Free A Hero's Reward by Amy Morrel

over easy please with two bacon and two slices of toast.”
    Margaret proceeded to whip up breakfast
for the two of them. The coffee was done before breakfast and by that
point Greg felt well enough to stand and pour a cup for each of them.
He sat back down at the table and sipped his coffee as Margaret
cooked.
    When she set the plates in front of
them both and sat down to eat herself, Greg had to resist wolfing
down his food. As the pain faded, his appetite had increased. He
settled himself in to eat slowly. His frequent glances at Margaret
showed him that the dress she was wearing was entirely unflattering
to her. He hadn't taken the time to notice when he had seen it on
her, briefly, the other night. He wondered if that were intentional
or not. He didn't think that asking her would be a good idea though.
Since he planned on buying her some new clothes, if he could find any
way to convince her to accept them, he'd try to have some say in what
she got.
    Once he was finished breakfast, he
leaned back.
    “Thank you, that was wonderful,
just what I needed.”
    “You're welcome.”
    “Okay, so we need to go to the
DMV today, then on the way back we'll stop at a grocery store as
well. One other thing, what bank do you use? Maybe we can stop at a
branch and see about replacing your debit card also.”
    “Oh, I use First State. I know
where the two nearest branches are but not what might be near the
DMV.”
    “We can always stop at one of the
close branches after our other errands if we don't see another one
while we're out. Is there any reason we shouldn't just start our
errands now?”
    “Do you have a grocery list? It's
always better to shop with a list, you end up spending less money.”
    “Ummm, no. As you noticed, I
mostly stock stuff I can make quickly. We can make one if you like.
If you'll be doing the cooking, you need to make up the list though.”
    “I can do that, it won't take me
more than half an hour. I might have to ask you where you keep a few
things though so I know if you have them or not.”
    “Well, let me get a pencil and
some paper and you can get to work on that. I'm going to check my
email, I'm expecting one from my boss since he mentioned he had news
for me when I was talking to him yesterday.”
    Pencil and paper delivered, Greg sat
down at his computer. When he opened his email and read the message
from his boss, he gave out a low whistle. Margaret overheard and
asked:
    “Is something wrong?”
    “No, entirely the opposite. My
boss is telling me that the plug for the company I gave during
interviews has netted us a bunch more jobs. Around fifteen at first,
mostly minor repairs. But then after the ice storm the other night we
picked up another twenty jobs, some of them not so minor. He tells me
he's going to temp hire a few guys from another company to make sure
he can get them all done on time but not too worry about it, my two
weeks isn't up yet.”
    “Well, that's wonderful news.”
    “That's not even the best, what I
whistled about was his comment at the end. He's been talking on and
off for a couple of years now about making me a partner in the
company and letting me buy him out when he's ready to retire in
another five or ten years. He says if the business levels stay picked
up that he'll make that official in another month or so after I get
back. The levels just might stay up since a lot of our jobs come from
word of mouth advertising by people we've worked for. I hope the temp
guys he hires work to our quality standards. That's why we're still
in business even with the economy kind of lousy now. We do quality
work at a fair price.”
    “That's great, what size business
are you talking about?”
    “Well, I know he doesn't take
down a million a year after taxes but I think he normally pulls down
low to middle six digits before taxes. Heck, I'm foreman for the main
crew, responsible for about eight to ten guys normally, and I pull
down a fair bit myself. Not six digits but it was more