by Kate Morris
“I’m sure the children will understand,” Herb says as he looks over a clipboard full of notes that one of the other doctors hands him. “Simon, I want you in on this. Come with me, son.”
They work for the next few hours with the team of doctors that Robert sent and study together the possibilities and equations and dosages of this medicine. Dr. Galway explains that he used this particular medicine in Colorado to treat a wave of pneumonia that sounds a lot like the pneumonic plague that they’d treated from the group with whom he and Sam had traveled. He was and still is thankful that she never got that from them. He isn’t so sure that she would’ve survived.
It is nearly dusk when Herb gives the final approval on dosing the Campbell Kids with trimeth-sulfameth. They will all get a single dose tonight and then again in the middle of the night. Simon goes off to find Samantha in the hopes of speaking with her before he leaves with Kelly. However, he doesn’t find her and ends up talking to a pregnant patient who flags him down. She is concerned about pre-term labor, so he walks her to the clinic and does a thorough examination. Herb joins him in the middle of it, and together they ascertain that she is only having false labor. Her husband walks her back to their home and thanks them profusely before leaving with her. By the time they close down the clinic, it is dark out, and Simon still wants to find Sam.
Herb separates to go to the temporary Scarlet Fever medical center to check on the children, and Simon goes in the opposite direction and searches for Sam at their house in town. He finds her upstairs in the bedroom where she normally sleeps.
“Hey,” he says softly, still startling her. “Sorry.”
“What do you want?” she asks and turns back to packing her duffle bag.
“What are you doing?” he asks and circles around in front of her to perch on the end of the dresser.
“Taking this stuff home. I don’t need it here.”
This confuses Simon. Those who work overnight shifts in town on medical duties keep a small supply of clothing and personal items in the house. “Why won’t you need any of that?”
“I’m not going to be coming to town so often to help out. I’ll be working more with my uncle on Henry’s farm.”
“Oh,” he says, trying not to show how disappointed he is to hear this. “Everyone thinks you’re such a great nurse. They’re right, you know. You are.”
“Well, I don’t want to be a nurse forever. My uncle has a nurse full-time with him now, so eventually I’ll be dropping back on the amount of time I work at his clinic. And at Grandpa’s clinic here.”
“Really? But you’re so talented.”
“Simon, I don’t really want to be a nurse. I’ve told you that. I only do it to help out.”
“Right, sure. I know. It’s just that all the patients love you,” he says, trying to find a smooth transition to tell her about his own feelings. “And also, that’s actually…”
“Henry is having me teach people riding, and I’m going to be heading up his training facility for the young horses. He doesn’t have anyone there that knows a whole lot about taking care of and breaking horses.”
“Oh,” he says, the wind taken out of his sails by this information. “Um, that’s great, exciting. You did that at the farm, too, though. We could definitely use help with that again. There are three new foals in the barn…”
“Reagan will handle it. She’ll be fine. She was doing it before I got there. And at least you guys also have Cory. He’s great with the horses.”
“Yes, but she’s busy with Charlotte now.”
“Then Huntley and Cory can help. Grandpa’s farm has a lot more people on it who can work with horses. Henry doesn’t have anyone. He knows some but not enough to turn out a finished horse and certainly not enough to teach people. He’s far too busy for all that.”
Busy trying to woo Sam and lure her away from them is what Simon is thinking but doesn’t say. She just keeps on going before Simon can even remark about his archenemy.
“Plus, we’ve taken in a lot of people the last few months, people displaced by the highwaymen attacks.”
“Yes, that worries me. Nobody knows anything about people like that. They could be plants, spies for the enemy.”
Sam laughs at him, “Oh, Simon, stop being so paranoid.”
“Being paranoid,” he states angrily, “is what keeps us alive. You should understand that better than anyone.”
“Yes, I do, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to trust people. Besides, the other day, a woman who used to be a surgical nurse joined the compound. She’s a widow. She has no one. Uncle Scott said she’d be a great addition to our team, too.”
