The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (67 page)

Paige laughs and tells her, “Right. Like
anyone would run away from the farm. Not with Hannah’s cooking
waiting for them.”

“Reagan always says that’s why Kelly married
her. That she won him over by feeding him,” Sam offers as she sips
the hearty broth of the soup.

“She won me over, so I’d say that’s
probably true,” Paige admits as she also tries the hot soup. It’s
heavenly. The flavors meld between the rich, pork-flavored broth
and the grainy texture of the beans and carrots. It hits the spot.
She even dunks her chunk of bread into the soup, letting it sop up
some of the broth. “Who would’ve thought
soup
could be divine?”

Sam smiles gently and continues eating.
That has to be a good sign. She’s clean. She’s eating and making a
little conversation. God, Paige wishes that Simon was here. He’s so
much better with her. They both finish their entire bowls of
bean
soup,
and Sam even has a
second helping. Then Paige pops the lids on the small jars, curious
at the orange-tinted contents.

“This is
really
good
,” Sam says as she dips her fork inside one of the
tiny jars. “It’s Sue’s peach cobbler. She uses the canned peaches
and Hannah’s cobbler recipe. That was nice of Hannah and Sue to
include this.”

Paige’s first bite hits her tongue with a
sweet tang that is almost sinful. She just moans softly.

“I know, right?” Sam says, sounding more like
herself. “Sometimes they put blueberries in it. That’s good, too.
The Reynolds have blueberry bushes. We trade strawberries for
blueberries with them.”

“Oh, right. I remember. Time flies on the
farm,” she reflects.

Sam offers a pained grin as if she is
remembering something unpleasant. She doesn’t want to push her. Sam
seems to be good at compartmentalizing the bad in her life. Paige
is certainly in no position to judge her or ask her to change just
because she’s uncomfortable.

“Do you think we’ll always be able to live
like we do on the farm? I mean, do you think the resources will
someday run out?” Paige asks, trying to distract Sam from her
woeful thoughts.

She frowns thoughtfully and says, “I don’t
know. I don’t see how. Grandpa seems to have it all figured out.
And the guys always come up with a plan when something seems like
it’s going to go badly or when things break.”

“That’s one thing that’s definitely
guaranteed, it would seem,” Paige says.

“What’s that?”

“Things always breaking,” Paige allows with a
chuckle.

Sam actually smiles after a moment of
reflection.

“What are you thinking about?” Paige asks
her.

“I
was just
remembering
my mom and dad. Stuff used to break and my
dad would get so mad. He was always working on something, a broken
stall door, fence boards that
needed
replaced
. He said our mini-farm was like having
another full-time job.”

“If it
was
anything like the McClane farm, then I’d say he was spot on,”
Paige says with a smile.

“No way. It wasn’t anything like our farm.
There is so much more work to be done on a daily basis. We just had
a small horse farm. Not even that, really.”

Paige notices that Sam says “our” farm
when she means the McClane farm. It touches a soft place in her
heart. She feels the same way about the family’s farm. The McClane
farm has a way of pulling one in for a long, warm hug and holding
tight. It reaches deep, touching a person’s soul. Sometimes she
feels like she’s never been so at home. It wasn’t like that when
she’d first come to stay there. She wanted out. She’d wanted to run
away with her brother and friends. Not anymore. Now she just wants
to
run
back there, tonight
preferably, and never leave it again.

“What was it like in Arizona where you lived
before you went to college, where your family lived? Simon never
talks about it.”

“Hot. Always
hot
. Our home was
nice
, I guess you’d say. It was big, Spanish style
with lots of marble in the floors and in the entryway pillars. The
homes in Arizona are a lot different than here or on the east
coast. They use more cement and materials like tile and marble to
help keep them cool. Our home was very nice but a little cold. My
mom tried to make it homey and comfortable for us, but it still had
a coolness about it that wasn’t just from the marble. I think it
was because it was so big and open, almost like a
museum.”

“It sounds
pretty
,” Sam comments.

