The McClane Apocalypse: Book Two (47 page)

“Those guys that took you? Did Kelly and the team kill them?” This time, Reagan looks him full on and is only less than a foot from his face with her own.

“Oh, that. Yeah, they called in an airstrike after we were out, and F16’s blew the whole prison to rubble- off the record,” he jokes and grins at her. Her eyes flash with a fierce light and unbridled anger.

“Good,” she states coldly and looks away again.

“Everyone has their fair share of garbage that they carry around, boss. Sometimes it’s a scar like you and I have, although I’ve got you beat in that department, I’m sure. And sometimes people carry it with them on the inside. You just can’t do both. Something has to give and I just got really good at burying the bad in a place that I don’t ever have to dwell on again,” he tells her honestly. She’s quiet and has moved a few inches away from him on the blanket.

John knows she’s not going to open up to him, but he’s content with the fact that she feels so impassioned over his imprisonment that she’d be glad the bad-guys were all killed. It shows that she still has the ability to feel compassion or, at least, righteous anger.

“If story hour is over, we should get going.” And there’s her smart mouth again.

“We still need to talk about Jacob, Reagan,” he says again and she ignores him.

John grimaces as the baby crawls over to him. “Watcha’ got, bud?”

There’s something in Jacob’s hand, and he’s putting it in his mouth. When John unfolds the baby’s tiny fingers, it reveals three small pebbles hidden in his tightly-fisted grip.

“Oh crap!” John exclaims frantically and digs his dirty finger around in Jacob’s mouth until he pulls out two gray pebbles. Reagan’s look of distress mirrors his own as her eyes widen. He laughs nervously and adds, “Whoops, guess we gotta watch him a little closer.”

“Oh yeah, we should definitely parent this kid,” Reagan says snidely, and this time John laughs loudly.

Good thing they are out in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t even crack a grin, and Jacob starts sobbing because John throws away his newly found treasures to where he can’t reach them anymore.

“I think he needs something to play with,” John suggests and Reagan just shrugs. Right, she isn’t Sue. She doesn’t have kids of her own yet. She’s spent her life with her nose buried in medical books and looking in microscopes. Crap, what does a baby play with? Probably baby toys, but they sure don’t have any of those lying around. He can’t very well color in one of the coloring books Reagan had pilfered or play with any of the electronic gadgets he’d taken.

“Got it.” John pulls a magazine full of .45 ammo out of his cargo pocket on his pant leg and hands it to Jacob who snatches it and puts it straight in his mouth. Slobber drizzles down the side of the magazine. Gross, that wasn’t exactly what he was going for.

“Oh my God. You just gave a baby an ammo clip? Are you serious? That’s so fucked up,” Reagan comments and frowns at him.

“Uh, yeah. I guess it is. I just thought he’d play with it or something. I didn’t know he’d put it in his mouth.”

“That’s kind of what they do. They put everything in their mouths,” Reagan scolds with a furrow of her dark eyebrows.

“What the heck do I know? I don’t have kids,” he defends himself, his voice rising in volume. She just shakes her head at him and goes to her horse with the bag of food where she re-clips it to her saddle. When she returns, John has the rest of the items packed up and Jacob strapped to his front. She hands him something.

“What’s that?”

“It’s called a teething ring. I grabbed it at that baby store. I thought Sue might need it someday for Isaac, but this squirt can chew on it. I think bullet lead might be a bit much for a baby, you moron,” she berates as John grimaces at her.

They go back to their horses, and he unties his own. When John looks over his shoulder, he watches like a creeper as Reagan removes his hoodie and folds it into a bag that the pack horse carries. She is wearing her white tank top and the black bra. It’s the same lacy, black bra that he’s been forced to stare at hanging from the clothes line in the cabin for the past three evenings. He’d had trouble concentrating a few times as he’d marveled at it hanging there, taunting him. He couldn’t seem to get it out of his mind, nor the origins of what part of her body it had been pressed against.

Reagan comes to stand in front of him and places her hands on her narrow, curvaceous hips, which snaps him out of his reverie about her breasts and that lacy, black piece of loveliness.

