The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (29 page)

“Just stab his thigh,” Sam instructs as if
saying something so violent is just an ordinary topic.

“Got it,” Paige says with a nod as she
chews her
thumbnail
.

Then Samantha turns, sliding her body
sensually against his, or at least it feels that way to Simon. He
keeps his arm around the top of her, lest he
test
her temper. He tries to hold his breath and
not breathe in that sweet headiness of Sam. She calls her sinister
plans over her shoulder to his sister.

“Or spin and stab him in the back. But make
sure it’s to his right side and at an upward angle to puncture the
liver. Very painful. Very nasty stuff. Very disabling.”

His sister is rooted to her spot staring at
Samantha as if she’s just sprouted an extra head.

“Simon, you aren’t even trying. Grab me!” Sam
orders angrily.

Cory jumps in and says with unhidden
implication, “Yeah, Simon,
grab
her.”

He shoots an angry growl toward his friend,
who only grins. Then he does as the nymph instructed and grabs her,
picking her off the ground easily. She’d be so easy to overwhelm,
and the thought makes him feel a tight anxiety in his chest.

“Get your arm free or if he has it
trapped like Simon has mine, then stab to the liver. Unless you’re
ambidextrous like Reagan and me. Then you can switch hands or if
you already have it
in
your left,
just
stab
to the right side of
his back. Good stuff over there, too, but not as good as the liver.
You stab him in the liver, he’s not getting up.”

He sets her down with extra care. Simon steps
away, wanting to put distance between them. She gives him an
irritated look as if he’s cut her lesson short. She even throws
both hands up dramatically. Simon walks back toward the fence where
he’d been leaning. He hears a sharp intake of breath from his
sister and turns. But he’s too late. Samantha lands on his back
like some sort of psychotic ninja assassin. She’s laughing gaily,
however.

“Or jump on him like this and stab,”
she calls to his horrified and now
laughing
sister and Cory.

“Samantha!” he yells as Sam
simulates
stabbing
his
chest.

She
laughs
in his ear. Her breath hitting him in the face, her cheek
smashed against his. Simon turns toward the others with Sam still
attached to his back like an unshakable monkey. Her legs are
wrapped tightly
around
his waist,
her torso pressed to his back. He can feel every outline of her
breasts and stomach against his back muscles through his thin
shirt. Her mouth is almost pressed against his bare neck as she
gives Paige instructions. Suddenly, he’s wishing he’d have worn a
coat or a barn jacket. His hands instantly grip her legs so that
she doesn’t fall. Even though it was her impulsive state of mind
that got her into this position, literally, Simon still worries
that she’ll get hurt.

Paige laughs, and Cory shouts with laughter
and claps his hands.

“See? We’re more flexible, too! And we’re
springy!” Sam calls out.

“That’d work, too!” his betraying friend
calls out.

“Samantha,” he scolds loudly,
“
stop
it. Stop it right now,
young lady!”

She slides unhurriedly down his back to
her feet. Simon turns to face her with clenched teeth. She just
smiles up into his face with unabashed joy and a bit of defiance.
If he didn’t know any better, and certainly if he thought less of
Sam, he’d be tempted to think that she’d pulled that stunt just to
get at him. He’d also
think
that
she’d done it to get even with him for avoiding her or perhaps
rejecting her. But he can’t allow himself to think of Samantha as
deviant in nature. Defiant, maybe, but not
deviant
.

“Just keepin’ you on your toes, sir,” Sam
goads, curtsies, and spins on her foot to go back to her railing
seat.

She tosses the plastic knife to him and then
resumes playing with her real dagger as if she hadn’t just done
something completely out of the ordinary. Her cheeks have colored
slightly, so Simon wonders if she hadn’t also realized the
inappropriateness of her actions. She even winks at him.

Simon hands the plastic knife to his
sister and joins Sam where he leans against a fence post and
straightens his shirt and hat again. He doesn’t stand too close to
her. Cory and Paige start again, and it quickly becomes
evident
that Sam’s instruction was more
helpful than anything that he and Cory were attempting to show
her.

