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“She’s fine,” I promised him.
His throat throbbed heavily when he swallowed, as if he were having a hard time accepting it or wrapping his head around it or maybe just unable to believe it was true.
My spirit thrashed, torn between these two, held in the middle, as if I’d gotten locked in a twisted web of pain and heartache that I didn’t understand. Whatever had caused it, I knew it was stark and gutting.
It was the staggering kind that cut out chasms in people’s souls.
“Are you—” Whatever Caleb was about to say was cut off by the sharp snap of disappointment that rushed through the air, a click of Ms. Sandberg’s tongue as she stood at the edge of the kitchen looking at the mayonnaise and glass on the floor like it was toxic waste.
“What in the world happened in here? I told Evelyn to come to my room immediately once her lesson was finished so I could prepare her lunch. This is unacceptable, Evelyn. Look at the mess you made.”
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Evelyn said it so quietly, and the tears started tracking down her cheeks again.
Maybe it was PTSD, the memory of that same voice echoing in my ear. You are an impossible child, Paisley Dae. Spoiled brat. I don’t know how your grandma even tolerates you.
I’d had some really amazing teachers in my time, but she wasn’t one of them.
“It was an accident,” I shot out, unable to tamp that spite in the words. I wondered now what my grandma would have thought if she’d known the things this woman used to say to me. I bet she would have stormed right down to that school and told Ms. Sandberg where to shove it.
One thing was for sure, I wasn’t going to allow the vile woman to trample all over Evelyn’s soft spirit.
Ms. Sandberg gasped. Sheer offense. As if anyone could possibly dare to disagree with her.
Then she curled up her nose like I was a horse patty she’d just stepped on in the pasture. “I see you haven’t changed one bit.”
Oh, did she really just go there?
“That’s right, only I’m bigger now, and I’ll be more than happy to put you in your place.”
“Your place is out in the barn, not in this house.”
Um, wow. How I wasn’t across the kitchen, clocking her, was beyond me. My willpower was stellar.
“I was invited inside, thank you very much.”
“Clearly, our employer hasn’t yet come to realize the type of person you are.”
She lifted her chin at that, elevated and pompous and acting like she was all kinds of something.
All while it was my turn to get gaspy and aggrieved, and the insult was flying out without heed. “And you are nothing but a shriveled-up cunt.”
So much for that willpower thing.
At least I’d had the forethought to cover Evelyn’s ears before I said it. I was supposed to be watching what I said around her, after all.
I might as well have stabbed the woman in the chest with the way her hand flew to her throat, and she looked to be a second from succumbing to a coronary, choking and gurgling on her spit.
“How dare you—”
“That is enough.” A blade of venom cut through the air. Disgust that sheared through the animosity that went back at least twenty years.
Caleb exhaled a hot breath, anger raging through the worry he’d been trapped in a moment before.
Heat blistered from his skin, rising up from his being, crashing over me.
Crap.
Even I could admit I’d gone too far that time.
Evelyn could very well be proficient in lip reading for all I knew.
Except he set that deathly glare on my oldest nemesis, barely held malice vibrating from his flesh. “You are excused, Ms. Sandberg.”
She fell into a state of utter perplexity. Apparently, she’d never been excused before in her life. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said you’re excused. Permanently. Your employment is no longer required. Expect a final check to be delivered to your residence tomorrow with four weeks’ severance, although you don’t deserve a penny of it.”
Holy crap. Did he just can her?
“Well, I never.” She clutched her throat.
“I bet you never have.” Oops, that ripped right out of me, too.
She glared at me like I was a succubus who’d cast some sort of wicked spell over poor Mr. Greyson who clearly couldn’t think for himself.
She stood there like she was waiting for him to come to his senses.
“Get out of my house,” he growled.
She gasped, blinking, before she turned and stormed out.
For a moment, none of us moved, frozen in her disbelieved outrage as she banged upstairs.
I finally managed to tear my attention from the spot she had vacated, and I turned it on Caleb whose face burned hot.
The heat of him overwhelming.
A fire in the pit of my stomach.
He’d gone all…papa bear. I liked the look on him.
