Stars of Fortune
Page 75

By the time she sat down she could have wept and whimpered for coffee, but she damn well knew where her center was as it quivered from exhaustion and begged for food. Sawyer produced a platter with a golden mountain of pancakes. Where she’d usually have eaten one, she ate three, actually contemplated a fourth before she decided it might make her sick.
Doyle looked across the table at her. “You’re up.”
“I don’t want to be up. Maybe not ever again.”
“I believe he means your clever and creative chart.” Bran gestured to where Annika had propped it on a chair, like another team member.
“Oh. Well. I’ve got me and Bran on cleanup, Riley on Apollo and chickens.”
“Wolf in the henhouse.”
Riley sent Sawyer a sharp, sweet smile. “You’re a barrel of monkeys.”
“Annika and I hit the garden to weed and harvest,” Sasha continued.
“I’m on the pool, Bran’s on the lawn mower. Annika’s on laundry.” Sawyer grinned at the chart. “Leaves Riley and Doyle on the supply run. I think I like the pictures of the bag of groceries and boxes of ammo best.”
“Give me ten for the cluckers, another ten to grab a shower.” Riley downed the rest of her coffee. “Another five to make a call, see where we’ll find the best place for the ammo.”
“The household supply list is on the dresser in my room.”
Nodding at Sasha, Riley pushed away from the table. “Got it. Fifteen tops,” she said and jogged off. How could she jog , Sasha wondered bitterly, to deal with the chickens?
“Might as well grab a swim before I play pool boy.”
Doyle rose as Sawyer did. “Fifteen minutes to add anything to the supply list, otherwise, you get what you get.”
Annika sat a moment after the others left, then looked apologetically at Sasha. “I don’t know how to laundry. Can you teach me?”
“Go ahead.” Bran waved them away. “I’ve got this.”
*   *   *
By the time she’d finished giving Annika a lesson on separating clothes, water temperatures, cycles, he’d nearly finished the dishes.
So she and her partner for the morning went out to the garden with hoes, rakes, shears, and a plastic tub from the shed.
They worked with Annika happily humming. She could hear the rumble of the lawn mower, the drone of bees, and the swish of the sea at the base of the cliff.
All so normal, Sasha thought, so everyday. Anyone looking at the picture would see a group of people tending to household chores. But they were far more.
She bided her time, noting that Annika caught on quickly to hoeing out the weeds, just as she’d caught on quickly to the basics of doing laundry.
But she’d clearly done neither before.
“So you have six sisters,” Sasha began.
“Yes.”
“You must miss them.”
“I do, but I’m happy here. Even though we have to fight, and some of the work is hard.”
“Six sisters,” Sasha repeated. “And you’ve never done laundry before.”
“Today I’m doing laundry.”
“So you had staff?”
Obviously puzzled, Annika straightened, mimed holding a tall stick. “Staff?”
“Not that kind. People. People who do things like laundry and cooking and cleaning.”
“Oh. We’re staff now.”
Annika bent back to her weeding, avoiding Sasha’s eye.
“You’ve never really said where you live.”
Annika weeded another moment, then stopped, turned to face Sasha again. “Will you be my friend?”
“I am your friend.”
“Will you be my friend and not ask what I can’t tell you? I can promise, I have nothing bad. It’s . . .”
“Like an oath.”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Annika reached out to take Sasha into a hug. “Thank you. You taught me laundry.” She eased back, smiling. “I’ll teach you how to . . .” Bending over, she lifted her legs into a ridiculously fluid handstand.
“I think that’s going to take a lot longer than teaching you how to do laundry.”
“I’ll teach you.” Annika dropped down again. “And we’ll find the stars. When we do, and they’re where they belong, I can tell you everything.”
“All right. And whatever it is, we’re still going to be friends.”
After gardening and laundry, after supplies were put away and they ate the gyros Riley brought back from the village, Sasha had her first lesson in gun safety.
A very patient Sawyer spent considerable time with her and Annika—the only ones who’d never fired a gun—showing them how to load, unload, reload, how to sight, how to use the safety, how to take it off.
As instructed, Annika slapped the magazine into one of Sawyer’s 9 mms.
“I don’t like it. It feels cold and mean.”
“You don’t have to like it. You have to respect it. A lot of GSWs are accidents, from carelessness. Gunshot wounds,” he explained. “People who don’t learn how to properly handle a gun, who don’t properly secure it when not in use. Some insist guns don’t kill. People do. But guns do kill, and knowing that, respecting that, is really important.”
“Did this gun kill someone?”
“No. But I know it can. I know I can. If there’s no choice.”