Marie
“You can’t.”
How did she tell him to just go away? To leave her alone and let her sort out this disaster on her own. There had to be a way. Someone would accept that this was not her fault. There was no way it could actually come back against her…could it?
Someone will claim I should have had it all ready and in the fridge by now. That it was my poor planning that resulted in most of the food still being on the racks against the wall and not put away. They’ll blame me, and they should.
There was no way around it. This was all her fault.
“Sure I can.” The giant was attempting to put his foot down and be stubborn about it.
Marie wasn’t ready to argue; there was just too much else going on that required her energy. One earnest mass of muscles who wished to be of assistance was way down the priority list, even before he’d decided to drive a car through her wall.
“Get the car out of my kitchen then,” she told him, pointing at the green and black Jeep. “That’s a starter.”
Her brain was starting to work, neurons finally beginning to fire again as she tried to figure out how they would go from there. There was a way to salvage this, she knew there would be. All Marie had to do was find it.
While her thoughts coalesced about as slowly as molasses dripped, she watched the tall, awkward, and deliciously muscled man go over to the Jeep. Her fractured thoughts tumbled back into pieces as he carelessly picked the Jeep up and simply pushed it back through the wall. Then he barked some commands at the other occupant, who was looking thoroughly rattled by what he’d just experienced. That done, he climbed back through the hole and marched right up to her.
“Done. What now?”
“Uh.” Marie had no answer. Had he really just deadlifted the Jeep and tossed it back out of the building? That was an insane feat of strength. It must have been easier than it looked. Maybe the other occupant had already put it in reverse. She shook her head, clearing the questions from her mind. There wasn’t time to think of all of that now. He was weird, which she’d picked up from his first sentence when he’d said something about dates.
Was today Friday? Was it the thirteenth already? No, it was a Saturday. That ruled that out. Maybe he was one of those people who believed that horoscopes were actually truthful and that the accident was a result of some weird astrological date that lined up with the fact that he was a Pisces.
Stop thinking about him. You have a disaster of a kitchen that needs saving. Maybe you should focus on that.
The cold hard reality check was exactly what Marie needed. She gave thanks to whatever part of her brain she was still functioning.
“All the food in the room needs to be thrown out,” she said. “Pitch in. Jamie, garbage bags. Now.” Her assistant leapt into action, several others following. “You can bag food and take it out to the dumpster.”
The tower of glistening muscles nodded, but turned and surveyed the hole in the wall again. “I have a better idea.” Then he was gone.
Marie watched him duck out the hole. “What the hell?” But there was no time to contemplate his oddness. She started barking out orders and the kitchen leapt into action again, unifying around her rallying cry, desperate to do whatever they needed to salvage the situation. None of them wanted to be on Marie’s bad side right then, lest they be fired as well.
The sound of stiff metal wheels scraping across pavement grabbed her attention. A moment later the hole in the wall was eclipsed as a giant dumpster was pushed into view. It came to a stop and the giant reappeared.
“This should be faster.”
Marie shook her head. “What are you doing?”
“I went and got the bin, so it’s faster to dump garbage in it.”
“Where did you get it from?”
“Over there? It was near the edge of the road with some others I can grab too. Do we need more?”
Marie’s head drooped. “Those are there for a reason. Those are the full bins.” Her hand rose and pointed to a set of double doors against another wall. “Through there are the empty ones. It’s not any farther than this.”
He looked crestfallen, the lines of his oval face losing all their energy at the knowledge he’d screwed up again, and was now just wasting her time. But just when she thought he might accept his doom, the nostrils of his tall, wide nose flared. Thin lips with a reddish tinge to them curled in on themselves as he set his jaw, determination flaring deep in the pits of his wide set eyes.
Marie stared into those twin orbs, noting the inky blackness to them. They were fascinatingly dark, almost entirely devoid of color. How had she not noticed that before? It gave him a dark, haunted look that was also startlingly beautiful.
“I’ll just stick with hauling the garbage out,” he said, marching over toward the doors she’d indicated and planting himself there.
Marie lifted a hand to protest, but decided against it. He couldn’t possibly screw up any more, could he?
She watched as the first few bags made their way over to him. He ordered her kitchen staff to just place them on the floor by the door and he’d take it the rest of the way. She dodged to the side as someone came by her, picking up bins and dumping their contents into the bags.
