The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (9 page)

“Just don’t tell anyone. Please,” he
begs.

“Sure, I won’t say anything. But I still
don’t understand,” she confides.

“Sam… she… she’s a good girl, ya’ know?”

“Duh, of
course
she is. So are you, idiot. You’re a good
man,” Reagan says impatiently.

“You don’t understand, Reagan,” he returns
with a touch of frustration. “I have to take care of her, look out
for her.”

“We all do, Simon,” she tells him. “It’s not
like that’s your job alone. We all look out for each other. That’s
how this works, dummy.”

He grimaces at her insult but is more than
used to it.

“I failed her before. I can’t ever do that
again. I have to keep her safe, even if that means keeping her safe
from me,” he answers, his hands shaking and notices the surprised
expression on Reagan’s face.

Simon squeezes past her and rushes from
the clinic. He doesn’t know where Sam went, but he jogs down to the
wall building site. He knows that he owes her an explanation, but
he can’t face her just yet. It doesn’t take long to find Cory at
the build. Some hard work alongside his best friend should help to
quell his roller coaster emotions. Then he remembers that Sam
always calls
him
her best
friend. The vomit feeling comes back.

Chapter Five

Cory

A few days after his armory friends arrive in
town, Cory and the men spend a long day working on the farm
bringing in the final cutting of hay for the summer. He’s stacking
the last dozen bales for the horses up in the hay loft as the
others put away and clean the equipment.

“Hey, Cory,” Sam says from the ladder, her
head poking up through the hole in the floor to the loft.

“Hey, kid,” he calls over to her. “Watcha’ up
to?”

She shrugs and climbs the rest of the way up
to stand near him. She’s carrying her sketchpad and a little pouch
full of pencils and erasers.

She rushes over and attempts to lift a
heavy, oblong
bale
, “Here, I can
help!”

Cory just smiles and takes her by the
elbow, leading her to a
bale
where he places her on her bottom.

“Just sit and keep me company, little
sister,” he instructs.

“I wish I was bigger or stronger like
you… or taller,” she says
on
a
frown.

Cory laughs and replies, “No, you’re just
fine the way you are, Sam. You don’t change a hair on your head,
kiddo. You do stuff around here that I wouldn’t have a clue how to
do like making soap or beeswax or biscuits or taking care of the
chickens with Hannie. You do help out. You also help out a lot with
the little kids. You don’t need to be anything but what you
are.”

She smiles under his warm praise. Her
bright blue eyes twinkle. Sam still looks like a kid to him, even
though she’s an adult now. There is a youthful innocence about her
that makes him feel fiercely protective of her, makes everyone in
the family feel protective of her. He knows his best friend feels
especially protective of Sam. He also knows that her innocence was
taken from her by that son of a bitch, Bobby, who’d nearly
destroyed her. But there is still something innocent, childlike
even, about Sam. Each of them
carries
a lot of baggage around with them. Some of it is so
heavy
that it causes a crippling,
permanent damage. Sam is just better at hiding hers.

“Thanks, Cory,” she says.

“Drawing anything cool?” he asks. Her art is
insanely good. She could’ve had a successful career as an artist in
some capacity if the world hadn’t fallen apart, even though he
knows her passion was for horses.

She extends her pad, showing her
current drawing which is of the men in town building the wall
around it. The detail with which she has captured the different
materials used to
build
the wall
is crazy. Every rivet in the steel sheeting, the grain in the wood
they’ve used, the men who are contributing to the build, down to
the clothing they all wear are all there in every minute detail. He
and Simon are even in the drawing. It’s literally like looking at a
black and white photograph of the build site.

“This is amazing, kiddo,” he tells her. She
just gives her usual modest shrug.

“Thanks,” she replies.

She tucks her sketch into her backpack,
stores the rest of her supplies and waits patiently while he
finishes stacking the hay.

“Are you and Paige getting along any
better?” she asks him while fiddling with twigs of
hay
sticking out of the
bale
on which she sits.