“Yes, that’s true, but not everyone is.”
“No, you’re probably right, but Henry and Dave vet them very carefully before allowing them to stay. You know me. I’m not hanging out with a bunch of strange men. Not even I have that much trust.”
“Good. Just be careful,” he says and reaches out to touch her forearm, which she pulls back almost immediately. Simon stands and steps into her space. Then he takes both of her hands in his. “Samantha, I need to talk to you. I know you don’t want to hear anything I have to say right now, but I really need to tell you some things.”
“Simon, don’t,” she says softly and looks at her shoes.
“The letter you wrote me,” he starts but stops when she looks at him with a direct stare that reveals her anger and what seems like hatred. It causes him to flinch. “I want to talk about that.”
“I don’t. I said everything I needed to say.”
He shakes his head, “But I haven’t. I never have where you’re concerned. There’s so much I need to tell you.”
Simon takes a risk and allows the backs of his knuckles to skim over her downy soft cheek. Her eyes slowly rise to meet his, and this time the hatred and anger are gone.
“Sam!” someone loudly calls from the first floor. Then he repeats it.
She looks at the door and back at Simon, “That’s my ride. I gotta go.”
Before he can stop her, persuade her to stop and listen to him, she grabs her bag and heads for the door.
“Sam, wait!” Simon calls after her and follows her down the steps to the first floor. There he sees Henry, who must be her ‘ride.’
“See you later, Simon,” she says.
Henry takes her bag for her, and they leave before Simon can say anything further. On the front porch, he watches Henry help her into a big pick-up truck and leave. Simon would like to punch something. The soft, tender emotions he’d felt a moment ago for Sam are gone and have been replaced with a violent dislike for Henry and a need to pound on something or someone. He wishes Cory would’ve come to town with him.
Instead, he leaves soon after with Kelly for their first mission to gather intel on the highwaymen and their lair. The whole ride there in the CNG converted truck, all he can think about is Sam.
“Ready for a long night, Professor?” Kelly asks, picking up on his silence.
“Yes, sir,” he answers firmly.
“Good. Quit thinking about little Sam and get your head in the game,” he reprimands and cranks up heavy metal tunes through the speakers.
It’s a good distraction, typically, but tonight, Simon’s mind betrays his need to be focused and repeatedly returns to her.
Chapter Seven
Paige
She turns in around ten p.m. after helping get the kids ready for bed and leaving them to Derek, who likes reading to them at night. Then she helps Hannah chop vegetables for tomorrow’s stew she has planned. They cook even more than they used to since a few of Robert’s men are still camped out at Derek and Sue’s old house in the woods. Herb said that it wasn’t right to not feed them since they are working just as hard to find the highwaymen and have even lost a few friends fighting alongside the McClanes and Dave’s men.
As she tosses and turns, sleep eludes her. With Simon being gone, her worries kick into high gear like they always do, and Paige is unable t
o relax. She understands why her brother is so overly protective. She feels the same about him.
It thunders loudly outside her window, causing her to jump. Before coming to the McClane farm and living in this valley, Paige had never heard thunder so deafening nor seen lightning so brilliant that it lit the entire countryside, even the individual branches on trees.
The house is perfectly silent, everyone having gone to bed except for Lucas, Cory, and two of Robert’s men who will all remain on watch duty shifts until morning when her brother and Kelly return home. She and Gretchen had volunteered to help out with taking a shift, but they’d refused, telling them to get their sleep instead. Huntley quickly stepped in to take a shift before she could even ask. She’d also offered to help with the babies, either Daniel or Charlotte, but the sisters told her they weren’t exactly like work and were happy to keep them in their rooms. Reagan also told her about Sue’s terrible miscarriage and how she sees Daniel as a blessing that he was brought into her life as if God gifted her with the baby she’d wanted. Without a modern sleep aid, there is no way she’s sleeping tonight, so she slips from her room and tiptoes down the long hall. No light leaks out from under any of the doors, and she already knows Sue has Charlotte while Reagan is in town for the night.
