“Right now, only you touch me,” she whispered fiercely.
He gave her a curt nod.
Trevor poked his head out the front door of the bus. “So what’s the verdict?” he asked, shattering the moment like a brick through a window. “You guys coming with us or not?”
“We’re going with you,” Adam shouted back over his shoulder. He turned back and looked into her eyes, “The both of us.”
* * * * *
Less than two hundred miles and one movie later, Trevor drove the bus past their first location.
“Stop. Stop the bus! This is it. Do you see the address on the mailbox? It’s right there.” Rachel squealed and bounced in her seat, filled with that same rush of adrenaline she used to experience each and every time she’d walked up to the main entrance at Disneyland. “Look you guys—” she pointed, “—I can almost see the house.”
She glanced around at the men she traveled with, none of whom seemed as excited as her. Jeez, sometimes they were such duds.
Trevor turned the tour bus into the long drive. The farm they’d been looking for came into view as they got closer. Rachel pressed against a window. There was a main house, a two-story yellow Victorian with white trim. Next to the house was a huge gray metal garage, and in back stood a red barn. And none of it looked old. The house looked like a new build of an old style. Or maybe it had been completely remodeled? Either way, it looked like it was in perfect shape.
“It’s a Victorian. I’ve always loved Victorians,” Rachel informed Adam.
“Good work, babe,” he smiled indulgently. He cupped the back of her neck. “So far, so good.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, feeling warm and tingly at the compliment. “But Christian found it too. I can’t take all the credit.” Christian had gone back with her to the map room after the bus incident, as she liked to call it. The two of them worked together well, combining what each had found separately to pinpoint this farm in the San Joaquin Valley as their primary target for relocation.
“I want to see the solar and wind power and check if any animals are left before we decide if we’re staying,” Christian said, ever the pragmatist. She glanced back at him and noted his emotionless features. Did the man ever smile?
“We’ll look around first, make sure it’s safe and meets our needs before making a final decision,” Adam agreed. Rachel noted how he didn’t mention possible survivors. It was sad how they’d reached the point where they didn’t expect to find any.
Trevor parked the tour bus in front of the main house and opened the door. Rachel shot to her feet, eager to get out and start investigating.
“You’re staying here,” Adam told her, pinning her with a hard stare that caused her knees to weaken. His hand on her shoulder, he eased her back down to her seat. “And Christian’s staying here with you to make sure you’re safe.” Christian nodded his affirmation and sat back in his chair. “Trevor,” Adam yelled to the front of the bus, “you’re coming with me. We’ll do an initial sweep, then come back and report.” Trevor gave him a chin lift.
“Bossy, bossy,” Rachel muttered under her breath.
Adam swatted her ass as he passed by her. “Aah’ll be back,” he said, doing his best Terminator imitation.
Rachel burst out laughing. God, he was so cute.
After the men left, she and Christian kept busy, using maps to plan out the route to their secondary location in case this place proved to be a bust. He was very serious, but she really enjoyed his calm, quiet company. He was so smart, so competent. It was obvious he had been part of the best and brightest in his field. It reminded her of working with her professors back at Davis.
“You know, we’re lucky we found you,” Rachel couldn’t stop herself from blurting out.
Christian grinned. “Trevor and I feel the same way about you and Adam.”
She suddenly felt inordinately proud that she’d made this man smile, if even a bit. So she decided to say more. “You’ve got mad skills that are great for the team,” she added.
He crooked an eyebrow. “Mad skills? For…the team?”
“Yeah, can’t you see we’re a team now? The four of us. Like, like…the Fantastic Four.”
“A team? Okay.” He leaned back. “What are my mad skills?”
“Well, you’re a biologist and smart with plants, animals, nature, right? You can be our scientist. Like the Hulk, but without the anger management issues.”
He chuckled. “Well, yeah, I know things, but—”
“No, listen, I’ve thought about this. In our team, Adam is the soldier. So he’s like Captain America, but with guns. And Trevor is…hmm…”
“Magneto?” Christian offered with a half-smile.
She grimaced. “Really? He’s that bad? I was trying to convince Adam he was more bark than bite.”
“Maybe. Maybe he is.” Christian shrugged. “Jury is still out on that one. And who are you in this team? What superhero are you?”
“Me?” she squeaked. “Uh, I’m the human sidekick?”
“What? No… You could be like, Black Widow from The Avengers.”
“I could?”
“Yeah, why not? You could learn those skills. You’re smart, you think fast on your feet like she does.”
“I do?”
“Yeah.”
This was too weird. “I’ll need to think about this,” she said with all seriousness.
“Okay, you do that.” He chuckled.
She wasn’t kidding. She needed to tuck that one away and chew on it later.
Eventually, Adam returned and gave the okay, and Rachel finally stepped outside. She examined the area. On either side of the lane that snaked out to the main road were row up row of tall, bushy orange trees with full, waxy leaves. To the west, the land was flat as far as the eye could see, filled with both big and little farms, mainly orchards and vineyards. Although in this section it was all orange trees. A mile to the east, foothills immediately jutted out of the ground and graduated into what she knew were the mountain ranges that made up the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.
