Storm Called

by Susan Copperfield

  Not five minutes after I activated Caller ID, my boss called. I scowled at his name on the display, didn’t answer, and consoled myself with the fact I’d have chicken and yams for dinner. Chicken and yams made life a whole lot easier to swallow.

  My ex-boss called me twenty times in two hours, tempting me to unplug my phone or block his number. If I blocked him, he’d know I was dodging his calls. I glanced at the clock, which informed me I still had a few hours I could play at not being home before it became obvious I wanted nothing to do with him.

  His rank mattered, too. Blocking him might cause me trouble down the road—or agitate him into blacklisting me. Until twelve hours passed, he could call me as much as he wanted, likely in an attempt to retain my employment. I couldn’t imagine why else he’d try to call me.

  Thanks to him constantly bombarding my phone, I almost missed a call from an unknown number. I snatched the phone right before it went to the answering machine. “Patrick Laycal speaking,” I answered.

  “Good evening, Mr. Laycal. My name is Altran Hemmington with Sundale Reserves Industries. I’m calling about an accelerated job application you submitted earlier today. Do you have a few minutes?”

  Sometimes, I hated living in Texas, but on the days where the system worked in my favor, I wanted to kiss the ground and swear to never leave. “Of course, Mr. Hemmington.”

  “Excellent. According to your application, you lost three days from your schedule. Your note mentions a special event. Can you elaborate on the circumstances?”

  “Yes and no, sir. The restaurant had been short-staffed due to a special dining request by members of the elite caste. I’d cooked today prior to my notification of revoked hours. I’m not typically employed as a cook.”

  “Was your revocation of hours due to your cooking? I see you attend a culinary school—a rather prestigious one, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “I presume not, sir. The meal had been prepared but it hadn’t been served. I don’t believe it was a factor. I believe the special events cut into the restaurant’s bottom line, resulting in cut hours.”

  “I see. Good. Do you have any objections to working the night shift? We would adjust your schedule to account for your classes, and the company does sponsor expanded education, which means we will pay for up to three courses per term. Your schedule indicates you’re currently taking two classes per term. The hours I’d like to propose should give you time to add one additional course to your workload if this would interest you. We want to test a pilot program for employees of your caste, and as you’re already qualified for—and enrolled—in the expanded education system, you’re the ideal candidate.”

  I could attend school on the company’s dime? Forget the pay increase and the other benefits: free cooking classes far surpassed any other work perk I could think of. “You have my attention, Mr. Hemmington.”

  He chuckled. “Judging from your schooling and employment record, I thought I might get your attention with that. There’s only one issue we need to discuss.”

  Having had the discussion every damned time I changed jobs, my talent would kick me in the teeth—and risk losing me a good opportunity. “Does your company require talent records?”

  Talent records would sink me; I couldn’t afford the testing fee, and the one mandated by Texas and taken during elementary school wasn’t accepted by most employers.

  “A verbal disclosure is fine.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Animal empathy, sir.”

  “Species?”

  “Horse.”

  Mr. Hemmington cackled, and I blinked, taking the phone away from my ear to stare at the glowing display. He chortled for a full minute before clearing his throat. “That explains everything. Your current schooling and payment brackets bar you from pursuing your talent. Have you been evaluated for latent growth?”

  “No, sir. I opted for expanded education. My grant couldn’t afford both, and my grant couldn’t be used for the purchase or boarding of a horse.”

  Realistically, my grant spared me from the admission fees and brought the cost of schooling down to affordable levels, which was the best I could hope for.

  “Don’t sound like I caught you with your hand in the cookie jar, Mr. Laycal. When your talent can’t be developed, it’s wise to pursue more viable options. Culinary school for someone of your caste is ideal. Being able to cook would improve your daily life and potentially be viable for someone of your caste. It was a smart decision.”

  Hell had surely frozen over. Since when did someone of a higher caste call me smart?

  Before I could say a word, Mr. Hemmington chuckled again. “We’d like to hire you into what is classified as an entry-level janitorial position with the option of advancement. We’re prepared to offer the full coverage of your culinary education, which includes the three courses promised with the potential for the addition of more assuming time allows. As we’re a business firm, we’d also be looking to sponsor you into a few generalized business courses, although these would be online courses to give you a better idea of what our business does. We’ve found we have a stronger employment base when all employees have a basic understanding of why we do what we do. You will be paid your standard hourly rate to attend the courses, as we are aware it cuts into your personal time. As you applied through the accelerated system, we’ll be able to register your payment information immediately so there won’t be any delays in your first paycheck.”

  I pinched myself to make certain I hadn’t fallen asleep. It hurt as expected, which made me wonder if pinching myself in a dream would hurt. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome. Are you available at four tomorrow?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “Your interview will be at the Sundale Reserves Industries headquarters downtown. The security desk will be expecting you. Have a good evening, Mr. Laycal.” He hung up.

  I returned the phone to its cradle and wondered what the catch was to the man’s more-than-generous offer. When good things happened to me, there was always a catch.

