The Oklahoma Wastelands Series Box Set | Books 1-3

by Mary, Kate L.

  “He has.” She stopped in front of Kellan, glancing my way when I moved to his side. “He brought your friend, Bill.”

  “Is he alive?” I blurted.

  Chelsea frowned even as she nodded. “It was touch and go, but he made it. He’s still here.”

  I let out a deep breath, slumping a little when I leaned against Kellan. After more than a week of suspense, we finally knew.

  “Where is he?” Kellan asked.

  Behind us, the others had climbed from the car and stood in silence.

  “I’ll take you to him.” Chelsea waved for us to follow when she started walking.

  Before heading after her, Kellan turned to Logan. “The market is over there.” He motioned to the other side of the square first, then to the road to our left. “And there’s a restaurant down there.”

  The Altus settlement was set up in a literal square, concentrated in what had formerly been the downtown area, and everything was centralized, so it wouldn’t be difficult for the newcomers to find what they needed.

  “Thanks,” Logan said in reply.

  “I’m glad your friend is okay,” Brady added.

  Kellan exhaled slowly and nodded, his gaze moving to where Chelsea stood waiting. “Me too. We’ll catch up with you in a bit.”

  The others nodded, and Kellan headed after Chelsea. Before I turned to follow him, Beth caught my gaze and gave me an encouraging smile. I returned it, the gesture feeling real for the first time in days.

  “Bill’s wife and daughter are with him,” Chelsea was saying when I joined them. “After getting him to the doctor, Blake borrowed a car and went to get them. They’ve barely left his side.”

  “What about Blake?” I asked. “Is he here?”

  “Not now.” Chelsea looked at me. “He’s been coming and going, checking on Bill and talking to others. Trying to decide what to do about you guys. He and Cade are supposed to come back tomorrow. They wanted to get a group together and head east to get you.”

  “Idiots,” Kellan mumbled even as he grinned.

  Chelsea led us to a building on the opposite side of the square from the market. It was a building I’d never been in, but I knew it served multiple purposes, one of them being a small hospital. Like every other place in town, the inside was sweltering. Flies buzzed overhead, and a layer of dust covered everything in the foyer, and the stairs Chelsea led us up creaked under our feet. Thankfully, the hospital wing was much cleaner. It would have to be if they had any chance of keeping patients healthy.

  “Bill,” Chelsea told the woman—a nurse, maybe—in the front room.

  It had been set up to resemble a waiting room, only much smaller and cramped even with only three chairs lining the wall.

  The nurse’s gaze moved over us, her eyebrows lifting like she, too, knew who we were and was surprised to see us. “He’s going to be happy to see you.”

  “He’s okay, then?” I asked.

  The woman nodded. “He had a rough few days, but he’s out of the woods, thankfully.”

  I exhaled.

  “This way,” the nurse said.

  She headed for the door, but before Kellan could follow, Chelsea grabbed his arm. “I’m glad you’re okay. We thought—” She shook her head. “We didn’t think we’d see you again.”

  The sincere expression on her face made it impossible to be annoyed that she didn’t address me. It wasn’t like we knew each other.

  “That asshole isn’t going to bother anyone again,” Kellan told her.

  Chelsea smiled. “Good.”

  “Thanks for your help,” he said.

  He put his hand on my lower back before heading after the nurse, who stood waiting in the doorway. Chelsea watched us go, and just before we ducked into the hall, her eyes met mine. She smiled, and I decided I’d judged her a little too harshly in the past. She’d flirted with Kellan, so what? It wasn’t like he and I were together then, and it wasn’t like I could blame her. Who wouldn’t want him?

  What used to be offices had been converted to hospital rooms. Literally. It looked like they’d raided the real hospital on the other side of town to get everything they needed, and peering into the mostly empty rooms felt almost as much like a step back in time as being in the hotel had.

