After the Crux (10 page)

“Well. Fuck me.” Lynn snatched up an empty plate and fanned herself with it.

Jenna choked on her tea before bursting into laughter. “First I’ve heard that come out of your mouth.”

“What?” she said, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, honey, but I’d never leave the bedroom if I got to watch that daily.”

“Me neither,” Georgia whispered.

“It
is
hard,” Jenna murmured, watching as Dorian turned to her. The raw need in his expression drove her to her feet. She held her breath and stared at him, knowing exactly what that glittery, narrow-eyed gaze meant. He turned and walked to their room.

She followed, ignoring the laughter behind her.

Chapter Nine

Every nerve in Ross’s body felt raw and achy, every beat of his heart forced the fiery blood through his veins. He gripped the steering wheel with iron fists as he planned to get this road camouflage trip done fast so he could drag Dorian and Jenna to bed for a week. He’d loved them before, but now that love had intensified to the point he felt them under his skin, the connection so strong, he could draw a deep breath and take in their scents from memory alone. Dorian’s unashamedly passionate kiss had Ross gritting his teeth as he stared into the fall of thick snow in their path. He wanted, no
needed
, to imprint himself on them in a way that felt primal.

It was probably a good thing he had to go out in the cold.

“That was some kiss,” Jake said as he leaned over to turn the heater up. “I caught the tail end of the show.”

Ross sent him a quick, hard look. It was all out in the open now. “Got a problem with it?”

“Do you really need to ask? I’m the one who reminded you it’s a new world with new rules. Besides, some of the old rules were stupid and should never have been there in the first place.”

“So me loving Dorian seems natural to you?”

Ross glanced at Jake when he didn’t answer and found the man staring out the passenger window. It had fogged up for him to really see well, so Ross slowed the truck. “Jake? Is this going to be a problem then?”

Jake shook his head. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else. Does it bother me that you’re with Dorian too? Not in the least. You three just go together. Always have. In fact, I thought you were being a moron for not jumping into this sort of relationship sooner.”

Ross stopped the truck when he saw his hands were shaking. He held them to the heater. “Should have let this old truck warm up. So, I was being a moron? You’ve heard the story of how we found each other. Hell, they were only nine years old.”

Jake held his hands to the heater, too. “And you were fourteen. If you guys had started up then, yeah, it would be wrong, but you’re thirty and they’re twenty-five, none of you are related and you know what? Love is love. This new world is damned harsh. We’ve managed to survive the worst it’s thrown at us and it could still get shittier. We have raiders to worry about, survivors to find and we don’t have the medicines we used to and any of us could get sick at any time. We should take love where and when we can get it and be damned thankful we have it.”

Smiling, Ross crossed his arms. “Valid points, wise one. But for the record, it doesn’t feel like weird stuff. Not with either of them.” Ross suddenly frowned at the fogged windows, reached out and rubbed a spot but it didn’t help. “We’re going to have to go back. The snow is coming down too hard and at this rate, we’d just get stuck on the road.”

Jake nodded. “This kind of snow will obliterate any signs anyway.”

“Wait. Hear that?” Ross closed his eyes, concentrated on the noise that didn’t go with the usual sounds here. “Is that a truck?”

Jake rolled down his window, listened while snow pelted his face. “Shit, Ross. I think it is. I should have paid attention to my gut. They must have found our fuel stash.”

Ross didn’t stop to wonder why they both assumed it was the guys from the stabbing. The hair on his arms was standing tall and the scraping sense of wrongness in his gut made him sick. He stared at Jake. “We can’t let them get to our house.”

Jake, expression fierce, reached under the seat for the guns they kept in locked boxes.

Cursing, Ross flipped off the lights to the truck, hoping the snow would help them blend, but it was too late. The first blast was loud in the woods. He and Jake ducked down as bullets sprayed their truck. They smashed through the windshield. Jake slapped a pistol in his hand and Ross fired through the broken window even as the snow coming into the cab nearly killed their line of sight. The truck suddenly tilted as the firing took out the tires on the driver’s side.

The other vehicle roared past them and Ross caught a glimpse of the driver’s grin—the same man who’d clocked the older kid in Texas.

“Are you hit?” he yelled at Jake.

“No!”

Ross jumped from the cab and began running through the woods. He heard the slam of a door behind him as Jake followed. His wounded leg started hurting immediately, but he didn’t slow. The strangers would beat them to the house because they were on wheels and weren’t trying to run through snow drifts. Logically, Ross knew they’d get there first, but every panicked instinct flooded his muscles with adrenaline even as he felt snow soak through his jeans. His lungs began to ache from the cold but he picked up the pace, knowing those men would hurt all the people he loved.

They’d take Jenna.

And they’d kill Dorian because the man would fight to his death.

Fury lit fire to his screaming muscles. Ross strained, pushing himself to go faster, to fight the snow and to breathe through his nose to help with the chest pain. When his home was in sight, he dropped behind a boulder to assess the situation.

Jake dropped beside him, gloved hands on his chest, his cheeks cherry red with frostbite already. “The curtains are drawn, so they heard the shots,” he said on a wince.

Ross forced himself to breathe slowly as he spotted the truck, stopped a ways from the house. The men in that vehicle had no idea how many people could be in the house. It looked deceptively small, since so much had been built underground, but they hadn’t charged toward it, so someone in that cab was probably smart enough to realize not all was as it seemed. Ross could only hope they waited long enough for him to get them first.

“Was that a gunshot?”

“Hmm?” Dorian ignored her muffled question as he yanked her sweater over her head. He only cared about getting her naked and getting inside her. That kiss with Ross in front of the others had been a bold move, one he’d expected to embarrass him a little, but it had done anything but. He’d understood in that walk across the room that he loved the man just as he loved Jenna. With every fiber of his being—and he didn’t care who knew it. And though the blood had rushed to his dick before he’d even touched Ross, it was now staying at full mast for the woman in his arms. He was so damned lucky.

