Unfortunate Miss Fortunes, The

by Crusie, Jennifer; Dreyer, Eileen; Stuart, Anne

  It couldn’t have been his smile. She had to stop this.

  Ready or not …

  She pulled her hand back and cleared her throat. It was better than cursing.

  “May I sit?” he asked.

  He was in a blue open-neck oxford shirt now, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, his jeans newer, but no less obscene. Dee ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips.

  “Uh, of course.” She gave a limp little wave to the chair across from her. “What kind of account do you want, Mr … . ?”

  “James,” he said, settling into the chair. “Danny James. Didn’t your sister say I’d be by?”

  “Oh.” She sucked in a breath, trying to look calm. “That.”

  “Yes.” His smile expanded, all teeth and delight. “That. I’d like very much to take you to dinner tonight.”

  She did not smile back. “I thought you were opening an account.”

  “Well, I can do that, too. I just didn’t want to miss you again. I’d really like to talk to you.”

  Dee made it a point to open the drawer that held her paperwork. “And I really don’t want to talk to you. Exactly what kind of account would you like, Mr. James? We have several excellent ones to choose from.”

  “Don’t all those bobby pins hurt your head?”

  Dee caught herself before she instinctively reached up to check her chignon. It was her work hair. Clean and tidy and out of the way. Her hair was long and curly and bright red, the banner of an Irish witch, Aunt Xan had always told her. So it was always a battle of wills for control. And yes, the pins did hurt her head. It took a lot to subdue all that unruliness.

  “Oddly enough, Mr. James, that doesn’t answer my question. What kind of account did you say?”

  How could that grin get brighter? He leaned back in his chair as if he were in his living room. “You pick one for me. I’m sure you know better than I.”

  Dee sighed, her headache suddenly worse. “I really do have work to do, Mr. James. If you aren’t here on bank business, I’d have to ask you to excuse me.”

  He pulled a checkbook from his breast pocket. “But I am. I told you. I’d like to open an account. With … will fifty thousand do?”

  Dee almost choked on her tongue. “Fifty … yes.”

  Her hands actually trembled as she separated out the papers for the interest-bearing checking account—with overdraft protection—and passed them over. “And you’d like to transfer that from your bank in Chicago?”

  He smiled, an eyebrow lifted. “You do research, too, do you?”

  “It’s why God invented Google.” She pulled out a Third Virginia Bank pen and laid it on top of the forms. “From what I’ve learned you are a book researcher, which must pay better than I thought, if you have fifty thousand dollars to throw around. You work for the author Mark Delaney, which is impressive, as he actually does make quite a bit of money and has quite a few literary awards for a horror writer.”

  “Alternative history. Please. And just to set the record straight, you were right to think that researchers don’t make much money. The money’s Mark’s.”

  Dee shrugged. “You have no wants or warrants, you rent your apartment, and you have current licenses for a motorcycle and a Jeep. I’m still waiting on your credit report. All told, though, pretty boring.”

  He grinned up from where he was signing his check with a flourish. “Actually, not boring at all. I get to go places other people don’t and talk to people I’d never get to meet and learn things I’ve always wanted to know. Since Mr. Delaney doesn’t like to mingle, I get to do it for him. I even get to meet lovely people like you and your sisters. It may not be romantic, but I’m having fun.”

  She bet he was. If the reactions she’d seen in town were any indication, he could get a rock to talk to him. And he’d probably enjoy it. For a few moments, she allowed herself to actively envy him. She was stuck here in Office Space central until the day both Lizzie and Mare were safe and independent, and she could learn to control her unfortunate tendency to morph. Researching alternative histories suddenly sounded exciting as hell.

  As if to remind herself again of where she belonged, she tapped the form in front of him. “I can’t imagine why you would want to open a new checking account for the short time you’ll be here, Mr. James, but this should probably be adequate for you.”

  He ripped the check off and handed it over. “Who said I was going to be here a short time, Ms. O’Brien?”

