The McClane Apocalypse Book 4 (70 page)

Simon sighs, which earns him a chuff
from Kelly.

“You gonna make it, Professor?” Kelly
jokes.

They are positioned in the
doorway of a former office building still under construction that
is about seven stories tall. The dirt site around the building is
muddy from the rain that hit a few days ago and deluged the area.
The humidity is jacked up, causing Simon and the others to sweat
profusely with all the gear they are wearing, even though the sun
hasn’t even risen yet. John and the others are across the street
going
through
an old warehouse. They’ve been fed information that the quad
of dicks is holed up there. John’s team has been gone for more than
fifteen minutes. Simon doesn’t think they are going to find
anything. There would’ve been shooting by now.

“Yeah, I’m cool,” Simon says as he
adjusts his helmet. “Just anxious to get back to the
farm.”

“They’re ok, bro,” he says quietly.
“Don’t worry about them.”

Simon nods but doesn’t
really feel any better. Kelly adjusts his weight to his other foot
and shifts his rifle in front of him.
He’s always so calm.
Unless, of course,
Hannah is in danger. Simon had never seen him more frazzled than
the night that the farm came under
attack
and they were rushing through the
city to get back to it. He was near frantic. Simon felt the exact
same thing. All of the men did. Now he just wants to find these
jerks and finish it.

“Derek and Doc are holding
down the fort,” Kelly mollifies him. “Chet said he’d come over,
too, but I think they’ll be
fine
. We’ve got the oil well road
blocked now. It’s cool.”

“Yeah, Chet’s been busy. No
wonder he doesn’t want to come over,” Simon razzes
playfully
as they
continue to wait.

Kelly chuffs softly again. “At least
he stole your sister’s friend away and not your sister.”

Simon grins. “Lucky for
him.”

“Yeah, something tells me if Paige had
wanted to move in over there and not Talia, then you might not have
been so approving.”

“Ya’ think?” Simon jokes.
Talia had moved into the Reynolds farmhouse with Chet and his
family about six weeks ago. They are planning their wedding. It was
fast, but nobody judged them for it. The current state of the world
has taken away slow courtships and
coy
dating. They want to start their
life as soon as possible. “Chet’s cool, but I don’t think I’m gonna
be too excited to let Paige out of my sight for a long time to
come.”

“I don’t blame you, little
brother,” Kelly says and
bumps
his fist to Simon’s.

Paige has been hanging out more and
more with Jason in town when they go there to work on the wall. The
other day, Simon left her at the farm without even waking her or
saying goodbye before they left for the build. She doesn’t need to
be consorting with men in town. It’s just bound to end up being a
problem for him.

Neither he nor Kelly
brings
up Em or
the fact that Kelly will never give her away some day at her own
wedding. He really never talks about her at all. None of the family
does. It’s simply too painful. They do discuss Cory a lot, however.
They worry that he’s even still alive, or that he might be injured
or sick somewhere out there. Everyone is hoping he comes home
before winter arrives again. Simon knows his friend better than any
of them. He knows that Cory isn’t hurt or sick. He’s surviving the
only way he knows how. He’s going to wreak havoc on the evil in
this world, the evil that took the most important person in his
life away from him. When he’s finished, he’ll come home someday.
Simon’s sure of it.

“Comin’ back,” John’s voice
comes over their
ear
pieces
.

A few minutes later and they are piled
into the station wagon and driving back to the farm.

“They’re gone,” John explains once
they are moving along on back roads safely. “Someone or a few
someones were staying there.”

“Think they were our guys?” Kelly
asks.

“Could be,” John answers. “It’s very
likely. But they’re gone now.”

“The intel on this lead was pretty
good,” Simon adds. Kelly and John nod.

“We’ll try again in a few
days,” Kelly says. “We have too much to do
at
the farm and in town right
now.”

When they arrive at the farm after
Paul drops them off there, the sun is just rising, promising a real
scorcher. They shed their gear in the armory and get ready for the
morning’s chores. Derek, Sam, and Reagan are already out in the
barns, and he finds out that Paige is checking on the hogs. Simon
discovers her near a pen full of piglets with their
mother.

“Hey, sis,” he says, startling her.
“Sorry.”

Paige rushes to him and embraces him
tightly. “I was worried about you.”

“I’m still in one piece, Paige,” he
berates her softly while rubbing her back. When he pulls away,
she’s scowling hard at him. “We’re working the search in bigger
parties now, so there’s really no danger at all.”

She pulls back and glares at him. He
gives a one-shouldered shrug.

“Yeah right,” she argues.

“Checkin’ on the babies,
huh?” he asks, distracting her. It
works,
and they both turn to observe the
piglets again. There are seven of the little porkers. “Don’t get
too attached if you know what I mean.”

She chuckles once before
replying, “Right. These are future slabs of smoked bacon.
They’re just so cute.
Hard
to believe they’re going
to get so big and fat and
…
stinky!”

“No kidding, right?” Samantha says,
alerting them both to her presence behind them. “I heard you guys
got back. I just wanted to make sure you were ok,
Simon.”

She walks straight up to
Simon and reaches her hand out to him. He shoves
his
into the
pocket of his jeans. She gives a sad little frown and drops her
hand back down. It makes him feel bad. It makes him feel worse than
he already does about Samantha on any given day.

“Yep, all my limbs are
still intact,” he repeats sourly. It’s bad enough having an overly
protective sister, but Sam also
hen-pecks
him.

“That’s good!” she replies happily,
her bright eyes dancing.