Paige shrugs and continues as memories
assault her, “My dad would have government people over for dinner,
so it had to be… I don’t know, impressive? We had a maid. That was
cool. I didn’t know how much I’d miss that until I left for
college. We had a cook for special events, but those caterers had
nothing on Hannah and Sue. We were always having my dad’s
colleagues or his staff over for business dinners. Before an
election, it was always crazy. I didn’t like most of his friends,
though. They just seemed like stuffy old fuddy-duddies, boring
politician types that didn’t seem genuine. I think that’s why my
mom worked so hard at the hospital. She used to always work over
when Dad was having an event. It used to piss him off, too. He
wanted her home or on his arm at an event or party to play hostess.
She hated it. I know she worked extra hours sometimes so that she
could get out of being around those people. Who could blame her? I
hid in my room whenever I could unless we were forced to be present
for something.”

She pauses a long moment.

Sam says, “That’s the most I think you’ve
ever said about your old life. Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes. I miss driving a car or going out
with my friends. But I don’t miss my old life before I left for
college. I just miss them.”

Sam nods solemnly. Her friend knows what it
feels like to lose both parents.

“Hey, maybe your dad’s still alive,”
she says with a
hopeful half
grin.

“I doubt it, Sam,” Paige corrects her
as she begins clearing away dishes. “He was in London when it was
nuked. If he
wasn’t
immediately
killed, he’d be dead by now of radiation poisoning.”

“I’m sorry, Paige,” she offers.

“Me, too. And I’m sorry about your
family, too, Sam,” Paige says. Sam’s loss is so much harder than
her own. Paige was separated from both parents when they were
killed. She wasn’t near them when it happened. Sam was on the
property when her parents and siblings had been murdered. She
would’ve heard the shots. And from what she’s gathered
of
her life directly after that, Paige
knows it must’ve been a nightmare.

She consults her watch. It’s nearly
eleven o’clock already. Heating all that water had taken a long
time. She still wants to
heat
more and treat herself to the same, luxurious- or close to
it- bath. She goes about tidying up after their dinner, insists
that Sam just sit on the bed, cleans and organizes their gear and
the cabin and finishes by eleven-thirty.

When she glances over her shoulder, Sam has
lain down on the bed, but she doesn’t appear to be asleep yet.
Paige crosses the room, adds more wood to the fire, then sits
beside Samantha on the mattress.

“When Simon comes home, will you let him
sleep here with me?” she asks with her big blue eyes that have seen
and endured so much pain and agony.

“Sure, Sam,” Paige acknowledges. “I’ll just
sleep over there.”

She tips her head toward the other bed. That
leaves them with nowhere for Cory to sleep, but she isn’t about to
point that out to Sam. For some reason, only Simon can bring her
comfort right now. Paige begins to rise, but Sam tugs her arm.

“Will you stay with me… just till I fall
asleep?” she begs softly, looking like the porcelain doll everyone
always accuses her of being.

“Absolutely,” Paige says with a nod. “Let’s
get you tucked in, ok? I don’t want you to get sick. Simon would
never let me hear the end of it.”

Sam smiles knowingly, and they pull the
blankets and sheet back. Then Paige lies down beside Sam and spoons
against her back, wrapping an arm around her small waist.

“Tell me more about your old life, your life
in Arizona,” Sam pleads.

Paige pauses and says, “Sure, no problem. My
life before. Let me think. Sometimes it’s hard to remember some of
it. It seems so long ago. We had a pool. That was fun. My friends
liked to come over. There was a guesthouse. Sometimes we had
relatives or guests of my dad’s stay out there. Then it sucked ‘cuz
me and Simon couldn’t get in the pool. We used to have a lot of fun
in it. Mostly trying to drown each other, of course.”

“We had a pool, too. Sometimes after a horse
show, my friends and I would cool off in the pool if my brother and
his dorky older friends weren’t in it,” Sam says in a mournful tone
of remembrance.

