*-*-*-*
“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 hell then that was his choice. Who knows, maybe the whole thing would piss 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.
Hell, 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 pissed.
Definitely pissed, 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 God! 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 passing 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 hell out. If it weren’t for the woman sitting across from him, he’d probably do just that.
What the hell 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 bullshit. 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 hell 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.
“Alrighty then,” she said with a careless shrug as she opened her purse and pulled out her phone, leaving him to frown as she started typing something on the small keypad.
“What are you doing?” he found himself asking.
“Sending my contact at the agency an email and asking her if she has any job openings on the west coast,” she said, never taking her eyes off her phone.
Scowling, he plucked the phone from her hand and shoved it in his pocket. “I thought we were going to talk,” he said, ignoring the hand that she held out for the return of her phone.
“No,” she said with a sigh as she dropped her hand away when it became painfully obvious that he had no intentions of returning her phone, “I came to eat. You came to talk.”
Still wondering why she hadn’t eaten the sandwich that he’d made for her if she was so hungry, he forced himself to focus on getting her to stay without having to resort to kidnapping her. It would probably draw more unnecessary attention his way, he mused as he watched her every move. He needed to figure out a way to make her stay without her finding out that she really didn’t have a choice.
“What will it take to get you to stay?” he asked, deciding to go with bribery first. Giving her a raise or buying her something would be a hell of a lot easier than convincing her to stay, he decided as he waited for her demands.
“Nothing,” she said with a shrug, making him wonder if she was trying to play hardball and see just how much she could get out of him.
“You’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you?” he asked, rubbing his hands down his face and wondering just how many hoops she was going to make him jump through to get her to willingly stay.
“Not at all,” she said, shaking her head as she looked around the restaurant, “I’m just not staying.”
“Why not?” he demanded, hoping to buy himself a little more time so that he could think up a better approach, one that didn’t involve chaining her to the house.
“Because this job just didn’t work out for me,” she said with a shrug, not quite meeting his eyes, he noticed.
“This job or because of what happened last night?” he demanded
, having a pretty good idea that if he hadn’t fucked up yesterday and ditched her that she would still be willing to stay and drive him out of his fucking mind.
“What happened last night?” the woman sitting behind him asked, startling him and bringing his attention to the fact that the forty-something year old woman sitting directly behind him was turned around in her seat and shamelessly eavesdropping on their entire conversation.
Before he could tell her to mind her own fucking business, Cloe beat him to it. “I forgot the safe word last night and was brutally punished for it,” she said dryly, staring at the nosy woman until she got the hint and turned back around in her seat.
“It has nothing to do with last night,” she said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she looked away.
“You’re lying,” he said, because he knew without a doubt that she loved her job. She loved working with his sister and she sure as hell loved driving him crazy.
“So what if I am?” she asked, sitting back when a large plate of food was placed in front of her.
“Is there anything else that I can get for you?” the waitress asked as a large plate of food was placed in front of him.
He was just about to tell her that they were fine when he looked up and realized that they had a different waitress. Frowning, he looked past their new waitress to find their old waitress standing just outside the kitchen doors with a small brown paper bag stuck to her face and two women trying to get her to calm down before she passed out.
“We’re all set,” Cloe said, following his gaze with a frown.
“Just yell if you need anything,” the new waitress said, sending him a curious look before she walked away.
“This is a very weird town,” Cloe mumbled as she grabbed a bottle of ketchup and squeezed an insane amount all over her fries.
“You have no idea,” he muttered as he took the bottle of ketchup from her and squirted the red stuff all over his fries before setting the bottle down and wondering what he was supposed to do now.
With a sigh, Cloe picked the bottle back up and squirted some on her burger before placing the bun on top. Deciding that it was probably a good idea, he took the bottle from her again and did the same to his burger. When she cut her burger in half, he did the same.
“Are you going to tell me why this town treats you like a leper?” she asked, taking a bite out of her burger.
“Are you going to tell me what freaked you out last night?” he asked, cocking a brow as he took a bite out of his burger, but not before he discreetly smelled it, making sure that they hadn’t put anything extra in his burger.
“Touché,” she said with a nod as he struggled not to gag.
Although it had smelled pleasant enough, it tasted like garbage and his mouth desperately wanted to get rid of it. Instead of spitting it out, he forced himself to chew a few times before he swallowed the entire bite. When it landed like a ball of lead in the pit of his stomach he was reminded of what he’d be forced to do later. It was not something that he was looking forward to, he mused as he forced himself to take another bite.
“I thought you were on a special diet,” Cloe said, gesturing to his plate with a ketchup-smothered French fry.