It was so wide open. She stood small and insignificant, a dot next to the natural grandeur. She smiled. They’d made a good choice picking this place.
Home. This could be home.
The men had been standing together, talking in a huddle as she looked around. “So what’s the verdict?” she asked them.
“Looks like we’ve got a lot of work making this place livable,” Christian answered. “There’s bodies to bury, rooms to sanitize.”
“But it’s got everything then? We’re staying?”
“Looks good.” Adam smiled at her.
She turned her back to them so they couldn’t see her tears.
Thank God. A home.
Chapter Fifteen
“Caffeine, I need caffeine,” Trevor wheezed as he entered the kitchen. Adam took a sip of coffee and shook his head at the unwelcome interruption. It was early still and Rachel was sleeping in the master bedroom upstairs. Christian was working in the barn. So that left him alone with Trevor, the asshole.
Terrific.
“I can’t fucking believe I’ve moved to a farm in the middle of butt-fucking nowhere,” Trevor groused, banging through white cabinets and somehow taking forever to find the mugs Adam thought were in plain sight. “I hated this goddamn place as soon as I saw it,” Trevor continued to complain. “It’s way too fucking country. But everyone else loves it, especially Rachel, so I’m stuck. Overruled.”
“This place isn’t so bad,” Adam muttered from his spot at the farmhouse table. “At least we burned the bodies and disinfected the whole house from top to bottom. And it’s got solar and wind power, a backup generator, an underground well and farm animals that are still alive. Hell, it even has a bunker filled with a year’s worth of emergency provisions.”
There were still pictures of the family that had lived on the farm all over the walls of the house and on the fireplace mantel. Husband and wife, two small children—a boy and a girl. They’d only found the body of the wife in the front room. They assumed the rest of the family had died earlier and had already been buried or burned. It creeped the hell out of Adam, seeing their pictures smiling at him, knowing they were gone, but he wasn’t sure what to do about their personal items yet. The four of them had taken over this family’s house and erasing their presence so quickly as if they’d never existed seemed a bit harsh.
“Yeah, whatever,” Trevor replied. He opened the bag of Starbucks breakfast blend Adam had left on the granite countertop and inhaled, closing his eyes for a moment. “Sweet Jesus, I’m going to miss this stuff. Maybe I should start cutting it with decaf now, so I don’t end up acting like a crazed detox patient later when it all finally expires.”
Adam shrugged, turning a page of the old magazine he’d been looking at, deliberately keeping his face impassive. Christian and Rachel might laugh at Trevor’s antics, might let themselves get sucked into his larger-than-life personality, but no fucking way was Adam letting the asshole get under his skin.
Trevor walked over with a black mug of hot coffee with an orange San Francisco Giants logo on it. He plopped down on a chair uncomfortably close to Adam’s and wrinkled his nose.
“What smells so bad?” he exclaimed and glanced down at Adam’s boots, which Adam knew were filthy and reeked of manure. “What the hell? Why didn’t you leave that shit outside? Literally.”
Adam pinned him with an unsmiling gaze.
“Fuck!” Trevor exploded, slamming a palm onto the table. “I forgot. I was supposed to help with the animals this morning, wasn’t I? I should’ve set that fucking alarm. Dude, this is totally your fault.”
“My fault?”
“Shit, yeah. I needed extra sleep this morning because I stayed up late, tossing and turning last night on that damn twin bed, constantly imagining every sound I heard was you fucking Rachel.”
Adam shrugged. “It probably was. And if you so much as touch her, I’ll fucking kill you. So you need to find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”
Trevor narrowed his eyes and scratched his unshaven chin. “You’re right about that. Hey, thanks man for heading out early and covering for me. Sorry I overslept. I’ll finish here and get back to fixing the generator.”
Adam cut him another glance, grudgingly gave him a curt nod of approval and went back to trying to read his magazine.
“Why the fuck are we here anyway?” Trevor asked, leaning back in his chair. Adam sighed, and closed the cover, giving Trevor his undivided attention. There was no point in trying to read now.
“Why are we on this ranch, farm, whatever the hell you want to call it, in the San Joaquin Valley? We’ve moved to the fucking farm belt, vying with Death Valley for first place as the official armpit of California. Don’t you realize we could be lounging in a spectacular mansion on a seaside cliff, preferably on Seventeen Mile Drive, sipping a rare wine? But no, I’m stuck with a band of logical do-gooders. Girl and Boy Scouts who want to carve out some brave new world for themselves. We could be living in luxury, but instead I’m going to become a farmer. Holy shit. A fucking farmer. None of you seem to notice, or care, that everything is up for grabs. Everything. We can walk down fucking Rodeo Drive and take whatever we want. Right now I’m wearing a diamond and platinum Rolex. Because I can.”
Adam dispassionately examined the gleaming watch on Trevor’s wrist. “What use is that now? Make sure you take that damn thing off before you go out to the barn today, you don’t want to ruin it.”
“You really couldn’t care less, could you? I could walk in here and put a real Van Gogh on the wall and you wouldn’t give a shit.”
Adam shrugged. “You bring in a doctor or a tanker of gasoline and we’ll talk.”
