Where Winter Finds You

“My pleasure. Take care.”

Therese left the pair feeling defeated. Her hourly wages were low, as was to be expected. Tips were where the money was at. But her suddenly sad mood was about more than the lack of tip. The idea of going back to that rooming house made her want to cry, although that was her own fault, wasn’t it. She’d had another option. Just waiting for her.

Except she’d turned that down. Out of pride. And out of the fact that anything that had to do with Trez was complicated even if it looked simple.

Her attraction was the problem.

Taking cover behind the water station, she figured she’d wait for the couple to leave, clear their coffee cups and water glasses, and then drag herself back to the hellhole. Yay. Excitement.

She passed a little time getting out some pitchers from the cabinets under the water dispenser, mopping around the countertop, wiping down the cash register surface. The quiet of the restaurant seemed to surround her, follow her, stick close by, a stalker that kept to the shadows. And with her instincts firing for absolutely no reason, her eyes made rounds of the empty bar behind her, the empty hostess stand, the other, completely empty dining room.

Restless. So restless and anxious for no justification she could think of.

Did she want to go back to the rooming house? No. Did she wish she could be normal around that Shadow? Yes. Did she wonder what Trez’s brother had been going to say? Absolutely.

But none of that explained her nagging sense of worry—

“Chef said I could go now.”

Therese tried to hide her jump of surprise. “Oh, Emile. Yes, me, too. Well, as soon as they leave.”

She leaned out from the water station. The couple was still there. The male had reached across the table and taken his shellan’s hand. He was staring into her eyes, his face rapt, a soft smile on his perfect lips.

“They’re really in love,” Emile said.

“They are.” Therese rubbed a sore spot in the center of her chest, over her heart. “It’s nice to see.”

Actually, it wasn’t. The two of them reminded her of her parents, and that was not anything she wanted to think about. But her brain refused to be sidetracked, memories of her mahmen and father holding hands, sitting close, speaking quietly, weaving into her mind and taking over. They had been so present for their children, so involved, but there had always been the sense that they had a special, private relationship—and that that connection was the true basis of the family.

Therese had felt so secure in the compass points that the four of them had formed: hellren, shellan, son, and daughter.

And then all of that had changed.

The bonds that she had assumed were concrete had turned out to be no more substantial than confetti. At least for her. The other three were fine, but then none of their identities had been deliberately hidden from them; none of their foundations had cracks in them.

Trust was the basis for love. Without it, you had nothing but an illusion—a pleasant illusion, it was true, an illusion that felt nice and steady. But when you thought that the lie was the real thing? Finding out the two-dimensional nature of your existence was shattering.

“—Therese?”

Shaking herself back into focus, she looked at Emile. “I’m sorry? What?”

“May I give you a ride home?”

Therese pictured Liza stamping around and demanding everything which Emile refused to provide. “Oh, that’s not necessary. Thank you, though.”

“So you have a ride?” Emile hesitated. “Not that I’m trying to pry.”

“I’m just going to dema—” She stopped herself. Nope, not talking about ghosting out. Had she forgotten the guy was a human? “Yes, I’m going to get a ride.”

“Okay, sure.” He nodded and then looked at her with expectation. “Of course.”

“It’s just my brother.” The lie hurt. Because picking her up on a snowy night was exactly the kind of thing Gareth would do. “He’s like that.”

She rubbed the center of her chest again. As loneliness came over her like a shroud, she took a deep breath. She had always been an independent sort, finding her own way with school, work, life, but the thing was, she had not appreciated how much her family had mattered to her, how much of a grounding it had been, what kind of a harbor those other three had offered her.

“Actually,” she heard herself say, “I would like a ride.”

Emile beamed. “Well. Fantastic.”

As she realized she had made, yet again, a snap decision she should have thought through more, she swallowed a curse. “Except, wait, I didn’t even ask where you lived. I’m downtown. Maybe that is really out of your—”

“No, it’s perfect. It’s just perfect.”

The image of him driving her home past Liza’s wherever, and the other waitress running out into the street and flagging them down so she could throw a chair through the windshield, was not a welcome thought. And then there was the hope in Emile’s eyes. He was trying to be cool, but the answer he’d gotten had thrilled him. Meanwhile, he was only a Band-Aid for her sadness, for all the things she was missing… and so much less complicating than the Shadow who commanded all of her senses whenever he was in a hundred-foot radius of her.

Checking on her couple again, she was infinitely relieved that they had left. “I’m just going to bus my table—”

“Here, let me help—”

“No.” She smiled to take the sting out of her voice. “I’m going to do it quickly, and then I’ll meet you in the locker room?”

“Sure. I’ll put our tickets in.”

“Thank you.”

She snagged one of the trays and its pop-up stand and strode across to the table. As she passed by all the empty place settings, the glasses turned rim down to the tablecloths, the napkins covering the chargers, the silverware so precisely arranged, her feeling of sadness became so overwhelming that her eyes teared up.

It had to be the storm. Something in the shift of the barometer reading, the atmospheric pressure, the wind, affecting her mood, dragging her down. Yup. That was what was happening.

Flipping the stand out, she put the tray on top and started to clear the—

With a frown, she leaned down to the plate the tiramisu had been on. It was tilted to one side, like a napkin had been put under it.

Except what she found beneath the thing was not damask.

“Oh… my God,” she breathed.

No, it was not a napkin. It was a wad of cash, folded in half. Picking the bundle up, she fanned out the hundred-dollar bills. Ten of them.

Her head whipped up, and she looked around. Then she jogged across the empty dining room to the front entrance. Pulling things open, she went down the stairs of the ante-hall and through the outer door. The fury of the storm tore at her body with ice-cold claws, and she had to catch her balance by throwing out a hand to one of the awning’s supports.

There was no hope of finding them. The couple was long gone.

Returning to the warmth and the quiet of the restaurant, she looked down at the cash in her hand. If you added up how much the couple had eaten, a thousand dollars was probably pretty close to what the bill had been, if you included tax and a tip of about 25 or 30 percent.

The couple had been comp’d and they had given her what they would have spent anyway.