“Here, take him out of that thing. He’s going to get too hot. I’m getting hot, so he probably is, too. Plus your body heat is gonna make him hotter and then he’s gonna get bitchy,” she explains as she removes the baby’s hoodie, which is hers. She has no idea just how hot he thinks she is or she’d take off on her horse.

“He’s not the only one who can get bitchy,” John chides. She punches him in the shoulder. “Hey, I’m holding a baby!” He’s smiling as he says this, though, and she almost smiles back. Jacob throws the plastic teething ring and hits Reagan square in the forehead.

“Ow,” she cries and picks it up off of the ground and hands it back. The baby throws it again, but this time Reagan is faster and dodges it.

“See? He liked the magazine. Smart kid,” John comments.

“Great, next week you’ll be showing him self-defense moves and how to field strip that rifle,” she says sarcastically and puts Jacob back in the sling but facing forward this time. The kid has a fistful of Reagan’s hair, making her tilt her head toward them.

“That’s backward,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes at him as they both struggle to get her hair freed of Jacob’s hand. Either she doesn’t realize he’s mostly just touching her hands or she’s too distracted in the detangling process, he isn’t sure but he continues to fake help her. He has to admit it that he’s bummed when she gets free.

“I know that. He doesn’t want to just stare at your chest all day, duh. This way he can look at shit, and he’ll be less likely to bitch,” she jibes as she tightens the strap at John’s waist again.

He doesn’t tell her that he’s more than capable of doing it himself because she never gets this close to him. John leans into her just slightly and can feel the warmth of her, the heat of the sun on her skin and hair. She smells fantastic, like sugar cookies again. It is probably because all she consumes is sugar, but he doesn’t care. She still smells great and doesn’t back away because she’s too engrossed in what she’s doing.

“Why not? You like staring at my chest all day,” he teases lightly because he can’t seem to resist it as he stares down at the top of her head as her small hands work the other strap near his shoulder. Her hat has been knocked sideways and half off by the hair wrestling with Jacob. “And I know he’s not ready for field stripping. You’re right. He should be at least two for that.”

She actually snort-laughs and then lets out a small giggle. It’s a small victory, but beggars can’t be choosers with her. John rights her hat for her and gives it a playful tug. She looks directly up at him with a grin that exposes both dimples. His eyes soften, and he’s pretty sure she detects what he’s feeling because she quickly looks down again.

“Right,” she says with a great deal of irony. “And I don’t stare at your anything all day.”

“If you say so, boss,” he says and makes to turn and mount, but Reagan stops him with a hand to his arm, his bare arm.

“Thanks,” she says softly, her gravelly voice croaks out a squeak on the word.

John can barely focus on what she’s even saying because he’s in too much shock from her hand still being on his forearm. How can her simple, light touch put a spark straight into his belly? He knows it’s been a long time, almost a full year, since he’s been with a woman, but this is ridiculous. She’s still talking.

“I mean thanks for telling me that story.”

“No problem. I just want to...” he tries to explain, but she cuts him off.

“Look, we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend just ‘cuz you told me that shit, ok?” The loud, obnoxious, bratty voice has returned. She would’ve been a great drill sergeant.

“Bummer, ‘cuz that had been my plan all along. Tell a sad story, get some sympathy, win the girl of my dreams. Maybe get some sympathy sex?” he teases with a raised eyebrow, and she shakes her head and purses her lips. He tells her, “Go get your nag. If you’re done mauling me, I’d like to get home.”

Her eyes widen with anger, and she drops her hand from his arm like she’s been burned. Reagan spins in a tizzy to collect Harry.

They travel a few more hours, the terrain being so much easier on this new route, before Jacob needs another break and John needs to change the baby’s diaper before he passes out from noxious fumes. What the heck is wrong with this kid? He’s kind of wishing he had found some suitable adoptive parents/criminals to give him to in the city. The first thing he does is get him changed with Reagan’s help. After they rest a few minutes, they re-mount and ride another four hours in reflective solitude while Jacob sleeps peacefully or as peacefully as he can while being bumped around on a horse.

When he awakens next, Reagan hands John food to give to the baby and another bottle of water to share with him. The munchkin eats pieces of an apple that John bites off for him first and then some dried fruit followed by a snack cake that John had found in the city. It’s a good thing he’s taken to horseback riding because this is no easy feat feeding a kid and riding and navigating all at the same time. Reagan hands him another watered down protein mix for the baby who drinks it and goes right back to sleep before it’s even gone.

