Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

“I don’t think she wants oatmeal,” I told her.

“It . . . it’s just . . .”

“It’s just?”

“That isn’t very healthy,” she blurted, looking at my plate. And then stood there, apparently stricken. And confusing the heck out of me.

Rhea seemed to have some kind of split-personality thing going on that I didn’t understand. One minute, she was telling off dangerous master vampires and the head of the Silver Circle, and the next she was freezing up into Little Miss Meek Voice when she had to talk to me. It was disconcerting. It made me feel like Godzilla. It was also goi

ng to be a problem if she didn’t get over it.

I decided to push her a little.

“So you think I shouldn’t be eating this?”

“I . . . No.” She looked startled. “No, I wouldn’t presume to . . . I mean, what the Pythia eats is, of course, her own—”

“But it’s not healthy.”

“It’s . . .” She looked at my plate unhappily. “It’s just . . . well, there’s no vegetables . . .”

“No vegetables in oatmeal, either,” Fred pointed out.

“No, but it’s a whole grain,” she said, glancing at him. And looking relieved to have someone she could actually argue with.

“Polenta’s whole-grain—”

“And oatmeal isn’t cooked in bacon grease!”

“We could add a vegetable,” I said, bringing her attention back to me. “Couldn’t we, Fred?”

He looked at my plate thoughtfully. Vegetables were not Fred’s strong suit. “Well, I guess I could chop up an onion—”

“An onion doesn’t count!” Rhea told him severely.

“Or put half a tomato on the side,” I said, thinking of all the breakfasts I’d seen Pritkin eat. He was supposed to be a health-food nut, and most of the time he lived up to it. But on Sundays he splurged on the most god-awful breakfasts on the face of the earth. I’d kind of gotten the idea that, lately, he’d been making them deliberately horrible just to mess with me.

“The court was in London,” I added. “That’s what the kids are probably used to.”

“Yeah, the Brits got great breakfasts,” Fred enthused. “With that nice thick back bacon—”

“And fried mushrooms—” I added.

“—and fried eggs—” Fred agreed happily.

“—and fried sausages—”

“—and fried bread—”

“You do realize that everything you’ve mentioned is fried?” Rhea asked him.

“—and scones swimming in butter,” I said, piling it on.

“Oh, don’t even go there,” Fred told me. “’Cause then you’re gonna need your strawberry jam and your orange marmalade and your clotted cream—”

“Clotted cream?” Rhea said, looking horrified.

“And cheesy Welsh rarebit,” he said dreamily. And grinned at me, as if he thought he’d won.