“I always sleep above the sinks,” he told her with a sniff as he climbed back down and came back.
Of course he did. The hellish residual heat rising up from the stove and ovens would be reserved for the sous. She didn’t even bother rolling her eyes as she slid past him to climb the rungs on the left and put her own bag away.
“Hurry up,” Domenico snapped when she pulled back the curtain to look at her meager sleep space. “We need to complete our inspection and be sure nothing is missing.”
She dutifully hopped back down. The next five hours proceeded exactly as she expected. Domenico was furious with Alex for putting him in this position, but too frightened of the Agent to refuse. The fear, however, did not extend to her. He’d obviously decided to make her life as difficult as possible.
It didn’t take her long to conclude Domenico fluttered from shelf to shelf noting the items he had deliberately forgotten to stock. The realization did not help her disposition as she ran back and forth from his car to the rear of the column where the supply trucks were in various stages of being loaded. Searching manifests for specific items and then sorting through the crates themselves, over and over, was exhausting in the full heat of the day. The embarrassment of returning to the foreman again and again added to her foul mood.
By the time Domenico pronounced everything in its place, she wore a gritty coating of dust. Her eyes burned from salty sweat and from smoke billowing from the rear kitchen area. An hour before, as dusk had fallen, the fires had blazed as cooks prepped dinner for the masses. She ran through the area with every trip, eyes tearing and stomach growling.
As soon as Domenico made his proclamation, she turned and slid the door open. Domenico’s rapid footsteps chased her as she swung down from the car. The raucous voices and laughter from gathered workers sharing their first meal in the open sounded like freedom.
“Where do you think you’re going?” He sounded offended again. “We take all of our meals in here.”
The smoky fragrant breeze flowing outside the car raised gooseflesh on her sweat-dampened skin. She looked past him to the hot, closed space of the car. She could only imagine how much more miserable it would be once the boiler to power the steam engine was lit. She refused to spend every hour hiding in this car, even if it meant she spent the next days on constant alert.
“No,” she told him firmly, “we don’t.” She strode away, weaving through the trucks and trailers she’d spent the afternoon darting between, and was gone before Domenico had even managed an exit.
Once she was sure Domenico wouldn’t be pursuing her to pinch at her shirt in distaste and drag her back, she relaxed. She wandered through the gathered caravaners, lost in the crowd and the gathering dark. Were Alex and Jackson settled into their places within the caravan yet? Hoping to see Alex was pointless. Even if she caught a glimpse as he went about his duties as a senior member of the retinue, he’d pretend not to notice her. She understood that, and why, but it didn’t help her mood now.
She hadn’t expected there would be so many workers, although it did make sense. Scouts roved ahead and behind in the wild lands they’d move through. The caravan also needed drivers, and loaders, and techs in case equipment went wrong. While the trucks themselves were steam-powered and not electric, people still depended upon the old power. There had to be Sparks. And someone had to cook for all of them.
Even more than an hour after they’d started serving, a short line waited for food. Once she had her food, she went to hide in the shadows cast by a bonfire. She balanced her wooden plate on her lap and leaned back against the big wheel of a cargo truck to watch the others as she ate.
Although she’d come to look forward to Alex’s all-too-brief visits, to laughing and talking and touching, neither the darkness nor the lack of company tonight bothered her much. She’d spent so much of her childhood alone, trapped in the house, that the solitude of her existence out in the desert had been calming. The constant light and movement and mental presence of so many others at Fort Nevada was overwhelming. Here, she wasn’t a part of the hum of voices and laughter and the occasional shout. She curled around her plate in the darkness and went unnoticed by those around her. Or so she wished.
“What are you doing out here?” Jackson appeared out of the dark and squatted down beside her, keeping his voice low. He had clearly been taking inscrutable stare lessons from Alex. She gestured at her plate, to indicate the obvious. Jackson waited for a verbal response.
“Avoiding my boss so I don’t kill him.” Her voice was low, but she didn’t bother to keep the agitation from it. “The man is insufferable.”
“Don’t you like insufferable men?”
She could see that Jackson immediately regretted the words.