Greywalker - Kat Richardson [60]
I pulled out my calculator. “Let’s see here . . . parts plus actual time on-site, plus development time, plus consultation . . .”
“What consultation? Will work for food, you know. You bought dinner.”
“OK, but you still shorted yourself by sixty bucks.”
“Call it an introductory offer.”
I shook my head. “I don’t like to end up behind favors.”
“Investment in the Bank of Karma?”
“Quinton . . .”
He flipped his hands up. “Hey, look, I like you. I don’t mind doing a little work for friends, cheap. I wouldn’t feel right about charging you more.” He hesitated. “Unless you want me to charge you a business rate.”
I felt like a fool. “Umm . . . is this the ‘just friends’ rate, then?”
He smiled and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Will you take a check?”
He looked a little uncomfortable. “I prefer cash.”
I looked at him sideways a moment and he stared right back.
I shrugged. “OK, but we’ll have to go down to my bank.”
He grinned and shrugged.
We went. The manager looked a bit askance at Quinton, but didn’t say anything. Flush with cash, Quinton headed off for the main library while I went back to the Rover and headed for home for a quick wash and brushup.
I put on a skirt, blouse, and heels, for a change. I felt much better than I had in the morning, if a bit tired. I played with Chaos for a while and gave her a chance to shed on my clothes until I had to leave. I put her back into her cage with her food dish under her nose, and she hardly noticed.
I stopped at an upscale grocery in Queen Anne. The clerk restocking the wine department actually knew something about the subject and managed to find a wine that was, he assured me, pale green and not bad. I broke down and bought a backup bottle of Chardonnay as well.
Mara opened to my ring of the doorbell. Once again, her hands were floured and she still looked stunning.
SIXTEEN
Oh, you’re as good as your word, aren’t you?” she exclaimed, seeing the wine bag in my hand. “I hope you don’t mind the kitchen for a bit, I’m still rolling out crust and I hate to yell at my guests just to have a conversation. I felt I should be making a pie, since you missed the last one.”
We adjourned to the kitchen, Mara in the lead. “Have a seat, open the wine and we can have a sip while I finish up the crust. Corkscrew’s in the drawer of the table, glasses right there on top.”
I hung my purse and jacket over the back of a chair and tackled the first wine bottle. With the wine poured and distributed, I leaned against the counter and watched her drape pastry dough into a deep pie plate and cut off the edge.
She started to sip her wine, then held it away, staring at it. “Oh, my! This is green wine. Wherever did you find green wine?”
“Larry’s. It doesn’t seem too bad.”
She sipped, then glanced at me out of the corners of her slanted eyes. “It’s wicked green, though, isn’t it?” Then she let out that wild whoop of laughter, her eyes squeezing to merry slits.
I couldn’t help laughing with her. She was more relaxed and outrageous now that we were on a social footing, rather than a . . . what? Magical one? Student/ teacher?
I noticed she was paying a great deal of attention to the pie preparation and biting her lower lip.
I was about to speak when she beat me to it. “Harper, this morning I was rather too pushy. You’re right to be wary and I didn’t think of it. You see, I’m used to this sort of thing and I forgot that I’m not like you.”
I shrugged and drank wine before answering. “No one’s like me, I guess.”
“Indeed. And there’s quite a lot of guesswork to being what you are. Theory and philosophy are all well and good, but reality can rather rear up and bite you on the bum. It’s not a field chock-full of scientific validation, you know—not astrophysics or chemistry, after all—and it attracts sharpers and loonies, if you know what I mean.”
“Spoon benders and people who write paperback science about ancient astronauts building the lost city of Atlantis,” I suggested.
“Exactly the sort of thing. And that brings