The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (32 page)

“Maybe, sure. I’ll have to check with the
family,” he tells her and stashes both hands in his jeans pockets
to keep from embracing her until she feels better, even if that
task would take hours.

“I need to talk to my mom,” she says
honestly.

Her statement breaks Simon’s heart.
Everything about Sam breaks his heart when he actually allows
himself to think about her or her past or the treatment she
received from the visitors.

He flinches and answers, “Sure, I will take
you.”

“Thanks, Simon,” she says with a sad little
smile.

“No problem, but wouldn’t you rather one of
the women went with us like Hannah or Sue… or Reagan?” he asks, not
sure on the last suggestion. Reagan isn’t the touchy-feely type.
He’s not sure she could help Sam at all, although Sam is crazy
about her and hangs on her every word. She rather worships
Reagan.

“No, you know I don’t want them,” she
says and kicks the toe of her boot gently
at
the floor.

“They might…”

“Just you,” she interrupts and hits him with
those eyes again.

“Ok, I will. I’ll find out when we can go and
I’ll take you. Just us,” he promises and touches her shoulder
reassuringly because she seems like she’s getting upset. Even in
the state of sadness she’s sunk into because of family memories,
Simon still finds her alluring. He feels such a fierce
protectiveness of Samantha that he can’t explain, not even to
himself. Sometimes he thinks he’d like to run away with her and
hide Sam from the rest of the world and conceal her from men who
would want to hurt her. He’s seen the furtive glances the men from
town give when she’s working with him at the clinic. At first they
look at her like most people do, like she’s a kid. Then once they
realize that she’s just a petite, small-boned adult woman, their
eyes change. None of them regard her with violent lust in their
gazes because he would’ve killed them for it, but they do look at
her as they would any attractive woman. He always has to suppress
an urge to kill men when he catches them looking at Sam.

She lays her hand on top of his and offers a
small nod.

“Thanks,” she says softly, her lips
parting.

Sam steps closer, possibly to hug him,
so he slides past her, physically moving her out of the way at the
same time so that she cannot follow through with whatever she had
planned. If she’s surprised by his move, she doesn’t voice it.
She
simply
follows him from the
room. They leave the shed, Simon locking it on their
retreat.

“I’m gonna go pick some herbs, ok?” he
says.

“Want some help?”

“No, just have to find a few things.
You should help Sue with the beeswax. I think she
was needing
your help,” he lies and
feels the immediate dissatisfaction
of
doing so. Sue doesn’t need her help. He does know that she
was going to render beeswax today, but she was supposed to be
working with her young son and Talia on it since Talia wanted to
learn. But he doesn’t want Sam to tag along picking herbs with him.
He needs to distance himself from her, really distance himself with
many, many acres.

“Oh, all right. I’ll go find her,” she says
dutifully and turns to leave.

Simon watches her depart, the gentle sway of
her hips, the wind tossing her dark hair around as she pulls it out
of the ponytail again. She spins quickly and calls back to him.

“Thanks again, Simon.”

All he can afford her is a brief nod before
he turns to leave and hunt down herbs he doesn’t really need.

Chapter Thirteen

Cory

He rounds the corner with Damn Dog and
finds the source of noise. Unfortunately, it’s only a raccoon. It’s
nearly midnight, and he’s back in
Coopertown
. The trail for the bastards that had the
balls or stupidity or a combination of the two to attack the
McClane farm has run cold again. He thought he was onto something a
week ago when he’d gotten a tip from a nearby town that bandits had
robbed two farmhouses and stolen everything that wasn’t tied down.
Cory can feel it in his gut that these men aren’t gone for good,
that they haven’t fled the state. He knows they are still in the
area.

Derek has said that they should suspend their
searches because they can’t afford the gasoline anymore. But little
do they know that he’s still going out most nights on his horse
continuing the hunt. There’s no way in hell that they can allow
anyone to get away with what they did to the family and their
friends and closest allies from town and the condo village. Last
week he even ran into Condo Paul and K-Dog, as they were conducting
their own manhunt up north of Pleasant View. He only wishes that
he’d been home when the attack had occurred. It would’ve been so
much easier to take off after them that same night, but he
understands why they couldn’t, not with so many wounded victims and
people in need and frightened citizens.

“Easy, girl,” he tells the dog, who enjoys a
good scrap now and then with the occasional raccoon or opossum.

“Better head back,” he tells her. “I’m on
guard duty in four hours and Evie’s waiting for me.”

He was hoping to make some progress in his
search before they leave for the city, but their trip is now only
three days away and he is less close to finding them than
before.

He and the dog jog back to Jet, who is tied
to a post behind an abandoned home near the edge of town. He mounts
up and begins the short trek back to the Johnson farm. He’s
supposed to be meeting Evie soon for a tryst in the old shed at the
far perimeter of their farm. He picks up the pace.

Cory takes a short-cut, skirting Pleasant
View and saving time by going through the woods. His sexual
frustration is at an all-time high lately and he is loath to admit
the reason.

For the last week, every day and each
evening, he’s been working with Paige on military tactics, weapons
training, and as much as he can cram with her to keep her ass alive
during the coming trip to Nashville. This means she’s been in his
constant company twenty-four-seven since they even sleep in the
same cabin.

Yesterday he’d taken her into the woods
again and practiced sneaking around, stalking and how to be as
quiet as possible. He was surprised by her progress and what she
already knew before they started. Apparently she’d been telling
them the truth when she said that she was stealthy. For a tall
woman, she is very light on her feet and graceful. Her combat moves
still need a lot of work, certainly more than he’s going to be able
to address in the next three days, but he’s fairly sure she’ll
be
fine
with him. He only wishes
that Paige was shadowing Simon instead. When he’d questioned John
about his decision to have her grouped together with him instead of
her own brother, John had told him rather angrily that he needed to
suck it up and get over it. He also said that he was worried that
if Cory kept harassing Paige the way he does- the way he enjoys
doing- that she may convince Simon to leave the farm because she’s
unhappy. Cory doesn’t see how it would ever happen, but he’d
conceded to John’s orders, nonetheless. He’d also promised to stop
giving her such a hard time. That one’s proving
more difficult than
he’d thought it would be. She
has such a pissy streak.

