The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (5 page)

“I’m going!” Reagan says as if she and her
husband have argued about it.

“Don’t remind me,” John says
sarcastically.

Reagan smiles widely, messing with him. He
leans over and kisses her right in front of everyone.

“Zip it, boss,” he chides and gets a cocky
grin from her.

A short time later the men leave in Doc’s
pick-up truck. Paige and the rest of the women have helped to clean
up after dinner and are readying the children for bed. She misses
Maddie and wishes she could walk over to the Reynolds’ farm to
visit her. Talia likely has her in bed by now. Plus, they are under
strict orders to stay close to the farm when the men go to town
like this. They don’t need her help tonight with drawings of the
wall. They are going to town to try to settle a dispute.

She’s sitting on the step of the front
porch watching the new dog co-mingle with the two existing ones
when her brother comes around the corner of the house. The mangy
mutt keeps pestering her for attention. Growing up in Arizona,
they’d only ever had
little yippie
dogs like Yorkies and Pomeranians. She’s never been
particularly comfortable around large breeds.

It doesn’t take long for the three dogs
to break through their awkward sniffing and unsure behavior. They
play together in the yard, spinning and chasing one another around
in circles. If only people were as simple as dogs, life would be so
much easier. People are much more
complex
and
difficult
to understand.

“I’m heading out to the cabin,” Simon tells
her. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing. Just hanging out watching these
mutts,” she replies and stands.

“Wanna’ come with me?” he asks.

“Yeah, sure. Think I’m gonna turn in
soon.
I’m beat
,” Paige confesses.
It’s been a long, exhausting day. She’d helped with getting the
kids ready for bed and had even tucked two in for the
night.

“Crazy day, huh?” he asks rhetorically.

Paige is about to tell him what a creep Cory
had been to her in the woods when he adds, “Good day, though. Cory
finally came home.”

“Uh huh,” she answers noncommittally. Maybe
now isn’t the time. Her brother seems so happy that she hates the
idea of ruining it for him.

They walk together to their cabin in the
woods. What she hadn’t anticipated seeing upon their arrival is
Cory already there. He’s unpacking the rest of his gear as if he’s
just settling in.

“I feel like one of the bears in the
Goldilocks story, only this one should be called the
Redilocks
story,” Cory says to them as
they enter the small cabin.

“What?” Simon asks him.

“Somebody’s been wearing my clothes.
Someone’s been sleeping in my bed,” he answers, gesturing toward
Paige.

Simon laughs. Cory grins slightly, showing
his dimples a lot more this time since his shaggy beard is gone. He
swipes a hand through his wild hair and looks at her.

“I sleep here with Simon,” she explains,
although she isn’t quite sure why she feels the need to do so.

“In my bed I see,” Cory points out and turns
his back to her.

“You weren’t here. Maybe you can sleep in the
house,” Paige suggests tightly.

Cory turns back to her, dangling one of her
lacy white bras from his index finger, “This definitely isn’t
mine.”

Paige glares at him and in haste
snatches
her bra from his
finger.

“No, it’s cool, sis,” Simon offers,
oblivious to their interaction with his back turned. “We don’t want
to kick Cory out. We can all stay out here. There’s plenty
of
room
. I’ll just go get one of
the twin mattresses from the basement for you. We’ll set you up in
here with us.”

“I won’t necessarily be here a lot at
night
anyway,
so it won’t matter
much,” Cory says, drawing their confused stares.

“What do you mean? Why not?” Simon asks.

“I’ll be gone a lot. Working,” he
replies.

This makes no sense to her, but she
doesn’t care. Good. She’s glad he won’t be around much. She wonders
if she should suggest right now that h
e
be gone a lot during the day, too. Or perhaps
she should wait a while to share that idea.

“Doing patrols? Yeah, we still do
those. Gotta
keep
a good watch on
the place,” Simon concludes. “I’ll just run up to the house and
grab that mattress. Be right back.”

Her brother blasts back through the door with
more energy than she feels tonight.

“Not patrols,” Cory mumbles after Simon is
gone.

Paige is leery of him, to say the least. She
goes to the far corner of the cabin and sits on Simon’s bed.

“I’m not leaving this cabin, asshole,” Paige
starts angrily and crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m never
leaving Simon again.”

“I didn’t say you had to, sass-mouth,”
he
retorts
and barely looks over
his shoulder at her.

It’s like he doesn’t care enough to
even look at her when he
speaks,
as if she is insignificant. She watches warily as he crosses
to the dinner table, which is only big enough to hold four chairs.
He picks up an empty gun clip and starts jamming ammo into
it.

“Why are you loading that clip?” she asks
hesitantly.

“Not a clip. This is a magazine,” he
answers.

Paige would like to club him over the head
with whatever gun it came out of. She still hasn’t learned much
about guns and shooting them or self-defense. The men have been too
busy to work with her and Talia.

“So? Why are you loading it full? Did you
load those other three, too?”

“Yep,” he answers, still not looking in her
direction.

He screws a silencer
onto
the end of it.

“Why? Are you expecting company?” she asks,
her impatience at his noncommittal answers growing. The sun will
set soon, which causes a dull amber glow to filter into the room
through the two west-facing windows.

“Look, beanpole, if I wanted to play twenty
questions, I’d ask Ari to come out here and bug me,” he
retorts.

He slings his rifle over his shoulder. What
an ass! She doesn’t think any of the men would find his crass
behavior and name calling funny. He grabs his backpack next. Then
he pulls on a pair of leather boots. These ones look different than
the scroungy shoes he had on earlier. They look like the military
boots that the Rangers wear. He must’ve retrieved them from under
his bed where she’d seen boxes of his belongings stored there. She
hadn’t snooped. She hadn’t felt the need. Now her curiosity is
slightly heightened at this strange, aloof man, this dangerous man.
He goes to the door and opens it, but her next sentence halts him.
He doesn’t turn around to look at her, though.