  She tried to stare him down. “I did. I’m afraid there’s simply nothing here for you.”

  “You don’t know what I need, though.”

  This time she glared. “Whatever it is, I don’t have it.”

  Oh, crap. Had she really said that? She flushed again, a mottled red that was sincerely unattractive on a redhead, while he made a slow perusal of her, tucked away beneath her boring gray suit and bobby pins.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Miss O’Brien. Are you sure I can’t talk you into dinner?”

  She did her best to reclaim her dignity. “I’m sure, Mr. James.”

  “What about a drink? Surely a drink won’t overset the delicate balance of of the universe.”

  A drink. With Danny James. Who was he kidding?

  “Mr. James,” she said, ready to deal him the set-down of his life, when something tickled her nose and she shivered hard, once. “I’d love to have a drink.”

  Dee wasn’t sure who was more surprised. She did know who was more appalled.

  This day was going from bad to worse, Lizzie thought unhappily, staring up at the now visible Elric. Charles’s appearance had been even less welcome than the stranger’s—she’d already been rethinking her precipitous decision to marry him, and seeing him with Elric’s dark, unreadable eyes made her choice seem even more absurd.

  “That’s my fiancé,” she said, unnecessarily.

  “Not for long,” Elric said, turning and heading back into the kitchen, obviously expecting her to follow. She glanced at the door longingly for a moment, and as if on cue the lock clicked. “He’s not your type.”

  “I’m not going to discuss my love life with you,” she said stiffly. She began scooping up the silverware from the table, including the yellow spoon, and dumped it all in the sink.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Washing dishes,” she said without turning around. Maybe if she just ignored him he’d go away. “We have a deal, my sisters and I. I take care of the household, they bring in the money.”

  “You don’t strike me as the Susie Homemaker type.”

  “I’m not. I like to cook—that way I can mix things together and make something without it exploding or catching fire. Traditional jobs are a bit of a … challenge for me. Things change form when I don’t expect it, and I have a hard time explaining.”

  He came up behind her—she didn’t have to turn to feel him, she didn’t have to have any special gifts. He was everywhere. “The dishes can wait. I want you to tell me why you’re marrying that weak-minded bully.”

  “He’s not—”

  “You’ve got him wrapped around your finger. I was impressed—that kind of mind magic is very advanced, and doesn’t usually go along with transmutationary gifts. Though maybe that’s why you can control him when everything else in your life is out of your control.”

  She turned at that one, glaring at him. Or tried to, but every time she looked at him he seemed to shift a little, those streams of color distracting her. “You’re a psychiatrist as well as a charlatan?” she demanded. “Go analyze someone else.”

  He was unfazed by her insult. “Did I touch a nerve, Elizabeth Alicia? You don’t need a man telling you you’re a useless idiot.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing ever since you materialized in my kitchen,” she snapped, turning back to the dishes.

  There was silence for a moment, and she wondered if she’d finally managed to puncture that calm certainty.

  “You have a point,” he conceded finally. “But in my
case I think you’re too smart and too gifted to be making stupid mistakes and endangering yourself and those around you. Your boyfriend seems to think you’re useless. What in the world made you think you should marry him?”

  “I told you, I want a normal life, one without magic.”

  “I think I can safely assure you that a life with your future husband will be completely devoid of any sort of magic.” His voice was dry.

  She dumped the silver and yellow flatware into the drainer and turned to look at him. Again, that odd little pinging feeling inside—as if her hormones had short-circuited.

  Her hormones had nothing to do with the stranger who’d shown up in her kitchen, she reminded herself sternly. In fact, her hormones were barely operating at a normal level, despite the strange, erotic dreams that had been tormenting her the last few nights. All those had managed to do was ensure she had a lousy night’s sleep, and right now she’d had about as much of the mysterious Elric as she could handle.

  “You want to leave,” she said, her voice soothing. “You want to forget you ever found us.”