Whatever the big man’s name was he was determined to help. Taking two bags in each hand, he lifted them up onto his shoulders and pushed both doors open with one huge booted foot. Then he marched proudly through, spine straight and erect, happy to be of help.
Unfortunately for him, because of his height the bags caught on the hinges of the door as he pushed through, his prodigious strength meaning he didn’t notice the resistance until it was far too late.
All the mixed contents of the bags spilled all over the floor, making a horrific mess of an area that had escaped relatively unscathed until then. He frantically tried to grab the bags by the ripped section, but it didn’t work. They were going to have to clean up the area again.
Marie sagged. How was this happening to her? What had she done to deserve such a disaster?
Eventually the newcomer got the hang of it, and bags started to disappear out the door faster than they came in, but she wasn’t sure that any more of his “help” would be appreciated. So far it had done almost more bad than good. If he was allowed to stay once they began to prep again, then it seemed a foregone conclusion the place would either burn down or explode. Neither options were something she was willing to entertain. Which meant he had to go.
Waving her hands to get his attention, she called him over to the hole again. “Listen. Thank you for your help. We wouldn’t be where we were right now if it weren’t for you.”
“Yeah, we’d have been going home by now,” a voice in the background complained angrily.
Marie ignored it, though she saw the anger in the man’s dark eyes—they were a slate gray now, so dark they looked black unless she peered closely.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was loud enough to carry into the kitchen so that others would hear him. “What else can I do?” he asked her.
“Nothing.”
Sadness and frustration clouded his expression, the thin eyebrows drooping low as he blinked slowly. “You want me out of your hair, don’t you? I’m just making things worse.”
“You aren’t making things worse. Not anymore. Not since you ripped those garbage bags open, or since you gave us a new window hole at least.”
He looked away, embarrassment coloring his pale-skinned cheeks a rather cute shade of rose. Fingers as long as her hand ran through his spiked hair, dried and crusty pasta sauce flaking off as he did. Marie was forced to give him credit; he’d dug right in to the work and hadn’t cared about getting dirty. His clothes were stained and his skin caked from head to toe, probably about as bad as hers.
The only part that seemed clean was his lower jaw. The short-trimmed facial hair that ran along his jawline before stopping just short of the adorable cleft in his chin was devoid of all foodstuff, which was somewhat impressive. As were his muscles. She could see the way they were almost flexing now, engorged with blood from all the lifting he’d been doing.
They were longer, leaner muscles, developed from years of physical activity she felt, not the gym. It gave him a slightly less bulky appearance, and there wasn’t the same vascularity to him as some of the weightlifters on the base, but Marie was perfectly fine with that. Veins popping out had never been her thing anyway.
Her thing? Adorable chin? Cute cheeks? Listen to yourself!
Oh my God. She was checking him out! Admiring the lines of his wide shoulders, or how his chest filled out the tight T-shirt to perfection. Even his big ears caught her attention, holding it in ways that ears just should never do!
“Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do for you?”
Swallowing an entirely inappropriate response, Marie ordered her head to nod. “Yes, I’m sure. Thank you for what you’ve done, but I’ll handle it from here. I think I can fix it.”
Disappointment in his dismissal was evident, and she could hear the gears turning as he tried to figure out a way to stick around. Despite her apparent curiosity in him, Marie had bigger things to worry about that were occupying the most of her attention. If she couldn’t save things her job was on the line, and she needed the job, needed to be on the base.
“Okay. I’ll, uh, I’ll go.” He paused, and Marie almost left an opening for him to stay, but her iron will clamped down on her unruly emotions in the end and turned her back on him, knowing it to be for the best.
She heard him step over the low remains of the wall, and then metal screeched again as he pushed the full dumpster back to where he’d found it. A few more bricks fell, and for the first time she wondered if the structural integrity of the building had been compromised under the impact.
“Jamie, I’ll be right back,” she called, heading for her office. The base engineer needed to get over there, and stat, to either tell her it was fine or erect a temporary support beam or two. Whatever it was, it needed to be done before they finished cleaning. Food prep could not happen if the engineers were building something inside her kitchen!
She left the recovery efforts in the hands of Jamie and went to go make some phone calls.
The day was not over yet, and there was absolutely nothing that was going to stop her from pulling off a successful event for the brass. Marie was driven, and when she put her mind to it, she got shit done.
Today was going to be no different.