The Homecoming: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 5 (9 page)

     “Hello, Linda. My congratulations.”

     It still didn’t register in Linda’s mind.

     “Tom Haskins, what in blue thunder is going on?”

     “I’m fulfilling a promise I made to Zachary a couple of months ago. The day he went into town with me to try to get a couple of the deputies’ cars running. He asked me if I was going to make an honest woman of you. And I told him ‘yep.’ And it turns out, preachers aren’t as easy to find as they used to be. Especially preachers who are willing to travel a hundred miles to marry two total strangers.”

     “You told him ‘yep?’ That’s all the proposal I’m gonna get? You told him ‘yep?’”

     She looked at the reverend, who just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Hey, don’t look at me. He’s
your
man, not mine.”

     But she wasn’t mad. She only pretended to be. She looked at Tom, smiled, and curtsied.

     “Why, sir, I’d be just honored to be your bride.”

     Reverend Massey noted, “Well, good. It’s settled. Now then, Mr. Haskins, you promised me a real home cooked dinner.”

     Tom stood his ground behind the good reverend.

     “Don’t move just yet, preacher. It may be a trick. She may kill me yet.”

     Hannah walked up to join the group and said, “I see we have company. Shall I set another place for dinner?”

     The reverend spoke up before anyone else had the chance.

     “Yes, ma’am. I need a good meal before I can even think about doing a wedding.”

     Hannah’s eyes grew big.

     “A wedding?”

     “Yes, ma’am. For Mr. Haskins and his lovely bride to be.”

     Linda said, “The lovely bride to be part would be me.”

     “Well, duh… I hope you’re planning on staying for the night, sir. We can’t possibly throw together a wedding on less than ten hours’ notice.”

     “If I stay the night, is a home cooked breakfast involved?”

     “Certainly.”

     “I’ll stay until after supper tomorrow if you need for me to. Wouldn’t want to rush things. A wedding is a special occasion, you see.”

     “Precisely. Tom, why don’t you show the reverend to the good guest room, and Linda and I can start planning?”

     “Okay. Which one is the good guest room?”

     “The one at the top of the stairs. The only one without bullet holes in the ceiling.”

     Hannah hugged Linda as Tom hustled Reverend Massey into the house, being sure to keep the preacher between himself and his bride.

     Reverend Massey had a mild look of panic on his face and repeated a small selection of words he’d gleaned from Hannah’s comment.

     “…bullet holes?”

     While the good reverend was in his guest room unpacking his backpack and getting settled, Hannah brought Linda into the house and made the big announcement.

     “Hey, everybody! Linda and Tom are getting married!”

     Linda forgot all about being angry at Tom, and he eventually got up the courage to rejoin her.

     But he still slept with one eye open that night.

-16-

     It would have been joyful enough for the compound to plan their first wedding for Tom and Linda. But Linda wanted more.

     “God only knows when we’ll have a preacher here again. Now’s a perfect time for Jordan and Sara to be joined also.”

     “Hmmm… a double wedding,” Hannah said. “I love the idea, but won’t Scott want them to wait until he returns?”

     “I’ve already checked with Scott. He agrees with me. As much as he’d like to be here for the wedding, he understands this is an opportunity that doesn’t present itself every day. After all, Tom spent almost two days scouring all of San Antonio just to find Reverend Massey. Next time we might not be able to find anyone at all.”

     And so it was that the last Saturday before the start of the summer harvest, Linda and Sara stood side by side in almost matching white gowns. They weren’t really wedding dresses, but that didn’t matter. They couldn’t have been happier.

     At their sides, decked out in black suits, were Tom Haskins and Jordan Harter.

     They looked a little bit like Mutt and Jeff, but no one was going to mention it.

     Reverend Massey stood before the two couples in a tired and worn gray suit and read the nuptials.

     The wedding took place under an arbor that was rather hastily built by the two grooms. It was so hurriedly done, in fact, that it leaned to one side and swayed precariously in the afternoon breeze.

     But that was okay, they figured. The next wedding would be several years away, and they had plenty of time to strengthen the structure before then.

     Only Linda had known that Scott had fallen in love again, and was planning to bring Becky home with him.

     And with everything else going on, it simply slipped Linda’s mind. No one else had a clue that the arbor might be needed again much sooner than anyone expected.

     The ceremony went off without a hitch with Scott and Becky listening in from San Antonio. Zachary had made sure of that by moving the ham radio out to the arbor and taping the microphone key down.

     For their honeymoon, Tom and Linda went on a week-long camping and fishing trip in the hill country around Junction. Tom made darn sure the compound was watched over in his absence by the deputies of the Kerr County Sheriff’s Department.

     It was an over precaution. Hannah, Jordan and Zachary were quite capable of keeping watch over the compound and calling for help if it was needed. But they pacified Tom and his concerns by not arguing too strenuously.

     Once Tom and Linda returned, Jordan and Sara went on their own honeymoon, of sorts. It was to an empty house Deputy Paul told them about overlooking the Lower Llano River.