  Chapter Three

  I gave credit where credit was due; my ex-boss didn’t give up his attempts to call me. I turned the ringer off my phone and let the answering machine do its job. Muting the playback kept me from having to deal with him. Once I cut off his easy routes of contact, I went to bed wondering what the future would hold.

  When I woke up, my answering machine was full, no one other than my ex-boss had called, and I delighted in deleting his messages without listening to them. For a rare change, I considered myself the clear victor.

  If he hadn’t attempted to punish me for doing what he wanted, I wouldn’t have found a good opportunity that would let me get ahead of the game for a change. If Sundale Reserve Industries lived up to their offer to sponsor my courses, I’d be able to save money.

  If I saved enough money, I might even be able to take a few riding lessons, something that’d been beyond my reach. I tried to avoid giving myself false hope, but the job offered opportunities I hadn’t dared to even dream about. I wouldn’t escape my caste, but I could live better and be able to quiet the restless part of myself I so often had to ignore.

  No matter what, I couldn’t afford to blow the interview. To make sure I wasn’t late, I got ready to leave at noon, planning to spend several hours exploring the area around the building. While I’d been near the skyscraper plenty of times going to and from classes, I hadn’t left the beaten path.

  More elites than I could shake a stick at lived and worked in that part of Dallas, and a smart man didn’t draw attention to himself. I’d spent most of my life avoiding those who wore suits. I’d never been able to afford one, and I hoped my best pair of jeans, a dress shirt, and my best pair of boots would suffice for the interview, not that I had a choice in the matter.

  I couldn’t afford to buy better clothes until I got a better paying job.

  I shaved, made sure my hair wasn’t going to make an escape, and left my usual hat at home. Du
ring the interview, I’d do all the little things most in my caste neglected. I’d leave my thick accent at home, treating the interview like I did my cooking courses.

  I’d discovered most of the other students didn’t care what caste I came from when I talked like them, acted like them, and kept to myself. It didn’t hurt I could cook better than most of them, too.

  It helped our professors treated ability a lot like most treated magic. They didn’t care where I’d come from. They only cared what I could do.

  I had everything to lose, and I fought daily to keep it.

  My jeans and boots might sink me, but they were what I had, and I’d make the most of it. The sense of impending doom crashed down on my head and formed a tight knot in my chest. My pocket watch, a relic from my great-grandfather, informed me I’d wasted an entire hour attempting to meet the standards of the higher castes. It would take me forty minutes to reach the Sundale Reserved Industries building, leaving me a little over two hours to blow waiting for my interview.

  I could work with that.

  Everything went to plan until I opened my door and discovered the heir to the throne standing in the hallway, dressed like an escapee from a rodeo. The princess scowled at a slip of paper in her hand, looked up, and dropped it with a startled squeak.

  I could handle a job interview. I could handle a lot of things, but a gun-shy princess who jumped at shadows while dressed as a rodeo queen was beyond me. To cover my dismay, confusion, and unease, I closed my door, locked it, and retrieved her slip of paper, offering it to her. “You dropped this, ma’am.”

  It occurred to me I was a single order away from an invitation to my execution. How the hell was I supposed to address her? Was there a special title I was supposed to use when she was dressed like every cowboy’s dream?

  I’d missed out on being a cowboy, but I’d do a hell of a lot for a chance to be with a woman like her.

  “You do live here. Great. Perfect. Fantastic.” The princess nodded, taking the paper from me. “Thank you. I have a question for you.”

  Texas’s heir had a question for me? “How can I help you, ma’am?”

  “Is it true you made the yams and chicken we had at that restaurant yesterday?”

  I gaped at her, then I spluttered, “Well, yes. I—”

  “Marry me.”

  Blinking, I struggled to comprehend what I’d just heard. There was no way she, the kingdom’s sole princess, had just asked me to marry her. “Pardon?”

  Her expression soured, and she wrinkled her pretty nose, turned her head, and stared at the wall. “I guess that was too much. I should’ve started with something else. Maybe I should’ve just begged for you to feed me?”

  I’d seen my mother when hungry enough times to recognize the incoherent gibberish associated with hunger-induced fatigue. “Are you hungry?”

  Her expression eased. “Starving.”

  I had leftovers in my refrigerator. It would only take twenty minutes to warm a plate of chicken, and it would only take another twenty to give her a chance to eat before I needed to go to my interview. I could make it work. “Come on in, then.”

  My hands shook, making the once simple task of unlocking my door difficult. The keys jangled, but I cajoled it open, grateful my parents had beaten keeping a tidy home into me from an early age. I lacked luxuries, but I wouldn’t run the risk of sullying the princess.

  The heir followed close at my heels and blurted, “It’s so cute!”

  I closed the door behind her, at a complete loss over how my sparse apartment classified as cute. “Thank you. Please make yourself comfortable while I warm a plate for you, ma’am.”

  “Jessica.” The princess flopped onto my couch with a tired groan. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  It worried me that she sounded serious. “Are you all right with more chicken?”

  “Chicken sounds amazing. Is it the same you made yesterday?”

