Rachel Caine - Windfall

“I’m starving,” Sarah admitted. “I could murder a prime rib. I haven’t had a prime rib in ages .”

“It’s the mall, honey. I don’t think the Food Court does prime rib.”

“We could go to Jackson’s,” Cherise piped up cheerfully. She was loaded up with bags, too, mostly having to do with hiphuggers and shiny belts. “They have prime rib. And steaks to die for.”

“Do you know what it costs to eat at Jackson’s?” I said. She gave me a blank look, because, well, of course she didn’t. Cherise wasn’t the kind of girl who picked up her own check. “Think pocket change, people.” I steered them toward the choices I could—barely—still afford. The ones with a bright-primary-color decorating sensibility.

Eyeroll. “Fine.” Cherise marched—how one marched in jeweled flip-flops, I have no idea—up to join the overweight queue standing in line at McDonald’s. “I am not eating anything fried. I have a weigh-in coming up, you know… Do they have anything organic?”

“It’s food ,” I pointed out. “It digests. By definition, organic.”

We bickered companionably about the usual food-related topics, which had to do with all-natural and bug-munched versus pesticided and bug-free, as the line wandered up toward the counter. The three sulky teens in front of me giggled and whispered. Two of them had tattoos. I was trying to imagine what would have happened if I’d gone home with a tattoo at their age, and decided I had enough nightmares in my life and besides, it made me feel old. Even Cherise had a tattoo. I was starting to think that I’d missed an important fashion trend.

Someone joined the line behind Sarah. I glanced back at her and caught an impression of a tall, lean man with slightly shaggy caramel-colored hair, and the kind of beard and mustache that always makes men seem to be faintly up to no good even while giving them a debonair kind of mystery. It looked good on him.

He was scanning the menu and smiling gently, as if he thought the whole McDonald’s experience was about to be very amusing.

“Sarah?” I asked. “Anything look good?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What about the cheeseburger? Oh, no, wait… salad … they have so many kinds!” My sister, the decisive one. This, I remembered from childhood. She sounded on the verge of panic. Salad choices apparently unnerved her. “I don’t know what to get.”

“Well, I wouldn’t recommend the caviar,” the guy behind her said in a warm voice—not to me; to Sarah. He had bent slightly forward, not quite intruding. “I have it on good authority that it’s not really Beluga.” Definitely not a Florida accent… British. Not upper-class British, more of a comfortable working-class sound to him.

Sarah turned to look at him. “Were you talking to me?”

He snapped upright and out of her space, eyes going wide. They looked blue or gray, but it was tough to be sure—a changeable kind of color. Depended on the light. “Er… yes, actually. Sorry. I just meant—” He shook his head. “Never mind. Sorry. I meant no disrespect.” He took two steps back, clasped his hands together, and tried hard to look as if he’d never opened his mouth.

Cherise had turned around at the sound of his voice. She grabbed my wrist and squeezed, dragged me close, and hissed, “Jesus, what’s your sister doing?”

“Confronting,” I said. “She’s in a mood.”

“Is she nuts ? Look at him! Cute British guy! Hello!”

“She’s on the rebound.”

“Well, get her ass off the court and let me play!” All of this delivered in a fast, rapid-fire hiss that wouldn’t carry even as far as Sarah’s ears, much less those of Cute British Guy, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable as Sarah continued to stare at him.

“Oh, you get enough court time, believe me. Go order,” I said, and nudged Cherise toward the tired-looking order-taker at the register, who mumbled something about being welcome to McDonald’s. Cherise gave me a theatrically harassed look and made a production of ordering a salad, interrogating the pedigree of every tomato and carrot while she was at it.

Cherise’s performance was distracting enough that I missed the historic moment of détente, when Sarah overcame her bitter hatred of men. When I looked back, she was extending her hand to Cute British Guy. “Sarah Dubois,” she said, and I saw a tremor go right through her. I could just hear her thinking, Oh, Jesus, not Dubois, you idiot, that’s Chrêtien’s name, your name is Baldwin!

Unfortunately, it was a little late to backtrack on the surname. At best, it would sound loopy. She covered with an especially glittering smile, greatly enhanced by the new Clinique lipstick we’d bought for her earlier.

Cute British Guy folded his fingers over hers in a friendly grip, and wow, those were some long fingers. About twice as long as my own. Concert pianist hands, well manicured and soft and graceful. “Eamon,” he said, and gave her a slightly shy smile and an inclined head that was like a hint of a bow. “Lovely to meet you, Sarah.”

She glowed like a sun at the attention. I mean, honestly. This, from a woman who was bitching half an hour before about how she’d rip the liver out of any man who tried to buy her a drink. She might have just set a new land speed record for rebounding.

Cherise grabbed my shoulder and yanked me off balance. I tottered on my high heels, caught my balance, and turned as she shoved me up to the order window.

“Get something fattening,” she said. “If you’re forcing me to eat here, I want to see you suffer.”

Just for sheer perversity, I went with the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. And fries.

Sarah, locked deep in conversation with Eamon, ended up snacking on a side salad and bottled water at another table, and forgot all about us.

I half expected Sarah to run off into the sunset, drop me a postcard from London thanking me for the use of my now-devastated Fairy Godmother Card, and live happily ever after until her next marital emergency, but no. The nice lunch with Eamon ended on a handshake parting that looked like no handshake I ever got from a lunch date, all eyes and smiles and long, beautiful fingers wrapping all the way to her wrist.

And then she was back with us. Glowing and smiling like the Madonna after a visitation.

“I’m done here,” she announced. Cherise, who was clearly not enjoying her salad, glared, but hell, at least she’d bought herself some nice hiphugger capri pants and matching shoes. Except for coffee and Mickey D’s, I hadn’t spent a dime on myself.

But then, my shopping enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by the dark, relaxed figure of Armando Rodriguez, who had taken up a seat at a table about twenty feet away, sipping even more coffee. Apparently, he intended to never, ever sleep again. Or leave me alone.

“Fine. Let’s go home,” I said, and piled trash on my tray. The place was giving me a headache, anyway. Too many people, too much noise, too many flashing, blinking, spinning lights.

By the time we were out of the mall, the rain was over, but the parking lot shone in slick black puddles that rippled and shuddered in the wake of passing cars. Humidity was murder, closing warmly around me like a saturated, microwaved blanket. I herded Cherise and Sarah and the profusion of bags to the car; by the time we were getting inside, our preferred, close-in space was being scouted by an eagle-eyed old vulture in a shiny Mercedes and a determined-looking teenybopper with the ink still wet on her learner’s permit. I pulled out and fled before the combat could get up to ramming speed. A few sullen raindrops spattered the windshield. Overhead, the sky was lead gray and utterly wrong; the patterns were definitely wonky. There was wobbling all up and down the aetheric, and little sparks of power as some other Warden made slight corrections. Nobody seemed too exercised about it, at least not yet; it was obviously not developing into the storm of the century. What was worrying to me about it was that I was supposed to be the only free-range talent out here. And somebody had messed with the weather to make this happen.