Chapter 170: He Could Load the Boxes and Shut Up

Nolan stopped the Base A purchasing officer inside reception before his crew reached the dining room. Dove joined them with her signed agreement, leaving today’s clothing stock in the cabinet beside the dining-room wall. The cook pointed customers toward the buttons. Thorne stayed beside their load near the service exit. Edrik came with her.

"You’re early," she said. "And nobody confirmed that you should bring a collection crew."

The officer glanced toward the carriers, then past them to the kitchen door. He said the base needed equipment and that, since the recovery had been successful, they should avoid unnecessary delays.

Dove placed the paper on the reception desk. "The trade isn’t finished. The equipment isn’t abandoned, and needing it doesn’t make it yours. Which part would you like repeated?"

His smile tightened. Behind him, two workers looked at Nolan’s face and slowed down. The driver remained near the entrance, apparently less eager than his employer to begin the morning by stealing from people who had fed them directions at the gate.

The officer tried Edrik next, asking whether he understood the importance of food transport.

"I understand my wife asked you a question," Edrik said. "Answer it before you make another mistake."

He sounded almost pleasant. Dove knew the difference between pleasant and harmless, and from the way the officer’s gaze dropped to his hands, she suspected the man was learning too.

She tapped the signed page. Four sound carriers, subject to availability and agreed payment. No claim on the rest of the kitchen. No permission to remove goods before the owner accepted the trade.

"Your signature’s very clear," she added. "I’d hate for you to discover a sudden difficulty reading beside it."

Nolan stood behind the desk with his rifle kept low and out of the argument. He had allowed them in as traders. Dove planted herself beside the carriers before his men could start lifting them. Nolan had trusted her enough to open the gate; she wasn’t letting this man turn her visit into a theft.

She asked the driver to contact Iris through the crew’s radio. The officer began to object, then stopped when Dove asked whether he expected Iris to disagree with the document she had also signed.

While they waited, Dove returned to the trade she had actually come to make. Nolan showed her the cooling unit’s test results and the repaired fan. It had run through the agreed check. He explained the supply it needed, the ventilation space, and what he could reasonably promise about a used appliance.

She did not ask her husbands to decide whether she was allowed to want it. She asked them to help check how it would travel. Thorne measured the bed space beside their cart; Edrik checked the straps and suggested padding the corners with folded cloth.

They could carry it without stacking heavy things against the vents. That was an answer Dove could use.

Nolan accepted her offered goods for the cooling unit, rack, linens, and four carriers. Dove checked his receipt before putting it away, then laid a hand on her new cooler. Iris would get the four boxes. This was coming home with her.

The officer looked toward the exit as though her own purchases were an unreasonable delay. Dove took her time choosing which linens would cushion the cooler. She had earned every damn thing in this pile, and he could wait while she enjoyed it.

Sprout added the paid-for goods to her inventory notes when she asked. It did not pay coins for buying a fridge, which she told it was a disappointing lack of imagination. It did remind her that her socks were attracting customers while she argued about something else.

The cabinet handled five approved trades for men whose socks had been repaired beyond dignity. Dove returned to approve the remaining offers. Nobody had needed to wait for the officer to finish being important.

The cook changed into a fresh pair behind the kitchen door and returned looking as though his whole morning had improved. Dove liked that almost as much as she liked proving the officer could not consume every minute of her day.

Thorne brought her a warm meat sandwich wrapped in paper. She ate half while Edrik kept customers clear of her chair, then offered him a bite. He took it, looking at her rather than the food, and she felt the ridiculous private warmth of last night return in the middle of a busy lobby.

"You’re supposed to be helping," she murmured.

"I am. You’re eating, and nobody’s annoying you."

She glanced toward the officer. "We have different definitions of nobody."

The radio answer arrived before she finished the sandwich. Iris confirmed the limited order, the payment, and that she had not authorized a broader recovery. The driver asked Dove which four carriers were being loaded instead of waiting for the officer to invent another plan.

The boxes went onto the crew’s truck after the payment goods were checked. Charging access remained a written agreement for their return. Dove’s cooling unit, rack, linens, and personal finds stayed with their pickup. Thorne checked the tied load while Edrik drove a few feet forward so Nolan could inspect the straps from both sides.

The officer stood beside his truck, unhappy and finally occupied with loading rather than speaking. Dove wished him a safe trip with enough sincerity to make Edrik smile behind his hand.

Before leaving, she thanked Nolan and the cook. She had come for supplies and found people who understood a fair trade. That was worth remembering, especially when the next traveler might describe an occupied hotel as an easy place to take things.

Dove packed the empty storefront. Their two vehicles left the service lot along the access road, the freight truck ahead and Dove’s pickup well behind. Rainwater still ran through the ditch, carrying silt toward the low bend Nolan had warned them about.

The truck’s brake lights came on suddenly. Its driver got out, looked beneath the front wheel, and waved both arms at Edrik to stop.

Dove leaned forward in her seat. Mud was slipping from the road edge in small, steady pieces, and the loaded truck had stopped directly above the gap.