Chapter 291: She Wanted a Window, Not a Wedding

Alden stood beside the table for a long moment, looking at Dove as though she had cheated during a game only he knew they were playing.

She waited. The coffee warmed her hands. She held the mug because putting it down would show how badly they shook.

"I’m not angry," he said at last.

"Good. Then can we ask again?"

"Not on an open channel. People listen."

"People already know I’m here."

The words came out before she could soften them, but she didn’t regret them. Alden glanced at the doorway. He was worried about listeners too, just different ones.

He picked up the radio and clipped it to his belt.

"Eat your breakfast."

Dove took a spoonful of oatmeal. She hated that he had ended the conversation, but she had learned something: her message had reached somebody, and he didn’t want a room full of men hearing him refuse a hurt woman’s question.

That gave her a place to push.

"If I’m staying in that room," she said, "I need a different mattress. It smells like somebody left it in a ditch."

"It was dry."

"Those can be two separate problems."

He looked down at her scraped knee, now cleaner but still tender. "You’ll have the better room when you’re ready."

"The one with the window?"

He nodded. She let herself look interested in the window. She was interested in the window. He could misunderstand the reason all he liked.

"Can I see it?"

His expression eased so quickly it made her stomach turn. He thought this was progress between them. She thought this was progress toward seeing the yard from above.

Alden waited while she finished eating, then led her out the back door. The morning heat already pressed against the brick walls. Flies crowded the rim of a trash barrel near the shed. One truck had been moved overnight; the orange one now faced the gate instead of the fence.

Lyle stood beside it, arguing with the driver about a tire. Dove watched the keys swing at his hip.

The wooden stairs climbed the outside of the shed to the small upstairs office. Alden walked behind her, close enough that she could feel his attention on her legs. She hated it. She also refused to trip because she was busy hating it.

At the top, a narrow landing overlooked the entire yard. The truck gate slid sideways along a metal track. A smaller service gate stood at the far end of the drainage strip, partly hidden by weeds. It opened onto a dirt path beyond the fence.

Dove looked away before Alden followed her gaze.

"Nice view," she said.

"Lovely view, lovelier you." He lifted the glass of apple juice he had carried upstairs, as though they were making a toast.

Dove left her hands at her sides. She would rather drink out of the toilet than clink glasses over this.

I have never missed my beast husbands’ terrible lines this much.

They were usually better than that, Sprout observed.

Don’t let Edrik hear you say usually.

The upstairs office held a bed, a dresser, and a desk pushed beneath the window. A battery fan moved warm air across the sheets. There were curtains, clean enough to smell of detergent instead of oil. Alden had made himself comfortable while the men downstairs slept beside trucks.

"Room to rest, away from the rest," he said.

A framed photograph lay facedown beside the lamp. She left it alone. Whatever man Alden had been before the freeze, she did not need to discover a sad explanation and accidentally start feeling responsible for him. The room told her enough: he had curtains, a real bed, and a place nobody entered without knocking. He understood privacy perfectly well when it was his.

Dove stopped beside the desk. Below the window, the orange truck’s open cab showed a bench seat, a steering wheel, and a blue lunch cooler. Ordinary things. She had driven a van. She could drive something else if she could get inside it.

"Does that truck work?"

Alden followed her glance. "Of course."

"I thought you were short on fuel."

His eyes narrowed slightly. She should not have said that. She had heard the argument yesterday, but telling him how much she noticed would only make him watch harder.

"Everybody’s short on something," she added. "That room downstairs is short on air."

He accepted the change because it returned the conversation to what he could give her. "You could stay here now."

"I haven’t slept properly. I don’t want company."

"No need to rush. No need to fuss."

He said it kindly. He stood between her and the door while saying it.

Dove looked at his face and decided not to pretend she hadn’t noticed. "Could you move? I want to go back down."

For one uncomfortable second, he didn’t. Then he stepped aside with a little bow, making a performance of allowing something that should never have needed permission.

She walked past him without thanking him.

On the landing, she took another look at the gate. The service path led along the outside fence toward the road, hidden from the front office by the shed. There was her way around the men watching the main entrance, if she could get the smaller gate open.

Below, Rusk stood near the rear office door. He wasn’t looking at the truck. He was crouched beside the bathroom doorway, talking to the former Warren guard.

Dove slowed halfway down the stairs.

Rusk held something between two fingers. Pale fur. He turned it in the light, looked toward the yard, then toward her.

Her stomach dropped.

He found it, she told Sprout.

One piece, Sprout answered. Not every piece.

She kept moving. Running would only tell him he was right.

Rusk rose as she reached the bottom. His smile was uglier than it had been yesterday, because now he thought he had caught her doing something Alden would dislike.

"Shedding a lot, aren’t you?"

Dove brushed a loose strand from her skirt. "You should try it. Might improve the smell."

Alden sighed behind her. Rusk didn’t look at him.

He held out the little pinch of fur.

"Then explain why she tucked this under a door."