“Dorian, seriously, be still a second and listen.”

Her tense body and the real fear in her voice finally broke through his fog of lust. He listened just as the sound of bullets peppered the air. They sprang into action, pulling on clothes and running through the hallways and back to the main part of the house. Lynn and Georgia stood frozen in the foyer, hands tightly threaded together as Lynn peeked through the heavy curtains they’d drawn shut over the front windows and doors.

Heart pounding, Dorian rushed to the window and looked with her. A strange semi-trailer similar to their own was parked about a hundred feet out.

Lynn turned to him, tears streaking her face. Georgia moved closer to her, wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Do you think they shot them, Dorian?” Lynn whispered.

He watched the strong Lynn hang on to Georgia as if the other woman were a lifeline. He would have expected Georgia to be losing it because of her past, but her shoulders were straight and her expression was almost protective as she held her friend.

“I hope not, Lynn.” Dorian glanced outside again. “We’re going to have to move fast. Jenna, you ready?”

She nodded as she reached into the drawer in the table by the front door for the binoculars.

Dorian noticed Colin then, standing to the side next to the other kids. The boy cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Can I look through the binoculars?”

She handed them to the boy and he held open the curtain to look. “The truck is new but those are the guys who had me before.” His lip quivered before he bit it hard enough to show blood. “They’re really bad guys.”

Dorian’s lungs froze at the look of abject terror on the kid’s face. He turned to Jenna to find her watching Colin. Her expression didn’t change but he could see the furious determination pouring into her by the tightening of her features, the straightening of her shoulders. He could feel it pouring off of her and into him. “Georgia,” he said softly, not taking his gaze from Jenna’s. “You and Lynn take the kids into the cellar and barricade the door.” He finally tore his gaze away to focus on Colin. “Can you shoot a gun?”

He knew he was putting a hell of a lot of trust in the kid. For all they knew he could be working with the guys outside, but Dorian’s gut was telling him this kid would shoot them in a heartbeat. He had a feeling he knew why.

Colin nodded.

“I need you to help Lynn and Georgia protect Elijah and Gwen, do you understand?” When the boy nodded, he continued. “Jenna and I are going out there. We’ll take them out before they even get close, so this is just a precaution.”

“I understand,” the boy said. “I won’t let them anywhere near the kids. I promise.”

Dorian nodded and pulled out the keys to the gun cabinet. He handed them to Lynn. “You guys get what you need from this one and Jenna and I will hit the one in the back.” He reached out and hugged Lynn close. “I’m sure Jake is okay.”

She squeezed him hard. “If he’s not, those men will wish they’d never been born.” She stepped back, wiped her nose on the shoulder of her sweatshirt.

He reached toward Georgia, hesitated. When she came forward to hug him, his heart twisted. He kept the hug light, surprised she’d gifted him with one at all.

“Come on,” Jenna said. “We gotta go.”

He followed Jenna as she ran toward the back of the house, which was above ground and held the kitchen, mudroom and storage. She stopped by the back door and shoved her arms into her heavy white parka before pulling on matching gloves. She’d blend out there in the snow even if she left her head bare, but Dorian grabbed her white hat and pulled it over her head before cradling her face and kissing her. “You have to be careful. Promise me.”

She nodded, reached for her crossbow. “Those fuckers are dead if they hurt Ross.”

“They’re dead even if they didn’t. We can’t let them leave knowing where we live. Do you want to go back on the run? Go back to filthy basements and having to clean bones out of homes before we can hide in them?”

“No.” She closed her eyes, then opened them. “I won’t let them leave.”

The steel in her voice matched what he was feeling in his chest. He reached for his coat, already deciding what guns he’d take. Deep in his heart, he hoped Ross and Jake were okay. He couldn’t imagine what the loss of either man would do to their world.

Jenna darted around the side of the house and entered the forest. The snow was falling heavily now and her boots sank deep into it, especially in the places it had piled in loads from the sagging tree limbs. She found a thick bush with an excellent line of sight to the truck and knelt, ignoring the instant wet and cold mush that melted through her jeans and bit into her knees. Her breath frosted in the air, so she kept low to keep it hidden. She didn’t know what kind of equipment they had and good binoculars would catch the movement of air even through the heavy snowfall. She notched a bolt into her crossbow and lifted the binoculars hanging from her neck.

She spotted two men in the front of the cab and one in the back seat. They watched her home with avid eyes and she guessed they were trying to assess how many people could be inside. If they were smart, they’d recognize that part of the house was underground.

Her lungs froze when she saw the tip of an assault rifle right before the driver started rolling down his window.

Firm resolve kept her hands steady as she aimed the crossbow and waited. Despite the cold, sweat dripped down her forehead and her heart ached with fear that Ross had been hurt. Or killed. Her life with Ross and Dorian played through her mind like a film. That first day in the basement when she’d been so scared Dorian was dying and how she’d heard Ross on the floor above them. Even at nine years of age, she’d known it would be better if she and Dorian died rather than to let the crazy men outside get them. She fast-forwarded to years later when the three of them had found that cabin on the lake in Oregon early in the summer and they’d swam and picked sour wild plums.

She thought about the time they hadn’t found food in days and Dorian had passed out from hunger, right on top of an old root cellar that held jars of beets. Nothing but yucky beets. They’d been so hungry, they’d broken the jars, ate until they were sick, then giggled for days over their stained purple chins.

A tear froze on her cheek. She left it, not once taking her eyes off that driver. So when he raised the gun, he never got off a round. Jenna didn’t hesitate.