Chapter Eleven

"Keep your eyes closed. No peeking," Larth said.

"I'm not!"

Hands on her shoulders, he guided Prudence off the vaporator. He couldn't wait to show off the bakery. She'd seen the earlier stages, but not the completion with all the finishing touches. Everything was ready for the grand opening in a week. The shop had turned out even better than he'd envisioned, and he owed it all to her. Many ideas implemented had been hers, and he could not have supervised the construction, done the baking for the stall, and manned the booth without her. Alone, he would have been in over his head.

The door slid open, and the aroma of fresh bread wafted out. The biggest surprise—the android—was hidden in the kitchen, but he hoped Pru would be just as thrilled with how the café turned out. He squeezed her shoulders. "Okay, open your eyes."

Her gaze shot upward to the SALA'S BAKERY sign, which had gone up yesterday. This is all for you, Sala. I promised you a bakery. His chest tightened with a double dose of guilt. Sometimes he felt like he was betraying her by being with Prudence. Other times, he felt like he was letting Prudence down. Technically, they were married, but theirs was a business arrangement—except for the camaraderie, support, conversation, humor, and sex. But didn't co-workers, business partners sometimes sleep together? He'd heard of that happening.

"Smells like somebody's been baking." She smiled at him.

"Wait," he said. That was the big surprise—to be revealed shortly.

Prudence inspected the cleaned-and-shined glass cases awaiting baked goods, then she pivoted to survey the half dozen round cheery-yellow café tables and chairs. Not only would it be convenient for patrons to eat in, but hopefully the sight of customers enjoying delicious baked goods would entice people working and visiting in the building to come in and try for themselves.

"It's wonderful. It looks like a real bakery! The café part is amazing!" She trailed a hand over a table. "These are perfect. Good selection of sizes." There were tables for two and for four besides a bar with stools along the window. She dropped her gaze to the blue- yellow-and-green-checked floor. "Everything is so warm and welcoming."

She eyed the blue sign on the wall before moving to the self-serve beverage station. Customers could dispense their own drinks and pay for them with a tap to their wrist. She fondled the special brewing machine he'd scoured the HyperSphere to find, purchase, and express ship so it would get here on time for the grand opening. "Is this what I think it is?"

He grinned. "Yes. Check the cabinet underneath."

With a touch of her finger, she popped open the door. "Coffee!" She hugged a bag of beans to her chest. "I only ordered coffee from Terra Nova the other day. How did it get here so fast?"

"This isn't your order; it's mine. I submitted it the first day you suggested it."

Her jaw dropped. "That was weeks ago."

"I knew we needed to jump on it right away to receive it by the grand opening. The Cosmic Mates office helped me since I didn't know what to buy or how to go about getting it. I wanted to surprise you."

"You—you did." Her lower lip quivered, and she fanned her face.

He chuckled and hugged her. "You do like your coffee, don't you?" He couldn't stomach the stuff, but he was willing to gamble other human women would like it. He trusted Prudence's judgment.

Shaking her head against his shoulder, she sniffed. "It's not the coffee. It's that you got it for me because I like it."

He squeezed her tight. "That's not even the biggest surprise. Come into the kitchen." Taking her hand, he led her around the counter toward the back. "Office equipment will go there." He pointed to a large console with two chairs tucked in a cubicle between the customer area and the kitchen. The DataDrive hadn't been moved over yet. Until the new bakery opened, it would be more convenient to do the books at home.

"Big enough for both of us," she said.

"That's the idea." Sometimes they needed to sit side by side to review the financials, decide on what supplies to order.

A door slid open, and they entered the kitchen.

"Oh my god!" Pru gasped.

He blinked. What the fizzak!

Every single rack was laden to the max with baked goods. There had to be at least seventy-five loaves of bread, five dozen pies, trays and trays of breakfast rolls. Every single machine whirred away. The kneaders were twisting and punching bread, a conveyor fed pie crust into the rollers before taking it to a stamp press to be cut into rounds, and mixers whirled cake batter. Every single oven was fired up and baking.

Don3.5F, their android, was in the process of adding ingredients to a huge bowl.

"Stop!" he shouted. "Don3.5F, stop right now."

The android froze.

He stared, taking it all in. What were they going to do with all this stuff? They could never sell all this in a day or even two days at the cozi. They'd be lucky to move this much product in a week, but it would go stale long before then.

"Fizzak. This is my fault." He glanced at a wide-eyed Pru. Her hand was clapped over her mouth. "The android came yesterday. I programmed it with our specific recipes. As a test, I ordered it to bake a selection of everything. But I forgot to tell it how much or when to stop. It's been working since yesterday morning."

A snort erupted through Prudence's fingers.

"Are you laughing?" he asked incredulously.