     “I went there doing a check for dead bodies,” Paul had told them. “There were no bodies, and the homeowners had left a message that said they were leaving and trying to make their way back to Ohio. To find their relatives. They said they wouldn’t be back, and for future visitors to make themselves at home.

     Sara and Jordan did just that. He loaded up a Gator with a generator, a small TV and DVD player. Sara packed a handful of movies and a large picnic basket of food. They spent the weekend watching movies and walking along the river. And making love occasionally.

     “It’s not as much fun as going to the Bahamas or something,” Jordan told her. “But it doesn’t matter. You can take the worst place in the world and make it really wonderful, just by you being there.”

     “Oh, how sweet. Thank you, baby.”

     While the young newlyweds were at the river relaxing, Linda had her hands full with a teething and very cranky Chris.

     But she didn’t mind that the kids took their sweet time in coming back. The world was a different place now. It was much harsher, with far fewer creature comforts than before. There was less confidence that one would survive into their golden years, and some even stopped planning for their future.

     But still, some things stayed the same.

     Like a grandmother’s love for her first grandchild, for example.

     So despite the long hours of crying and the diaper changes and frequent feedings and everything else… at this particular place and time Linda considered herself the luckiest woman on earth.

-17-

     “This is Scott in San Antonio, calling all of Scott’s loved ones in Junction. Who’s manning the desk tonight?”

     “Hi, Mister Scott. It’s me, Misty. How are you?”

     “I’m fine, dear. Hey, aren’t you up past your bedtime?”

     “No. I’m all grown up now. Mommy says I don’t have to go to bed until ten o’clock.”

     “Wow! Ten o’clock? I guess you really are a big girl now. Would you do me a favor?”

     “Sure.”

     “Would you call Tom or Linda on the radio and ask them to gather everyone up and take them to the control center? I have some big news to share with you guys.”

     “Wow! We have some big news too. Tom said we could call you before I went to bed to tell you.”

     Scott laughed.

     “Well, it must be a pretty good day when both of us have big news to share.”

     “Yep. I’ll call everybody, but my Mommy might not come.”

     “Why? Is she not feeling well?”

     “Well, I guess she is. But she’s in the bathroom with her honey droids, and she said not to bother her unless the world is caving in or worse.”

     “Her honey droids?”

     “Or something like that. She says they’re fierce and it helps her to soak in a warm bath.”

     Behind Scott, resting a hand on his shoulder, Becky stood trying her best not to laugh.

     “Oh, her hemorrhoids. Honey, that’s probably something your mommy wouldn’t want you talking about on the radio.”

     “How come?”

     “Because, well, on this radio people all over the world can hear what we’re saying. You’ll have to just trust me when I tell you that she probably wouldn’t want all those other people talking about her honey droids.”

     Becky stifled a smile and imagined dozens of others, monitoring the frequency from all corners of the earth, laughing out loud.

     “Oh, okay. Well, I’ll call everybody and get them together and then I’ll call you back.”

     “Okay. Thank you, sweetheart.”

     A few minutes later little Misty was back on the radio.

     “Misty Castro to Mister Scott.”

     Misty didn’t release the microphone key, and Scott heard voices in the background. Then she returned.

     “Oh, okay. Just Misty to Mister Scott.”

     Scott smiled.

     “Go ahead, honey. Why are you going by ‘Just Misty?’”

     “Oh, because Mommy told me not to use my last name on the radio. She said, ‘Don’t say Misty Castro, just Misty.’ And she’s here too by the way. She said she’d finish.”

     “Thank you, dear. Can everyone hear me? I have some good news to share.”

     Jordan got on the radio.

     “We all know your good news, Dad. We’ve been waiting for it for a long time. In fact, we’ve got our own good news we’d like to share with you first.”

     Scott was a bit taken aback, but willing to play Jordan’s game.

     “Okay, son. Go ahead.”

     “We finished the corn harvest last night, Dad. Just before sunset. And the yield was almost double what it was for the last crop.”

     “Seriously? That’s great! How did you manage to do that?”

     “Well, Tom said we’re just learning how to be more productive farmers. And Mom said it’s helped that we had extra rainfall this year. I personally think it’s because you and Tom made me the new alpha male and put me in charge of the operation.”

     “I think that’s the primary reason, son. I agree with you completely.”

     He turned to Becky and smiled.

     Linda got on the radio and set the stage for Scott to make his big announcement.

     “Okay, Scott, now what in the world could be such big news in San Antonio that you had to gather us all together to tell us?”

    “We got the all-clear yesterday. We’re packing up our things and will be moving up to the compound in just a few days.”

     On the other end, in the compound, everyone whooped and hollered and high fived each other. A couple of the more attentive ones, though, looked at each other and mouthed the question, “we?”

     Hannah was one of them.

     She asked into the open microphone, “Scott, did you say ‘we?’ Do you have a mouse in your pocket or something?”

     “Becky and me. It took quite a bit of arm twisting, but she finally consented to come back with me.”

     Zachary asked the question that everyone was thinking.

     “Dad, who is Becky?”