“I think that one is canned peaches.” Mac nodded at the can in Eliza’s hands, clearly delighted. “But you might need to open it to find out.”

Excited now, Eliza began digging through the crate in earnest. There was more food. A lot of it was dried goods: bags of grain and flour, beans and rice. But there were also tins of soup and vegetables. Sugar. Eggs.

Liquor.

“Bourbon?” Ben said, hooting as he leaned over Eliza and pulled a bottle filled with brown liquid out of the crate. “I haven’t seen this since before the earthquakes.”

“We could have brought back bourbon, if you’d asked,” Dorothy said, sour. They could have brought back canned peaches and sugar and eggs, too, but they hadn’t. There never seemed to be enough time, space, or money for such luxuries.

“Now, you don’t have to,” Mac said, scratching his chin. “It frees you up to bring back more important things, doesn’t it? We have food here.”

Dorothy pressed her lips together, considering how to respond. She felt like she was playing a game of chess and Mac had just moved a pawn forward and easily knocked her queen to the side, smiling at her as he did so. She felt foolish, a little girl playing a grown-up’s game.

Donovan and Ben were fighting about the bourbon now, talking over each other as each of them tried to remember how it tasted.

“It’s smoky, isn’t it?” Donovan was saying, turning the bottle so that amber liquid sloshed up the sides of the glass.

Ben shook his head. “No, no that’s Scotch.”

Dorothy bristled, tuning out their argument. How easy would it have been for her to purchase a bottle of bourbon during one of their trips back in time? It had never seemed important—they had alcohol here, after all, crappy though it was—but now that she could see how much it was doing for morale, she realized her misstep. Perhaps such a luxury hadn’t been necessary, but it would’ve been smart. Mac had seen that, so why hadn’t she?

She glanced at Mac, lips pursed. And now he’d been the one to provide it for them, and who knows how much he’d spent to get it shipped from the Center. A lot, surely. There was a reason no one had good liquor this far west.

“This is too much,” Roman said. He met Dorothy’s gaze and held it for a moment. “We couldn’t possibly accept.”

Donovan and Ben stopped fighting over the bottle, their faces falling. Ben opened his mouth, but then Dorothy turned her dark eyes on him, her expression severe, and he stayed silent, looking like a scolded child. She saw Donovan and Eliza exchange looks from the corner of her eye. This would not go over well.

“Don’t be silly.” Mac released a short laugh. “It’s a gift.”

Gift, gift, gift, Dorothy thought. Funny how every time Mac said that word it sounded more like bribe.

“We wouldn’t know how to repay you,” Dorothy said. It was as close as she dared come to rejecting his offer outright, but Mac’s lips drew back over clamped teeth, and Dorothy knew he understood her meaning.