The McClane Apocalypse Book Three (51 page)

"Sorry, honey. Are you ok?" John asks as he
pulls back while still holding her closely.

Jacob reaches up and grabs John's ear, and
he chuckles down at the baby.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Did he hit you?" John inquires after
Bobby.

When she nods twice, the look on John's face
is so violent and malevolent. He mumbles something unintelligible
under his breath.

"I'm ok, though. I'm not nearly as banged up
as Hannah," she tells him, trying to lessen his anxiety.

"I know. I saw her briefly this morning and
spoke to Kelly last night when we were burying them. What's wrong
with people that they would hurt someone like Hannah? She's not a
threat to anyone. She's completely defenseless," John tells her.
"Bastards!"

His hoarsely whispered expletive is worse
than any she's ever heard before. His fierce passion for the
protection and safety of her family gives her hope for their
future.

"It's over now. Let's just try to forget
about it," Reagan says and kisses Jacob on the cheek as he snuggles
into her neck with his soft face.

"No, we can't forget about it. We're having
a meeting tonight after the kids have gone to bed. This can't ever
happen again, Reagan."

"Who's having a meeting?" she asks as she
allows him to lead her out of the barn and toward the house again
in the dark. The air is cool, the sky warns of an impending storm.
There are no stars visible, and the leaves turn over on the old
maple in the back yard from sharp wind gusts.

"Your grandfather and us adults. And
probably Simon and Cory. Sam maybe. I'd like to get some more
information from her, but I doubt she'll talk. It might take her
awhile before she's ready," John tells her.

Reagan knows the feeling well. It's been
almost seven months since her attack at the university, but she is
far from being ready to talk about it.

"Dadda," Jacob blurts.

The baby reaches for John again. It stops
them both simultaneously in surprise. Neither of them knows what to
say, how to feel about this. Perhaps Jacob is just babbling. He
does that a lot. John takes him from Reagan and kisses his
forehead, breathing deeply for a moment. There's a softening in
John's hard eyes that stirs unfamiliar feelings in Reagan that she
immediately suppresses. The way he is with Jacob is so endearing,
even though he's not really his son.

"Let's go in," John recommends.

He wraps his arm around Reagan's shoulder
while also carrying Jacob high on his wide chest with the other.
It's only now that she notices that he's still limping, badly.

"I still need to examine you. That was a
really bad fall you took yesterday, probably the worst I've ever
seen, and I've seen a lot of horseback riding train wrecks, John,"
she says as she slips her arm around his waist for support.

"I need to examine you, too," he says in a
strange way.

Why would he examine her? He isn't a
doctor.

"I'm fine. Grandpa already checked me out,
but I could've told him it was a waste of time," Reagan
answers.

"That's one of the things I like most about
you. Did you know that?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You never get my sexual innuendos, boss,"
he teases.

John squeezes her shoulder as he presses a
kiss to her hair. Neither of them has showered or cleaned up yet
today, and they both desperately need to.

She has to tell herself more than once that
she's holding his waist to help him, but she knows the picture they
must present as they walk up to the back porch. Grandpa and Sue are
sitting in the dark on the porch swing with just the lights from
the kitchen coming through the windows, and Kelly leans against the
banister smoking a cigarette. None of them say anything, but she
can only imagine what they must be thinking. John shifts his weight
to his good leg.

"Ready?" John asks Kelly.

"Sure, right after you shower," Kelly jokes
with a grimace.

It's nice to hear after a day of so much of
the heavy stuff. Sue chuckles, and Grandpa agrees heartily.

Kelly takes a puff and continues, "Like I
was saying, we escorted them about fifteen miles north of here
before we came back. I don't think we'll ever see them again."

Kelly is obviously talking about the
visitors, or what was left of them.

"I'm helping John because he's pretty hurt,"
Reagan blurts. Everyone looks at her strangely.

"Ok, nobody said anything," Sue says and
shakes her head.

Reagan would like to club her sister.

"That's quite the limp you've still got
there, John," Grandpa notices. "Reagan, you'd better take a look at
that. This will be your first introduction into injury medicine
without the aid of x-ray and CAT scan equipment. Let me know if you
need help," Grandpa offers kindly.

