She saw in Tandri’s face, composed though it was, that she was awaiting some judgment. Preparing herself for it, to be struck, ignored, or accepted.
And terrified of all three.
Viv’s hand rose and carefully tucked Tandri’s singed hair behind one ear.
With a sharply drawn breath, she tipped her head forward, and brushed her lips against Tandri’s, light as a whisper.
Then she wrapped her arms around her and tried not to squeeze too hard.
Tandri squeezed back.
* * *
Cal was wrong.It took thirteen trips to the midden to clear away the debris. Viv didn’t know where he’d rented the cart and pony from and was too ashamed to ask. It was the work of a week to shovel and hoist the ashes and cracked tile and stone into the back of the wagon.
The oven was a mangled wreck of slag that flaked apart when she tried to drag it from the debris. Cal kept aside a few stones and bricks that might prove useful, stacked to one cleared end of the lot.
Mopping her brow with a forearm, Viv looked down at him. “I still don’t see how I’ll afford the stone and lumber for this, much less the labor. Is there really any point in clearing it all away?” The acid was gone from her voice, replaced by a stoic flatness.
He cocked back his hat and tugged at one of his long ears. “Hm. What’d you say to me at the docks? ‘You do it even when some might say it’s wiser not to,’ I think? Well. Guess I’ll just say… maybe be unwise a little longer.”
Viv couldn’t think of a response to that, so she got back to hauling and lost herself in the demanding physicality of the work.
She was taken aback when Pendry showed up on the second day with no lute in evidence. With a nervous little nod, he pitched in to help. Viv had to admit, his big, rough hands looked perfectly natural hauling stone. When she began to offer to pay him, he stopped her.
“No,” he said and shook his head. And that was all.
Tandri intermittently appeared and disappeared with water or bread and cheese, and Viv tried not to stare after her too hard, or to think overmuch about that single, stolen kiss.
* * *
Cal arrivedwith a cartload of bricks and river stone.
“Where’s this from?” asked Viv, squinting at him as he climbed down from the buckboard.
“Well. Those’ns come from the quarry. And those’ns from the river. Gonna have to leave you two to unload ’em. Ain’t tall enough for this.”
Viv and Pendry shifted the stone into piles on the lot.
Cal stacked a few of the bricks and planks to form a makeshift table and bent over a roll of paper with a stylus and a ruling stick. Tandri huddled over it with him.
As Viv approached them, breathing hard, Cal looked up. “Figured if we’re goin’ to all the work, best build it back better, hm? Two ovens shouldn’t be a problem with a bigger kitchen, I figure. So. Take a look.”
Viv stared down at his neatly drafted plans.
“That kid needs a dipper of water,” said Tandri, holding a hand over her eyes as she looked across the lot at Pendry. “I’ll be back.”
When she was gone, Viv looked back at Cal and pointed at the paper. “Is this the loft?”
“’Tis.”
“There’s something else I want to change,” she said. And then hesitated. “If… if you’re willing?”
“I’m waitin’.”
So she told him.
* * *