  “Sure is, ma’am.”

  “Where have you been all my life?”

  I had no idea how to answer her, so I forced a chuckle and headed to the kitchen to warm her food. After taking a moment to think about it, I replied, “Cooking classes.”

  “Our cooks don’t make anything like you do. You should be teaching them. Your chicken’s so spicy. I thought Dad was going to breathe fire. Better still, you made him like it.”

  The king had liked my cooking? I doubted I’d ever get used to that. “I thought you’d have the best food in the world.”

  “Probably.” Something about her tone, a subtle uncertainty, added to my concerns. “I try to eat out whenever possible.”

  My worry intensified, but I forced myself to concentrate on my tasks. That she’d gone out of her way to find me because I could cook, that she sounded so uncertain when confessing she ate out, all meant one thing to me: she was afraid to eat at home.

  But why?

  “Any allergies, ma’am?”

  “You can call me Jessica. I won’t bite. I feel old when people ma’am me.”

  “All right, Jessica. I’m Pat.” No one would believe me if I told them the heir wanted me to call her by her first name. Actually, no one would believe me if I told them I’d met the princess not once, but twice. “Do you have any allergies?”

  “Not that I know of, but I don’t know for certain.”

  Someone with no history of allergies could develop allergies, but that her solution was to eat out pointed at food poisoning in some form or another. “Have you been getting sick when you eat lately?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And my chicken and yams didn’t bother you?”

  “It was great. Those yams. And it’s yams and chicken. I had no idea yams could be so good. It didn’t bother me at all. I did all my usual tests. I track what I eat, where I eat it, and what gets me sick. Then I stick to what I know won’t make me sick. Your food didn’t make me sick.” Jessica stretched out on my couch with a contented sigh. “So good.”

  Princess Jessica was a beauty; I’d noticed that from the first time I’d seen her on the news. I hadn’t anticipated her intellect, however. Methodical tracking of her food meant she knew something was making her sick, and she wasn’t trusting anyone to tell her what. She meant to find out for herself.

  I’d heard of beauties with brains before, but I’d never dreamed one would be in my apartment waiting for me to feed her.

  Holy hell.

  I got the chicken warming, taking my time with it so the skin would stay crisp without burning while I whipped up a batch of yams. Allergies could scare someone away from eating in a hurry, but her preference for eating out, where she couldn’t easily check for allergens, led me to believe she was worried someone was adding something to her food. For her to trust me, I feared she’d meant it when she’d claimed she was starving.

  “If you’d like, we can go over what you’re eating to check for allergens. I avoid some of them when I cook since my mother has allergies, but I have medication on hand if you do have a reaction. We can do some limited exposure checks, too. Did you have any cake yesterday?”

  “I did. It was sweet but good. I didn’t get sick from anything yesterday.”

  I eliminated wheat, dairy, corn, and a whole shebang of spices as potential problems. “All right. This won’t be quite as good as it’s leftovers from yesterday, but I hope you like it.”

  “I’m sure I will. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  As expected, it took me twenty minutes to prepare her meal to my satisfaction. To offer the illusion of casual welcome, I brought her the plate along with a glass of milk and set them on the coffee table. “Enjoy, Jessica.”

  I was fairly certain she gasped out a thank you before attacking her food and inhaling it with the desperation of the truly starved. My new job, assuming I survived the interview process and got hired, would offer me the money needed to feed her. Giving the heir the spare key to my apartment likely counted as an act of insanity, but I couldn’t just igno
re her. If I did, she might try to live off bad convenience store food for the rest of her life.

  Under no circumstances would I allow her to court daily food poisoning. Feeding her was something I could do.

  While she ate, I cleaned the kitchen, checked my clothes to make sure I didn’t need to change, and watched the clock. I’d kept to my modified schedule, much to my relief.

  Then I checked the living room to discover Princess Jessica had licked her plate clean and had passed out in a sprawl on my couch.

  I had not scheduled in time for the heir to sleep on my couch. That I’d already considered giving her a key helped keep the surge of panic manageable. She’d found where I lived so she could eat without worry.

  I figured she needed some peaceful rest, too.

  Her sleeping on my couch hadn’t been a part of my plans. Her behavior led me to believe she worried someone was tampering with her food. As such, I’d take steps to safeguard what I made for her. I’d also try to plan so I could cook something fresh for her rather than keep leftovers around whenever possible.

  The king and queen had tried to wrangle a twister with handcuffs. I’d try something more subtle and more enjoyable for both of us. I’d cook whatever she wanted.

  She wanted safe food, I wanted someone to cook for. Some matches weren’t normal by any stretch of the imagination, but for a little while, I’d enjoy my new circumstances. Safeguarding her food wouldn’t be easy, but if I knew when she was coming, I could buy things on the way home or invest in a good lock. If I got the new job, I could afford a lock and a camera to monitor my kitchen, too. Restaurants used cameras all the time to make sure no one tampered with anything.

  I’d also pay more attention to my general classes so she’d have something good—something she was used to—every time she visited.