“Here,” she says as they come across a flat plateau of wildflowers and native grasses in a short meadow. She’s brought her horses up beside him and is extending her hand toward him.

“What’s this?” he asks as she holds her hand over his. John tries not to feel the surge of lust he does as her fingers open in his palm, and she drops things into it. He can’t believe what he’s seeing. She’s giving him Skittles. “Wow, are these for me?”

“Yep,” she says and smiles wickedly at him. What is she up to? Had the horse stepped on these ones?

“Wait a minute,” he says upon closer inspection. “These are all yellow and green.”

“Yep, I don’t like those ones,” she tells him with another rotten grin.

He asks with a frown, “So you’re giving me all your rejects?”

“Yep,” she informs him noncommittally and without remorse and shrugs sweetly whether she means it to be or not. He sees those dimples again and would love to snatch her off of her horse and kiss them.

“I guess I should be thankful I at least got these ones. Have you ever shared Skittles with someone before or am I the first?” he jests with underlying insinuation.

“Look, just because I gave you some of the yucky flavors doesn’t mean...”

“I know, I know. You’re not my girlfriend. But this is kind of a commitment for you,” he adds jokingly and purposely brushes his horse into hers so that Reagan’s leg will rub against his.

“Nope!” she says with confidence but doesn’t steer Harry away. “I didn’t give you any of the red ones; those are my favorites.”

“Oh, ok so if I ever get a red one I’ll know?” he asks with a wide smile.

Reagan doesn’t answer but raises her eyebrows at him suggestively and purses her uneven lips playfully. It’s enough to give John just the tiniest ray of hope, but she does take Harry back behind his horse again and is quiet once more. They travel a while longer as the surroundings become more and more familiar the closer they get to the farm.

John’s starving, but he doesn’t want to stop now. They are so close to being home he can almost taste Grams’ biscuits.

Chapter Twenty-six

Kelly

Derek and Cory are stacking the rest of the hay in the barn while Kelly splits wood with the heavy maul to make firewood for this winter in case something goes wrong with the heating system in the house. It’s a form of hard labor that his dad used to call “Communist Work Detail” or CWD for short and then laugh when he assigned some of it to Kelly. Now he’d give anything to hear his dad give him an order to do some CWD around their house. He’s glad for this strenuous work, though, because it gives his mind some time to wander down memory lane, but not about his dad. He’s remembering the night before with Hannah and it’s making him grin from ear to ear just thinking about her. She made soft, wanton cries of pleasure when his fingertips slid over her skin, her silky, delicate skin that is so fair and light she’d seemed ethereal in the moonlight. He’d tangled his hands through the filmy, pale layers of her lush hair and tugged her head back to lavish her neck with his kisses. It was probably the most amazing night of his entire adult life. When he’d told her that it had never been like that with anyone else, it had been the understatement of the century. He’d never experienced anything like that before with any other woman and he’d been with enough to know the difference. His dad had always told him that when you love someone then the sex is transcended, different, but he’d been a young jackass at the time and thought his dad was full of it and just trying to get him to abstain. If only his dad was still alive so that he could tell him that he finally got it, but he knows he’s watching down over them. And probably laughing his ass off at Kelly.

This morning before breakfast when the rest of the family had already assembled in the dining room and the kids were being even louder than usual, Kelly had volunteered to help Hannah carry in the trays of food. He’d also pulled her into the pantry for a searing kiss that had left her flustered and pink cheeked just the way he likes her. After breakfast he’d had to make an excuse of forgetting something in the basement and had stayed there until everyone dispersed from the house so that he could steal her away again. Unfortunately, Grams had been with her when he went back up to the kitchen. He hadn’t counted on that one and he loves Grams like his own grandmother, but he was extremely disappointed that she was sticking around with Hannah. But Hannah, his saucy vixen, his resourceful vixen, had told her grandmother that she needed Kelly to reach something for her in her bedroom closet, and they’d sneaked off for a kiss that had led to much more, including; panting, groping, touching and more panting and a whole lot of pent up frustration that will stay with both of them the rest of the day, he is afraid.