“I am,” he said evenly, picking up a French fry and forcing it down his throat.
“Is this going to make you sick?” she asked, pausing with a fry halfway to her mouth, sounding concerned.
“No,” he lied, well, not technically since the food wouldn’t make him sick. He’d be the one forced to make himself sick to rid his body of this crap before it started to rot in his stomach and caused a few other problems that he’d really rather not have to deal with.
“How’s your frappe?” she asked, picking up her own and taking a long, slow sip of it all while watching his every move.
“Delicious,” he forced himself to say as he picked up the glass of what looked like liquid shit and copied her, doing his best not to cringe when the overly sweet, cold, thick liquid hit his tongue.
“You don’t look like you’re enjoying it,” she pointed out, returning her attention to her burger.
“I’m in heaven,” he said dryly, earning a smile from her as he forced another bite of his burger down his throat.
She rolled her eyes as she picked up another fry and dipped it in a puddle of ketchup. “You could have ordered something else.”
Not unless she was on the menu, he thought wistfully as he picked up another fry and forced it in his mouth. She smelled mouthwatering, he thought, nearly groaning when his stomach growled in agreement. His fangs actually ached for a taste of her as his eyes latched onto her pulse, mesmerized by the beautiful thrum of her artery as it danced in tune to her heartbeat. What he wouldn’t give for a taste of her, he thought miserably as he stuffed yet another fry in his mouth.
“What time will Marta be done with her dinner tonight?” Cloe asked, managing to draw his attention away from her vein.
“Late,” he said, returning his attention to his burger when the thought of stuffing one more grease soaked fry into his mouth had his stomach turning in disgust.
“Maybe I should come back to the house and prepare a few casseroles to carry her over for a few days until she can find someone to replace me,” Cloe said, frowning with worry and providing him with a better, and more private, opportunity to convince her to stay.
“Yes, yes you should,” he said, biting back a grin as he took another bite of his burger.
Chapter 15
“I swear to God that if you don’t open this door and give me back my purse that I will kick your ass!” Cloe snapped, slapping her hands flat against the basement door before she followed it up with a small kick when her threat was once again met with silence.
She still couldn’t believe that the bastard had done it.
If she had known that he was going to steal her purse when she went upstairs to grab her bags, she wouldn’t have left it on the kitchen table. Hell, if she had known that he was going to use the last three hours to try and convince her to stay, she never would have come back here.
“Asshole!” she growled, shoving away from the door as she tried to figure out what she was going to do now.
Staying here wasn’t an option, not unless she could manage to ask Christofer to crawl in bed with her tonight and keep her safe without dying of mortification. Since she was pretty sure that she couldn’t manage that, leaving was her only choice. She wasn’t weak and she’d be damned if she let anyone think that, especially the bastard that she was going kill as soon as she got her hands on him.
Last night had been a fluke for her. She’d been taken off guard by old memories and she’d reacted. It wasn’t something that she was proud of, but at least she hadn’t broken down and sobbed hysterically no matter how tempting it had been. She hadn’t cried, hadn’t taken her pills, run screaming into the night or begged Christofer to take care of her.
He’d done that all on his own and right now she hated him for it.
She didn’t want to need someone the way that she needed him, not when it would hurt too much to lose him and she would lose him. One day she would have to move on. The need to leave, to put some more space between her and her past would take over and leave her with no choice but to accept a new job in another state. She’d be forced to say goodbye to him and the longer she stayed, the harder that would become. That was only if he didn’t leave her first, which he probably would.
He’d either get sick of dealing with her baggage, get sick of her, find someone else, or die, leaving her behind to deal with no longer having him in her life. She couldn’t do it. Didn’t want to do it. There was a reason why she didn’t allow herself to get close to her clients. It was also the reason why she’d cut ties with everyone as soon as she moved on to a new job. She never wanted to deal with the kind of pain that went along with losing someone that she cared about again. She’d already dealt with enough loss in her life and didn’t need anymore. She should have remembered that this mor
ning instead of looking for an excuse to prolong her goodbyes.
Now the bastard was downstairs with her purse. He had her ID, money, credit cards, and keys and she was left here fuming as she tried to figure out a way to get her stuff and get the hell out of here. She needed to do it before he figured out another way to keep her here and she was left with no choice but to beg him to stay with her for another night. Since that wasn’t going to happen, she needed to figure out a way to get the basement door open and quickly. It was times like this that she wished she’d made friends with the criminal sort so that she’d know how to pick this damn lock. Then she could go downstairs and kick his ass!
“Asshole,” she muttered again, simply because it gave her something to do as she tried to think of a way to-
Tall, Silent and Lethal Page 12
