After (30 page)

“What is it?”

“I know you're just trying to be nice. You don't really want to. For yourself, I mean.

Do you?”

“No,” she breathes.

Riggs takes a deep breath and lets it go.

“I know you have your own reasons for what you did. Picking me to be one of the fathers. I know it wasn't 'cause you liked me or trusted me. But still, you choosing me, and how you let me come here to get to know the baby, it's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever done. You letting me be a daddy to this baby, honest, Eva, it's the best thing, maybe the only really good thing that's ever happened to me. It's nice for me, coming here. Talking to the baby. Talking to you. I don't want to mess that up.”

Eva nods and smiles, her golden irises bright with tears, and Riggs leaves.

Outside her door, at the top of the stairs leading down to the main entrance to the old mansions, Riggs pauses. Closes his eyes. Breathes and waits until his erection wilts.

Then he thumps down the stairs and out the door, fists clenched, double-timing it away from the house. Away from Eva. Away from her warm soft skin, her swollen breasts, her lifted gown, her writhing hips.

By the time he's half way back to the barracks, his balled fists and clenched jaw have relaxed, his fierce pace has slowed and lightened. His fiery eyes clear. Brighten.

And then his hard mouth softens into a small smile.

Twenty paces on Riggs breaks left, and stops amidst a cluster of storage and supply buildings. One of these buildings might be where he impregnated Eva. If he's really the father of that baby growing inside her.

Rotating a slow three-sixty, he looks around, peering between the buildings, into the shadows and doorways. Riggs kicks his combat boot against a patch of sun-baked earth, scuffing up cakes of dirt and a billow of dust. The next moment he taps one toe a few times, finds a rhythm, and breaks into his Texas two-step, his jackboots and military cap passing for a pair of pointy-toed calfskins and his cowboy hat.

A spatter of clapping halts him dead.

“Pretty fancy there, Riggs.”

Rigg's smile fades even before he spots Lott leaning against the corner of the tool shed, draped in the long, heavy shadow thrown over him by the evening sun.

“You following me?” Riggs growls, nailing Lott to the side of the building with a hard glare.

“Just out for a stroll. Walkin' off tonight's beef stew. Getting pretty tired of canned meat,” Lott sighs, patting his lean belly. “So, what was that you were doin'? Some kinda tango or somethin'?”

“Nothing,” Riggs says, his eyes dropping to the dusty earth, turning to walk away.

“You sure been in a perky mood, lately,” Lott chides, jogging to catch up, then falling into step next to Riggs. “You just comin' back from Eva's?”

Riggs is silent for a moment, then sighs, “Yeah.”

“Girl's getting' big as a house. Baby must be comin' soon.”

“Three more months.”

“Her in that state, and she's still letting you have a poke, eh?”

“Watch your fuckin' mouth,” Riggs growls, not turning his head or slowing his pace.

Lott laughs.

“My apologies. Wasn't so long ago you were braggin' over having her bent over the workbench. But I guess you're feeling a bit more chivalrous, now she's carrying your baby.”

Lott waits a beat.

“Well, yours. And John's. And the major's.”

They are in sight of the barracks, now. Riggs hurries his pace.

“Can I ask you somethin', Riggs?”

Lott doesn't wait for an answer.

“You really think they're gonna let you play Daddy to that baby of Eva's?”

Riggs stops dead. “What do you mean?”

“John and the major. You don't really believe they'll ever let you near that little baby, do you?”

“I'm that baby's father, as much as they are.”

“Maybe. For all anyone knows, that baby's yours, a hundred percent. Well, yours and Eva's. But that don't matter.”

“What are you saying?”

“Well. Eva's a strange one. She has her peculiar little ideas about raising us up from our ugly ways. So maybe she really does want you to be her baby's daddy. Or anyway, a third of a daddy. Who knows why.

“But the major? John? I bet they'd sooner see you dead than see you hold that tiny little girl in your arms. The two of them, they look at you, you know what they see?”

Riggs just stands there, silent, shaking.

“They see a rapist. The man who broke Smith's cardinal rule, and tried to take the one woman left on earth, their beautiful angel, and fuck her like a common whore.

