Page 14 of Help Wanted: Wife

“The robo crew is due to finish the construction of the cabinetry by next week, then the appliances can be installed,” he explained. “There will be a counter with see-through cases here.” He gestured to a spot on the floor while walking toward the back. “A wall will separate the sales floor from the work areas.

“A panel will go here, sectioning off a small office.” He pointed to the left, took a few more steps, spread his arms, and turned in a circle. “The kitchen! Most of the commercial appliances in the apartment will be relocated here, but new stuff is on order, too.”

“It’s a big space,” she said.

He nodded. “We’ll have double the ovens and mixers, with space for more as the business grows.” He pointed to the back wall. “Cooling racks will go there.”

“Island in the middle?” she asked.

“Yes, a huge one.”

She spun around, surveying the vacant room as if envisioning its completion. Her brows drew together in a tiny frown.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Can two people handle all the baking for a shop this size?”

“I’m hoping we won’t have to. I’ve applied for a loan to buy a full-service robo. The kind we need is a little expensive.” Astronomically expensive. Sometimes he broke into a sweat thinking of the debt he’d incur. He couldn’t expand the shop without the robo, but, until the business grew, he couldn’t afford the robo. He’d decided to take the leap because, in the long run, having an android would save money.

“A robo will free us up to handle the customers and do the creative stuff. It can be programmed with the recipes, and it can bake all night. While it does the basics, we can bake the special orders and experiment with new recipes.” He gave her the same argument he’d been telling himself.

“That’s a good idea!”

“It’s not a done deal. I’m still waiting to hear if I got approved for the loan.”

“Let’s hope so. Fingers crossed.” She held up her hand and then moved to the window, looking into the corridor that went around the perimeter of the offices and shops centered in the cloudtopper. The cloudtopper exterior walls were glass. There was nothing to see except the opposite building, but they were high enough that they weren’t staring at graffiti. “We’re putting in tables by the window, right?”

“Tables? No…why would we?”

“For customers! We can create a little café. They’ll come in, sit, eat a sweet roll, smell the bread baking, and leave with a loaf or two or a pie, already available. It shouldn’t be too much extra work.”

He blinked. “I like it! There wasn’t room for a café at the cozi, but there is here.”

“We can sell coffee, too. I can have it imported from Terra Nova.”

He made a face.

“Okay, you don’t like coffee, but humans do. And they can’t get it on Caradonia. They’ll come for coffee and will bring their husbands. They’ll buy baked goods.”

“That might work,” he admitted. He had doubts coffee would be a hot seller, but the café itself was a great idea.

He should have thought of it himself. Smart, quick, Prudence had a good head for business. The fact she was pleasing to the eye came as a bonus. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been noticing, but he was a man. He found her paleness exotic, her blue eyes striking, her freckles fascinating. Her ass, remarkable. Her presence would be a draw. He couldn’t have picked a better partner.

Her hesitation at the ceremony had almost caused him to go into cardiac arrest. For a heart-stopping moment, he’d feared she’d had second thoughts and intended to say no. In a flash, his ambivalence had evaporated, and he’d realized he very much wanted to marry her, for business reasons, of course. Perceptive and pleasant, she would be a tremendous asset, and he liked her.

But maybe she didn’t feel the same. “Do you still have doubts about this?”

“No. I’m confident the bakery will be a huge success now that I know we might have a robo to assist. I wondered about how we would manage to get all the baking done. I saw how much is required to stock the cozi. If you hadn’t had the batter and dough premade, the cases would have been empty this morning. I was worried about how we would stock enough baked goods for this place.”

“No, I meant about what we are doing. Us. Our marriage. At the ceremony, you paused when it came time to take your vows.”

Pink tinged her face. “I, uh, got distracted.”

“Distracted?”

“By what you had said.”

What had he said? “I don’t know what you mean.”

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