Love at the End of Days

by Tera Shanley

  “Yep,” he said with a gray pallor smile and a flimsy nod.

  Sean passed her in the doorway. “The plate by Adrianna is all yours.”

  “What are you going to eat?”

  “Whatever Ade doesn’t eat. She’s finicky. It’ll be plenty.”

  She eyed his physique as he disappeared into the room, and she privately disagreed. A man built like that needed more than just the leftovers from his kid’s plate. The first thing she did when she sat down was split the beans down the middle and pull half of the cornbread apart to save for him.

  The quiet drone of deep-voiced conversation carried on long enough for her to finish and for Adrianna to leave her seat to play with a model skeleton Dr. Mackey let her borrow. Scraping all of the food onto one plate, she took it to Sean and sat in the only open seat in the corner.

  “I have something I wanted to talk to you about since you’re both here,” Sean said. He’d leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and his triceps bulged through the tight black shirt he wore. Geez, was the man trying to make her ovulate?

  “Well, what is it?” she asked irritably.

  “Both of you did excellent in the field, and I’ve already talked to Mel about you graduating immediately to full guard duties. Finn seconded my opinion. You’ve probably already figured out that you are graduating as that was part of the deal, but I wanted to formally tell you how impressed I am. I couldn’t be prouder of two new recruits with how you handled yourselves in impossible situations and went above and beyond what could ever be expected of you. I trust both of you with keeping this colony safe and have no problem recommending your immediate promotion from the training program to full guard so that you can start your careers.”

  There it was, there it was! That was the news she’d needed to get her out of whatever funk the last week had pulled her into. She’d worked so hard for this, and there had been moments she thought she couldn’t do this job after all, but she’d persevered. She’d gone the harder route and proved herself, and now she’d be a guard. That accomplishment was something no one could ever take away from her.

  Her goofy grin was mirrored by Steven, and she laughed at the jubilation on his face. It wasn’t until she saw the smile on Sean’s face that she sat stunned. He was such a serious man on the supply run, but not there in the medical cabin. His smile was a work of art. Straight, white teeth stood stark against his olive-colored skin, and his smile lines were a personal map to a deep contentment that resided within her at seeing him happy. Even his laugh was alluring. Deep, easily offered, soothing to a tainted soul. The smile had reached his eyes and made their brilliant color even brighter somehow.

  Happiness lingered around his lips as he spoke, and she couldn’t seem to take her focus from the sensual way his mouth danced around words. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a guard graduation,” he said, “but they are small events. Finn will host it, and since we’ll likely need to have it in here, you’ll be allowed to invite a guest.” He was looking at her with such seriousness when he said, “Maybe two. After graduation, Vanessa, you’ll start guard duty wherever you’re assigned, and Steven, you’ll start when you’re cleared by Dr. Mackey. Vanessa, do you know what area you’d like to guard?”

  “Eventually I want to be a personal guard. Maybe for Mel, if I can prove myself. Until then I’m good with wherever I’m needed. Cattle gates, garden gates, front gates, supply runs, doesn’t matter.”

  “You’d do another supply run after this one?”

  “Not right away, but I think I would again with the right team. Yeah. We did important stuff out there, Sean. It didn’t suck to be a part of that.”

  Adrianna drifted in with droopy eyes and crawled up into Sean’s lap. He pulled her against his chest and rocked gently. “I better get this one into bed. Let Finn know who’s invited by tomorrow morning, and he’ll get the cooks on making you guys a special meal afterward. He’ll do the ceremony here, tomorrow night at six.”

  “Wait,” Steven said. “Aren’t you going to be there?”

  “Nah. I don’t go to the graduations. You’re Finn’s until that day. After that, you’re mine,” he said. He stood and on his way out of the room said, “Good night, Vanessa,” quietly enough for only her ears.

  “Night,” she mumbled as he carried his daughter through the front door.

  He’d meant it as a threat. After that, you’re mine. Darn it all if it didn’t sound like the most enticing offer she’d had in a while.

