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“Hey, what are you guys up to?” Doug called.

Amber swung around, startled. “Oh, you scared me!”

“Sorry. It’s just us.”

She relaxed a little. “We’re trying to gather some wood so I can cook. I don’t have any charcoal, so I can’t use my grill.”

She took the sticks from her three-year-old and shoved them into the rack at the bottom of the stroller. Her nine-month-old slept, and her two-year-old whined and tried to undo the strap that held him in.

“We can give you some wood,” Doug said. “We’ve got a good bit here. We’ll bring some over when we get back to the house.”

“Really?” Her eyes shone with relief. “Thank you so much. But I can’t keep relying on other people. I’ve got to start doing some of this myself. I just . . . don’t have anything to cut the wood with. My husband took all his tools with him when he left. We were trying to collect the smaller pieces that we could break.”

Doug glanced at the two axes his boys held. They needed both of them so that more than one person could work on these things at a time. No, instead of giving one to her, he’d rather just cut her some wood when he cut his own.

Then again . . . with all the stuff he’d have to do over the next days and weeks, he hardly had time to take care of another whole family. But Amber needed help. What if that was Deni, abandoned by her husband and left with three kids? Wouldn’t he pray that someone who lived near her would take her under his wing?

He set his hands on his hips. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it. How are you doing besides that? Is everything all right?”

“Yes. The diapers were a godsend. Thank you for grabbing them at Wal-Mart. I’ve been cleaning out my closet and trying to make some cloth diapers out of my old clothes, for when I run out.”

“Good idea.”

“The only thing pressing on my mind right now is safety. I can’t sleep at night because I’m so busy listening for every little noise. I’m scared to death someone’s going to break in . . .”

She needed a gun. That would give her some measure of security, and provide a defense if the killer learned she was alone and vulnerable.

He looked at the shotgun Jeff had carried with him. It lay on a stump, close by in case they needed it. He had two others. He could certainly spare one.

As quickly as the possibility flitted into his mind, his reason replaced it.
Don’t even think about it, Branning. You can’t give her the gun. Your family needs it.

But what would she do without it? If the killer knew her husband wasn’t there, she’d be a perfect target.

His mind drifted back to Deni. She wasn’t much younger than Amber, and he’d want her to have a weapon if put in the same situation. Somewhere, Amber’s family was probably praying for someone to help her.

“I’ll tell you what, Amber. I’ll go home and get you one of our rifles. We’ll be all right with just two.”

“No, I can’t take that from you! Your family needs it. Besides, I don’t even know how to shoot it.”

“I’ll teach you.” Even as he said it, he knew that was just one more thing he’d have to squeeze into this day. Teaching her the proper respect for the weapon would take more time than he could spare.

“Are you sure?”

He glanced at his kids, saw Deni’s mouth open, and Jeff’s eyes shooting spears into him.
Don’t you dare, Dad
, they both seemed to say.

He looked back at her. “Yes, of course I’m sure. For the sake of your kids, you
have
to take it from me. You have to protect your family.”

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and she thanked him profusely as she pushed the stroller back out of the woods.

Deni waited until Amber was gone, then spun on Doug. “How could you do that? We can’t do without one of our guns!”

“And we have to cut twice as much wood from now on?” Jeff whacked his axe into a log. “Come on, Dad, what were you thinking?”

“What would you suggest? The woman is there alone with three babies. She needs help.”

“Mom’s gonna freak,” Beth said.

He hoped that wasn’t true. In fact, he was sure it wasn’t. Kay was as giving and loving as anyone he knew. She would have done the same thing, had she been in his shoes. Hadn’t she given Amber some of their food earlier today?

No, she would insist that he’d done the right thing.

“You’re not giving her
my
gun,” Jeff bit out.

“I’ll give her the .22.”

“No way!” Logan cried. “That one’s mine!”

“It’ll be okay. It’s just a loan.”

“Man!” Logan stomped his foot. “Not fair!”

“Nothing’s fair, these days,” Deni muttered. “So you might as well get used to it.”

“You did
what
?” Kay’s frustrated question clearly indicated he’d made a mistake.

“What would you want me to do, Kay? Amber’s all alone and she has to defend her family.”

“Doug, it’s fine to give her some of our wood. And it’s nice to help her when we can. I don’t intend to pretend she’s not in trouble. But our guns?”

“Just one of them.”

“We’ll need them when we split up. Say Jeff goes to a friend’s house, and you’re here, and I’m somewhere else. We’ll each need to have one with us. It’s dangerous to be unarmed with a killer running around. I wish we had five of them, but we
cannot
get down to just two.”

“I understand how you feel. But I already told her we’d give her one.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have!”

Doug slammed his hand on the counter. “Okay, do you want to go over there and override me? Tell her that you’re sorry, but you can’t agree to giving her one of our guns? Kay, she’s not much older than Deni. I keep thinking how I would want people to respond if it was our daughter in this situation.”

Kay wilted. “No, I don’t want to tell her that. I can’t believe you put us in this position. Just give her the stupid gun. In fact, give her some of everything we have. Give her half of our food. Our toilet paper. Give her our water. Then she’ll think we’re really nice people, and that’s what it’s all about with you, isn’t it, Doug?”

