The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (20 page)

Cory blasts through the door, startling
the hell out of
Paige,
who spins
around and almost falls. She’s changed out of her dress and is
wearing a pair of very small pink shorts and a gray Arkansas
Razorbacks sweatshirt. It’s definitely another one of his articles
of clothing unless, of course, she’s taken a sudden interest in his
home state’s college football team. This is what she
generally
sleeps
in,
shorts and borrowed shirts, usually his. Her
hair is still wet from rain water and has curled slightly. He rests
his rifle against the door frame.

“Ever hear of knocking?” she asks
haughtily.

“Ever hear of telling people that you’re
leaving?” he returns as he closes the cabin door.

“No,” she answers quietly, still standing in
the middle of the room.

“That was
completely
irresponsible,” he reprimands with his
hands on his hips. “This place was invaded a few months ago. Some
of the men are still on the run. Do you think that maybe it
would’ve been a good idea to tell one of us that you were heading
home?”

She steps forward, trips over a small,
braided
throw-rug
on the floor
and says, “Maybe.”

“Well, I guess everything’s ok,” he
concedes and crosses the room to his bed. Cory begins removing his
wet clothing, not caring whether or not she watches. Within a
few
moments,
he has on a pair of
black sweatpants. She has the cabin hotter than Hades with the
cook-stove going. He’s not even going to bother with a shirt. And
if she doesn’t like it, then she can go to bed. “Derek’s back and
probably on watch, so I guess it worked out. But it was still
stupid. Next time let someone know what you’re doing. It’s not safe
to go traipsing around in the dark alone.”

“Ohhh
, you don’t
know me, mister,” she says in a funny tone. “I’m super
duperty
sneaky.”

“What?” Cory asks and turns around. She’s
swaying to and fro in the middle of the room.

“Yeppers, I’m sneaky and fast like a mouse.
You couldn’t catch me even if you tried,” she says and snaps her
fingers.

“Apparently you weren’t sneaky enough
when the farm was attacked since you got
taken
hostage
,” Cory observes.

Her fair red brows pinch together.

“That’s not cool to point that out,” she
babbles.

Her words are slurring. She’s having
difficulty focusing.

“Are you ok?” he asks and steps
forward. He’s wondering if she’s sick, if he should run back and
grab Simon or Doc. Cory reaches for her forehead, but she
slaps
at
his hand and
misses.

“Never been better!” she blends into one
word.

“Are you… are you sick or something?”
Cory inquires. He notices that she’s staring at his stomach. She
takes a few steps closer and reaches out. Her skinny index finger
traces a small scar on the right side of his
stomach
. What the hell’s wrong with her? She
normally
dashes out of whatever room he
comes into with a nasty stare aimed at him.

“What’s that?” she asks and purses her
lips.

Then it hits him. Literally hits him. The
smell of liquor is rolling off of her.

“You’re drunk?”

“Jussa
’ little
bit,” she answers, showing the tiny measurement with her thin
fingers.

“What the…?” he asks of nobody, especially
not the drunk woman in front him. He scans around the room. There
wasn’t much for alcohol being served at the Johnson’s reception.
Most folks try to reserve any spirits they have for medical
purposes. Then he spots it. One of the mason jars given to him from
the hooch maker is sitting on his bedside table, the lid next to
it. The jar was full. It’s missing at least a quarter of its clear,
liquid contents.

“I ran all the way here, and then I got
thirsty,” she volunteers.

“So you drank moonshine?”

“I said I was thirsty!” she explains with
impatience.

Cory almost smiles. “Did you think that was
going to be a good idea, getting cooked on hooch?”

“What’s hooch? I thought it was water, so I
took a drink,” she answers. “And it turned out to be a very good
idea actually. It doesn’t taste very good, though.”