He smirks and say, “Yeah, sure. We’re best
friends now, didn’t you hear? We’re probably gonna braid each
other’s hair later.”

Samantha laughs gaily at this and shakes her
head, sending her black ponytail swishing back and forth.

“Cory!” she chastises half-heartedly. “She’s
really sweet.”

Cory
chuffs
and says, “
Mm-hm
. I’ll take
your word for it.”

“She is. She’s really
nice
and kind and so
pretty
. Gosh, she’s like some sort of tall,
graceful supermodel. I feel like a dwarf around her… or a
hobbit.”

Her joking makes him laugh. She’s
always been able to make him laugh. He stops quickly, though. It
feels wrong to laugh. He hasn’t laughed since his sister was
killed. Laughter in
a world
without Em
feels
so wrong.
She was the one who brought laughter and smiles and joy to this
sickening, ugly world. Without her in it, Cory just doesn’t feel
right about doing it.

“You’re not a hobbit, Samantha,” he says.
“You are way prettier than that beanpole. She’s a hag.”

“Cory,” she scolds with sincerity. “That was
just plain mean. Give her a chance. You know she’s not a hag. She’s
gorgeous.”

Cory gives a good snort of derision and says,
“If you say so. Might wanna’ get your eyes checked, kiddo. Maybe
Simon can examine them.”

“Here, look at this,” she says, removing her
drawing tablet again.

She flips to a page and leans it toward him.
There is a black and white charcoal of Paige there. Cory is
astonished by the degree with which Sam has captured her. A soft
wave of her hair is covering part of her face. The sprinkling of
freckles covers the bridge of her nose and crests of her cheeks.
The fiery light of her eyes comes through the shadows.

“That’s a heck of a picture, Sam,” Cory says,
impressed.

“I’m not showing it to brag, I’m showing it
so that you can see how magnificent she is, Cory,” Sam corrects him
with a chuckle.

“You’d be better off drawing the horses
instead of wasting your time on this red-haired witch,” Cory
remarks with sarcasm, trying to deflect her praise of Paige.

“Cory!” Sam shouts with a laugh. “You’re so
mean.”

He’s saying this, but he has looked at
Simon’s sister and found something other than
haggard
looks and a beanpole body. She is tall,
admittedly so. But Paige is also supermodel good-looking as Sam had
described her. Her face is very different than any other
woman’s
. It’s odd and unusual, but
that’s what makes her beautiful. Her mouth is too full. Her
eyebrows are too
fair
. Her
cheekbones are too high. Plus, she has a set of long, lean gams on
her that could stop traffic. However, he’s not interested in her
because she’s also a mega-bitch and, more importantly, his best
friend’s sister. There are certain boundaries that even an
apocalypse can’t tear down.
Bro’s
before ho’s and all. He’s not interested in a serious
relationship with anyone, so he’d only be looking for a purely
non-platonic, solely sexual release with her which he’s not too
sure Simon would appreciate. He’s bigger than Simon, but his friend
is a pretty good
shot
so Cory
won’t go sniffing for trouble where he doesn’t need to. He does
like messing with her, though. She’s got a bad temper to match her
hair, so it’s a fun past-time pissing her off. She’s still got a
bug up her butt about his death threat in the woods. He’d like to
tell her to lighten up, but he’s not sure if her gun skills match
her
brother’s
.

“Ready, kid?” he asks and pulls Sam to her
feet again. She’s wearing riding boots, but Cory doesn’t remember
seeing her out riding this morning. “Going riding later?”

“Reagan and I were going to, but she ended up
having to work on canning with Sue and Hannah instead,” she
answers.

“She ought to be in a good mood,” he jokes,
getting a chuckle from Sam.

“I know, right?” she answers. “We can’t ride
today because I’m watching the little ones later after dinner.
Don’t forget. We’re supposed to be having a meeting tonight. Lots
to go over.”

“There is always a lot to go over,” he
replies sarcastically as they leave the barn and walk toward the
house. “Catch ya’ later.”

“Ok, Cory,” she says over her shoulder and
disappears into the kitchen.

