by Tera Shanley
She was baffled. Did Sean care for her, or for what she could provide? The difference mattered. “Look, Mel. I will wither if I have to stay on garden duty. It isn’t about not wanting to work hard at my job. It’s about not finding any joy or fulfillment in it. I’ve been a successful fighter for three years and now I’m shoveling fertilizer all day. Can you please just think about another job placement for me?”
Mel tapped a pen on the table in quick rhythm. “Give gardens until the end of the week. If you still feel as strongly, I’ll try to come up with a new placement. It won’t be what you want though, Laney. It’ll still be a safe job with no action.”
She clenched her teeth against more begging. What was the point in pouting? Mel had made up her mind, and she wouldn’t be moved.
Laney left for her own cabin with a quiet goodbye and a heavy heart. Things were not turning out the way she had dared to hope.
Laney remembered to bring her canteen and sack lunch to the gardens the next day. After a gloriously warm shower, she ate breakfast with Finn and Guist and, surprisingly, Eloise, who had been invited by Guist himself. Mitchell was still nowhere to be found. Probably working the last of his night shift or crashed out asleep in his room. Or with Vanessa. She was putting a substantial effort into blocking that possibility from her mind, though. The most surprising thing was that she never even looked for Adam or his wife when they gathered for meals. Surely it was a good sign that she was over him, or at least well on her way.
She and Eloise said goodbye to the boys and headed off to the gardens in companionable conversation. When they approached the exit gates to the colony, she assumed the guards would be the same as the day before. She was stunned to find a much more familiar face instead. Mitchell looked exhausted, and his rifle hung limply at his side as he leaned against the gate. He talked in a low, deep voice to the other guard on duty.
“Hey, stranger,” she said as they approached. His absence had done her good. Even exhausted, Mitchell was a fine specimen of a man. She could almost forget how much he drove her nuts.
He looked up at her voice, and his face brightened considerably. He whistled a catcall, and she rolled her eyes.
“Any action?” she asked as she came to a stop in front of him.
“Not a bit,” he said as he ruffled her hair annoyingly. He laughed when his move had the desired effect of sticking it out in all directions.
She punched him in the arm and tried to smooth her unruly tresses back into place. “At least you have a shot at some. Working the gardens is going to put me in a coma just to escape the boredom.”
“Glad to hear you love your job so much,” a feminine voice sounded behind her.
Vannessa and Nelson approached the gate.
“Hey again, Mitchell,” the girl said flirtily. “Don’t tell me you requested this gate just so you could see me again.”
“Uhh,” he stammered as Vanessa elbowed her out of the way to put her arm possessively through his.
The move angered Laney into silence. She couldn’t even explain why she cared. Or why she watched Mitchell’s face as he looked down at the attractive girl clinging to him.
“Permission to pass,” she gritted out.
The other guard checked their names off of a clipboard and opened the gate.
“Later, Mitchell,” she grumbled before pulling Eloise through. She sniffed the air. A cautious look around showed the coast was clear.
Vanessa chattered happily away at his side, but his eyes stayed trained on her as she left. Why was that so important to her? Two other guards approached the gate to relieve the night shift.
She turned back around and growled in frustration.
“That guy is hot. Not as hot as Aaron, but he’s still an Adonis,” Eloise said.
Laney took another quick glance behind her. Mitchell was taking his leave. He hadn’t even waited to see if she got to the gardens safely. He was so different from Sean and his overbearingly protective requests. She sighed in an attempt to relieve the annoying ache in her chest and picked up her pace to catch up with Eloise. She couldn’t sift through her feelings or emotions. They swung so wide, there was no point in trying to understand them.
“Yeah, he is good looking,” she admitted.
“I don’t know how you don’t just jump on his leg when you’re around him. That man is sexy.”
Laney shrugged and knocked on the garden gates. “We’re just friends.”
“Put that down,” Laney commanded as she heard the click of her Mini behind her.
Nelson put it back down on the bale of hay that it and the rest of her weapons were lying on.
“Can you teach me how to use it?” he asked enthusiastically.
“No.”
“Why not?”
She straightened her spine and leaned on her shovel. She huffed air out of her mouth and blew a sweaty strand of hair out of her face. “Because I am obviously busy, Nelson.”
“I can get Vanessa to give you a break so you can teach me.”
“If you could wrangle a break out of Vanessa, I would have a newfound respect for you, kid.”
“I can, I know I can. Vanessa is my sister. She’d do it if I begged.”
“Your sister? I’m sorry.”
Nelson snorted. “She’s not so bad to me. She just doesn’t play well with others. I’m on her good side. I’m family.”
“Speak of the devil and she shall appear,” she said loudly enough for an approaching Vanessa to hear.
“Nelson, I need to speak with you,” Vanessa said quietly with nary a smarmy retort for her.
Laney went back to fertilizing.
“You,” Vanessa said, rounding on her.
“What did I do now?”
“You came in with Sean Daniels, right? Right?” she asked frantically.
“Yeah, why?”
“Is it true?”
Laney sighed. “Could you be a little more specific?”
