At the phone bank, she dug in her bag for change, and pulled out wads of money. Literally, wads of balled up bills—a ten, a fiver, three ones. But no change. Not a quarter, not a dime, not one lousy penny.
With a sigh of great irritation, Rachel glanced around. This was really just too much—where were all the fabulous things that were supposed to happen to her, according to Dagne? The prosperity and happiness and all that crap? And man, it was so warm in there—someone needed to crack a window. Well anyway, one thing was certain—when she got hold of Dagne, she was going to let her know that her stupid spells weren’t working for shit—
“I beg your pardon, but might I be of assistance?”
Rachel froze in the maniacal search of her bag, wondered if that question, posed in a sexy British accent, had been actually addressed to her, and slowly looked up . . . and up . . . at a very handsome man. He was smiling. His gorgeous blue-gray eyes sort of shimmered in a pool of dark lashes, and a strand of his thick chestnut hair actually fell over one eye. He was wearing a well-cut dark pinstripe suit and a long trench coat that looked very expensive, like he’d just walked off the set of a James Bond movie. A horrible swell of panic surged in Rachel—the guy was gorgeous and standing so close that he could probably smell her.
“You look as if you could use a hand,” he said, grinning lopsidedly as he fished in his pocket.
She was gaping at him like she’d never seen a man before, and unthinkingly jerked backward, away from him, and almost killed herself, thank you, by impaling herself on the little box around the pay phone. But forget that, because she suddenly remembered the little wisps of hair sticking up all over her head and thought she might actually die of embarrassment. Just expire cold, right there.
“No, ah, no . . .” she managed to get out, smiling sheepishly. “No, thank you, but I’ve definitely got it,” she said, and whirled around, her hand still shoved in her bag, frantically searching for a coin, any coin, dammit!
“I’ve got a bit of change if you’d like,” he continued, and Rachel, her back to him, shook her head, felt one of the tight coils of her hair start to come undone. “Thanks! I’ve got it!” she said to the wall.
He made a noise that sounded a little like a chuckle. Which meant, of course, that now the movie-star guy was laughing at her. How dare he laugh at her? She shot him a glance over her shoulder, but . . . he wasn’t really laughing at all. He was just smiling, and really very warmly, showing some very white teeth.
“I don’t think you’ve got it at all, really. I’ve some coins here,” he said, opening the palm of his hand and studying the coins there. “Ah, here we are.” He held up two quarters.
Rachel looked at the quarters and wondered, madly, if her face was still fireplug red, or please, God, had it calmed down a little, to maybe just cherry red?
He mistook her silence as refusal and said congenially, “The thing is, you obviously haven’t got the proper change and I’m really quite happy to help.”
Okay, okay, now she got it—if a man who looked like him, all buff and handsome and wearing a suit, was talking to her, it was probably one of those reality TV things—
He cocked his head and dipped it a little bit to see her better, and Rachel instantly swiped the back of her arm across her forehead. “Right. Well, then, if you’d be so kind as to take the quarters and perhaps ring whomever you mean to ring so the rest of us might have a go?” he asked, gesturing toward the phone.
“Oh!” she said, and began frantically searching her bag again. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hold you up, but I can’t take your quarters because I have quarters, if I could just get to the bottom of my bag,” she said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. “Why don’t you go ahead?”
He looked at her bag. “You’ve quite a large bag there.”
“Yes, it’s very big, because I have lots of . . .” Well, junk, really. She had junk. “Important stuff. Lots of it,” she muttered.
Bonny Prince Charlie just stood there, smiling down at her, until it became apparent to even her that she was not going to magically produce two quarters, and she sighed.
“I rather thought you’d see it my way,” he said happily, and leaned forward, his arm extended, coming right at her . . . then around her! To the phone, to be precise, which put him in dangerously close proximity to her sweaty self.