Trevor sat up straight, now awake and alert. He leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table. “Speaking of talk. There is one thing I wanted to talk to you about. Material possessions might be in abundance now that everyone’s dead, but women are not. There is exactly one eligible female in the vicinity, and she seems to be falling in love with you. You’re holding all the cards.”
Adam grinned. “Damn straight.”
Trevor took a sip of coffee. “To have sex or not to have sex? That is the question.” He grinned at Adam.
“Well, I’m having sex. So what’s the problem here?” Adam joked back.
“I’m not.”
All the humor in their situation vanished. Adam stood up. “I’m outta here. This is not even up for discussion. You’re on your own.”
Trevor cursed. He hopped up and grabbed Adam by the arm. “Sit. We need to talk.”
Adam curled his lip. Did the asshole have a death wish? The muscles in his arms rippled as he bunched his hands into two tight balls of rock.
Trevor glanced down at Adam’s fists, flashed a conciliatory smile and let go of Adam’s arm. “Dude, relax. We’re just going to talk.”
“Talk? About what? I already explained the situation to you. There’s nothing more to say.”
“Yeah, there is. For starters, I’m not going to take your woman.”
Adam slammed a fist on the table. The spoon in Trevor’s cup rattled. “Leave her the fuck alone.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”
“So…you’re not fucking her yet?”
“Of course I’m fucking her. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re pissed because you think I’m a threat to her, or if it’s because you think I’m trying to steal your woman.”
Adam stepped forward, got right up in Trevor’s grill and twisted his shirt in his fist. “Shut the fuck up. I’m pissed because I know you’re nothing but a lying sack of shit. You might have them fooled, but I know there’s no way in hell you were some small-time crook before the outbreak. I know a professional when I see one.”
Trevor’s face hardened. “Thanks for noticin’,” he drawled. “But what did you expect me to do? Tell them the truth? What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
Adam uncurled his fingers and slowly let go of Trevor’s shirt, tension rolling off him in waves. “I’m not buying that shit you told the others. That’s total crap. Where were you locked up and what were you in for?” he ground out. “And tell me the truth, not that bullshit story you spouted last night.”
Trevor paused. “I was in Avenal State Prison, for murder.”
Adam’s whole body turned to stone. “Fucking shit.”
Trevor rolled his eyes. “And how many people have you killed over the years, soldier boy?”
“I’m not proud of any of that shit, but at least it was in battle, fighting for our country. I didn’t fucking murder anyone outright.”
“Believe me, I did a service to all of mankind the day I took out the asshole I killed. I knew I’d go down and I didn’t care.”
Adam gave him a deep, penetrating look. “How many innocents have you killed?”
“None. No one died who didn’t deserve it.”
“How many women have you hurt?”
Trevor’s jaw clenched. “None. I don’t hurt women. That fucker I killed was a rapist.”
“So you’re trying to convince me you’re a criminal with values? Poor little misunderstood felon with a heart of gold? Fuck that. I saw that movie and it sucked.”
“No, I’m still an asshole.” Trevor smirked. “But I don’t want to end up jacking off alone for the rest of my life. So you’ve got me on a tight leash. Don’t worry, I’ll act house trained.”
They were both quiet for a moment. “Fine. I can buy that,” Adam said. “But I still don’t want you touching Rachel.”
“Why? Because she’s yours?”
“Yes.”
“Dude,” Trevor said gently, as if he were explaining this to a small child. “She’s the only woman. You’re going to have to share.”
Adam’s eyes shot arrows, daggers and bullets at him. “She’s the only woman we’ve met so far. It’s just a matter of time before we find other survivors, and then you can find your own woman, and you can stop trying to take mine.”
“Okay, you’ve got a point, you’re right. I’m not certain Rachel’s the only one, but she’s the only one for now. I might eventually find my own woman. But when? Ten years from now? Fifteen? And what if we do run into other survivors and they’re two gays, two old ladies in their eighties and a few skin heads? What then? I’m back to square one. Jacking off. Alone.”
Adam’s lips twitched. “Hopefully, the gays will be lesbians. That wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe they’ll take pity on you and let you into their bed.”
Trevor grinned back. “My luck, the lesbians will be the old ladies.”
“Okay, okay.” Adam chuckled and put both hands up. “I’m getting you. But you’re shit outta luck here. She’s mine.”
Trevor smiled wide. That big smile Adam could tell the guy used to charm his way out of sticky situations. “I have an idea.”
“Idea?” Adam said, letting the skepticism drip from his words. “What kind of idea?”
“Sharing,” Trevor said carefully. “I propose we share Rachel.”
The air changed in the room. It grew charged, dark and heavy as fury radiated from Adam in waves. There was no way he was letting Rachel out of his sight for even a moment with this asshole. “Share? Like she’s a cat or a dog? You take her for a walk today, and I’ll do it tomorrow? She’s my woman. I decide who she’s with, and right now that man is me. Only me.”
“Let me explain. I’m saying we share her at the same time, in the same bed. A ménage. You’re the primary. Her man. I’m the secondary you bring in to spice things up occasionally.”
Die for You Page 13