He tries not to notice how close she’s
standing or how the rain water from the tips of her hair keeps
plopping onto the front of her stolen sweatshirt. He also tries not
to notice any section on that part of her body, either. Not
noticing
her long, tan legs isn’t even
going to happen, so he doesn’t let himself look there at all.
Watching her parade around the farm with her long legs and bad
attitude is difficult enough on his senses. Most of the time he
isn’t sure if he wants to run his hand down those long legs or slap
some duct tape on her mouth. He decides to concentrate on the
sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks. He’s never really
thought about them before, but they’re kind of cute. Cory clears
his voice and gives her an undeviating stare instead.

“I’d say you took more than one drink,” he
replies with an irritated smirk as he screws the lid back on the
glass jar and stores it away under his bed, way out of her reach
under his bed.

“Hey!” she exclaims. “Maybe I wanted another
drink.”

“You won’t be thinking that tomorrow morning.
You’ll be thanking me,” he tells her as he straightens again to his
full height. She may be a tall woman, but he’s still much taller
than her.

“I’ll never thank you for anything,”
she
retorts
on a pout.

“Probably not. You’ve got rocks for
brains
, obviously,
” he replies,
indicating the booze stashed away for safe keeping. His intention
was to give it to Reagan to use medicinally at the clinic.
Apparently Paige’s idea of medicinal use and his
approach
are in direct contrast.

“No, I don’t,” she argues and wags her finger
in front of his chest. “Men are the ones who are stupid, not
me.”

“I did try to warn you,” he reminds her.

“I should’ve known,” she answers, her anger
building.

She ignores his comment. He just furrows his
brow impatiently at her and tries to move around Paige. She steps
toward him, blocking his way. He has no idea what she is talking
about, nor does he care to. He just wants to crash for the night
and for her to do the same.

“Did I ever tell you I had a boyfriend?” she
asks.

He knows her story, of how she got away from
bandits in the city and met up with Talia in a rescue camp. He also
knows that she was living with some guy and their friends before
the fall. Simon told him last week about his sister’s journey.

However, he replies with, “That doesn’t seem
possible, knowing your pleasant personality.”

She huffs indignantly and says, “Well I did!
He was just like Jason.”

“Oh yeah? Was he a
puss
? Is that what you mean?”

She snort-laughs through her nose. “No. Well,
actually yes. He was kind of a wimp, I suppose. He spent more time
in the bathroom getting ready than I did. He wasn’t like you or
your brother.”

“Oh, you mean devastatingly handsome and hung
like a horse?” he inquires with a crude tease.

She doesn’t laugh this time but sways on her
feet. He reaches for her because he’s afraid she’s going to face
plant on the hardwood floor. She knocks his hand away and stands
there. After a few scrutinizing seconds of staring at his face,
Paige’s eyes dart to his crotch. Then she shakes her head.

“No,” she says more seriously. “He cheated on
me. That’s why he was like Jeff.”

“You mean Jason?”

“What?” she asks confusedly in her
drunken state. “Yes… Jason. I
meant
Jason. What a jerk! My boyfriend cheated on me. That’s how
they’re alike. I came home from class, got out early. He used to
complain about me all the time. Said I didn’t dress sexy and was
too plain. I never told Simon what a dick he was to me. I didn’t
want him to feel even worse about not coming to Georgia to find me
when it all fell apart. My boyfriend didn’t like that I went to the
track to run. Said I was too much of a jock. He didn’t like
my
… wanted me to get a boob
job.”

Cory doesn’t know this guy, other than that
he is dead, but he’d like to shoot him.

“So I came home early from school that day. I
thought I’d get myself all dolled up,” she says dramatically,
hanging on to the word ‘dolled’ for an inordinately long amount of
time. Then she flails her hands around dramatically. “I was gonna
take him out for a date night. Couples like that kind of stuff.
That’s what I read in a magazine.”

Cory shakes his head, “I don’t think they do
anymore.”

She doesn’t laugh but keeps right on
going, “I caught him and my roommate, my best friend no less, in
bed together. In
my
bed!”

