Free On the Prowl by Christine Warren Page A

her hesitation. “If not, I know a great little place I think you might like.” She rattled off an address. “How does that sound?”
    “Perfect.” Saskia repeated the information to herself, quickly committing it to memory. “I can be there in thirty minutes or less. How does that sound?”
    “Better than a pizza.” Corinne laughed. “I’ll see you there.”
    Hanging up the phone, Saskia felt her heart pound with excitement. Maybe she’d be able to make a little progress on her fiancé-wrangling project after all. Dashing back toward the bedroom for shoes and her purse, she felt a sense of optimism she hadn’t when she woke earlier. This day was finally beginning to look up.
    *   *   *
     
    Using the address Corinne had given her and her handy familiarity with cabbies in cities around the world, Saskia made her way to the coffee shop downtown with a minimum of fuss. Stepping into the half-basement space, she spotted the other woman right away, waving at her from a small table tucked up against a low wall that divided the room in two. She smiled and waved back, then wove her way through a maze of tables to take a seat opposite Corinne.
    “Thank you so much for this,” Saskia began, neatly laying her purse on the empty chair between them. “I know it was short notice, just spur-of-the-moment, really, but—”
    Corinne laughed and waved a hand at her. “Don’t be silly. I admit, I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you some more after last night. I feel like a jerk admitting it, but I find your whole story fascinating.”
    “A lot of people do,” Saskia acknowledged. “Even most Others find my people’s traditions hard to understand at times.”
    “And that makes us sound like judgmental idiots. Or morally superior assholes. Either way, it doesn’t paint me in the most flattering light at the moment.”
    Saskia smiled as the other woman made a face at her. “No, it doesn’t. Trust me, I’ve certainly met examples of both those types, and you’re nothing like either of them. If you had struck me that way, I wouldn’t have said more than three words to you on the phone earlier, and I definitely wouldn’t be here now.”
    “Oh, good. Then I can relax and start prying.”
    Corinne’s grin came fast and proved contagious. Saskia found herself smiling in spite of her less than pleasant night, the expression lingering while a waitress stopped by their table and took their orders. When the girl stepped away, Saskia toyed with the spoon at her place setting for a moment while she gathered her courage.
    “Actually,” she began, hesitating over her words, “I was hoping to pry something from you, oddly enough. I should confess that my reasons for this invitation were at least three-quarters selfish. Well, maybe more like nine-tenths.”
    “Oh, thank God.” When Saskia blinked, Corinne’s grin curved wider. “It makes me feel so much better to hear you say that. I was afraid you would turn out to be just as sweet and kind and polite as you look, and if you were, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from hating you. I can’t stand it when people make me feel like the rude, ruthless, self-absorbed person I really am under this charming veneer.”
    Saskia couldn’t help herself. She laughed out loud. “Well! Um … give me a minute to try and figure out how to take that!”
    “It’s a total compliment,” Corinne assured her, thanking their server for delivering their coffee and waving away her offer to bring them anything else. “I already have one friend who treads dangerously close to the margin of sainthood. She’s a kindergarten teacher, for Christ’s sake. So I’m afraid I’m full up on nice people in my life. If you can promise to be at least somewhat selfish and demanding, we’ll get along so-o-o-o much better in the long run.”
    “I think I can handle that.”
    “Good. So, in that case, tell me what horribly selfish reason you had for wanting to talk to me. I warn you,