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“Mind me asking what the beef is between you and Lee?”
“That’s between him and me. Men don’t go airing out their laundry to others,” he says, then pauses before his expression eases down a notch and he grips my shoulder. “Unless it’s necessary to protect those we care about.”
With that sentence, I know that my words to Shelby, in the days following the Event, were heeded, and passed on to the only other person who truly needed to know what had happened between Jace and myself.
A brief, but obviously confused look passes over Aiden’s countenance before he questions us. “Is this something I need to be aware of? Don’t forget I have Rachel to worry about, besides Shelby and her children.”
“I think you’ve already sized up Jace, and have a pretty good impression of his character,” Mike carefully responds. “When it was necessary, Eddie informed her that Jace’s failings aren’t limited to her or their kids.”
“How does Elsbeth feel about this?” Aiden asks him.
“You’d have to ask her yourself,” Mike responds, and I know that’s not a question that’ll come up any time soon, if ever.
All at once, we turn in the direction of the road at the unmistakable sound of a truck coming our way.
“I didn’t think Dale was due back for another week?” I ask.
“Anyone else you know with a working vehicle?” Aiden’s question comes at the same time.
“Nope,” Mike says, already walking toward his ATV. “Ed, why don’t you jump on up behind me? Aiden, you’re good to double time it back to the gate?”
“Yeah. Is everyone armed?”
We nod in response, and I pull my Glock out to have it at the ready in case there’s trouble.
“Who’s on the gate?” I ask before Mike starts in the direction of the approaching vehicle.
“Julia.”
Damn. I know she’s an adult now and I was in the Army at her age, but I still picture her as the precocious four-year-old I met so many years ago. She’s been taking a lot of shifts at the gate since Russ has been up at Lee’s the past few days, explaining that it’s the best place to hear the foghorn that Lee promised to set off if there were any problems.
Long moments later, I hear Mike release the breath he was holding, and I look past him to see Julia opening the gate for our guests. The same old truck from a few days ago slowly pulls through, waiting until she closes it back up. By then they’re all looking in our direction.
Instead of his son, Dale has a woman sitting next to him this time. Between her hat and scarf, her face is nearly covered, but her long brown curls float around her shoulders.
“Hey, Gramps,” Julia calls out. “The nurse is here.”
Pulling her ski mask under her chin, Julia approaches the passenger side of the truck and introduces herself before pointing to us. The woman’s eyes stay focused on Julia’s mouth until she nods and waves to us; momentarily looking startled and pointing behind my shoulder as her dark eyes shift back to Julia.
“Oh, that’s Aiden. He’s my mom’s boyfriend,” Julia adds after casting a glance over her shoulder. “I guess he drew the short straw and had to run!”
“Julia, why don’t you ride up to the house with them and I’ll take over the gate?” Aiden calls out, continuing when she seems like she’d argue. “I’m sure she’d rather have someone closer to her age show her around than another man underfoot.”
With that, Julia crosses to him to hand over the rifle that’s slung across her back and he affectionately tugs one of her pink braids after she says something to him; while they’re currently obscured by her hat, her roots have started growing back in the same dirty blond shade she had as a child, and she keeps threatening to cut all the bright pink off altogether.
I suspect it’s that fading reminder of how the world was, not that long ago, that stops her from following through on that threat.
The woman riding with Dale scoots over to the middle of the bench seat and Julia climbs into the cab as Mike and I precede them up the drive.
Dropping me off near the house, Mike drives around to the garage to park the ATV. In the past week, we pushed his SUV out of the space it had been sitting in since the solar flare and while we’re still debating what to do with it, my vote is to keep it handy—in case we need to use it for cover in case of attack.
Always conscious of keeping the heat inside, I wait to open the door until the three occupants of the vehicle are on the porch and usher them into the house, where we all take a moment to remove our gear and I use it to study the woman who made the trip up here today.
Julia easily has a few inches on her, conversely, I’d guess that she has a decade on Julia; which would make sense if she was a nurse before all this happened.
After a moment in front of the fire, the woman turns to make eye contact with me, and I’m surprised by the warmth that suddenly spreads through my chest. Her cheeks have turned bright red between the combination of the cold outside and the sudden warmth in here; her blue eyes shine brightly as she opens her chapped, pink lips to speak.
“I’m Trisha Woods,” she says, very clearly. Much more so than I expected, but then again my only experience with a deaf person was with my cousin, nearly a lifetime ago.