  His hoot of laughter might have been insulting if she’d had even the faintest hope it would work. “I told you, that only works on the weak-minded, and those whose minds are clouded by lust. Haven’t you ever wondered why it didn’t work when you tried it with your sisters? And don’t tell me you haven’t tried—I won’t believe you.”

  “I’ve tried. You’re right, it only works with men. And clearly not all men,” she added. “Lucky for you your mind isn’t clouded by lust for me.”

  “Lucky for me,” he said, his still dark eyes watching her. “Why did you choose Charles? The weak-minded part, I imagine. You wouldn’t have any trouble finding men whose minds are clouded by lust, but you must have wanted someone who was easily controllable. And you seem like such a sweet girl.”

  “Charles is none of your business,” she said. “Who I choose to marry and what I do with my life is none of your business.”

  “You’re a fool. You deserve better, and instead you choose a backwater town and an idiot boyfriend and sooner or later you’re going to end up blowing up this house and your sisters with it until someone puts a stop to it.”

  She turned her back on him, shaking. More anger, and she hated it. Though the odd thing was, she was getting angry in return, when she usually just hid in her room. “Leave me alone.” She picked up the dishpan to dump the soapy water out. “Get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

  Lizzie gave up and began to the tip the dishpan, and then something tickled her nose, and she shivered hard twice.

  “Then I am,” she said and whirled around, flinging the soapy water directly at him.

  And then she ran.

  The Greasy Fork was crowded by the time Mare got her lunch break at noon, but Crash had snagged them a booth, as always. She threaded her way through the crowd, keeping her heart-shaped sunglasses on to hide her eyes so they wouldn’t give anything away, like maybe that she was glad to see him and might still be hopelessly in love with him except that she wasn’t that much of a loser, hell, she was Queen of the Universe, he could kiss her foot. Or something else.

  He saw her and stood up, looking tall and broad and solid as ever, and really, really good, and she remembered how it had felt to have his arms around her. Doesn’t matter. She was going to be cool, she didn’t care—

  “Thanks for meeting me,” he said, and his voice sounded so deep and good, just hearing him felt so good, she closed her eyes to savor it.

  “I had to.” Mare slid into the booth. “I couldn’t talk to you at the store. We have a vice president there.”

  “Yeah, I saw him.” Crash sat down across from her and that felt right, being back in a booth at the Fork with him, and Mare thought, No, this is how you got hurt before, he won’t stay …

  “So it’s been a while,” she said.

  “Right.” Crash picked up his empty coffee cup and tilted it, and Mare thought, Coffee, that’s new, he didn’t drink coffee five years ago.

  “Well, welcome back.” She picked up the menu and flipped it open, holding it in front of her so she couldn’t see him, especially because she thought there might be tears in her eyes, tears of rage, damn it, but he wouldn’t get that; if they slipped down her cheeks from under her sunglasses he’d think she was crying for him.

  “You don’t need to look, you have that menu memorized,” he said.

  Mare sniffed and thought, Yeah, remind me again of how my life never changes. “There might be something new on here.”

  He hooked a finger over the edge of the menu and pulled it down to look at her, exasperated. “There’s never anything new in this one-horse town.”

  Mare snapped the menu down. “Something new happened once. The horse left. Why did you leave me without a word, you bastard?”

  He scowled at her. “Hey, I called three times the next day and got the usual runaround from Dee. I came to see you but I couldn’t come in, like always, and you wouldn’t talk to me.”

  Mare blinked. “Talk to you? I had three pins in my arm. I was doped to the gills on Percocet, for crying out loud. Of course I wanted to talk to you when I was lucid again. I was in love with you.”

  “Well, you didn’t call me,” Crash said, looking around the diner as Mare’s voice rose. He leaned forward as he lowered his voice. “I figured since I’d almost killed you, and you never called me back, you were done with me.”

  “And you didn’t stick around to ask?” Mare said, madder than ever. “You just left the next day?”

