“You didn’t lose it, did you?” he asked.

“Not yet. But Cheryl told me to take next week off. Apparently the government has seized our inventory. ‘To prevent panic buying,’ they say.”

Trent would never understand how Donna could sit on news like that for hours, waiting for the right time to deliver it. When Trent lost his job, she’d known about it the moment he got in the house. Hell, before that, probably, by the way he’d slammed the garage door. But she—she hadn’t given him a clue until just now.

“Damn it,” he said. “Those sons of— Aw, damn it. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“Not your fault.” He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “I know just what you’re thinkin’ right now, and it’s not true.”

“What, you mean the U.S. government isn’t made up of selfish bastards who couldn’t give a shit about what’s actually best for the average person?”

He couldn’t help a wry grin. “Okay, that’s true enough, but I was thinkin’ about you. It’s not your fault.”

“I know that. But we’re going to be getting mighty hungry in about a month even so.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, wishing he could feel half as confident as he forced himself to sound. “We’ll figure out something.”

“I hope.”

He gave her hand a squeeze. “Now I know why you’re so hot to head off into the wild blue yonder.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, well. If nothing else, it’ll be a good vacation, and lord knows, we could use one.”

“I suppose we could.”

The waitress showed up just then with their hamburgers. Trent looked at the half pound of beef in a bun and the pound or so of “freedom fries” surrounding it on the plate. He’d been hungry before, but suddenly he felt ravenous.