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 smarta.s.s 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 attempt 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 pa.s.sed out again. Instead of coming up with a bulls.h.i.t 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 gla.s.s, a bottle of orange juice from the fridge and the sugar bowl. Keeping an eye on her, he quickly filled the gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 d.a.m.n 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 d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.s 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 d.a.m.n 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 d.a.m.n well that he didn't leave the house without his sweatshirt, pretty much guaranteeing that she would never have to see him again.

"H-h-how m-many?" the waitress finally managed to ask after a full minute and a half of blatantly staring at Christofer, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable and making her feel kind of bad.

She still couldn't believe that he'd agreed to her terms. He hated this kind of attention and honestly, if she'd known that he was going to say yes, she never would have made the request in the first place. Instead of doing what she'd expected, he'd gone completely still, staring down at the sweatshirt in his hands, his life support, before reluctantly nodding and returning the sweatshirt to the hook.

"We don't have to do-" she started to say, giving him the escape that he clearly needed.

"Two," he said tightly, cutting her off.

"O-okay," the waitress said, wide-eyed stare still fixed on Christofer as she blindly reached out and grabbed a handful of menus. "Right this way," the waitress said numbly, reluctantly turning around so that she could show them to a booth.

Looking decidedly uncomfortable, Christofer gestured for her to walk ahead of him. She opened her mouth to once again offer him an escape, but with a resigned sigh, shook her head and followed the waitress. He was a grown man and if he wanted to put himself through this h.e.l.l then that was his choice. Who knows, maybe the whole thing would p.i.s.s him off enough that he'd willingly let her leave without an argument, she hoped as every conversation in the small diner stopped and every head turned to gawk in Christopher's direction.

She'd be on the road within the hour since she doubted that he'd be able to last more than ten minutes before he ended up making a run for it.

Chapter 14.

"I'll give you a few minutes to decide," the waitress said hollowly, her eyes never leaving him as she slowly backed away from the table.

Christofer did his best to ignore her and the rest of the patrons who were now openly staring at them and focused on the woman sitting across from him. Other than throwing the gawking customers a curious look, Cloe didn't seem to care one way or the other about their audience.

"What's good here?" she asked, picking up her menu and turning her attention to ordering food, the rest of the customers clearly forgotten.

h.e.l.l, he wished that he could forget them, but the eerie silence that had taken over the small diner made it impossible. He could hear every startled breath taken, every heartbeat racing with excitement, and every subtle shift on the vinyl covered seats as they did their best to get a better view. When the hushed whispers broke through the silence he wasn't sure if he should feel relieved or p.i.s.sed.

Definitely p.i.s.sed, he thought a minute later as he was forced to sit there and pretend that he couldn't hear what they were saying about him.

"I can't believe he's here!"

"He never goes anywhere without his hood!"

"He's such a freak!"

"Oh my G.o.d! He looks exactly as he did thirty years ago! Wait until I tell Mavis!"

"I hear she's living with them!"

"I wonder if she's a freak like him."

"I thought he didn't eat. What's he doing here?"

"They should have run him out of town years ago!"

"Hank needs to kick him out. He doesn't belong here!"

"You don't have to stay here," Cloe said, bringing his attention back to her and away from the whispers that seemed to be getting louder with each pa.s.sing second.

It took him a minute to realize that most of the customers had stopped whispering and were now talking loud enough for Cloe to hear what they were saying. They were probably hoping that he'd take the hint and get the h.e.l.l out. If it weren't for the woman sitting across from him, he'd probably do just that.

What the h.e.l.l was wrong with him? He hadn't left the house in over forty years without a hat or a sweatshirt, because he hadn't wanted to deal with this bulls.h.i.t. He still earned stares and whispers wherever he went, but never to this degree. Then again, they'd probably still be reacting like this even if he had brought his sweatshirt, he realized. He hadn't stepped foot in a restaurant since he'd moved here over forty years ago. He was also out with a woman who wasn't his elderly sister, something that he'd never done before since most women in this town took one look at him and ran screaming the other way.

"I'm fine," he said, opening his menu and forcing himself to ignore everything going on around them.

"Do you know what you'd like?" their waitress asked as she approached the table, sounding normal and giving him some hope that at least one person was going to stop treating him like a freak.

When he looked up and met the waitress's petrified gaze he was forced to bite back a few words that would have probably had the terrified woman screaming for help. Instead, he looked back down at the menu filled with food that he'd never even heard of before, never mind tasted. What the h.e.l.l did humans eat these days?

"I'd like a chocolate frappe with extra ice cream, a cheeseburger with fries and coleslaw, please," Cloe said, saving him from playing a guessing game.

"I'll have the same, please," he said, taking Cloe's menu from her and handing it over to the waitress who seemed too stunned to do anything but stare at him.

"You're going to eat?" she finally asked, sending a pleading look over her shoulder at the equally stunned waitresses cowering behind the counter.

"Yes," he said evenly as he prayed for patience.

"O-okay," the waitress said woodenly as she turned around and walked off, but not before she threw a cautious look over her shoulder, probably making sure that he wasn't following her.

"You really know how to turn heads," Cloe said, earning a glare from him. "Wanna tell me about it?"

"No," he bit out.