Chapter 98: The Bear Was Not Taking Better Offers

Edrik took his chair behind Dove’s counter and sat down. He stretched his legs carefully out of her working space, picked up the sandwich she’d left beside his cup, and looked at Saffra as though she had offered him a damp place to sleep.

"I already chose where I’m staying," he said, and took his time settling into the chair Dove had left close to hers.

"You aren’t her mate," Saffra said. "Does she even let you into her bed?"

Dove set the wrapping cloth down. "You didn’t come shopping, and my bedroom isn’t taking questions. Move your chair."

A customer holding a jar of coffee shifted behind the carriers. Saffra ignored him, staring at Edrik instead. Her dress was fine, her rings bright, and her expression suggested those things should have made the answer obvious.

"He’s hired help," she told Dove. "You could at least let him hear a better offer."

"No thanks," Edrik said. "I wasn’t planning on going cave diving anytime soon." He took another bite of his sandwich. Saffra frowned and said she was offering him proper quarters, not a cave. The waiting customer abruptly turned away, coughing into his sleeve while Thorne became very interested in the floor.

Dove pressed her lips together and waved the customer forward before she lost the fight with her face. Behind Saffra’s chair, her largest mate held his splinted hand against his chest. He wasn’t laughing. He watched Edrik eat the sandwich Dove had saved for him, then looked down when Saffra snapped at the uninjured carriers to move her chair.

Saffra ordered her chair lifted. Before the carriers moved, she leaned toward Dove. "You’ll wish you hadn’t made an enemy of me."

"I wanted to sell radios. You were the one who made it weird."

They carried her toward the guest shed. Dove watched until the last follower left her walkway, then told the coffee buyer they were closed for the evening. He asked her to save him first place tomorrow and left without trying to buy the chair beside her.

That night she woke once to Thorne’s hand settling over hers. The rear shutter stayed shut. Edrik moved quietly outside the bedroom, and she went back to sleep instead of getting up to check her bags.

Day Forty-Two brought another pool wash, warm breakfast wraps, and four family packs of cold-brew coffee cans. Sprout wanted three sold. Dove claimed the fourth before it finished explaining the cooler chest she could unlock. Between the weather and Saffra, she intended to keep at least one thing in her day cold and pleasant.

Dove stared at the cans until Thorne asked whether something was wrong.

"I might have to leave you for a beverage."

"Does it carry you?" he asked.

"No, but it doesn’t smirk when I have trouble walking before breakfast."

Edrik reached around her for a cloth and deliberately kept his hand clear of her waist. "I’d like it noted that I could also do both."

She pointed at his cup. "Drink your competition and behave."

Their laughter finished her Favor target, and she paid four to keep the coffee. Three customers traded peanut butter, pasta, soap, and a clean storage tin for the other packs. She tucked the tin away by touch and finished her active minutes between sales. Sprout could keep the full report; she was enjoying a drink with her lunch.

The cooler remained an unlocked option. She asked Sprout whether it made cold from nothing, and it cheerfully admitted that it only insulated. Useful, but not worth buying until she had something to keep cold.

A man with a folded blanket arrived near lunch. He waited until she finished a sale, then offered to bring her food every day if she let him visit after closing.

"I have dinner and a door that closes," Dove said. "I’m very attached to both."

He reached across the counter as though touching her wrist might improve the offer. Thorne’s hand landed between them, flat on the wood. The man’s fingers stopped inches away.

"She answered," Thorne said, his eyes fixed on the stranger’s outstretched hand until he pulled it back.

Dove rubbed her husband’s ear after the visitor left. His tail immediately curled toward her knee. Edrik watched with open interest, waiting until Thorne leaned farther into her hand before speaking.

"You’ve trained him to threaten people for scratches."

"He threatens people for free," Dove said. "This is because he listened."

Thorne tipped his head to give her better access. "You could try it. She’s generous when she’s happy."

Edrik smiled at her. "I was waiting for a demonstration."

She nearly smacked both their shoulders. Instead she took her hand back. Thorne followed it hopefully while Edrik leaned back, smiling as though waiting was something he could enjoy too.

"You can both survive until I’ve eaten my sandwich. Stop acting like I’m handing out oxygen."

They made room for her between their chairs. Thorne saved the pickle he knew she would steal, and Edrik pushed her drink into the shade before the sun reached it. She ate without having to explain either preference.

Thorne reached beneath the table and caught her hand. His thumb brushed the scrape on her palm, then settled somewhere it didn’t sting. Dove looked down at their fingers and stayed there a little longer than she’d meant to. After spending half the morning telling people to leave her alone, she didn’t want him to let go.

Edrik passed her a damp cloth instead of commenting. She cleaned the flour dust from her other hand and caught him watching the small smile she hadn’t bothered to hide. This time she let him see it.

After lunch, the kitchen owner whose blue-marked crate Saffra had tried to claim stopped at the counter. He was organizing a small trade run toward higher ground, he explained. Cooling repairs would help here, but the lower road was getting worse. He wanted to move owned canned goods and dry supplies while carts could still pass.

"I’d pay for a place beside that trip," Dove said, "if there were actual customers at the other end."

He described a truck stop with rooms and a diner. She asked for the route, costs, and the name of someone who had been there recently. He promised details after the loading space was cleared.

The keeper had reserved that space for the cold-shed work and the owners’ goods. When Dove walked down to inspect it, wooden crates filled the whole dry patch. She recognized the red cord tied around them before the supply man spoke.

"Saffra said they stay," he told her. "She said you could work around them."

Dove looked at the narrow strip of mud left beside the repaired door. Then she turned toward the men waiting to load their paid goods and asked which of them had agreed to that.