Blue eyes crinkled. She shook her head. "No…" But a definite titter slipped past her lips, and then she er upted into giggles. Her shoulders shook, and she doubled over.

"This isn't funny! Ingredients cost money, and we're going to have to throw a lot of this stuff away." With dismay, he assessed the racks of bread and upped his estimated count to about a hundred loaves. There were slow periods when he didn't sell that much in a week! Only insomnia had enabled him to keep up with the baking before Pru, and even then, he'd only been able to stock the basics. They'd gone from having barely enough inventory to having an overabundance. His lips twitched. Seconds later, a chuckle slipped from his mouth, and then he was laughing uproariously.

The hyper-efficient android who never required sleep had baked multiples of every kind of pie in the recipe collection. Hand suspended, it remained frozen at the mixing bowl. Only the light whirling atop its head revealed it was still active.

"I've never owned an android before," he said. "I guess there's a learning curve to giving one instructions."

She started laughing again. "Just don't tell her fudge bars can lead to death by chocolate. "

He had no idea what she meant by that but said, "Her?"

She nodded. "She's female."

"Androids don't have a gender."

"This one does. She has an hourglass figure. No boobs, but she has a narrow waist, hips wider than her shoulders—and she works harder than any man would." Teasingly, she bumped his shoulder. "I assume she speaks?"

He nodded. "Don3.5F, come say—"

"Eff?"

"That's part of the model number."

"Care to bet the F stands for female?"

" Don3.5F come here and say hello to my wife, Prudence McKenna."

Hips swaying, the android sashayed over. "Hello, Larth's wife Prudence McKenna," came the robotic but distinctly feminine voice. "I am ready to serve." Fizzak! It had spoken to him when he'd uploaded the recipes to its data storage chip. How had he not noticed the voice?

Prudence shot him a smug grin before greeting the android. "Hello. I'm very glad you're with us. You can call me Prudence."

"Thank you, Prudence. "

"What would you like us to call you?"

"I do not have a name. I am model Don3.5F, the top-of-the-line, most productive and efficient android ever created by Caradonia Android Company Incorporated."

"You are that," he commented dryly. Part of the excessive production wasn't just a result of working all night but was also due to the android's ability to compute an optimal work sequence to deliver maximum output in the shortest amount of time.

"You need a name. Not just a model number. Would it be okay if we called you Donna?" Prudence said.

"You may call me whatever you wish. I am here to serve."

"I look forward to working with you and finding out what you can do."

"I can perform most domestic and commercial tasks. Would you like a list?"

"No, that's okay," Pru said.

"Donna, please finish whatever batter you were making, but don't bake it," he instructed. "Store it in the chillerator. Don't bake the pies you have started. Freeze them, too. And for stars' sake, don't start anything else until we give you further instructions. "

"Yes, Larth." She walked to the mixer with a distinctive feminine wiggle.

He glanced at Prudence. She was shaking her head. "How could you not notice?"

"Now, why would I pay attention to a female android"—he pulled her into his arms—"when I have such a beautiful wife?"

An unreadable expression flitted across her face, but then she smiled. "Good answer. You're a clever man."

She was beautiful, and a sharp pang of guilt stung him at the notion he was being unfair to her. Caught between past and present, he couldn't deal with the emotional turmoil; he had enough to handle. He stepped back and swept out his arm to encompass the overabundance of baked goods. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to flip a negative into a positive. It's a sunk cost at this point. We may as well use the excess product for marketing."

"I don't understand."

"We have a week before the grand opening. Let's set aside what we need for the cozi for the next day or two then take the rest of the pies, breads, and cakes to nearby companies to share with their employees. We'll invite them to the grand opening. Then we'll go around the cozi and give away whatever we have left."

"We already have the sample plate."

"Only existing customers see it. We'll walk around the cozi and reach new customers. We won't earn any money on the freebies, but if they start patronizing the bakery, we'll recoup our loss."

"You're not just beautiful, you're smart." What would I do without you? He couldn't imagine life without Pru anymore. It wasn't just what she'd done for the business but the way she brightened his life.

"Thank you. It's nice to have my ideas respected."

She'd enabled him to find humor in a calamity and then turned it into an opportunity. She'd brought lightness and joy to his life. Grief had faded into a memory, and Prudence occupied his thoughts more often than Sala did. He didn't know how to handle his growing attachment and the conflict it stirred. I promised I'd be loyal forever, and now I'm falling for another woman.

Not any woman. My wife.

He'd assumed he'd be able to compartmentalize, use sex to blunt the grief. It had blunted the grief all right. Before his first marriage, he'd slept with other women without getting emotionally involved, but sex with Prudence had become intensely personal. Intimate.

I love— "I don't know what Sala's Bakery would do without you."

"I'm going to count how many bags of coffee we have." She left the kitchen.