“Why’d you do that?” he hisses quietly and
doesn’t make eye contact with her.

“No reason. Not everything needs a reason,
Simon. Put your nerd brain to rest,” she returns.

“I don’t think you should do things like
that,” he tells her. Simon adds more sternly, “It’s crossing a
line.”

Her fingers nimbly flick the knife to and fro
and spin it around. He’d like to tell her to cease that activity
before she cuts herself, but Simon knows that his advice will be
unwelcome.

“A line you drew but I didn’t agree to,” Sam
informs him haughtily. “You’re not my boss.”

Simon’s lips twitch at her insubordinate
attitude. What’s with her lately? She’s becoming downright hard to
deal with anymore. Is this a hormonal thing? Is this what young
women do before they turn twenty? He’s not sure. Maybe he should
discuss Sam’s behavior with Doc. Of course, that could open up a
can of questions he isn’t prepared to answer.

“You don’t have to agree to it. I’m doing it
with your best interest in mind,” he tells her.

“Hey, Hannah,” Sam says, causing Simon to
startle and look behind them.

Sure enough Hannah is using her cane
approaching them and carrying a basket of vegetables and herbs. She
has on her sunglasses to shield her delicate eyes from the bright
fall sun.

“Hi, Miss Sam,” she greets with a smile.
“What’s going on? Hi, Simon.”

He still gets a chill sometimes when Hannah
greets him without him saying something to her first. He has no
idea how she does it. He rushes to her to offer help, which she
declines with a soft smile.

“Hey, Hannie,” he returns and is forced
closer to Sam as he helps Hannah get lined up against the same
railing where she rests her cane. “We’re working with Paige.
Getting her trained so we can go next week to Nashville.”

“Oh, that’s good,” she says, setting her
basket of goods on the grass near her feet.

Now Sam’s leg is pressed against his
shoulder. Why does she always have to sit on things like hay bales,
fence rails and anything else that puts her
legs
at eye level for him? He can distinctly
remember the feel of her muscular thighs in his hands. She’s small
and compact, but curvy as hell and
muscular
from horseback riding.

“Sometimes I wish I could go with you guys,”
Hannah says.

Simon’s never heard her say anything like
that before. He’s never considered that she might want to leave the
farm.

“No way, Hannie,” Sam says. “It’s too
dangerous. And we need you here.”

“I wish I could contribute more,” Hannah
laments.

Simon chuckles and lays a hand
on
her forearm through her pale blue
sweater, “Are you kidding? Without you we’d all starve, the kids
would be filthy little buggers, and this place would be overrun
with heathens and cussers, like a bunch of pirates. And that would
just be our family.”

Hannah and Sam both laugh heartily at his
quip. He doesn’t ever want Hannah to think she isn’t contributing.
Heck, Hannah is probably the most important person on the farm.

“That’s probably true, at least the part
about the swearing,” Hannah agrees. “How’s it going with
Paige?”

“She’s catching on,” Sam reports.

“Are you going with them next week, Sam?”
Hannah asks.

“No,” Simon jumps in to answer.

“Yes,” Sam says immediately after.

“No, you’re not. You’re staying here,” Simon
informs her.

She nudges her leg against his shoulder
roughly and huffs.

“I already talked to John and got it cleared.
The four of us are going. John and Kelly are gonna go with us, too.
They’re looking for those gas company trucks. I guess they didn’t
find one yesterday, so the hunt’s still on. They’re gonna leave us
in Nashville once they find a few. Then they’re coming back here
with the trucks- hopefully- and we’re staying out. He said we’re
taking the Suburban so we’ll all fit. Plus, that’ll give us room to
bring back plenty of supplies.”

She just rambles on telling Hannie their
plans for the trip and what they’ll be doing and looking for all
the while Simon grits his teeth so hard it hurts his jaw. He
distinctly remembers telling John that he doesn’t want her going on
this trip with them.

