before her legs gave out to join them. The room spun violently as the floor rushed up to greet her, but before she could become better acquainted with the hardwood floor, she found herself rising and moving towards the door.

  “You’re not going anywhere, mein Schatz,” Christofer said as he headed for the stairs. As much as she would have loved to have been able to come up with a smartass remark to tell him exactly what she thought of his highhanded ways, sadly all she could come up with was a muttered grumble that had the bastard chuckling.

  Chapter 13

  “I’m fine. You can put me down,” Cloe said calmly and he probably would have believed her if she hadn’t been squeezing her eyes shut or gone deathly pale on him.

  He didn’t bother arguing with her as he carefully placed her in a chair at the kitchen table. When she leaned forward and laid her head on her folded arms instead of getting up and storming off to make another attem
pt to leave, he wasn’t exactly surprised. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning and now that she was over the initial stress and drama from last night, her body was finally making its demands for food known.

  Now that she’d stopped giving off the scent of fear and anxiety, he could smell how low her blood sugar actually was. She needed to eat something before she made herself sick or passed out again. Instead of coming up with a bullshit story to explain how he knew that her blood sugar was low, he simply focused on getting some food in her.

  After he made sure that she wasn’t going to fall out of the chair, he grabbed a glass, a bottle of orange juice from the fridge and the sugar bowl. Keeping an eye on her, he quickly filled the glass with orange juice and dumped in a large scoop of sugar and mixed it before placing it on the table in front of Cloe.

  “Drink it,” he said softly as he returned to the counter to clean up the small mess that he’d made.

  “What is it?” Cloe asked, not bothering to raise her head as she opened her eyes and shot the glass of juice a wary glance.

  “Orange juice and a little bit of sugar,” he said, replacing the cap on the orange juice bottle and returning it to the fridge. “Drink it. It will make you feel better,” he said absently as he looked over the contents of the fridge.

  It was practically overflowing with food that he didn’t recognize, never mind knew how to cook. Milk, juice, water, a jar of mayonnaise, cheese, eggs, and what appeared to be some kind of brown deli meat were the only things that he recognized. Deciding to keep it as simple as possible, he grabbed the cheese, mayonnaise, and deli meat and placed them on the counter.

  After hunting down a half loaf of bread, he started making a sandwich. He grabbed a large serving spoon and scooped up a big spoonful of mayonnaise and dropped it on a slice of bread, careful to make sure that the mayonnaise didn’t pour out onto the plate. That was followed with a half-inch of cheese, an inch of deli meat, and a few good shakes of salt and pepper between every layer.

  He wasn’t an expert on sandwiches, but he thought it looked pretty good. It would at least fill her up, he mused as he topped the sandwich with the second slice of bread. For a moment he considered cutting the sandwich in half, but he didn’t want to risk any of the mayonnaise escaping.

  Cloe was slowly sipping the orange juice when he placed the sandwich down in front of her. Her brows pulled together as she looked down at the sandwich.

  “This will make you feel better,” he said, gesturing to the sandwich as he leaned back against the counter.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Cloe murmured, her lips twitching with amusement as she inspected the sandwich, layer by layer.

  “Did, um,” she said, clearing her throat as she bit back a smile that had his eyes narrowing, “did you make Marta’s sandwiches like this?”

  “Yes,” he answered defensively, wondering what her problem was. The sandwich had everything that she liked to eat and would fill her up quickly. It was the perfect meal in his book. It was easy to make, cheap and provided everything that she would need; bread, meat and cheese. What more could she ask for?

  “I see,” she said as a smile broke free before she managed to pull it back. She lightly touched the top of the sandwich which caused an obscene amount of mayonnaise to seep out and pool on the plate.

  Sighing in irritation, he grabbed a spoon from the drawer and grabbed the plate away from her so that he could fix the sandwich for her. He pulled the top layer of bread off and quickly scooped up the mayonnaise that had escaped and put it back in the sandwich. When he was done, he pushed the plate back to her.

  “Um, thank you,” she murmured as she looked around the kitchen. “Where’s Marta?”