They think if John hadn't been there that day in the orchard, maybe you and your boys woulda raped poor Eva right to death. Now, what man would let someone like that touch his daughter? Much less look after the tiny little baby that's meant to be our salvation from extinction?”

Riggs stands there, mute, lips pressed tight, knuckles white, eyes blood-red. Lott smiles and a shudder ripples over Riggs. Looking down on Lott, so pale, so slight, looking somehow like a delicate flower under those coarse fatigues, for a moment it seems as though Riggs will beat him to a bruised and bloody mess. Or maybe scorch him with a breath of fire from his heaving chest. But Riggs turns and leaves, disappearing into the barracks.

* * * *

“I love looking at you,” she says to Smith. “I could lie here all night, just watching you breathe.” He smiles. “I love looking at all the things that are different, after we've fucked.”

“Mmmm? Like what?”

“Right after, your eyes look different. And how your chest and belly move up and down, when you're still catching your breath, and I can still see your pulse throbbing in your neck. And your sweat. The beads here,” she traces a fingertip along his hairline,

“and here,” she says, fingering the hair under his upraised arm,” how it's darker and twined and curled together. And this,” she holds his gaze as she traces her finger against the base of his cock. “How it stays flushed and heavy, after. And how you smell.

Like always, but more, and mixed with my smell.”

For a long time they're quiet, Smith staring up at the ceiling, Eva lying on her side, her eyes roaming over his alabaster skin, her hand resting on her pregnant belly.

“Avery?”

“Hmmm?”

“The base. The rest of it, I mean. Is there a hospital?”

“Quite a large one. Yes.”

“Does it, did it have an obstetrics wing?”

“No.” He kisses the faint furrow between her eyebrows. “We'll get what we need from the city.”

“What?”

“I'll send two men to Nashville to get everything.”

“Avery. Don't.”

Smith turns onto his side, meets Eva's eyes.

“It's been over a year since anyone's gone out. It's time, anyway. This errand is only a convenient catalyst.”

“Avery, if something happens to the patrol, the men will resent it. Me. The baby.”

“No.” Smith smiles, caresses her ebony curls. “It'll be a stealth op,” he says in his teasing voice. “Only the men going will know about that part of the assignment.”

“Who are you sending?”

Smith hesitates, then answers, “Baldwyn and Lott.”

Eva is silent for a long time.

Finally she says, “Avery. The other patrols. You're sure the men were killed? That they didn't just...”

“What? Go AWOL? No. They died.”

“How do you know?”

“We were in radio contact. We heard.”

“Where?”

“Where?” he echoes.

“How far did they get?”

“Twelve miles. The nearest town.”

“When? How long before I came?”

“Almost six months.”

She goes quiet again. Then she says, “Avery. Don't send those two.”

“Eva—“ Smith cuts himself off. Takes a breath. “Why not?”

“It's a bad message. You send two men you'd as soon be rid of. If they die...”

“You think it's better if I send two of the good ones? So that if they die, we're left with Lott and Baldwyn and Riggs, against even fewer people that can be trusted?”

“I know. That's a bad risk. But what about the task? What if they just take the truck, and take off? Or what if...”

“What, Eva?”

“What if whoever goes finds other people? What if there's an enclave of survivors in the city? Do you really want those two to be our emissaries? You're going to send them, loaded up, I assume, with weapons, into some huddling group of refugees?”

“What do you think I should do? Should John and I go? Should I send Vallar and Dunn—they're probably the best soldiers I've got.”

“No,” she says, breaking away from Smith's fiery stare, then meeting it again.

“No. I think you should send the two you can most easily trust, and afford to lose.”

* * * *

At o-six-hundred, Smith is saying, “Take one of the Hummers.”

Nichols and Hutchinson stand at attention as Smith gives the orders. Even though it has been well over a year since anyone has been allowed beyond the orchard, and even though the three patrols sent out after the world ended had never come back, neither gives a look or makes a sound.

“Take the highway to Nashville. The list of supplies is in your orders. You'll find the texts at the medical school at the university. The other supplies you'll get at the hospital.”

Smith's orders are crisp and clean—irrefutable by virtue of his certainty. But his cold, sharp voice drops and softens on, “The formula. Get that at whatever big drug store you come across first. Check the date. And if there isn't enough stock at the first place, find another. Go to as many as you need to, to get all of it.”