  Crash sighed. “Mare, I didn’t see much future for us. At the best of times, your sister hated me, and you never let me get too close. After the accident …” He looked down into his coffee cup. “I didn’t think dumping you on my bike in the middle of the road and breaking your arm was going to make things any better. So yeah, when you wouldn’t see me, I left.”

  “Oh, well, so fine,” Mare said. “You want to end the relationship, you say—”

  “No.” He met her eyes. “I didn’t want to end anything, I just wanted … out. Out of Salem’s Fork, I’d wanted out of here for a long time. But I couldn’t leave you. And then I called and you wouldn’t talk to me, and things were lousy with my dad, and he kept telling me I almost killed you and didn’t deserve you—”

  “Well, your dad’s a jerk, we all knew that,” Mare said. “But—”

  “—and Dee felt the same way and Dee’s not a jerk—”

  “Dee’s overprotective,” Mare said, starting to see the past more clearly. “But you still should have talked to me, damn it. You didn’t even talk to me.”

  “I tried,” he said, and tilted his empty coffee cup again, and Mare sat back, knowing he had tried, and that he was right about her keeping him away before that, too, keeping secrets like I’m a witch, because that kind of thing was hard to explain and could get Dee and Lizzie burned at the stake or whatever they did to witches in the twenty-first century, probably studied in Area 51 or something, and then Pauline stopped to fill his cup for him, peering at him over her glasses.

  “So you’re back, are you?” she said. “Where you been?”

  Mare looked up. “Pauline, we’re having a conversation here.”

  “Yeah, everybody heard you.” Pauline raised her penciled-in eyebrows. “Just like old times, you whipping him into shape again. You can take your sunglasses off. The sun went down in here after breakfast.” She nodded at Crash again. “So where you been?”

  “Italy,” Crash said.

  Italy. Mare looked away, at the jukebox selector on the tabletop, biting her lip. Italy. She began to flip through the cards. She’d stayed in Salem’s Fork and kept her secrets and cried for months, and he’d gone to Italy. Where there was probably dust and sunshine.

  “No shit.” Pauline balanced her arm on her hip, holding the coffeepot dangerously near Crash’s ear as she absorbed that.

  Crash
slid two quarters across the table to Mare—just like old times—and she swallowed hard. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t taken her to Italy, she didn’t speak Italian anyway. Of course, neither did he back then. He probably did now. Italy. She blinked back tears. Hell, she’d have gone to Outer Mongolia if he’d asked.

  No she wouldn’t have. Dee and Lizzie would have gotten burned at the stake without her. She was the only one who knew how to use the shotgun. Lizzie can make muffins, Mare thought, but I can lock and load.

  “Good food in Italy?” Pauline was saying.

  “Yeah,” Crash said, and Mare could tell from his voice that he was watching her, so she put the quarters in and punched some buttons at random.

  “Italy,” Pauline said, as Kim Richey began to sing. “Damn.”

  So I didn’t punch the buttons at random, Mare thought as Kim sang about buying a new red dress to keep her spirits up because her boyfriend was gone. Damn subconscious.

  “So in Italy—” Pauline began.

  “You should go tell someone about that, Pauline,” Mare said from behind her sunglasses. “That’s hot news. Don’t want it to cool off.”

  Pauline nodded. “Back in a minute,” she said and headed for the kitchen.

  Crash didn’t look exasperated anymore, just tired. “Mare, there wasn’t any reason to stay if you didn’t want me around, if you wouldn’t talk to me. And I knew why you wouldn’t. I swear, I didn’t see that trash barrel roll into the street. I was watching the road, I don’t know where the hell it came from. I have replayed it over and over in my head, and I swear—”

  Mare blinked at him. “That’s okay, that could have happened to anybody, I’m not mad about that.” She shook her head. “That’s not it at all.”

  “I wouldn’t have taken any chances with you behind me.” He met her eyes, straight on. “You were everything to me.”

  Kim sang, “You’ll never know how much I love you,” and Mare sat back. “Well, I’m nothing to you now, so it doesn’t matter, does it?”