And so he’s been stuck in her company
for almost a full week. She’s surprisingly a lot brighter than he’d
given her credit for being. Paige catches on very fast to what he
shows her with the exception of the hand signals and the fact that
she still calls everything whether or not it’s a shotgun shell or
rifle round by the phrase: ‘bullet
thingys.
’ She also just calls all of the weapons by
the word: guns, not rifle, shotgun, or handgun, just gun. Cory
supposes it’s probably better than gun
thingys
.

She’s also a lot more attractive than
he’d like to admit. Her bad temper and bitchy attitude detracts
from her
nice
ass and gorgeous
face… slightly. He hadn’t liked being in such close contact, but he
also doesn’t have much of a way around it. He even took her on a
three mile run. She’d need a few rests, but she made it back to the
farm with him. She explained that she used to like running in
college but that she’s out of shape since coming to the farm. He’d
teased her about being lazy and getting off her ass once in a while
and had received an ineffectual punch to his gut. Then he’d been
stuck with thoughts of her ass
on
his brain all day and had caught himself inadvertently
staring at it often. She’s not at all his type, either, which is
why it’s so confusing being drawn to her. He likes blondes,
preferably petite and curvy like Evie Johnson and never has
he
liked
a woman with a nasty
glare and feisty attitude.

He’s also pretty sure she’ll slow him down in
the city, but that’s fine. Keeping her alive and finding the
supplies is all that matters. Her brother would like her returned
to him in one piece and has made mention of it quite a few
times.

The worst part of working with her all week
wasn’t the fact that he finds himself becoming attracted to her or
even her bitchiness, it’s that Cory is starting to think that maybe
she is just a little bit attracted to him, as well. That’s all he
needs. A few times she had looked at his arms and once in the cabin
at his bare stomach before quickly turning away. He’d slept on top
of the covers that night with a t-shirt and sweats on instead of
the usual pajamas of boxers and nothing else. He doesn’t need a
complication like Paige in his life. He isn’t interested in her for
anything other than a few fun hours in bed, and he doesn’t want to
destroy his relationship with Simon by seducing his sister.
Besides, he’d probably have to hold his hand over her smart mouth
the whole time. Of course, then he’d be staring more intently at
her pale gray eyes and not at her full lips.

He arrives at the shed where a dim light
slips beneath the crack of the rickety door. Evie is waiting for
him. Cory knocks twice and enters, finding Evie sitting at a
scarred, wooden desk in an equally old chair knitting something by
the light of a lantern.

“Took you long enough,” she chides.

Cory chuckles, shuts the door on Damn
Dog so that she can’t come in, and sets his rifle against the wall.
It’s probably doing more to hold up the wall than the slatted
boards anyway. There are wide cracks between the barn-wood siding,
allowing moonlight to filter inside the tiny cabin. A single
cot
that he dragged out here a few years
ago rests in the corner. Evie usually sees to the bedding. It
always smells clean and fresh, at least in Cory’s
opinion.

“Had some errands to run, dear,” he jokes and
gets a forgiving smile from her.

“Pick up that gallon of milk and loaf of
bread for me?” she teases in return and stands.

She’s wearing black pants and a
heavy-duty red sweatshirt to ward off the night air. He
feels
sorry
that he kept her
waiting.

“No, but I coulda’ had a raccoon for you,” he
says and tosses his jacket onto the bed.

“Gee, thanks,” she says lightly and
smiles.

Her blonde hair is pulled back into a bun
tonight.

“It’s
fine
, actually. I was late getting a shower tonight
because the hot water tank gave out. My ice cold shower was
unpleasant,” she says with a grimace.

“Really? Do you guys need help?” he asks,
concerned for their family friends.

“Nah, my brother took care of it with Dad,”
she explains. “We have two more heaters left in case of another
emergency. That was smart when you guys told us to raid the home
improvement stores for supplies like that. I would’ve never thought
of hot water tanks. I forget that things like that don’t last
forever. I don’t know what the kids will do someday when the final
one gives out, but hopefully we’ll never find out.”

If there’s one thing he likes about Evie it’s
that she’s an eternal optimist. She always believes that this mess
will turn around one day and the world will magically right itself
again. He tries not to bring her down with too much realism.

She moves into his space and kisses the
bottom of his chin. Cory snatches her to him and practically lifts
her off the ground. She kisses him back with as much fervor before
finally stepping back. Evie sits on the bed and pats it. He obliges
and sits next to her.

“How’s it going with training Paige?” she
asks.

They always talk for a while, usually before
and after the sex. She’s a great confidant and gives even better
advice. She was very angry with him for leaving the farm in the
spring without telling her or coming back to explain his reason for
doing so. He couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye because she
likely would’ve talked him out of it.

“Fine. She’s a pain in the ass, but she’s
catching on,” he answers.

“Good. I remember the day she came here,” she
tells him.

Cory’s gaze jerks to her face. His curiosity
is piqued. They both remove their shoes and lie down together. Once
again, the sheets, blanket, and single pillow smell clean.

“I guess I never told you,” she says, and he
shakes his head. “I remember that day very distinctly. Her and her
friends just walked right up onto the front porch and knocked on
our door. Zach immediately went on the offensive.”

She chuckles when she talks of her protective
older brother.