Charlotte left her office locking the front door with her purse held high on her shoulder. She made it to the elevator, and frowned as the door opened just as she was about to press the down button. The blonde haired wiry man inside didn’t move immediately, but the look he leveled at her from his narrow blue eyes said volumes to what he intended if she boarded. Charlotte took two steps back, and the man bolted from the back of the elevator. She turned, and ran for the stairwell.
He was right behind her having cleared the elevator successfully. Almost in surround sound she could hear the heavy fall of his feet behind her. No matter how much she wanted to, she didn’t look back as she burst through the door into the stairwell. The stairwell was stark white, and went down in a circular motion almost. You could look over the edge of the handrails, and see the three floors below.
Charlotte knew that she couldn’t just flat out run the man so she threw her weight against the door she had just burst through. She heard the man’s bellow of pain from getting his arm hinged in the door. Frantically Charlotte dug through her purse for her keys as the door started to push her into the corner behind it. She pulled the pepper spray, and guessed where to aim. Sticking her arm around the door she sprayed in circles hoping that it was somewhere near the asshole’s eyes.
The pressure on the door eased, and she heard the cursing, and yelling indicating that she had guessed right. Rushing past the man wiping his eyes at the door she started flying down the stairs as fast as she could using the handrails for leverage as she hopped the corners. Just like she used to do when she was younger, and trying to outrun her older, longer legged brother. She almost tripped over her own two feet in her haste to get away. Behind her were the solid thuds of his feet hitting the steps a beat or two after her.
She reached the first floor, and was about to head out to get help from Harold. But the door flew open as she jumped the last two steps to the landing. Thomas in his ball cap, and oversized clothes filled the space shoving her forcefully into the corner of the space behind him, and closing the doorway in the same motion. Charlotte watched in dazed car wreck fashion as Thomas used the man’s flight to run him into the closed door. His now limp body fell with a crash to the ground. Thomas flipped out his cell phone, dialed a number, and then put it on the ground. In a practiced gesture he pulled out a pair of handcuffs, fell to one knee, and cuffed the man lying on the ground before them in seconds. Then his golden eyes lanced Charlotte’s from beneath the brim of his plain brown low worn hat.
In the next moment he leaned over to her, and wrapped an arm around her waist as one large hand pushed against the wall behind her. He stood up smoothly pulling her to her feet, and out of the corner. The action brought her body nearly flush with his. Her nostrils flared filling with the scents that comprised him at that moment. A heady musky masculine smell mixed with the scents of the air, and grass outside. It pulled her in, this strange mix of man, rain, and freshly cut grass.
“Are you alright?” His silky voice poured over her huskily as he slid his other arm around her waist.
His fingertips were just a hair’s breath away from her bare skin as they ruched the turtleneck sweater that she hadn’t bothered to tuck back in up a little.
The bulky heels of her boots gave her enough height that the top of her head was level with his eyes.
She nodded, tilting her head up so her eyes couldn’t leave his. Her arms were pressed between their bodies putting her elbows in her gut, and crowding her hands under her chin. The most natural thing in the world to do was flatten her palms against the warmth and solid comfort of his chest. The second she placed her hands on him though, he pushed her away.
“Don’t say anything to the guard. Go home. I’ll meet you there.” He said urgently his eyes searching her face as he pushed her beyond the circle of his arms. Oddly he pushed a wisp of her hair out of her eyes then shoved her out of the stairwell door.
Charlotte tried to carry on like she hadn’t just run down four flights of stairs from a mad man that was trying to do God knows what to her. She passed by Harold, and stopped, coming back. He would think it was odd if she didn’t speak to him.
“I hope that the call I sent up did you some good Miss Charlotte.”
A bubble of nervous laughter pealed from Charlotte. “Yes it did. Thank you so much for that.”
The weathered mustached man nodded satisfied. “Glad to help. You have a good one.”
She started away not really sure she was actually pulling this off. “You too Harold. I’m on vacation so I won’t be back for a couple of weeks.”
The weathered face broke into a grin that made him look ten years younger. “Have a great time Miss Charlotte. Hard working woman like you; it’s good to get away every once in a while.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she muttered as she passively watched two men in suits enter the stairwell.
After a few moments her eyes briefly connected with the intense golden gaze of Thomas Glendel. Smoothly he walked away from the stairwell, and out of the lobby door with the ease of air, and without one hint of wasted effort or motion. Oddly it made her recall the way he had handled Deborah in the hospital. Then Charlotte had likened him to a jaguar, all sinew, and tightly corded muscle.
In the stairwell he had lifted her almost deadweight from the floor with an ease that attested to the power he held in that tightly coiled frame. Then add the fact that he himself hadn’t even been stabilized when he’d done it. He had pushed her away like they were strangers, and nearly in the same instant pushed that strand of hair from her eyes as if they had known each other forever. What an odd and interesting man. The thought was repeated from when he had walked her back from the hospital parking lot with Sandra’s luggage.
“Bye Harold.” Charlotte turned, and followed the oddity out.
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