Then his voice goes cool and hard again. “You're to be back by eighteen hundred. And I'll expect a full report on the state of the town.”

“Yes, sir,” they say, almost in unison They return Smith's salute and quit his office, their orders under their arms.

* * * *

A pen lies abandoned on the ink-scarred page of Eva's journal. She shakes her hand, then clenches and unclenches her fist as she gazes out the window at the encroaching twilight.

A little sound creaks from her throat. Eva jumps up, knocking over her chair, and without pulling a jacket over her thin t-shirt and swollen belly she flings her door open and speeds down the stairs and out the front door. She runs—not like a pregnant woman, but like a high school track star—and intercepts the party en route to Smith's office.

Nichols is beside Hutchinson, and in Hutchinson's arms is a woman. No, a girl.

The girl is crying. When she sees Eva, the crying girl kicks and writhes, and Hutchinson can no longer hold her. As soon as she's on her feet, the girl flings herself against Eva, clinging to her, sobbing against her.

“We didn't touch her. I swear,” Nichols says to Eva. “She was happy as anything to get in the truck with us. Just when she saw the base she started to freak out.”

Eva is holding the sobbing child, looking for the lie in the faces of Hutchinson and Nichols. Soldiers are converging from the corners of the base.

“Eva,” Hutchinson says warily as she turns and starts walking away with the girl.

“We have orders. We have to take her to Major Smith.”

“I'm taking her to my room. The major will understand. She's upset. She'll feel safer with me.”

Nichols and Hutchinson let them go. They all let them go. John, sprinting up from the far field he's been working, doesn't have to threaten with his blackjack or a word or even a look. He starts to walk after them, but then he stops and, like the rest of the men, and just watches them disappear into the house.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When she hears a knock, the girl drops the pencil she's holding and rises to her feet, slow and watchful. Eva does a passable smile of reassurance and comes to stand beside her as Smith and John enter. The newcomer watches them apprehensively, but she's quiet and still.

“Well, Smith?”

“Well, Eva?” he comes back with a taunting grin. “Oh, don't look at me that way, Eva. This is a happy day. I don't mean to do anything to spoil it. I promise.”

When he smiles, she smiles back, but her eyes are searching him. Then she turns to the copper-haired sylph. Takes her hand. Tells her,

“This is Major Smith. And this is John.”

The newcomer smiles, looking more shy than afraid now.

“She hasn't spoken,” Eva tells them. “She seems to hear and understand okay, but I haven't heard a sound out of her. I was just seeing if I could get her to write anything. But…” She holds up the piece of paper the newcomer was bent over when they'd knocked. Under Eva's “I'm Eva. What's your name?” are some delicate and fantastical drawings of flowers and animals.

“Well, she's a tidy little thing, anyway,” Smith teases. “Doesn't look as though she's just slithered out of the tar pits, like the two of you did when you washed up on our shore.” Then, soft and serious, “Has she been hurt, do you think?”

“I don't know. I don't see any marks on her. She was upset outside, but she calmed down as soon as we got in the house.”

“Maybe we should invite her along to dinner in the mess this evening. See how she is around Hutchinson and Nichols. See if further investigation seems merited.”

Contemplative, Eva nods. When she turns to the newcomer and shrugs off her solemnity to give the girl a smile, the other beams back at Eva with an easy, radiant warmth that seems to light and warm the room.

“Well, mystery girl,” Eva says, “what should we call you?”

The newcomer just goes on smiling, looking from Eva to John to Smith to Eva again, her smile infecting them all in turn. John is quiet and watchful.

Smith suggests, “Sunny, or perhaps Joy. Given her significance and her apparent disposition. And that lovely mane.” Sunny Joy, with her copper tresses, goes on smiling at the threesome.

“Maybe something less...Felicity? Or,” Eva goes melancholy. “Hope.”

Hope's smile widens and brightens, and that's what they call her after that. It seems prudent, they all agree, that Hope stay with Eva, at least until she begins talking, or they see she's reasonably self-sufficient. When Smith leaves, he tries to draw John along with him on some pretext.

“I'd like John to stay,” Eva says in her cool, firm way.