“Bastard,” he comments and wrinkles his nose
sympathetically.

“I know. Wait, are you laughing at me?”

“Never,” Cory says, concealing his
grin. It’s not that he thinks her boyfriend cheating on her with
her best friend is funny. It’s just that her drunken re-telling of
the events filled with lots of exaggerated motioning of her arms,
slurring words, and wide eyes
are
kind of humorous. She’s usually much more reserved around
him. Actually, if
he’s being
completely honest with himself, he’s pretty sure Paige tries
to avoid him. Lately, he’s found himself looking for her on the
farm grounds, hoping to catch a glimpse. He tells himself that he
just likes to get a head count on everyone throughout the day for
safety reasons.

“He was a creep, and I never saw it.”

“What happened? Did you shoot him?”

This earns a small chuckle before she says,
“No, I didn’t shoot him… or her.”

She walks over to his side of the room
and picks up a notebook. Cory snatches it from her and tosses it on
the bed. These are his notes on tracking the Target freaks. Then
she starts poking around in his other things on the nightstand; a
book, a small jar of salve he uses when his booted feet have been
in
water
for too many hours.
Reagan had made it for him. Then she’d warned him with a bawdy
laugh not to use it for anything else. He’d just ruffled her hair
and laughed. John’s wife cracks him up. She’s as ornery as the
men.

He just turns Paige around and gives her a
little push.

“So you didn’t shoot them?” he asks,
distracting her from her unusually bold snooping.

“Nope, I did what any girl would do. I called
my mom. She talked me through it. I was going to move out the next
weekend. She was going to put money into my bank account for me so
I could get my own place. She never approved of me living with him
anyways, so it pissed me off that she was right. She was always
right about everything.”

“Moms are good at that,” he comments with a
grim smile.

She steps toward him again, coming way
too close for comfort. He wishes Simon would return. Paige reaches
up and touches her fingers to the gold bracelet at his neck, held
tightly there by the black leather cord. He snatches her hand
gently and places it back
at
her
own side, noting the black leather strings tied around her wrist.
First she has him thinking about his mother and now
he’s remembering
Em. He buries both of
those thoughts and scowls down at her.

“Well,
my mom was
the queen of right. I was a dumbass, stupid brat who thought I knew
more than her. That was the first day of the tsunamis. The first
one hit about two hours after I got off the phone with my mom. I
never moved out. That was the last time I talked to my mom, too. I
was impatient with her. I think I was even a rude jerk a few times
because I was mad that she was right about my boyfriend and living
together and I was wrong as usual.”

Cory frowns at her distress. Why can’t Sue or
Hannie be here right now? He’s not good with this kind of shit.

“Men are just assholes,” she rants next.

Cory just smiles and says, “Yeah, pretty
much.”

God, where are the women when he needs
them?

“Men only like blondes with big boobs,”
she states as if she’s reading from a
man-hater’s
manual.

“Not all men. Not me,” he
says quietly
, admiring her red hair and
figure. She doesn’t have huge breasts, so she does have a point
there. But what curves he can make out through his baggy sweatshirt
seem just fine
to
him. He’s
noticed her in more fitted t-shirts before the weather turned
chilly and had not found her at all lacking. She’s easy to spot on
the farm. Her red hair stands out like a sore thumb. What she lacks
in breast mass she certainly makes up for with a set of long legs
that go on forever.

“Men are creeps and assholes who cheat the
first chance they get,” she says.

“Probably,” he agrees, joining her
men-are-the-spawn-of-the-devil tirade. He figures it’s probably
easier than arguing a case for his fellow man right now.

She doesn’t even acknowledge his comment. Why
can’t Simon be here to help her work through this? Or Sam, she’s
great with people. She’s fantastic at the clinic. She keeps people
calm with just a few soft-spoken words. Paige steps away from him,
so Cory slips by her and goes toward the middle of the cabin. She
spins around and tracks him down, though.