Endless Flames (Surviving Ashes, Book Four) (11 page)

“Come here, champ,” Berke said, reaching out his hands. It wasn’t that he knew what to do with children, but he’d told Maxie the truth a few days ago. Kids were a hell of a lot easier to deal with than grown civilians. How hard could it be to comfort a little boy? “What’s the problem? Is your mom not letting you check out that cool 4x4?”

“I was thinking maybe he should just call me Maxie. I mean, he did have a mother. I’m just—”

“There is more to being a mother than just giving birth.”

Berke hadn’t meant for his tone to be so clipped, but he wasn’t about to listen to Maxie diminish the lengths she’d gone to in order for this child to have a decent life. Jacob’s cries had ebbed to a few hiccups as he stared up at Berke. Hell, he didn’t think he was that bad looking, but there was a bit of shock in Jacob’s features.

“Being called ‘Mom’ is so…”

“Terrifying?” Berke smiled to reassure Maxie that she would be just fine in that maternal role. She was looking up at him with doubt in those big blue eyes of hers that he’d wrangled to steer clear of over the years. She had a magnetic allure that screamed commitment and he knew well enough not go down that road. That didn’t mean he didn’t register the underlying sexual attraction. She was a downright beautiful woman and he’d have to be dead not to notice that figure. “That didn’t stop you from going through with your plans to raise the boy.”

“And what if I don’t get that chance?” Maxie asked, her voice a mere whisper of uncertainty. She reached up and ran a hand down Jacob’s back, who had settled down and was watching the two of them talk as if what they were saying was fascinating. “We have no idea what we’re going to face when we leave here.”

“No, we don’t know for certain,” Berke agreed, unable to help himself from reaching for her. He caught himself, but he didn’t want to look like a fool. He ended up pulling her into his embrace for a quick hug and then stepping away. It wouldn’t do to get too involved with her and Jacob, even though it appeared it might be a little too late. “We should—”

“Hug.”

Berke chuckled at Jacob’s one word exclamation. Jacob was even holding one hand out to Maxie while opening and closing his pudgy fingers to indicate he wanted another one.

“You have yourself a great mom, Jacob. You lucked out big time. Now what are we going to do about fitting you with a mask, huh?”

“Berke, don’t you realize what Jacob just did?” Maxie’s blue eyes sparkled as she clapped her hands together and repeated the little boy’s word. “Hug! Do you want another hug?”

“Hug,” Jacob said with a giggle, once again opening and closing his hand while leaning toward Maxie. “Hug.”

Berke didn’t think that was such a good idea, but he really didn’t have a choice when Maxie wrapped her arms around both of them. He’d missed something, but both she and Jacob were too excited for him to figure it out. All he knew was that Maxie’s petite form melded nicely into his. Shit. He really needed to extricate himself from this situation.

“Jacob’s only ever said the common words at his age,” Maxie explained, smiling as she stepped aside and took Jacob from Berke’s arms. He was mighty grateful as he stepped away and ran a hand down his jaw, which was in desperate need of a shave. “
Ma-ma
and
bubba
for bottle was pretty much it. He’s starting to use words, Berke!”

“That’s great,” Berke encouraged when all he really wanted to do was start looking for something that would encase Jacob on the ride up to Washington. He would do well to remember that his job was to get them to safety. He was a Marine. He certainly wasn’t made for the family unit stuff, although he’d admit to thinking about it a time or two when he was up in Washington on his yearly vacation. Those men were his brothers while Tank was more like a father. He wondered how different it would be by adding in the other elements. Maybe it was the belief that his unit would never disband, but women had the tendency to leave when things got tough, at least in his experience. “Keep him talking while I figure out what we can use to make sure Jacob doesn’t breathe in the ash.”

Berke was on more solid ground looking around the large showroom than he’d been moments before. It didn’t take him long to settle back into his comfortable self as he thought about his time in the military. The Israelis
had
made a special plastic bubble for their infants and he just had to figure out how to modify something similar. He wasn’t going to find it near the parked vehicles, so he started for the back where the empty offices and the parts department were, along with some type of administrative supply closet.

Nothing of use was visible until he reached the end of the hallway, noticing a large, clear plastic bag containing a king-sized comforter. It still had a cleaner’s tag on it, as if an employee had picked it up but had never had the chance to take it home.

The plastic bag zippered closed and was large enough that Jacob’s entire car seat could fit inside. Could it work? Berke emptied out the bag, taking a mental measurement and realizing they just might have hit pay dirt.

Berke quickly scoured the parts department for a plastic hose the size of the gasmask filter outlet, finally locating several feet of one and a quarter clear nylon water hose in the back. All he needed now was some duct tape. It wasn’t long until he was looking for a few larger hose clamps as well. He could use one of the air supply modules that came with the gasmask to pump air through the filter into the bag through the hose to over-pressurize the plastic to where they could put Jacob in his seat.

The air supply modules were normally used for the elderly or wounded individuals who might have trouble drawing air through the gasmask filter. They were powered by lithium batteries and clipped onto the front of the filters to push air in and supply the mask with pressurized filtered air. What he needed was duct tape and he was kicking himself for forgetting it when he’d packed earlier.

Nothing. Who the hell didn’t keep duct tape around a shop like this?

Berke made his way out of the administrative wing and pushed open the glass door that led to the small, maintenance garage in the back. This dealership didn’t contain the usual full-service garage in this building, but they did have a place to detail their new vehicles and add the options. He looked around and finally spotted two brand new three-inch wide rolls of grey duct tape that was mostly likely used to roll lint off of the seats. The large bag was the perfect size for what they needed with an added bit of ingenuity.