He is smoking his pipe which is probably why
he's on the porch.

"Where's Grandma?" she asks.

"She went inside to put the littler ones to
bed, and then she's turning in, too. It's been a rough few days for
her," Grandpa explains to which everyone grimaces. "I didn't tell
her. It was hard enough for her."

Reagan nods, and they all do the same or
look away because they know he's talking about Grandma's
brother.

"I'm sorry, sir," John says.

He shifts his weight to his bad leg and
swiftly back again. Reagan is worried that John is hurt more
seriously than he's letting on. This worry is like a deep pang in
her gut that won't go away.

"Don't be, John," Grandpa allays John's
stress. "You did the right thing. I always knew he was a shit, but
I didn't know how big of one he truly was. Take an hour, you two,
to get ready, and we'll convene in the dining room."

John nods with a frown. "Yes, sir," he
answers her grandfather.

They go up to their third floor space, and
Reagan starts Jacob in his nightly routine of being put to sleep
which usually involves rocking him in the rocking chair that John
brought up a few weeks ago. She told him it was a stupid idea to
start bad habits like that, but he'd insisted on it. He leaves to
get his shower, which she'd forced him to take before her, and she
holds Jacob in her arms and then against her chest. She feeds him
his bottle of goat milk, which he doesn't finish. He falls quickly
to sleep sucking his tiny thumb, turning the skin to a prune-like
texture. Reagan assumes that John has started this habit of rocking
him because there's just something about holding Jacob close,
hearing his baby puffs of breath in her ear, feeling his warm
little body and knowing he's safe and that they're the ones who are
keeping him that way. If it is comforting to Jacob, it's a thousand
times more so to her and John. Stroking his downy head, Reagan
rocks and rocks and just about falls asleep, too, when John's
footsteps startle her. He kisses her forehead and takes the baby
from her.

After her shower, she goes back upstairs to
retrieve John and finds him sitting in the same rocker near her bed
watching Jacob sleep on it. He rubs at his chin, deep in though.
He's quiet and reflective for a long moment while she busies
herself around the room getting dressed and picking up dirty
clothes.

"He's so innocent," John finally says with a
touch of sadness and an angry scowl.

Reagan tries to walk past him to pull a
blanket over the baby, but John pulls her onto his lap instead,
pressing her back against his hard, muscular front.

"I wish his life wasn't going to have the
kind of violence like we've seen, but I'm afraid it'll be more of
the same… or worse," John ponders.

"He'll be fine. He'll be tough like you,"
she reassures him as he rocks them both.

"Tough like you, maybe," he says with a
smile and kisses her neck.

She's glad she took the time to use the blow
dryer on her hair and then braid it, even if her scars show more
prominently. Reagan doesn't always feel quite so self-conscious of
the scar on her face anymore or the ones on her body. However,
she'd also not let John look at her with the lights on or in the
daylight and insisted that they have sex without any lighting at
all.

"Yeah, I'm really tough! I couldn't even get
away from a damn teenager," she argues softly and leans her head
back against his shoulder.

Reagan brings her knees up and plants her
feet in between his legs on the seat of the rocker. Her feet are
bare and cold even with wearing sweatpants that drag on the ground,
of course.

"In your defense, he was a lot bigger than
you," he says.

Reagan can tell that he's smirking like a
damn smartass. His hand runs up her navel to cup her breast through
her long sleeved, black tee with the saying on the front: "
The
Difference Between Genius and Stupidity is; Genius Has Its
Limits—Albert Einstein."
It seems a suitable saying with which
to end the day. John's touch isn't sexual but comforting, perhaps
comforting to him, as well.

"Yeah, I guess I should take on people more
like Justin's size," she says, referring to their seven year old
nephew. John chuckles and kisses her shoulder.

"Maybe you should just leave the taking on
of anyone to me. 'Kay, boss?" he says against her shoulder blade
where there is a scar, one of so many.