  Chapter Fifteen

  NELSON. AND ELOISE. Or Sean. Sean? Crap, when did he become a viable option for Vanessa’s short list of important people? If she invited Sean to the graduation, he’d act weird, and apparently, she was so attracted to weird. No Sean.

  She did an about-face and launched herself back down the trail and away from Sean’s house. It was an ungodly hour, and really she had no business marching up to his front door in the near dark that preceded dawn anyway.

  But—

  If she didn’t invite Sean, she’d spend the entire five-minute graduation ceremony thinking of how different it would be if she had asked him and Adrianna to come. Wait, Adrianna now too? They probably wouldn’t give two blinks whether they were invited to her boring graduation or not. Just because it was a huge deal to her didn’t mean it was a huge deal to other people.

  But—

  When she imagined the tiny ceremony, she wanted him there. She turned again and hiked faster up the trail. Hopefully he was more of a morning person than he had been on the supply run, because Freight-Train-Vanessa was coming, and his cabin was smack dab in the middle of her tracks.

  She’d give him the speech along with the invitation. The Let’s-Be-Friends-Without-Benefits speech, just to ease some of the tension that had kept her awake and borderline crazy all night. It was becoming painfully clear she couldn’t just cut him out of her life. He was simply too intriguing, and they’d been through way too much together over the past week to go back to polite nods in the mess hall.

  Friends. She could do just friends. They could target practice together and talk about the people they were dating and definitely never kiss again. She tugged the hem of her jacket a little lower and glared at the cabin that appeared over the hill. This would be easy.

  A small sniffle brushed the breeze, and she froze. The sniffle accompanied the frail sob of a child, but she couldn’t see well enough in the dark to tell where it was coming from.

  “Adrianna?”

  “Who’s there?” came the small reply.

  Stalking forward, she called, “It’s Vanessa. Where are you, honey?” She paused again and listened for the answer. There she was.

  The child hovered against a woodpile twenty yards away from the cabin in a pair of purple footy pajamas. A pink bunny in a floral frock was clutched to her tiny body. She shook like a leaf, and from where Vanessa stood, she could hear her teeth chattering. Stripping off her jacket, she bolted for the girl and wrapped her close to her chest. “Baby,” she whispered as alarms went off in her head. “Why are you out here?”

  “It’s Daddy. I hate when he screams.”

  Vanessa’s heart stopped. Nothing moved in the woods. Not a leaf, not a branch in the wind. Slowly, she turned her head toward the house. Wrongness wafted from the open door like a fog.

  “I don’t want to go back in there,” Adrianna sobbed in a broken whisper as another fat tear slipped down her pale cheek.

  “Adrianna, I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear.”

  “Like Laney?”

  “Yes. Laney protects you. I’ll protect you just the same, do you understand?”

  The child nodded.

  With a small grunt, Vanessa hoisted her to her hip and clutched her jacket tighter around Adrianna’s shoulders. “I have to make sure Daddy’s okay, but I can’t leave you out here.”

  “Okay.”

  The first slate rays of dawn light were making their way through the heavy trees, but the growing illuminatio
n didn’t syphon the eeriness from the woods. The porch stairs creaked under her careful boots, and she set Adrianna by the door. Pulling her weapon, she brushed the cracked door with her shoulder.

  The inside of Sean’s cabin was shrouded in darkness. It was the first time she’d ever been to his place, and she hadn’t the foggiest idea where he kept his lanterns. Reaching behind her, she took Adrianna’s outstretched hand and pulled her protectively beside her.

  “He’s in there,” Adrianna said in a terror-filled voice as she pointed to a closed door to the right of the living area.

  A short yell rattled the house, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Adrianna whimpered as Vanessa turned the doorknob and threw the door open.

  A window above Sean’s bed illuminated him just enough to show him in the throes of some terrible nightmare. His body was rigid, and without a shirt to shield him, Vanessa could make out every strip of muscle and edge of bone. A frown of pain brushed his face into an unrecognizable mask, and the sheets that should’ve been protecting his body from the cold autumn air had failed in their duty and sat in a tangled pile around his feet.