“Everyone is talking but no one knows any details. Did the Denver colony fall?” Bad Attitude Barbie was bordering on panic.
Laney looked from her to Nelson, who had gone white as a sheet. “I don’t think I should be the one to talk about it with you guys,” she said, searching for an escape. A storm was coming, and every instinct pushed for her to take cover.
“Yes or no?” Vanessa screamed.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Did anyone escape?”
“I don’t know. There were survivors. We tried to bring them with us, but Sean’s second in command had them convinced they should stay and fight. We couldn’t get a single civilian to leave with us.”
Vanessa grabbed her arm, sinking her nails in, and dragged her to the nearest building. She jerked her arm out of Vanessa’s grasp and rubbed the torn skin gently. The cat had claws.
“Describe the survivors,” she demanded. “Do it!”
“Uh, I don’t know. They were mostly armed guards. There were some women and children in the auditorium too.” Laney wracked her brain for faces but came up short. Her mind had already started to block the memories from that night to protect itself. “Look, your best bet is to ask Sean. Maybe he would have recognized faces, names —”
“Sean wouldn’t talk to me. He doesn’t even know me.” Vanessa gave her a predatory glare. “But he would talk to you. Where is he right now?”
“What? I don’t know.”
“Where is he?” Vanessa screeched, barely in control of herself.
Best to give the crazy lady what she wanted.
“He was assigned to the sawmill. He’s probably working there today.”
“Good. I need you to take a four-wheeler and a trailer and go pick up a shipment of wooden stakes for the garden. Nelson will tell you how to work it.”
After a brief lesson on the ins and outs of a manual transmission ATV, Vanessa slapped a piece of paper with a list of names into the palm of Laney’s hand. There was no please or thank you, and she was off without further ado.
The guard Laney recognized from the day before opened up the gate. “Where you headed?” he asked.
“Vanessa wants me to pick up a load of stakes from the sawmill.”
The guard wrote on the clipboard, and then opened the gate wide enough for her to pull through.
“There is a trail through there for the ATV. It’ll take you straight to the mill.” He pointed to a double row of small wheel tracks headed off through the pine trees.
“Okay, thanks.”
The actual blades of the antique sawmill were in an open area, covered by a roof with no walls. A large building stood close by, and the place was surprisingly busy with men and woman loading, unloading, running logs through rows of blades, hauling wood, and stacking finished lumber. A few of them looked up at her arrival but kept to their work. Sean was nowhere to be seen.
She turned off the four-wheeler and headed for the building beside the mill. The smell of sawdust was overwhelming and comforting at the same time. It was the smell of newness. Inside the building there was just as much hustle and bustle as there was outside. It seemed to serve as storage for much of the lumber they cut until it was ready to be shipped off or used for construction or fences. The lumber was stacked so high in places that it was impossible to see around it. On tiptoes, she scoured the rows, looking for Sean. She was on the farthest wall, still not having located him, when she spotted a man and woman arguing beside a stack of two-by-fours. The woman blocked the man, and Laney could only make out the woman’s back, so she advanced and did her best to ignore them. She searched the rooms one by one with no success. The last one to check was the closest room to the argument. No help for it.
The woman moved a little to the side to reveal Adam. Laney drew up short and panicked. She in no way wanted to interrupt Adam and his wife arguing, so she ran into the last room and pressed her back against the wall. With her breath held frozen and her eyes squeezed tightly shut, she waited for them to bust her. Had they caught her movement?
“Hey, Laney. What are you doing here?” Sean’s deep voice asked from a desk in the corner.
She squeaked and held her chest. “Shh!”
The arch in his eyebrows said he thought she was insane, but the room was quiet enough to hear the argument between Adam and his wife.
“I just don’t understand why you didn’t destroy that damned picture of you two in the first place,” Adam’s wife said shrilly. “Was it so you could go look at her picture and remember her face?”
“No, Sabrina. It’s not that and you know it. You are all I need. It just didn’t feel right to rip something off of the board is all. She’s nothing. I barely remember her, it was so long ago.”
Sean had tiptoed to where she was frozen to better listen. Sympathy pooled in the deep blue of his eyes. If only she could plug her ears against the world. Just drown out everything so she could have one uninterrupted moment of peace.
“You said she was ugly,” the woman accused with a hitch in her voice. “She isn’t ugly at all, Adam!”
“Baby, yes she is. You barely got to see her in the dark. She isn’t beautiful like you. I’m not attracted to her in any way. You have to believe me.”
Sean clenched his jaw. He reached across Laney and tried to shut the door against the horrible things being said, but the door creaked loudly and they both froze. The argument stopped.
“Wait here,” Adam told his wife.
The rhythmic thud of slow, booted steps sounded against the rough wooden floorboards, and she looked around frantically for a hiding spot. The room was small, and besides the cubby hole under the desk that was easily visible, there was nowhere to disappear to.
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Sean growled.
He pulled her to the desk and lifted her hips until she sat on top of it. Shock stifled her protests. His strong hands opened her legs and pulled her until they were wrapped on either side of him. Sean threw one last glance at the door and then slid one hand around her waist and the other behind her head. His piercing eyes held hers for just a moment before he leaned closer.