  Bill was in the third one, and at his side sat Christine and Jessica. All three of them turned when we stopped in the doorway, and like everyone else, they looked more shocked than relieved. But there was plenty of relief in their expressions. It seemed like no one had expected to see us again.

  “Oh my God,” Jessica uttered, her hand going to her throat.

  Beside her, Christine stood. “You’re alive.”

  “We’re alive,” Kellan said.

  In the bed, Bill shifted, wincing a little, and said, “I sure am glad to see you two. And Blake—” He shook his head in disbelief. “He’s been going out of his mind.”

  “He’s not the only one,” I said, crossing the room to him. “We’ve been worried about you.”

  He was shirtless, the wound on his chest bandaged and not a spot of blood to be seen. After the image I’d carried around for the past week, it was a relief to see him whole and clean, even if his brown skin was a little paler than I remembered it. Overall, he looked remarkably well for someone who’d gotten shot in the chest.

  “We heard Blake and Cade will be coming back tomorrow,” Kellan said.

  “That’s the plan,” Christine told him. “We didn’t know what to do about you guys, but the first thing we had to do was take care of Dad. Blake went back to the shelter to get Mom while I stayed here, and once he’d done that, he got to work scavenging for new tires. It took him and Cade two days to get the cars back in working order.”

  “I can’t believe they were able to find tires for the truck,” I said, thinking about the huge vehicle.

  “Unfortunately,” Bill said, “the truck is no longer with us.” He shook his head. “They couldn’t find anything that would work.”

  His wife patted his hand. “It’s just a car.”

  Bill rolled his eyes like they’d had this conversation before but kept his focus on us. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you had to go through to get back here.”

  “A lot,” Kellan said, “and some of it is so crazy I doubt you’ll believe it even when I tell you.”

  “I’m sure,” Bill replied.

  “We brought some new people back with us,” I added.

  Bill lifted his eyebrows. “Does that mean you’re still planning to share the condo?”

  I understood his surprise. Before his group moved in, we hadn’t opened our doors to anyone since most of our family was killed three years ago, their throats slit in their sleep by a woman we’d thought we were helping. Like Harper when she first arrived at the condo, Bill had expressed his disapproval of our reluctance to share the shelter with other survivors, and after Ernie—one of his own men—helped Andrew get his hands on me, he probably doubted we’d be very forgiving.

  But promises had been made, and I wasn’t about to go back on my word to Jasper.

  “We’re going to share,” I said, leaning against Kellan when he put his arm around me. “It was one of the last things Jasper said to us, and I want to honor his memory by taking more risks and trusting more people.”

  “That sounds like a great plan,” Bill said, nodding in approval.

  “Yes,” Kellan agreed, “it does.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked Kellan when we stepped out of the hospital building.

  Bill, while doing well, was still recovering, and even an hour of talking had worn him out.

  It was early, but as usual, the settlement was already bustling with activity as people began their day. Across the square, the market looked alive, and a few riders on horseback were on the streets, either coming or going, I wasn’t sure. With the scarcity of things like gas and mechanics, a lot of people had returned to the old ways of using horses for transportation, something I hoped we wouldn’t ha
ve to do for a long time. We lived too far away from the settlements.

  I twisted so I was looking up, focusing on Kellan’s face. “Should we wait until Cade and Blake show up tomorrow or head out now?”

  He exhaled and shoved the hair off his forehead in an absentminded way. “We’ve been on the road nonstop for days. Let’s just wait. Assuming we can get a couple rooms.”

  “We’re going to need more than a couple. You think Daisy Mae can handle that?” I asked, thinking about the grumpy woman who worked at the hotel.

  “I think,” he started walking, pulling me with him, “we’ll figure it out.”

  In a totally uncharacteristic reaction to seeing us, Daisy Mae didn’t frown when we stepped into the building that now housed the inn. If anything, she almost smiled.

  “Thought I’d seen the last of you.”

  Kellan met her almost smile with a huge one of his own. “Do you think I’d leave this world without saying goodbye?”