  “Adrianna, did you already try to wake him?”

  “Yes, but he wouldn’t wake up,” she cried.

  The child didn’t need to see this, so Vanessa pulled her into the living room and searched the small kitchen for a lantern. One sat on the counter, and she lit it with trembling fingers before turning it up as high as it would go and setting it atop the fireplace, out of Adrianna’s reach. “I’m going to fix Daddy,” she said. She tucked the child onto the couch with her jacket and an extra blanket and bolted back for Sean’s room. “Stay there, and I’ll be right back.”

  Closing the bedroom door softly, she padded over to Sean and tried to gently shake him awake. “Sean, you have to wake up. Sean.” She tried again a little harder, but his arm was a cold stone statue under her touch. “Aw, for chrissakes.” She straddled him and slapped him like the palm of her hand was made of steel. Steel that stung like the dickens when it met his skin.

  “Ahh!” he yelled, just before his hands wrapped around her throat.

  The blue of his eyes exposed the devil in him. Open and empty, they were the windows to a soul that hadn’t awakened with the rest of his body.

  She gasped and tried to pry his iron grip from her neck. “It’s me,” she rasped. “It’s Vanessa. Sean, come back to me.”

  The change was slow, subtle. The hardened planes of his face softened to that of a fallen angel once again. His muscles lost their tension, and his hands left their purpose. “Vanessa?”

  “I’m here,” she gasped, clutching her neck like it would put her strangled esophagus back together.

  Instead of scrambling away from her, he pulled her into his bare chest and clung to her like a life raft. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Shhh,” she cooed, rubbing the smooth, taut skin across his back. “It was just a dream. It’s over.”

  “Adrianna! She gets scared when I do this. Adrianna!”

  “I’ve got her. She’s cuddled up in the living room.”

  “Daddy?” The little girl poked her head through the doorway. Her dark eyes were rimmed with tears that threatened to spill over at any moment.

  Well, this was awkward. Sean didn’t seem to remember she was straddled across him like a lover and clutching him in an intimate embrace. Nor did he seem the least bit embarrassed that his daughter saw him in such a compromising position. For all she knew though, Sean had a lady over to the house every night. Maybe Adrianna saw this kind of behavior all the time. Why did that make her want to storm out of the house?

  “Come here,” he said, and the little girl scampered across the wooden floor boards and hopped onto the bed.

  Vanessa slid off and made her escape to the side of the mattress nearest the wall as Sean gathered his daughter up into his arms. “Were you scared?” he asked.

  “Mmhmm,” Adrianna said with wide, chocolate brown eyes. “I couldn’t wake you up and then Vanessa came and said she was going to fix you.”

  “She did. I feel all better now, okay? You want to go get the pastries Mel made you out of the pantry?”

  A tremulous smile dotted her mouth, and she slid from the bed and disappeared into the other room. Sean rubbed rough hands through his hair over and over like it was a gesture done more out of self-deprecation than of habit. His eyes stayed on the window and beyond with a faraway look.

  “She was out by the woodpile when I found her. How often does this happen?”

  His throat worked as he swallowed, and he looked down at his hands which were clenched across his knees. “Probably a dozen times in the past year. Here,” he said, pulling his dark blue comforter up and across her lap. “You’re shaking.”

  Somehow this felt more intimate than if they’d just slept together. Sitting on his bed together, sharing the comforter, and so close she could reach out and trace the strong lines of his shoulders. It was the most affectionate moment she’d ever been a part of, and they weren’t even touching.

  “Have you told anyone about the dream?”

  Awake and fully functioning, Sean was a stunning man. Half asleep, mostly dazed and in the vulnerable state before day readiness, Sean was devastating to the defensive walls she’d been building so high.

