"Once Upon Stilettos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swendson Shanna)

 I m not sure where I was born, and I have the vaguest memories of living in a city when I was very young, but I grew up in a tiny old village up the Hudson.

The part of me that harbored the killer crush gloated at my more rational side as one of the possible barriers between us melted away. I d thought of us as so radically different that we d never be able to find common ground, but if he was a small-town boy, then on some level we might have a similar background.

 I imagine your definition of  old in this part of the world is different from mine, I said.

 Pre Revolutionary War, he said with a nod.

 Yeah, very different. My hometown dates from not much more than a hundred years ago.

 These days, it s a suburb of New York, about an hour away by train, but it used to be a farming community. They still have a colonial farm nearby for the tourists.

 With the land prices around here, you probably can t afford to farm. Even as I kept up the small talk, I wanted to bang my head against the table. Did he even know what he was doing when he neatly deflected anything that might become personal, or was it an old habit? Or was he hiding something?

The waitress returned with two glasses of water. She set them down on the table in front of us, then got out her pad and pen once more.  Ready to order?

Owen nodded toward me.  I ll have the bacon cheeseburger, I said.

 You want the full plate with fries and slaw?

 Yes, please.

She turned to Owen, who said,  I ll have the same.

She noted this in her pad and said,  It ll be right out.

I felt like our earlier conversation had lost its momentum, if it ever had any to begin with. While I was still trying to think of another topic, he surprised me by starting one of his own.  You never did tell me how your date with Ethan went, other than that it was nice and that something odd happened. Where did he take you? He said he had something different planned.

My heart and my head went to war over what this question meant. Was this relationship recon, his attempt to see where my current relationship (if you could call it that) stood so he d know when or if to make his move? Or was it casual interest because two of his friends were going out together and he was curious how it went?

While the battle raged within me, I decided to just answer instead of analyzing it to death.  He took me to a wine dinner, one of those things where they create courses to go with certain wines from a particular vineyard. It was interesting. The food was good, but I don t know enough about wine to say much about that.

 And what was the odd part?

 I m a total lightweight. I almost never have more than one glass of wine at any one time, and they served a glass with each course. I tried to only drink half a glass each time, but after five courses that s still a lot of wine.

 So you were a bit toasted, he said with a teasing grin. Even if it was at my expense, I enjoyed the sight too much to complain.

 No  a bit about it. And here s where it gets interesting.

He leaned back against the booth, now looking at me directly, still grinning.  Interesting, how? He raised one eyebrow.

I glanced around to see how close any other diners were to us then leaned forward across the table. He got the hint and leaned forward until there was only a small space separating us.  I was the most sober person there, other than Ethan. It turned out to be a magical winery, I whispered.  The wine was enchanted, so everyone else there was even drunker than I was. After dinner, they passed out order forms so people could buy the wines, and it seemed like they were using a variation on that control spell to make people order wine at what Ethan said were outrageously inflated prices.

 So they were using a wine dinner as a cover for a magical scam? He managed to scowl, look incredulous, and smile all at the same time.

 Yeah. So Ethan and I called them on it. I don t think they expected to find a couple of immunes in the party. He offered to fix their  typos. 

 Did you tell the boss?