It didn’t take long to attach the hose, seal it with tape, and clamp it into place. Berke was very careful not to tear any additional holes in the heavy plastic with the exception of making an opening at the back to accommodate the seatbelt of attachment points for the chair to secure it to the ATV bucket seat.

Berke had already made the decision to seal the bag to the chair so that it could be removed along with the filter and module separate from the vehicle if the need arose, but he wanted to still be able to secure the seat to the ATV in case of a rough ride. He did consider that a one-year-old might very well succeed in putting a tear in the original plastic shell with a little bit of effort, but he could seal any hole Jacob might make with a strip of tape.

It was always advisable to have a backup, but they only had the one heavy plastic bag. He’d only gotten as far as finishing the taping when an electrical impulse shot through his body upon hearing the fear in Maxie’s voice as she yelled his name.

“Berke!”

He didn’t hesitate. He stood and ran to the door, banging it open with such a force he was surprised the glass didn’t shatter. He had his weapon in hand before he ever saw her standing near the window, watching in disbelief as the inevitable finally happen.

The ash began to fall like large flakes of snow.

M
axie couldn’t look
away from the large, puffy flakes of grey that were currently floating to the ground. She hadn’t meant to frighten Berke when she’d called for him, but she’d been stunned to look outside and see ash falling from the sky in a lazy, yet steady rate. This was it—death on a winged horse. Yes, seeing the people in each town they came across preparing for the worst should have made what was happening a reality…but nothing could prepare one for actually seeing the changes with one’s own eyes.

“It’s just a few flakes,” Berke reassured her as he continued working on Jacob’s bubble chair. He constructed it so that they could zip it open easily enough to change and feed him when they were inside an enclosed environment away from the ash. Maxie had been leaning down, holding onto Jacob’s hands as he stood on his own two feet. She turned to find Berke holding up what looked to be something like a miniaturized version of the sidecar she’d mentioned with its own fresh air supply system. “I figure we should be fine for another eight hours or so before we need to rest.”

“Before we can’t see at all?” Maxie asked wryly, wondering what he considered to be fine. He had devised a carrier that would accommodate a gasmask filter for a toddler. That wasn’t an everyday invention. She thought of all the possibilities of what could go wrong and her stomach turned. It was all she could do to keep its contents down that she’d eaten not ten minutes ago. Jacob had also finished his lunch and was very happy to continue to explore this newfound area. “Do you really think Jacob’s going to be okay in that?”

Jacob’s jabbering got louder as he moved one leg in front of another, leading both of them closer to Berke. It wouldn’t be long before Jacob was walking on his own, but she hoped like hell it wouldn’t be until they were somewhere stationary for more than five minutes. A milestone like that shouldn’t take place in a showroom of a Kawasaki dealership surrounded by looters outside. Their movements had become even more erratic once they’d noticed the ash.

“It’s better than stuffing him in a duffel bag. Believe me, I considered it.”

Maxie quickly glanced up, clearly not hearing him correctly. She caught sight of the smirk on Berke’s lips, finding that she really liked the lines that accentuated his mouth. She quickly glanced back down at the silken hair belonging to her son. She hadn’t had time to acclimate to the fact that she was now a mother, something that Berke had even pointed out earlier, but she certainly didn’t want to add in the complication of an attraction that most likely only went one way. After all, how many years had they lived in the same town? That was a long time for a man to not look twice.

Having seen Paige Olivier a time or two when she’d been in town on business, Maxie had realized a long time ago what type of woman Berke went for…and it wasn’t an athletic brunette who preferred male friendships to female—platonic relationships, of course. Having been raised by her father, it was only natural she gravitate toward men and not the constant, incessant criticism of a coven of women. Taking notice of Berke right now wasn’t the wisest thing, so she focused on the task at hand.

“What is it that you’re designing over there?”

Over there
wasn’t so far now that Jacob had taken at least twenty steps. He tried to let go of her hand to reach for the plastic container, but Maxie wouldn’t release his tiny fingers.

“Well, this small water container should fit relatively easy over Jacob’s head once I cut the bottom off. I wanted to fashion something like a diving helmet so that we can change his diaper and still have him supplied with filtered air. It’ll take a little more time to fabricate and I’ll need to make a closure with a one-way valve of some sort,” Berke explained, running his scarred finger around the edge of where he was talking about. Maxie briefly wondered what he’d done to get that type of ridged wound, but she didn’t get the chance. “I’ll drill a few holes in the side so that his vision isn’t hindered, and attach one of the filters we have for the gasmasks.”

“How are we going to cover the space between the bottle and his neck? Would we be able to use a sweatshirt or something?” Maxie asked, her back muscles going into tight spasms from having been hunched over for so long. She reached down and swung Jacob into the air, whose loud-pitched squeal made her smile. “I have one in my bag.”

“No,” Berke said with a shake of his head. “There’s too much of a chance that the ash could get into the bottle if the fabric slips, especially with us riding around in a 4x4 over rough terrain. I think he’ll have to spend most of the time in the plastic bubble chair when we are exposed while traveling until I can finish his suit. The Mule should be pretty self-contained and we shouldn’t need the masks or filtered air while we’re traveling.”

“And then what?” Maxie wondered, apparently not thinking along the same lines as Berke. “It’s not like we can duct tape him inside of—. Oh my God. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Duct tape?”

“Hey,” Berke chided as he held up the grey adhesive. “Duct tape has been proven to be invaluable in many instances just like this. Anyway, I’ll construct his suit and helmet better than that.”

Berke placed everything he’d been working on in the cab of the ATV before reminding Maxie of the dire situation they were in. He didn’t need to recap what they were facing, but he did so anyway.