Cory pulls off his t-shirt and tries to
wipe most of the hay from his sticky, sweaty chest and stomach
while standing at the bottom of the porch stairs. He doesn’t want
to drag
half the barn
’s hay in
onto Hannah’s clean floors. His arms come next. Removing the tiny,
annoying pieces of
hay
from his
body and mostly from his shirt will make it easier for the women to
do his laundry. The laundry usually gets done two days a week.
Everything is brought to the big house and whoever is available to
help Hannah and Sue pitches in. It’s a laborious job with so many
people living on the farm. Cory and Simon usually carry all of the
soiled and then laundered and folded baskets full of laundry back
to each
person
’s room or cabin
for them. It’s easier for them to be the runners than to have the
women carry armloads and basketsful of clean laundry. The work they
do on the farm is exhausting enough without hiking out to the
cabins and up and down the four stories of the big house. Whichever
men are around the house always chip in and help. Most of the time,
however, they are out in the fields or working on equipment or
lately in town working on the wall. But the hauling job always goes
to them.

Paige and Kelly come around the corner. She’s
toting a rolled up paper, like an architect would carry, as she
walks beside his brother. She has an unfeminine manner of walking
like a tomboy.

Kelly starts in with, “Grow out of that
shirt, too, little brother?”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Nah, I
think I’m done growing.”

Kelly quips before he goes inside, “Let’s
hope, man. Let’s hope.”

“What are you doing?” Paige asks
hesitantly.

Cory notices that she doesn’t come
closer to him but keeps her distance.
“Trying to get most of the hay out of my shirt. Helps the girls
when they do the washing,” he answers as he continues to rub and
pick at the bits of
hay
stuck to
his sweaty stomach. And because he can’t resist, “Wanna’
help?”

Her top lip actually curls on one side with
disgust, “Pass.”

“You sure?” he teases. “Probably haven’t seen
anything that looks like this in a while.” Cory indicates toward
his stomach muscles and even flexes to expose more ridges. His body
has literally been transformed in the last four years from the hard
work, military workouts, and running. Gone is the lean and lanky
teen body that he used to own. When he was gone, he kept up on his
workouts, doing sit-ups, chin-ups and push-ups along with running-
not counting the running he did in stalking mode and then
skirmishes.

“I see it every night when I take my shower,
you fool,” she comes back at him and lifts her t-shirt to show off
her own toned stomach.

Then she snatches the hem of her shirt back
down and stalks irately into the house. Cory is left standing there
looking like the fool she’d called him. That wasn’t the answer he’d
been expecting. He thought she’d either cower or be impressed by
his physique. Other women were. He also hadn’t suspected that she
was quite that toned out underneath her clothing. He’s never seen
her working out or doing much of the work at all on the farm other
than getting in the way of everyone else who is working. She’s
mostly a pain in the ass, truth be told. But Simon told him that
she used to like running and that she’d done so in school. She
actually had a small six pack. Impressive. Small, but impressive,
nonetheless. It was also sexy, but he’s not going to tell her that.
She’s still a mean, pain in his ass bitch.

He heads straight to the mudroom to
scrub up, ends up waiting in line for the sink behind the
chattering kids and grabs a t-shirt from the clean laundry pile in
the cabinet when he’s done. He’s not sure which person the shirt
belongs to. It is probably something that was brought back on
a
raid,
since he seriously doubts
that any of the family used to be NY Giants fans. It’s a tad too
tight, but he’s not changing again. The women keep a stash of
shirts in the old maple cabinet in the mudroom for the men to
change into without going to their rooms or out to the cabins for
fresh shirts. Jackets and shirts are what get the dirtiest with
jeans following at a close second. Reagan also borrows from this
pile sometimes. She’s not exactly a fashion diva, so she couldn’t
care less if she’s wearing one of the men’s t-shirts. As usual,
Cory is the last one to the dinner table, and he tries to ignore
the stern expression Hannah is shooting in his direction. He loves
his dainty sister-in-law, but she can be rather
terrifying.