"Fine, but we can teach Jacob how to play
the piano
and
shoot assholes just like you do so well. Can't
we?" she asks cheerily, and he squeezes a giggle out of her. "How's
your leg? Am I too heavy?"

"It's fine, boss. I think I'm gonna live,"
he tells her.

She runs a hand behind her and up through
his damp hair that desperately needs cut. It curls on the ends and
is coarse, yet still soft.

He adds with a smile against her shoulder
blade, "And no, you aren't too heavy. Your clothes are kind of
heavy. Can you take them off?"

"No!" she admonishes but leans back for
another neck kiss. "I'll check out your leg after our meeting which
we're going to be late for," she tells him in her best
authoritative tone. His fingers lightly stroke her cheek and her
arm. His touch always sends pin pricks down her spine.

"Yeah, I guess we'd better get going. Just
let me prop him with some extra pillows, then we'll head down,"
John says.

He snags two more pillows from his
ridiculously small bed. His concern for the baby never fails to
touch a strange part of her that she's shut off to the world, a
part of her that she doesn't necessarily want to re-open. When he
turns back to her, he smiles, breaking her trance.

"Nice shirt."

Reagan looks down and says, "Thanks. Thought
it kind of said it all."

John smirks, nods and kisses her quick on
the side of her mouth so as not to hurt her before they go to the
meeting in the dining room.

Most everyone is waiting as Sue comes in
last. Even Hannie is present, but Grams has opted out to catch up
on sleep. Sam is also absent. Seeing Hannah sitting there with
white bandages on her forehead and hand sends a sickening flutter
of butterflies to Reagan's stomach. Kelly looks like he agrees with
her sentiment of Hannah's plight. The younger kids have been put to
bed, but Cory and Simon are present. For some odd reason that she
can't quite put her finger on, Reagan's glad that the teen boys are
here for this.

"Sam go to bed, too?" Reagan asks of Sue
before the rest begin talking.

"Yeah, she was beat, understandably so. I
talked to her for a while out on the back porch earlier today—just
the two of us. I think she'll be ok, eventually. It's just going to
take her some time," Sue explains and puts her hand over
Reagan's.

For the first time in a very long time,
since before John came to the farm, Reagan allows her sister's hand
to rest there a few moments before pulling it back out from
underneath. Sue tilts her head to the side and gives Reagan a smile
that has a whole lot more written behind it than Sue could ever
verbalize. Her sister's touch isn't revolting, but it does not
offer the same comforting result of John's.

"She's not the only one who's going to be
ok, sis," Sue tells her.

Reagan nods but is not at all sure that her
sister is right.

"All right, it's late so let's get started,"
Derek says, taking charge for which nobody argues.

Grandpa leads off with the question they
probably all want to know, "Where did you bury the bodies?"

"Not anywhere close, sir. Unmarked graves
way out in the woods, not near anything," Derek answers and Grandpa
nods solemnly.

"Good, I don't want them anywhere near our
home. This is our home, and we need to keep it as such," Grandpa
says keenly.

"We have talked, Herb, and there has to be
some changes made around here," Derek states.

By 'we' Reagan knows he means the military
men and maybe the two young men, as well. This discussion probably
took place while they all buried the dead or during night watches
last night that Reagan believes they'd all stayed up for.

"Yeah, we obviously need to invest in a
bull-dozer," Reagan says sarcastically, referring to the body
burying.

John, Kelly and Derek laugh loudly. Even Sue
and Grandpa chuckle. Hannie doesn't, but it's because she's too
sympathetic, too soft and kind and everything that Reagan isn't and
it's ok.

Sue shakes her head and scolds,
"Reagan."

There is hardly any real judgment behind it.
The joke was morbid, admittedly, but the laughter from the
exhausted, apprehensive men made it worth the criticism.

"Uh… ok, anyways what I was going to say is
that we need to make security changes,
Reagan
," Derek
says.

He is still smiling and she returns a
smaller one. He is cool like that. They used to stay up late and
play board games and poker together with Grandpa and Sue on the
rare occasion when Derek would make it to the farm. And Derek never
treated her like a nerd genius. He's always been like a big brother
to her.