Cory is sacking out in the cabin until his shift starts in a few hours. Someone needs to be out there in case the highwaymen would sneak in from the rear. She pulls on a brown raincoat in the mudroom and dark green rubber boots over her jeans. It’s not an attractive getup, but at least it’s warm coupled with her long-sleeved tee, navy blue hoodie, and thick socks.
She exits the house as silently as possible and jogs toward the barns where someone is using a lantern to light the open doorway. Paige has to stop herself from groaning. It’s only Parker, Robert McClane’s right-hand man and someone whose company she does not prefer.
“Where you headed?” he asks as he puffs on a cigarette.
“Where are you still getting cigarettes?” she asks and huddles under the roofline of the horse barn.
He chuckles and offers her a drag, to which she shakes her head. “We have our ways. A group of people we took in recently had tobacco plants with them, so we’ll be planting that next year. For now, it’ll all go in the greenhouse.”
“Oh, why would you want to plant tobacco? Does it have a medicinal use?”
The weather is picking up, the high winds pushing the rain sideways in sheets of cold, stinging pellets.
“No, but people still like smoking. And it’ll make a good bartering tool.”
She nods with a grimace. Cigarette smoke stinks. So does his company. “Well, I’m off.”
“Where to?” he asks and nearly steps in front of her.
Paige isn’t sure if he’s blocking her exit or just going somewhere, too. She has a hard time judging him because he’s weird, or at least he is in her opinion.
“I…I just need to talk with Cory…about this project he’s working on,” she lies badly.
“Just talk, huh?” he asks and looks her up and down as if he finds her explanation unbelievable.
“Excuse me,” she says and tries to give a light grin as she ducks around him. Her smile probably comes off as creeped out because she is. Parker is not someone she enjoys having around the farm. She knows some of the guys don’t like him, either, especially Cory, but Herb said they should all be tolerant and agreeable toward him since the man is helping them. Tolerant does not mean she has to hang out and chit chat all night in the barn, alone, away from the family where nobody would hear if he murdered her with his pasty white hands. As she dashes back out into the rain, Paige shivers, but not from being wet and cold.
She jogs to the cabin and knocks three times. Cory almost immediately answers and is only wearing ripped and holy jeans. His chest and feet are bare.
“Paige!” he exclaims. “What’s going on? What are you doing out here?”
He ushers her inside and rushes to the tiny bathroom to fetch her a towel. Then he takes her wet coat as Paige removes her muddy rubber boots and sets them on the mat near the door.
“Dry off. Good grief, you’re going to get sick. Is everything ok?”
“Yes, everyone’s fine. Nothing’s wrong. As a matter of fact, everyone’s asleep, except me, of course. And Parker.”
“Parker?” he asks with a slanting of his brown eyes.
She rubs the towel around on her damp hair and stands next to the wood-burning stove for heat, letting the crackling and popping sounds soothe her. Her hands are frozen. “Yeah, ran into him near the barn.”
Cory’s eyes narrow now. “Lucky you.”
“It’s fine,” she says, trying to cool his temper. She shrugs. “He’s just weird.”
He barks a shout of bold laughter, “You can say that again. Dude’s a bona fide freak.”
She smiles and takes a deep breath, exhaling with relief to be in his company and the safety he represents.
“So if nobody needs my help, and you’re fine but can’t sleep, what are you doing out here? Slumming it?” he jests.
She chuffs air through her nose and nervously bites her thumbnail. There is no answer to his question.
“Are you feeling alright?” he asks, his brow pinching together with concern.
“Oh, yes, I’m fine. No worries.”
“No complications from the miscarriage you aren’t telling me about?”
