Chapter 201: She Had a Sale and an Opinion

By morning, the worst winds had passed, leaving dust against the bakery shutters. Workers swept it into sacks while a water crew checked the covered tanks. Dove washed with her pond water, dressed in shorts and a clean fitted shirt, and ate eggs, potatoes, and toast before Edrik took her through fifteen minutes of practice in the cleared rear room.

He made her repeat the movement that had gone wrong the day before the storm, slowly enough to show where her balance slipped. She complained twice and got it right on the third attempt.

"You enjoy correcting me," she accused.

"You kept your footing when I changed my grip. That’s you getting better, sweetheart, not me going easy."

Thorne laughed from the doorway. Dove pointed at him without letting go of Edrik’s wrist. "You’re next if you keep looking that pleased."

She tried again before he could praise her out of doing any work. This time she kept her balance and made him take a step. His grin was so pleased that she nearly forgot to let go. By opening time, she wanted another lesson instead of another excuse to stay in bed. The board across the lower window was ugly, but she could live with ugly while they arranged better.

"Drinks," Dove told Sprout while opening the shop. "Please tell me you noticed it’s hot enough to cook me."

It offered seven cases of bottled iced tea, with six sales earning sixty-seven normal coins. The cases held sweet tea and lemon tea.

"Finally," she said. "Something that doesn’t need a disaster before people want it."

"People are thirsty," Sprout replied, sounding pleased with itself.

"So am I. Let me keep a case before I start licking the preview."

She paid four Favor Coins to keep one case for the household and put it in their cooling unit during the scheduled power window. The six sale cases filled the cabinet. Dove labeled the case size and approved the usual trades. These bottles weren’t chilled; she wasn’t fitting seven cases in their little cooler.

Repair workers bought the first cases, and two cooks pooled their goods for another. Dove rejected a cracked battery without touching it. A case of tea wasn’t worth a fire, no matter how earnestly its owner said it probably worked.

Iris arrived near midday with her bear husband and a tray of sandwiches from one of the kitchens. She had come to check on the damaged shop and discuss their planned delivery visits, but she stopped in the doorway long enough to smile at Dove.

"You always smell like somebody’s best day," she said. "Today it’s my mother’s orange bread. It’s very unfair when all I’ve had is coffee."

Dove handed her a sandwich from the tray she’d brought. "Then we should fix your breakfast before you start chewing the display."

Thorne hid a smile behind his cup while Iris’s husband unwrapped the remaining sandwiches.

The creek road closure meant tomorrow’s delivery would go through the narrower northern entrance. Dove moved the visit and asked Iris to send word of what she needed before anybody packed a cart.

"I can bring what I’ve actually got," Dove said. "I can’t guarantee the world will provide matching tablecloths because someone important has opinions."

"Someone important always has opinions," Iris said. "I make them pay extra when possible."

After lunch, a district worker came for an account of the animal. Dove described its movement, and Thorne showed where it had pushed through. Edrik explained that he’d reinforced the cover while holding it, then let the worker inspect the ordinary metal. The whole drain needed checking; his hand couldn’t stay there forever.

The worker showed pictures of another plated animal, still without an explanation. Dove made him note Nolan’s lake report too. She couldn’t prove a connection, but somebody needed to check instead of treating every nasty surprise as a separate problem.

"People are already calling them all kinds of things," he said.

"People called my husband unfriendly yesterday," Dove replied, glancing at Edrik. "Sometimes they’re right, but I’d still check."

Edrik looked pleased instead of offended. The worker laughed, wrote down their account, and moved on. Dove watched him go, wondering what else was changing out there while everybody tried to keep breakfast normal.

The last tea case went before closing, and Sprout showed 1,700 normal coins and 204 Favor after keeping their drinks. Dove shut the notice and brought out a bracket from the landlord’s approved repair pile. She touch-stored it behind the curtain, then brought it back out for Thorne to straighten. Since yesterday, she had been paying much more attention to what his hands could do.

Edrik tested the fitting while holding it, then released it so they could check the ordinary metal. He put the little radio beside the bracket afterward. Dove watched him touch its casing, but the only result was the weather report getting on everybody’s nerves.

"Tomorrow," she told him. "You’re glaring at it like you can threaten it into behaving."

"It works on most things."

"You’ve met me, and look how that turned out."

"My favorite exception." He kissed her fingers, and she forgot her next complaint until Thorne laughed.

The tea was properly cold when they finally sat down. She gave each husband a bottle and kept the lemon one for herself, leaning back in the chair with a sigh that made Edrik watch her mouth.

"It’s tea," she warned him.

"I can see that, sweetheart. I’m enjoying the view."

"Try looking less hungry, then. You’ve eaten twice."

Thorne rested his hand on her knee beneath the table. "He’s not thinking about dinner."

For a few minutes, the boarded window didn’t matter. They had cold drinks, a safe room, and nowhere they had to be before morning.

Iris’s husband brought a route sheet while they were finishing their drinks. A supply truck would leave for a southern trading stop in two days, with room for passengers and paid cargo. Dove laid the sheet beside her bottle, already imagining a new road and buildings nobody had told her she couldn’t search.

Before she could unfold it, one of Thorne’s former employees appeared at the counter. He looked relieved to find them, then uncertain when Thorne stayed seated beside her instead of getting up.

"We need you back," the man said. "The others are gathering what survived of the company. Come with me tomorrow. Let them talk to you."

Dove felt Thorne’s hand stop on her knee. She had loved watching him recognize his old friends. She hadn’t thought about them wanting the old life back with him in it.

"I’m going to read this with my wife," Thorne said, indicating the route sheet. "Leave the address."

The man did, but he lingered before leaving. "They’ve been waiting for you."

Thorne watched him go. Dove put the trip sheet beneath her empty bottle before it could blow away. She wanted him to see his friends. She wanted him to be happy. But she had never met the man they remembered, and she couldn’t stop wondering what he might want back once they put his old life in front of him.