Free One Handsome Devil by Robert Preece Page B

They have—"
    "I don't want to hear this,” Sara announced, covering her ears. She never gained weight so she figured she could choke down a few extra fat grams if she wanted to.
    "Right.” He took another bite.
    "Well?"
    "On a scale of one to ten, it fell off the cliff."
    "It grows on you.” She took a bite of her own burger. Despite Jack's concerns, it was delicious. The cheese on the fries had congealed perfectly so she grabbed a wad of those too and stuffed them into her mouth.
    "Perhaps for our next meal, we should try oysters Rockefeller,” Jack suggested. “Maybe they're even worse.” He did, Sara noticed, take another bite of the burger. When she offered him the fries, he shook his head with a shudder.
    "There's a reason they call them Rockefeller,” she observed. “They're for rich people. Poor folks like me eat burgers."
    "Poor?"
    "I'm sure not rich."
    "Hum. But if we found some petroleum products, you could get rich and we could eat other foods."
    "I happen to like this kind of food. And I'm doing this for pay, not to get rich.” Unfortunately. The Texas oil industry had laughed her parents out of it for refusing to give up old-fashioned dousing and nobody had volunteered to stake her despite her science degrees. Someday she'd start her own company, but today wasn't the day.
    "Still, if we find something, perhaps we can celebrate tonight with something healthier.
    If Sara had her way, she'd celebrate tonight, all right. Not with oysters, though. Neither of them needed any artificial encouragement. Still, Sara couldn't hold back a giggle.
    "What?"
    "No oysters. Besides, they won't be able to prove out the lease for at least a year."
    A cute teen-something blonde emerged from the Sammy Delight and thrust a bag at them.
    "I didn't order anything else."
    "Huh? Oh. It's on the house.” She seemed completely enraptured with Jack. “If I can get you anything else, just let me know. I get off in a couple of hours."
    "That sounds nice,” Jack said.
    "Forget it,” Sara corrected. She dumped the tray onto the ground, cranked her ignition, shifted into reverse and accelerated out of the parking lot.
    Old and fat headed out after them waving a knife.
    "I think that was his daughter,” she observed.
    "She seemed friendly. Not like him."
    "I'm sure she's real friendly. She wants you between her legs."
    Jack nodded. “I saw that the second she noticed me."
    "So why did you encourage her?"
    Jack looked as if he couldn't fathom Sara's line of question, then his face cleared. “Oh, you were worried that I would damage her. I would make you ward me down first."
    Sara bit back an angry shriek, floored the accelerator, and cranked up the volume on her stereo. Demons or humans, men were all the same.
    After her late date and the car breakdown, Katra was happy to make it to her first period of classes. She could make up the prep time later.
    She should have been tired after her late night, but she still hadn't come down from the sight of Jack shoving his arms into her Corsica's engine. That and the look in Sara's eyes. A look that went beyond amazement.
    When the bell finally rang for her mid-morning break, she dismissed her students and headed for the staff lounge.
    She hadn't been expecting wild parties during school hours, but she had thought there would be a little something going on. It wasn't every day they won the lottery. In fact, the most they'd ever won before had been twelve dollars.
    "Do I get anything extra because it was my ticket?” she asked.
    "What are you talking about?” Big-mouth Lena Bovade snapped the question like she'd snapped towels during P.E. back when they'd been in high school together.
    "Are you kidding? Nobody happened to notice we won the lottery?” Katra looked around the lounge. Fred and Lester were arguing about some geometry proof and Tina was working with her hair. All the usual suspects. “I'm surprised nobody called in rich."
    "Oh, yeah. I'm trying to decide how to spend the big