  “I dropped her off at the Senior Center this morning,” he said, moving to clean up the mess as he waited for her to finish her sandwich.

  “Oh,” she said, looking oddly disappointed as she slumped in her chair and focused her attention back on the sandwich where it belonged.

  “They’re having a spaghetti dinner there tonight and she wanted to help,” he explained, frowning when he caught her poking the sandwich and watching with fascination as more mayonnaise poured out.

  He was just about to demand that she eat the wonderful sandwich that he’d made when he heard her stomach growl, demanding that she eat the sandwich and doing his job for him. Since she was now his responsibility that meant that he had to make sure that she was well taken care of and he had to admit that he was doing a damn fine job of it so far.

  “I guess I could hang around to say goodbye to her,” she said with a sigh as she got to her feet.

  “What about your sandwich?” he asked, gesturing to the home cooked meal that he’d slaved over for her.

  “I’m afraid that I can’t handle eating something that delicious, Christofer,” she said with a sigh of regret, which somewhat appeased him. “It would wreck me for all future sandwiches.”

  That was true, he had to admit. He was just about to offer to make her a bowl of cereal when she took him by surprise and did the one thing that he’d truly never expected. She walked over to him and….

  She hugged him.

  “Thank you for everything that you did for me last night,” she said softly, pulling away only to pause long enough to press a kiss against his cheek. Then she was moving away from him before he could stop her or at the very least, wrap his arms around her and savor the warmth that she was offering him.

  “You’re welcome,” he said softly, not sure what to make of this woman. One thing was for damn sure, she wasn’t like any other woman that he’d ever met.

  And he wasn’t ready to let her go.

  *-*-*-*

  “May I help you?” Cloe asked, pausing at the top of the stairs even as she made a backup plan just in case the large, grumpy man in front of her decided to play caveman with her luggage again.

  “That depends,” Christofer drawled, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall and momentarily drew her attention to the bulging muscles flexing beneath the tight gray tee shirt that he wore.

  “On?” she found herself asking as she forced herself to look up and focus on the stubborn man that refused to let her quit.

  “On where you’re going,” he said, gesturing to her luggage with a slight nod.

  “Well first, I thought I’d go to the diner and get a bite to eat before I pass out. Then I’m going to head over to the Senior Center and say goodbye to Marta. After that I thought I’d head south for a while and see where life takes me,” she said, picking up her luggage and moving to take a step down the stairs when, surprise, surprise, he blocked her.

  “I made you lunch,” he said accusingly as he pushed away from the wall and blocked her path.

  “I know and it was sweet, really, but I really don’t think that I could handle something that delicious,” she said with a heartfelt sigh even as she did her best to bite back a smile.

  It really had been a sweet gesture even if it had grossed her out to an unbelievable degree. She’d never in her life seen so much mayonnaise and pepper in one sandwich before. It had oozed out of the sandwich, reminding her of pus and that had pretty much killed any cravings for sandwiches for a while.

  “I tell you what,” Christofer said, reaching over and gently removing the bags from her hands and the one on her shoulder, “let me buy you lunch and we can talk.”

  “I’m not staying, Christofer,” she sighed, moving to pick her bags up, but instead found him taking both of her hands in his and giving them a gentle tug that had her reluctantly following him down the stairs.

  “And we can discuss that while we eat,” he said, giving her a hopeful smile that had her narrowing her eyes on him.

  “And if I decide to leave afterwards?” she asked, eying him suspiciously.

  “Then you can leave,” he said with that damn smile that did funny things to her. “No worries.”

  “Uh huh,” she said, letting him lead her towards the front
door. “And why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because you’re paranoid?” he offered with a wink as he released her right hand and grabbed his sweatshirt off the coatrack.

  “Fine,” she said, pursing her lips up in thought as he released her other hand so that he could pull on the sweatshirt, “I’ll have lunch with you, but on one condition.”

  “And what’s that?” he asked, starting to pull his sweatshirt on.

  “That you leave the sweatshirt home,” she said, knowing damn well that he didn’t leave the house without his sweatshirt, pretty much guaranteeing that she would never have to see him again.