She vigorously shakes her head, “No, not at all. That was a while ago. I’m fine. Everything’s back to normal again.”
This is definitely not a topic she wants to discuss. Losing a baby she hadn’t even known she was carrying, hadn’t ever thought of having in the first place, had impacted her in a way she would never have guessed. It had left her very depressed.
“You just came out to visit with me?” he asks and quickly grabs a hoodie from the back of a chair, pulls it on, and zips it halfway up over his bare chest.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” she says and rubs her palms together.
Cory quickly crosses the short space between them and takes her hands in his. “Geez, you’re froze.”
She nods with a lopsided grin. “Nothing new there.”
“Why did you want to visit me?” he asks, his voice turning slightly husky.
Paige takes a deep breath, looks up into his dark, hooded eyes, his shaggy hair falling across his forehead, and has to fight down the urge to fling herself at him.
“I guess I just haven’t really had the time or the opportunity to talk to you anymore, not with Simon watching us like a hawk.”
His expression becomes pained at the mention of his best friend. She knows how much Cory cares for her brother.
He reaches out and twists a long strand of her hair around his index finger. “I’ve missed you, too, Red.”
Paige allows her gaze to roam over his broad chest and the dark hair still visible there.
“You’re making it mighty hard to obey the rules, Paige,” he whispers and strokes her cheek.
“What rules?” she asks, heedless of restrictions right now.
“I’m not supposed to be lusting after you like this anymore.”
“Simon isn’t in charge of me, Cory.”
“Not just Simon, sweetheart,” he says softly, drawing her attention back up to his face at the endearment. Cory shakes his head. “Herb doesn’t want this, either. He as much as said so. Not without marriage.”
“But I’m never marrying, not you or anyone else,” she explains as if that will make it all clear.
She runs a hand up and into his hoodie where it comes to a final resting place on his huge right pectoral muscle. It flexes and jumps under her palm.
“They’re both in town, Cory,” she says, digging them deeper into a pit from which they won’t be able to emerge soon. “Nobody would know, just me and you.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” he says, forcing his scruples onto her. Then he presses his hands to her shoulders and steps away, causing her to frown.<
br />
“We’re both adults. This could be the last time. We could promise ourselves it’s the last time.”
“For closure purposes?” he asks as if trying to wrap his brain around her reasoning, which actually makes no sense at all. Then he laughs. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to seduce me.”
“Is it working?” she asks with a smile.
He grins in return. “All too well, Red. But I’m not breaking my word to your brother. You wouldn’t respect me if I did anyway.”
His logic is inconvenient and ill-timed. “Probably not.”
He steps closer and presses a kiss to her forehead. “But this could all remedy itself if you’d just admit you have feelings for me and give in.”
This makes her frown. It’s like a bucket of cold water hitting her in the face. Then she rises on tiptoe and lightly presses her mouth against his lips, testing the waters for potential rejection. She is met with only the slightly hesitancy.
“You know I want more than this.”
She nods, her lips bobbing against his. “I know.”
“We can’t just fool around, sneaking and lying. It’s no good,” he says hoarsely, his barrier of resistance coming down.
“I know that, too.”
“I want a commitment from you, at least that you’ll consider what I want,” he whispers more quietly.
This is touchy ground, but Paige nods anyway. “Fine, I will. I’ll consider it. Just kiss me, Cory.”
And then the last blockade he had erected against her crumbles, and Cory yanks her into his arms, up off the floor and crushes his mouth against hers. It lasts all too briefly. Gently, he sets her to her feet again and crosses the room as if he doesn’t trust himself. She sighs wistfully at what could’ve been.
“Drink?” he asks and offers a mug of something to her, which she takes. It’s only hot tea. “Have a seat. Let’s try to be grown-ups.”
She laughs and sits at the tiny table next to him, and they just talk. They discuss the highwaymen, the town, Dave’s compound, and she tries her hardest to avoid circling back to relationship commitments.