  Daisy Mae snorted, but her lips twitched. “Always such a kiss ass.”

  “I’m just friendly,” Kellan corrected her. “I know this is a lot to ask, but I don’t suppose you have three rooms available, do you?”

  She turned her back on him without responding, producing three keys a second later and setting them on the counter.

  Kellan lifted his eyebrows. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

  “Don’t want people hogging the rooms when they can share.” She gave him a shrewd look before glancing at me. “Plus, it seemed to me that the two of you needed a little push.”

  Kellan snorted, and my mouth dropped open. Had this grumpy older woman been playing matchmaker with us? People were surprising me left and right today.

  “Thanks, Daisy Mae,” Kellan said, sweeping the keys up off the counter.

  She only grunted, but the half smile was still on her lips.

  We found the others in the restaurant, gathered around a table and looking as beat as I felt. Now that we were in a familiar place and surrounded by walls, the exhaustion of traveling for days had hit, and I felt like I could barely keep my eyes open.

  “How’s your friend?” Beth asked when I took a seat next to her.

  “Doing well, considering he was shot in the chest.”

  Kellan sat next to me.

  Across the table, Logan lifted a glass. “I had trouble haggling until I mentioned I was with you. It seems like everyone around here knows you, and they’re all pretty relieved to find out you’re okay.”

  “We come here a lot,” Kellan said.

  “I can tell,” the other man replied.

  Kellan caught the bartender’s eye and lifted two fingers, indicating that we were ready for drinks, before asking, “You got it all settled, then?”

  Logan’s head bobbed as he took a sip of his own drink. “Most of it, anyway.”

  I wasn’t the least bit surprised to learn that Logan had already organized to trade for almost everything we needed. Most likely, he’d handed over some of the supplies Matthew had given us, but it didn’t matter. We’d be home soon, and we had everything we needed in the shelter, as well as extras that would help Beth and Logan get back to where they belonged.

  “We decided rest would do us good, so we got some rooms for the night,” I told them. “Our friends will be back tomorrow, and then we can head home.”

  Just saying that word, home, made me want to sigh in relief.

  “Good,” Beth said. “I’m not going to lie, I feel like I can sleep for a week.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Ava replied.

  Gideon alone stayed silent, but he looked a lot less jittery than he had when we were on the road. Maybe now that he was away from Matthew and that crazy cult, he’d be able to adjust to this world. Either way, we’d find a place for him at the shelter. The kid deserved some kind of normalcy.

  The room Kellan and I found ourselves in a few hours later wasn’t the same one we’d stayed in before. This one only had one bed. It also had a window that overlooked the square and allowed a slight breeze in.

  “I knew she liked me,” Kellan said as he tossed his pack on the bed.

  “Everyone likes you.” I turned away from the view of Altus and reached out to grab the hem of his shirt so I could pull him closer. “Especially me.”

  “Good,” he brushed my hair behind my ear, staring down at me, “because I plan on marrying you the second things settle down. Then we can fulfill our duty and help repopulate the Earth.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We want to make sure we’re married before we do that, or God might tell Matthew to send his minions to destroy us.”

  “True,” Kellan said, his lips twitching, “although I don’t think it would hurt to practice before then. Would it?”

  “Practice repopulating the Earth?”

  “Exactly.”

  His lips covered mine, and in no time we were on the bed. I felt lighter than I had in months as we kissed. More relaxed and safer, almost at home despite the fact that we hadn’t reached the shelter yet. Soon, everything would go back to normal, and when it did, Kellan and I could start our lives together. As husband and wife. I couldn’t believe it was finally within our reach.

  26

  I was so anxious to see Cade and Blake that I was wide-awake before the sun had even come all the way up the next morning. Kellan, however, seemed to have fallen into a coma, and after lying beside him for several hours, waiting for him to wake, I finally had to give in.