“Where are you going?” she asks and
approaches him.

“To work,” he answers. Then he peers over his
shoulder at her. “Don’t wait up, witch.”

Paige is left standing there staring hard at
that door. Simon returns shortly with her new mattress. He tries to
place it in her own corner which would be closer to Cory than him.
She insists he put it right directly beside his own bed on the
floor. That spot suits her just fine until she can get rid of that
creep who has gone “to work.”

Chapter Three

Reagan

“Why didn’t you want Cory to come?” Reagan
asks her husband who sits beside her in the back seat of SUV.

“He’s not ready to be around the people in
town yet, honey,” he explains gently.

John takes her hand in his and rubs his thumb
gently over her knuckles. Kelly is driving while Derek rides
shotgun, and they are discussing the local political situation.
Grandpa sits on her other side in the back seat smoking his pipe,
of which he thankfully blows the gray plumes out the open
window.

“What do you mean? He got a shower,” she
quips.

John chuckles and replies, “Yes, that
would’ve helped immeasurably. But he just needs to settle down a
little first.”

“Get some rest and settle in?”

Grandpa says, “No, honey. John
means
settle
down
that demon inside of him. He’s not there yet. It may have helped
him to be alone for a while, but he’s still restless. Didn’t you
see it in his eyes?”

“I don’t know,” she admits with a shrug. “I
guess so.”

“We need to give him some time, babe,” John
tells her. “If things get heated in town, he’s not likely to have
much patience with pettiness and local politics. He has a short
fuse right now.”

Reagan doesn’t comment further. They are
probably right. She’s sure as hell not good at reading people, not
like John.

“With the problems in town, the missing thugs
still out there, and everyone going into fall harvest panic mode,
it’s better to just keep him at home for a few days at least. Maybe
a few weeks,” John says and kisses the top of her head. “He’s a
little too intense. He needs some decompression time.”

Derek must’ve picked up on some of their
conversation and comments, “Yeah, it’s a big enough pain in the ass
in town right now. We don’t need to unleash Cory on them,
especially not on Mr. Hernandez.”

“It would make the meetings shorter,” Reagan
suggests and gets a lot of male laughter in return.

Everyone nods or agrees out loud with
Derek. Jay Hernandez has supposedly taken a vote within his small
district, and they are announcing their decision tonight at the
town meeting. This situation with the people in town is becoming
frustrating for Reagan. She’d like to tell them to just go to Hell
and fend for themselves. The McClane family doesn’t really need to
be involved with the town people. They’d lived for over a year on
the farm in total seclusion
with the exception
of
their two neighbors and Condo Paul’s small
community. Unfortunately, she also knows that none of the people
there, and more importantly, none of the children would have
medical care if her family went back into seclusion. That part
would not sit well on her conscience. Without her little Jacob in
her life, she’s not sure how she’d go on. Even though she hadn’t
wanted to be a mother, he’d been tossed into her lap. He’s the best
thing that’s ever happened to her. But she doesn’t have a single
relative that lives in town. She just doesn’t want to see any of
them die from sickness or injury. She blames John for that. Before
he’d stumbled into her life, she was content to stay a hermit for
the rest of her days. Now she feels an obligation, just like her
grandfather does, to the people in their community.

When they arrive near the town hall, Kelly
cuts the engine and they disembark. John helps her down. He really
just wants to pull her up against him, Reagan knows. She obliges by
kissing his bare neck.

“Hm, you’re behaving
awfully
naughty beings we’re going into a meeting,”
he teases.

“We could sneak off for a little bit before
we go in,” she suggests as she hooks her finger into the waistband
of his jeans.

For a
moment,
John looks like he’s going to agree with
her plan, but then he just grins, as usual.

“The good thing is that when we get back,
your sisters should already have Jacob put to bed,” he hints.

Reagan stretches up onto her tiptoes and
presses another kiss to his mouth. “Let’s hope,” she says
haughtily.

He shuts the car door, takes her hand in his
and pulls her along.

“You’re
a
bad
influence, Mrs. Harrison,” he jokes as they climb
the stairs
of
the town
hall.

“That’s your fault,” she gives it right
back.

He laughs, “Nothing new there.”

Her sexy as hell husband holds open the door
for her. Then he swats her derriere when she passes through.

“Think this is gonna go well?” she asks
quietly.

John frowns hard, “No, I don’t think so,
babe.”

Reagan shoots him a cocky grin and
says, “Try to not
shoot
anybody,
Dr. Death.”

He gives her a harder frown before
tugging her close and wrapping an arm around her waist. This is
where she feels
safest,
when John
is embracing her this way.

Arguing in the meeting room at the end
of the
second-floor
hallway draws
her attention. Apparently this isn’t going to go well at all. They
take their seats in the room as men and women continue to complain
at one another. Reagan wishes she had a cup of coffee. This would
all go down so much easier with some caffeine. That well dried up
long ago, though, and she’s just left with a slow, oncoming
headache.

Roy, a good man from
town
of whom she’d had the honor of sewing up this
summer after the Target raid, announces the official beginning of
the meeting. People are slightly subdued. She keeps her hand on
John’s thigh. She can never be too sure of how he’ll react. And she
likes his muscular thigh. That helps, too.

It doesn’t take long to figure out why
the people are upset. Jay Hernandez and his small sector of
families in the new development part of town are seceding from the
rest of the
town
. They are
starting their own
town
and don’t
want anything more to do with Pleasant View.