And then he kissed her.
Chapter Fourteen
LANEY HAD BEEN LEANING BACK on her hands, but at the gentle caress of Sean’s lips, she pulled forward, closing the space between them. The kiss was slow, an undulating fire on her mouth that made her stomach clench and warm.
The door creaked as it opened, but she didn’t care about anything other than the physical connection that tethered her to Sean.
He pulled away and glared at Adam. “Hey, man, do you mind?”
“Oh. Laney? I am so sorry. I thought—”
“I couldn’t care less about your thoughts,” Sean said furiously. “Shut the door!”
Adam backed out and shut the door firmly behind him.
“You sure know how to pick them,” he said after Adam left.
“Yeah, well you know. I tend to like boys that borderline hate me.”
“Nasty habit, that one.”
“You’d think I’d learn my lesson,” she said through a smirk.
Sean held her gaze questioningly for a moment more and then helped her off the desk. “Why are you here?”
The smile faded from her face as she remembered the reason for her unannounced visit. It was hard to fall back to earth after that kiss. “I was looking for you.” She handed him the list Vanessa had given her. “Rumors are swirling about the fall of your colony. My boss wanted me to ask you if any of these names were still alive when we left.”
“I didn’t get a good look at everyone, but I will see if I can remember any of these from the auditorium. It may take me a while. Do you mind if I give these to you at dinner?”
“Sure. Does that mean you are actually going to eat dinner with the peons tonight?”
“No, I mean at dinner. With me.” Sean smiled and looked at the ceiling as if he searched for inspiration. “What I mean to say is will you come over for dinner tonight? I think we need to talk.”
She tried to control the slow smile that made its way across her face and nodded. “That sounds nice.”
“All right, well I’ve got more work to do here.” His voice was dismissive.
If the man was anything, he was definitely confusing.
“Okay, can you tell me where to get a load of wooden stakes for the gardens before I go?”
“Of course. This way.”
After the stakes were loaded into the trailer, Sean waved his goodbye and jogged back to the warehouse, disappearing into the large building. How was she supposed to feel about their encounter? He had kissed her and invited her to dinner, but then he acted as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. Maybe he was just really swamped at the mill. She pointed the four-wheeler to the well-worn ATV path and headed back to the gardens.
“You’ll have to wait until tonight,” she told Vanessa and Nelson when she arrived back at the storage buildings. “Sean said it will take him a while to remember. I can bring you answers after dinner if you want.”
Vanessa looked angry and impatient, and when she didn’t answer, Laney turned and started unloading the stakes herself. When she turned back around, Vanessa was gone.
“It’s just…we know a lot of people at the Denver colony. Knew a lot of people,” Nelson corrected himself.
She heaved another bundle of stakes out of the small trailer. “I figured it was something like that or I wouldn’t have helped your crazy sister.”
Nelson mumbled his thanks and left her to her work and to her thoughts.
The nerves crept in as Laney checked her hair in the mirror for the third time. Without an option on clothes, all of her
anxiety had gone straight into fussing over her hair, which hung long and straight across her shoulders and back. The nine millimeter was a comforting weight in the holster on her leg, and she checked the knife at her ankle out of habit. The drawer of the small dresser made a hollow thunk as she placed her Mini into it and slid it closed. Without her trusty rifle, she was as good as naked.
After bundling up in her jacket and shutting the door firmly behind her, she made her way to the main trail that led up the mountain. She didn’t know exactly where Sean lived, but she remembered Nick saying his cabin was near Mel’s. If she got lost, she would simply ask for directions.
The light was fading, and she was struck by how beautiful the foliage looked right before dark. It was her favorite time of day. The green of the ferns seemed to deepen, and a calm peace hung in the air. How could a place like this exist on the brutalized earth? If magic still endured in the world, surely it would be found in that forest.
Sean’s cabin was easy to find. Finn’s trailer sat close by and identified the log home as the right place. She knocked on the door and waited. A minute with no answer had her knocking again. She leaned back and checked around the corner of the house. A lonely ax stuck stubbornly out of a large tree stump surrounded by splintered wood shavings. No one was outside.
The door flew open, and Sean stood there pulling his jacket on quickly.
“Laney?” His eyes widened. “I forgot about our dinner. I’m so sorry. I just got word that a large group of Deads are at the gates. Mel wants me down there right away to identify if any of them are from the Denver colony. Since you’re here, can you do me a huge favor?” His words were clumped together and hard for her to keep up with.
“Uh, okay. What do you need?” she asked, making the effort to conceal her disappointment.
“Can you watch Adrianna until I get back? I shouldn’t be long. If you missed dinner there is food inside. Ade can show you where. I’ll be back soon. Thanks, Laney.” He squeezed her shoulder before he jogged off toward the main trail. “Oh! Almost forgot.” He ran back and slapped Vanessa’s list of names into her hand. “I didn’t see any of these people in the auditorium before we left. Sorry.” Sean left without a backward glance.