He couldn’t believe her attitude. “Why are you acting like it’s some mortal sin to care for people?”

Kay looked as if he’d slapped her. “How dare you suggest that I don’t care for people? I gave her food today. I bought her diapers.”

“And I want to help her protect her family. What’s wrong with that?”

“Your first priority should be taking care of
your
family!”

Doug wanted to kick something. “My family is fine.”

“She’s right, Dad.”

Doug shot Deni a warning look, then turned back to Kay. “I have to do this, Kay. Amber’s husband is a jerk, and he’s left her to endure this alone.”

“So you have to be completely responsible for her now?”

“Kay, it’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it? You’ll take something important from your own family to give to some needy woman, and I’m supposed to just accept it?”

“Yes, just like I accepted it when you gave her food, even though I don’t know how we’re going to feed our family much longer!”

Kay’s eyes filled with livid tears. “You didn’t say you were upset about the food I gave her. You didn’t say anything at all!”

“I was biting my tongue, okay? But I know why you did it. It’s the same reason I’m doing this.” What was left of his energy seemed to pool in his feet, and he pulled a chair out from the table and dropped down. Would this day never end? “Look, if it means this much to you, I won’t give her the gun. I’ll tell her the family talked about it, and decided we couldn’t. Maybe someone else can give her one.”

Kay leaned on the chair, gritting her teeth as she thought that through. “No one else is going to want to part with theirs, either.”

“Then this is a lose-lose situation. Kay, what do you want me to do?”

She blew out a long breath and raked her fingers through her hair. “Just give it to her. With all the other stress, I don’t need guilt hanging over my head, too.” With that, she stormed out of the room.

Doug sat there a moment, looking up at Deni. “I really don’t know what to do.”

Deni grinned. “If you ask me, I think we should go find her husband and kick his rear. You haven’t been in a good fight today.”

“Not funny.”

“And while we’re on the subject, you can quit picturing me in her situation. That would never happen to me.”

Doug didn’t respond. Instead, he forced himself up, got a box of .22 caliber cartridges and the .22 Winchester, and he and Beth took them over to Amber. After a lesson in how to use the gun safely, she thanked him again. “I don’t have any money to pay you. I didn’t get to the bank before the power went out, but I’d like to give you this.” She went to her refrigerator and pulled out a watermelon sitting on the bottom shelf. “It’s not cold anymore, but it’s ripe and probably really good. It might refresh your family.”

“Sweet!” Beth said.

But Doug pushed it away. “No, Amber, I can’t take that.”

“Please, do. I had it for my parents, who were supposed to come from Tuscaloosa this weekend. They won’t be coming now. And I don’t like to have watermelon just for us because it’s such a mess. I don’t have enough water to clean us up. I’d feel so much better knowing you all could enjoy it.”

“Come on, Dad!” Beth started jumping up and down. “Watermelon! It would be so good to eat watermelon.”

He grinned. “All right. Thanks, Amber.”

They crossed the yard, and as soon as he walked in the door, Logan and Jeff attacked him.

“Watermelon. Cool!”

“Can we eat it now, Dad,” Jeff asked, “or do we have to save it?”

“We’ll eat it now,” he said. “Take it outside and cut it on the patio table.”

He found Kay sulking in their bedroom, looking out the window at the kids and the watermelon.

“She gave us a watermelon as thanks for the gun.”

“That was nice.”

“Yes, it was.”

She turned back to him, and tears came to her eyes. “You know, I don’t like what this is doing to me. I’m not like this. I feel this desperate need to hoard what we have. Whenever I think about our neighbors, I start realizing we might have something they need. Maybe that’s why we were so detached from them before. I thought it was because we were so busy, we only had time for an occasional wave across the yard. But maybe it was really because I’m selfish and didn’t want to get in a position of having to give.”

“That’s not true,” Doug said. “If you knew they had a need, you’d have given them the shirt off your back.”

“That’s just it. I
didn’t
know, and I wasn’t all that interested in finding out. I’m scared, Doug, and I don’t want to give anything else up.”

He sat down next to her and pulled her against him. “I feel exactly the same way. It’s gonna be okay.”

“Is it? I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Are there Muslim militants waiting to invade our neighborhoods? Maybe they’ve already invaded the big cities. Are we sitting ducks?”

He wished he could reassure her, but the same questions had been spinning through his mind. “Whatever happens, we’ll be all right. God will protect us and provide for us.”

Kay nodded. “I know He will. I keep telling myself that. The thing is, I’ve never had to really believe it before. All these years, I’ve been so arrogant, thinking that whatever happened, you and I could provide. I haven’t really known what it’s like to be in need. But here we are, three days in, and I’m already losing it.”

“You’re not losing it. It’s just been a bad day all around. And hey, maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it’s time we find out what it’s like to need, so we can see how big God is.”

But even as he said the words, that fear in his mind seemed to grow a few inches.

thirty

Friday—the day Deni was scheduled to return to Washington—came without any change in their situation. She woke angry, feeling sticky and filthy, her hair plastered to her head. She had dirt under her fingernails from chopping wood and working like a slave. What if Craig somehow showed up and saw her like this?