Paige sighs loudly and frowns as she
watches the piglets again from a bale of straw. Simon scoops a can
of crushed corn mixed with oats out of a metal feed storage
container. He sprinkles it into the sow’s trough.

“What’s wrong, Paige?” Sam
asks.

Simon’s gaze darts to
his
sister’s
. Is something wrong with her? What had he missed? What
doesn’t he miss is probably a better question when it comes to the
women on the farm?

“I’m just mulling some things over,”
she confesses to Sam.

“Like what?” Samantha asks, her kind
blue eyes sincere.

Paige looks at him before speaking,
“Talia came over yesterday afternoon to talk. We both have been
having the same feelings about Maddie.”

“What do you mean? What about Maddie?”
Simon inquires after his sister’s young charge as he fills a bucket
full of water for the mother pig.

“Well, would it be better if Maddie
lived over at the Reynolds’ place? I mean Talia is going to marry
Chet soon, so would it be better if Maddie was living with them
full-time? Her life has been so confusing and unstable already. I
just wonder if she’d be better off if she lived with Talia and Chet
instead of here with me.”

“What does she want? Have either of
you talked with her or explained to her what’s happening?” Simon
asks. Sam has climbed to the top of the enclosure’s fence and is
sitting on the rail. Her knee is inches from his face. The dark
green color of her t-shirt somehow makes her blue eyes bluer. There
is dried dirt on her pants near her knee. He’d like to rub it away
so that she doesn’t have to walk around in soiled clothing for a
change. Instead, he takes a step back.

“No, no. We haven’t told her. She just
thinks Talia is staying over there for a few days to help them out.
She’s been asking me constantly about when she’s coming back,
though. I don’t know what to do.”

“Poor little Maddie,” Sam
laments and lays her hand gently
on
the top of Paige’s head.

“I think it’ll be good for her that
Talia is getting married. It will lend stability to her life,”
Simon tells them.

“I think so, too, Simon,” Paige
agrees. “I think she needs to live over there with them, but it’s
going to be so hard letting her go.”

“She’s just a few miles
away,” Sam offers lightly. “You can go over whenever you
want.
And when Maddie gets older,
she can walk or ride a horse over here whenever she wants to see
you.”

Simon looks up at her where
she perches on the railing and can’t help but grin. Even though she
has been so
scarred
, so damaged
by
her traumatizing past, she
still doesn’t like it when others are upset. She looks down at him
and smiles before bumping her leg against his shoulder.

“Right, Simon?” she asks him to
confirm her idea.

“Yeah, sure,” he mumbles
and has to tear his gaze away from her angelic face. Whatever she’s
been working on this morning while he was gone chasing dirtbags has
left her filthy. Her hands are covered in dirt, her shirt
matches,
and
there’s a smudge of dirt or dried mud on her fair cheek. Probably
the horses. She gets as dirty as they do, and they roll around the
pasture in it.

Paige nods sadly and says,
“I know it’s not far, but it
feels
far. I’ve been with her every day of her life
since she was a baby.”

“She’s still young enough, Paige, that
she might come to think of Chet as her father and not just some
stranger,” Simon tries to encourage.

His sister grimaces and nods with
reluctance.

“You can always try it for a short
trial period of sorts and see if it works out,” Sam suggests
jovially.

Simon knows that she’s reading the
regret in his sister’s voice and trying to make her feel better.
It’s just what she does. She hates it when anyone is sad.
Sometimes, however, she is the one who drops into that well. And
more unfortunately still is the fact that he is usually the only
one she’ll turn to for help getting back out again.

Simon suggests, “Let’s head out. We’ve
got work to do.”

Paige climbs off of
her
bale
and strides ahead of them. Sam swings her leg over the top of
the fence as if she plans on just jumping down from it. Simon holds
his arms up to her.

“Really?” she inquires with
sass.

“Why do you insist on doing stupid
stunts that could twist your ankles?” he asks in return.

“You’re so silly,” she
admonishes and takes his help.

It’s almost too much lifting her down,
feeling her small waist in his hands and the rush of her scent that
comes when her ponytail hits him in the face. She may be covered in
grime, but Samantha always smells clean and sweet. Simon turns
abruptly and stalks away.

“That’s true, I guess, Sam,” Paige
concedes as they leave the hog barn. “If it doesn’t work out, we
could always make a new arrangement.”

“I think it will work out, sis,” Simon
says to offer a realistic point of view. “And it will be good for
Maddie. She’ll have a mom and a dad, but then she’ll have all of us
as her aunts and uncles, too. The Reynolds are a good group of
people. They’ll take as good of care of her as we would. I
promise.”

His sister loops her arm through his
and rests her head against his shoulder. She’s probably getting his
sweat on her freckled cheek, but she doesn’t seem to
mind.

Reagan calls out for help with one of
the mares in the pasture. Sam doesn’t even miss a beat,
naturally.

“Catch you guys later,” Sam
says
with
a
big smile of white teeth.

She trots over to the pasture and
nimbly climbs the fence, landing on her feet gracefully on the
other side. He and Paige continue to walk together toward the
milking parlor where they’ll work on the goats and the one cow who
is producing milk.

“How do you feel about her?” Paige
asks a moment later as she leads her goat out of its
stall.

“Maddie? I’m crazy about
her. Everyone is
…
”

“Oh my God, Simon!” Paige
says
on
a
raucous laugh. “Not Maddie. Of
course
I know you like my little Maddie.
Why wouldn’t you? I’m talking about Sam. How do you feel about
Sam?”