Paige can tell how much she misses her big
brother. She knows exactly what that feels like. Getting home to
her brother sometimes felt like that nightmare everyone has where
they are running late and can’t get to where they need to be. It
was that same sense of anxiety every single day for three and a
half years. But Sam will never get home to her brother. He’s just
gone.

“I’m sorry that happened to you today,” Paige
says with great remorse. “If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine and
I’m really sorry.”

“It’s not the worst thing that’s ever
happened to me, so don’t worry about it,” Sam admits sadly.

“I… know,” Paige tells her.

“You do? What do you know?” Sam
inquires
on
a yawn.

She really doesn’t want her to think that
anyone has been gossiping about her, so she needs to go about it
carefully.

“Simon or Hannah or someone, I don’t
remember, told me that when you were traveling with my aunt’s group
that you were abused by them. That’s all. I didn’t want to
pry.”

Sam nods and sighs. Paige believes that she
will just drop the subject and go to sleep, but she doesn’t.

“One of the boys in that group. That’s who
did it. The other men were horrible, too. But he claimed me as his
own and threatened them not to touch me. I don’t know if it
would’ve mattered, though. He was as cruel and mean to me as any of
them could’ve been.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know. I don’t talk about it because I
don’t like remembering it. But if it hadn’t happened to me, I
wouldn’t be the person I am now. I wouldn’t have been able to kill
that man today. I just would’ve been his victim and probably the
other man’s, too. He was a cruel boy. Bobby was his name.”

“My cousin. I know. He was a shit when we
were young, too. Always in and out of trouble. Did a stint in
juvey. My dad tried to keep us away from my mom’s family. He didn’t
like them, especially not Aunt Amber and her son.”

“I wasn’t with them for very long, but
it felt like a lifetime. Simon tried his best to keep me away from
Bobby. He’d tell him that he needed me to help get water or do
chores like the laundry or cooking. It helped. It got me away from
him a lot. But it didn’t keep him away from me
completely
. Simon even told me to tell Bobby that I
got my period because he knew it would gross him out. It worked.
But then the next week I
really
did start my period, and Bobby beat the tar out of Simon for
it because then he knew Simon and I had schemed up the plan to fool
him.”
“Jesus,” Paige whispers.

“I think he cracked two of Simon’s
ribs. His face was all black and blue. Bobby wasn’t stronger or
tougher than Simon, he was just meaner. Plus, if Simon fought back,
the other men would hold him so Bobby could beat on him or kick him
when he was down. It was unfair. I felt so
sad
because he was always trying to help me or
Huntley and his twin brother, his brother who died. Simon is so
good, so pure.”

“Yes, he’s always been like that. He has an
old soul is what my mom used to say.”

Sam nods and continues, “Then I got the idea
to chop off my hair. It was even longer than it is now. I found a
knife we used for cutting vegetables and sawed it off. I thought if
I made myself ugly, he’d leave me alone.”

“Did it work?”

“No, sadly it didn’t. He just beat me
for it. Then he
beat
on Simon
because he figured it was his idea. Soon after that, we made it to
the McClane farm. We
traveled
around for a while trying to hook up with their friends, but
never found anyone alive or still in their homes. Then Peter,
Grams’s brother, said we should go to his family’s farm. That’s how
we ended up back down in this area. They weren’t too smart. They
didn’t plan well or organize. They just kept trying to find someone
to freeload off of. The men were going to kill the McClane family
and take over their farm. I don’t know how much Grams’s brother
knew of that plan, but he was
a sick
man, too, so who knows? They didn’t think there would be
Rangers living on the farm with Grams and Grandpa. Thank God they
were. Simon and I could still be living under the thumb of those
evil people if it wasn’t for John, Kelly and Derek, even
Cory.”

“Yeah, it is safe. I like that I feel safe
there, too,” Paige says as she strokes Sam’s dark hair back from
her soft forehead. She is curious as to what role Cory played in
getting rid of the visitor people but refrains from asking. “That’s
not something everyone has anymore. It’s important to feel
safe.”