“That’s strange. Kelly didn’t mention that he
was going with you, as well,” Hannah says with a frown.

“He just doesn’t like you to worry, Hannie,”
Simon says, trying to calm her. She pushes her sunglasses to rest
on top of her head. Her expressive eyes seem distressed by the news
of her husband leaving the farm.

“I don’t like it even more when he keeps me
out of the loop,” she complains delicately and twists the tie
strings on the front of her white dress.

“Don’t worry, Hannie,” Simon tells her.
“We’ll be
fine
. He’s just going
for the ride. He and John are just gonna hit the oil company over
there and get some trucks if they have any. If they don’t, then
they’re dropping us off and coming back.”

Hannah’s hand shoots out to touch his arm,
“What do you mean? If they don’t find gas company trucks, they’ll
leave you there with no way to get back home?”

Simon chuckles softly and
pats
her small hand, “No. We’ll
be
fine
. They’ll either come
back
for
us after a few days or
we’ll… get a car.”

He doesn’t want to tell tender Hannah that he
and Cory have stolen cars before and can simply do so again to get
back to the farm. After not having success finding any of those CNG
operating trucks yesterday or the day before at the frack sites,
the men, Doc included, have deduced that the gas company employees
either ditched the vehicles at the headquarters or stole them when
the fall occurred. So John and Kelly are planning on looking for
them when they tag along to Nashville. Either way it goes, Simon’s
not worried about getting back to the farm. At least, he wasn’t
until he found out that Sam is still going.

Sam keeps going on about their plans to
Hannah, “We’re gonna stay over there for a few days searching for
stuff, but I don’t know if we’re staying in the cabin or somewhere
in the city this time. Remember, Simon? You and Cory just stayed in
the city the one time when you had to take a vehicle instead of
horses.”

“Yes, I remember,” he answers tightly and
tries to tune her out. Simon steps away from them and closes in on
his sister and best friend.

“That’s better,” Cory says to Paige as she
deflects his arm, spins and fake stabs his midsection.

Simon thinks his sister would prefer to
practice with a real weapon when she’s working with Cory. She’s
gotten slightly better about her hostility toward Cory but not
much. She told him last night that she doesn’t trust him, that she
never will. Simon gave up trying to make her like Cory as much as
he does. She’ll just have to figure it out on her own, or not. He
certainly can’t force their personalities to
meld
.

“Thanks,” his sister answers. “Guns, knives,
what’s next? A tank?”

Cory laughs and answers, “Maybe. Depends on
what we find out there. If we come across a tank, I’ll show you how
to drive one.”

Paige
clucks
and says, “Yeah, right. Like you know how to
drive a tank.”

“I’ve studied it and got to sit in one at a
base up north. Same thing. See one, do one, teach one.”

“Sitting in a tank doesn’t hardly count as
the ‘do one’ step. You didn’t ‘do one.’ You missed that part,”
Paige corrects.

“Are you sure?” his friend asks with
way too much sexual
wordplay
implication.

Cory gets a kick out of teasing Paige,
Simon’s noticed. She just
chuffs
and snorts indignantly.

“Yeah, I know. You get a lot of the
‘
doing
one’ part done around
here, don’t you? Like the neighbor’s daughters?”

Cory shoots her a fast look of surprise
and shakes his head. He indicates with a nod toward Hannah. Simon
doesn’t think Hannah has overheard the accusation that Paige
was
clearly
making about Evie
Johnson because she’s still discussing the Nashville trip with Sam.
Paige simply raises her chin another inch in defiance of Cory. He’s
not sure how his sister knows about Evie, but apparently she’s
picked up on something. Cory is nothing if not discreet when it
comes to his sexual conquests. They may be friends and he’d trust
his life to Cory, but they don’t ever discuss their personal
affairs like that. Of course, Simon wouldn’t have much to
discuss.

“Now we’re even,” Paige tells him.

This confuses Simon even more, so he decides
to call a halt to their bickering, “Hey, if you two are done, we
should get to work on other things now.”