  “Get up,” I grumbled as I shook his shoulder. “I want to be dressed and ready by the time Blake and Cade get here.”

  He groaned and rolled toward me, his face nuzzling my chest. We were both naked, and although I’d been ready to leave the room for hours, I seriously started to rethink my position when his hand moved up my side and over my curves.

  “This is the only way to wake up,” he murmured, his lips against my skin and his warm breath caressing me.

  I didn’t resist when he rolled me onto my back. Part of my brain was still thinking about leaving the hotel room, but that part shut down the second Kellan’s tongue flicked my nipple, and when his mouth closed over it, every thought in my head disappeared except the ones that revolved around him.

  “We’re going to practice again?” I asked as I threaded my fingers through his dark hair.

  “You know what they say,” Kellan moved up my body, nudging my knees apart so he was between my legs, “practice makes perfect.”

  My laugh was cut off when he kissed me.

  It was probably another hour before we were dressed and headed downstairs. It was early, but like yesterday when we arrived, the settlement was already awake and buzzing with activity. I knew we most likely had hours before Blake and Cade showed up, but I was glad to be out where we could spot them the second they pulled through the gate.

  Since we had time to kill, we headed to the restaurant for breakfast where we found Brady and Ava already eating. It wasn’t long before Gideon joined us, followed shortly by Beth and Logan. The atmosphere as we ate was more upbeat than anything I’d experienced in weeks, and I felt like I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt the way I had on Christmas Eve when I was kid. So excited for what was to come that I could hardly sit still.

  After breakfast, Kellan, Brady, and Logan headed to the market to find someone who would trade them for gas, while Beth, Ava, Gideon, and I stuck to the middle of the settlement. The teenage boy who’d been traveling with us barely spoke, making it hard to remember he was around sometimes, but Beth, Ava, and I had settled into a comfortable friendship.

  “You sure you guys can’t stay with us?” I asked Beth as we watched the horses milling around in the pen.

  “We have to get back to the others. It wouldn’t be fair to Alex and Juliet if we never came back. Even Hickory would be worried.” She absentmindedly ran her hand over her stomach. “They’re family.”

  The last statement was said as an afterthought, giving the impression that she was explaining
to herself why she couldn’t stay as much as she was telling me.

  “I get it, I do.” I exhaled and turned to face her. “Just remember that our door is always open to you. That goes for the others, too. If you get back to them and they agree, we’d love to have you back.”

  “Thank you,” Beth said, returning my smile. “That means a lot. And who knows? It’s been a while since we had a permanent place. Maybe I can talk the others into it. Maybe once I’m a little further along, Logan will agree it’s time to settle down.”

  She didn’t look confident about that, and I knew why. Logan. He wasn’t ready to give up this vendetta. I understood. I couldn’t imagine losing a child the way they had, but they had a new one on the way. It was time to move on.

  The men came back a short time later, and while the others headed off to explore the settlement, Kellan and I stayed where we were. The fact that he didn’t even suggest going with them told me he was as anxious to see Cade and Blake as I was. Not that I was surprised.

  By the time the gate opened and a familiar car drove through, I was ready to burst. Cade was driving, and he didn’t even pull into one of the normal parking spaces. The second he saw us, he slammed the car into park in the middle of the road and shoved his door open, while on the other side Blake climbed from the passenger seat.

  Cade was closer—and I was faster than Kellan—so I threw myself into his arms first. I was laughing and crying, and he was asking a dozen questions, his voice choked with emotion the entire time. Behind us, Kellan and Blake were talking, and when I pulled away from Cade, I found they were hugging as well.

  “Holy shit,” Blake was saying, “I mean, holy shit. I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “How did you get away?” Cade asked as Blake said, “Where have you been?”

  I hugged him next while Kellan went to Cade.

  “That asshole made it all the way to Tennessee before we got away,” I said.

  Blake pulled back, smiling as he looked down at me. “How?”

  “Another group saved us,” Kellan told him.