  “No.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, rocking himself out of bed and padding to the washbasin that decorated the back wall of his room. He busied himself with menial things while she watched him with confusion. He brushed his teeth and washed his face. He took a year to dry it before he faced her again. “It won’t help anything.”

  “It’s poison, just like you told me when I spoke of Jerry. You’ve kept it in, and it keeps trying to leak out of you when you are defenseless and asleep. You’re giving the dreams power by hiding them, not the other way around.”

  “Oh yeah? Are you an expert on dreams?”

  His hard tone stung in ways she’d never admit to him. The man wielded more power than he knew and it felt imperative he never discover it. Quietly, she said, “I have experience with this kind of dream is all.”

  His crossed arms fell limply to his side, and his frown eased. “Damn it, Vanessa, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  Clad in only a pair of loose, cotton sweatpants, he leaned back against the washbasin and had her mouth feeling drier than a mason jar of desert sand. It was hard to stay angry with him when her eyeballs stayed so chronically happy with the vision of his body. His chest was toned, and his nipples had pulled taut against the cold morning air. His stomach was flat and ridged with the type of muscle she’d seen in an anatomy book once. Two strips of muscle wrapped around his slim hips and delved beneath his low-slung pajamas in the most tantalizing way.

  Holy crap. She was staring at his crotch, and Sean’s obnoxious grin was growing wider by the milli-moment.

  Clearing her throat, she said, “Can you put your damned shirt on? And some real pants, if you please?”

  “You don’t like what you see?” he asked a little too innocently.

  Of course she liked what she saw! He was a freaking Ken doll come to life but with all the working man-parts and better hair. “Fine. Do as you like.” She tried to escape the tangle of his covers and failed, and when finally she flopped from his bed, to straighten her shirt in a very dignified way, she said, “Have a good day.” Then she gave a tiny salute and marched for the door.

  “Aria,” he said.

  Seriously? “First you call me Laney, now Aria?”

  “No, the dream. It’s about my late wife, Aria.”

  “Oh.” She looked around awkwardly, unsure.

  He folded onto the bed, and the wooden frame groaned underneath him. Patting the spot beside him, he pleaded with the sadness in his eyes.

  “I’m afraid if I tell you, you’ll run for the hills and never look back.”

  She snorted. “Now
that’s just stupid. We live on a hill, and besides, I’ve come to the conclusion we should be friends. And friends tell other friends about dreams no matter how weird or perverted or whatever. I read it in a magazine once. The article even included a test to use at a slumber party about which type of boy you’ll end up with. I remember questions three, four, and seven if you want to know.”

  “You want to be friends?”

  “Unless you don’t. In that case, fine, my friend card is full enough.”

  “No, no, no. I do. We can be friends.”

  “Why are you smiling like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you just won the lottery but aren’t announcing it to moochy acquaintances and family yet.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Do you want to hear the weird, but definitely not perverted dream, or not?”

  She sighed and threw herself backward until she was comfortable on the mattress and staring at the wooden posts of the ceiling. “Paint me a picture.”

  “I have to preface the dream by saying everything in it actually happened, and it’s more like a memory that won’t leave me alone. Last year, when I lost my colony, we had to escape in the night, and we ended up on this old gas station roof. My wife followed us there.”

  “Wait, you left your wife in the colony?”

  “No, Aria was turned almost three years before, right after Adrianna was born. We got in this stupid fight, and she left—anyway. Every day she’d come to visit the Denver colony gates, the one I was working on when she’d died, so I thought there was something left in her mind. She remembered me, you know? So when she followed us to the gas station, I thought she didn’t want to be away from me, from our daughter. But Laney, she told me she wasn’t following us for sentimental reasons. She was hunting us. That she was attuned to my smell, like other Deads were to their family and friends and old homes. And Laney held a gun up and asked to shoot her, and the biggest part of me just wished she would. Wished she’d just put us both out of our misery, but I just couldn’t let it end that way. I wasn’t strong enough.”

  Vanessa sat up on her elbows as his voice grew thick with emotion.