“What? You moron!” Jessamine screeched.
“Thank you, I didn’t feel bad enough already.” Savannah shot a disgusted look at her sister and then turned away.
Her mother’s face fell. “Oh dear.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Savannah heaved a sigh. “I was thinking of a way with a lot more four-letter words.”
“But of course I didn’t raise you that way.” Her mother smiled gently and went back to chopping onions.
Jessamine made a very loud raspberry noise. “Yes, you did – she swears all the time.”
“Well, if it isn’t the dark queen of tattle-tales,” Savannah sneered. “Oh my Goth! You know what? The nineties called and they want their T-shirt back.”
Jessamine narrowed her eyes at her older sister. “Well, if it isn’t the plump princess of datelessness. The eighties called and they want that joke back.”
“Say, Jessamine, where it says over-easy on our breakfast menu, why did they use a picture of your face?”
“Twatmuffin,” her sister snapped.
“Slutbucket.” But Savannah wasn’t really feeling it today. Normally she’d be chasing after her sister and trying to strangle her, but she just didn’t have the heart at the moment.
“Savannah! Jessamine!” Her mother slammed her knife down on the chopping board. “I will wash your mouths out with soap. You think I won’t? Watch me.”
That was a legitimate threat. It was amazing how fast the short, chubby little shifter could move when she was mad, to say nothing of how strong she was. Savannah suppressed a shudder at the memory of the taste of soap burning her tongue. She had not called her sister a See You Next Tuesday since that day.
“Sorry, Mom, it won’t happen again,” Jessamine muttered, and hurried off. She paused in the doorway and pretended to scratch the side of her head, giving Savannah the finger before flouncing out.
Savannah ignored her sister and glanced through the kitchen window into the dining room. “I’m sorry too, but Mom. You are feeding the entire town for free.”
“Of course I’m not, dear. They’re doing chores!” her mother said reprovingly. “The Haymarches are going to pull some weeds later. Probably.”
“Chores won’t pay our debt,” Savannah said, with perhaps more bite to her tone than necessary. “Can we pay the Lord of All Foxes in chores?”
But still. She had a right to be upset. This restaurant was her family heritage.
Five years ago, when their father had suffered a horrifying injury at the jaws of a hunter’s trap, they’d been forced to turn to the wealthiest fox family in Washington State. Algernon, the self-titled Lord of All Foxes. He was a shady character who owned a trucking company and was suspected of smuggling all kinds of illegal goods.
They’d needed money to pay for a wolf healer to help their father, and wolf healers might help their own kind for free, but when it came to foxes, they charged big bucks. The mutation that had created shifters had failed to gift the fox species with healers.
So they’d borrowed a hundred thousand dollars from Algernon, at an insane interest rate, and used it to pay the healer from the Crescent Moon pack up in the northeast area of Washington.
It had spared their father a lot of pain, and it had brought them a precious year of their father’s life. It had been worth it.
But they’d had to put up their property as collateral, with a balloon payment at the end of the payment term.
And since their property was right off the main, secret, shifter-only road that ran from Washington State to Minnesota, it was an extremely valuable way-station. Algernon was salivating over it. They’d tried to re-finance, but no shifter bank wanted to go up against Algernon.
“Well, Icouldgo tell the Haymarch family to stop eating,” her mother sighed. “Poor little Joey. He was so excited.” She peered out the window. “It was the first food he’d seen in days. He said grace first, before he started eating. Such a polite little boy. He’s only halfway done. Shall I take his food away from him, or do you want to do it?”
“Oh, good lord!” Savannah threw her hands up in despair. She knew when she’d been licked. She did a deep, fake bow. “I should have known better than to go up against a woman who’s got a black belt in the art of manipulation.”
“Yes, you should have,” her mother smiled, her eyes twinkling. “And I know that secretly, underneath that tough-girl exterior, you’re a big softie.”
“Am not,” Savannah muttered rebelliously.
“Whatever you say, dear. Would it be pushing my luck to ask you to go bring out some of my chocolate silk pie to the Haymarches, and also that nice little Anthony? I’ve got some more onions to chop.”
Was she serious?
