“Right, they could have a new kind of squatter living in them. But you can see how it goes, scope it out maybe,” Kelly says as gently as he can put it. They all know he refers to looters, thieves, rapists and murderers- what sometimes feels like ninety percent of the new America.
“We’ll hit the Johnson place then check on the Reynolds family on the way back, see if they need help with anything,” John says and the rest agree.
“Derek and I took... a walk today and found a huge honey bee nest,” Sue says. John is pretty sure he knows what the “walk” was all about. Derek has been horn dogging after his wife for a couple of weeks. He’d caught them making out a couple of times in the barn. “Derek said he thinks we can figure out how to develop our own honey. He’s read about how to smoke them and get the honey and whatnot. I could sew a bee keeper’s suit from material so that it would be safe.”
“I think that’s very smart, Sue. Our sugar store isn’t going to last forever. We could build housing for them and set it up in the woods beyond the east paddock. That way it would keep them away from the house,” Doc agrees.
“I’ll start building the boxes when we come home from the scouting trip tomorrow,” Derek volunteers.
“I’d also like to get about fifty cords of wood split for the winter. This house would be very, very hard to heat with just firewood. It’s big and spread out. There’s a possibility, small, but a possibility that we could deal with the effects of a nuclear winter,” Doc says.
“Really, Grandpa? You think that it could come this far?” Reagan asks.
“What’s that mean?” Hannah asks.
“A nuclear winter is when the atmosphere is basically polluted out with fallout and debris from nuclear weapons, and it causes a change in weather. Like a permanently overcast, winter day, Hannie. Nobody’s ever proven the theory because it’s just that, a theory. Nukes were never used like this before,” Reagan explains.
“Could that happen, Herb?” Grams asks with concern.
“Nobody knows, Maryanne. It could happen anytime. It’s not a winter as in snowflakes and December. It’s a mess up in the atmosphere. But if we’re ever going to find out, it’ll be this year. Some scientists think it could go on for years even. I don’t want to lose our solar power. If it happens this winter from too many overcast days or from a nuclear winter, I want to have a backup source of fuel. We may need a backup source of fuel no matter what season we’re in,” Doc explains.
“We’re on it, sir. We’ll get it done within a few weeks,” John promises. They’d already cut eight cords of firewood. But they will have to work their tails off to get that much put up along with the hay and all of the other duties. They will definitely not need to worry about staying in shape, not that any of them were worried. Cutting wood is about the hardest work on the farm, especially splitting it with the massive, monster-maul because the doc doesn’t have a gas operated log splitter, unfortunately.
“Thank you, John. I don’t know if I’d be able to get it done,” Doc says.
“Well, we don’t need your help, Doc. You just work on the tractors with Cory. We’ll do the wood. Right, guys?” John urges. The other two men give their hooah military call.
“I can help, too,” Reagan chirps up beside him.
“No, boss. That’s not work for you,” John tells her with a grimace. Everyone at the table is quiet, waiting to see where this is going to go. He already knows.
“I can do anything you can do, pretty boy,” Reagan complains with a pout. He’d like to bite her lower lip when she sticks it out.
“No, you can’t,” John puts her in her place. “And you’re not helping.” There, let her mull that one over. He was serious. She isn’t cutting wood. It is a killer. She is too small, and she’ll just get in the way or chop off her foot. Then she’d probably try to find a way to blame him for it.
Her eyes widen and her nostrils flare. She’s gritting her teeth. He ignores her and goes back to his chili. It seems to do the trick because she doesn’t argue further and the family moves on to which rows of vegetables need to get picked tomorrow for the women to can. John risks a glance at her and she’s just sitting there staring at her food as if she can’t figure out what just happened. He looks at her grandfather next, worried he might have offended him for ordering her around. But Doc just nods and gives him a wink. Cool.
“Hannah and I are going to build a fire tomorrow over the fire-pit outside and do our tomatoes in the big kettle. The kitchen is just getting so hot running the three canners all day long,” Grams says.
“Hey, I’ll do it no problem. I understand. It does get hot in there. I’ll get that built for you before I rake the hay out in the field, Grams,” Kelly tells her.
“Thank you, Kelly,” Grams answer appreciatively.
“Yes, thank you, Kelly,” Hannah adds in much quieter voice. “You are so kind to us.” She places her hand on Kelly’s, who yanks it back. His friend glances nervously at their grandpa, who is talking with his wife and not looking.
Ok, that was weird, John thinks. Kelly acts like Hannah has an infectious disease or something. John looks down in time to see Hannah slide her hand onto Kelly’s leg. Holy crap! If her grandpa saw
that
, he’d have a fit. Kelly removes her hand, and Hannah laughs haughtily. She is a bit feistier than John gave her credit for.
When the meal has finished, Doc announces, “I have work to do in my den, so goodnight everyone.” The kids do the clean-up in the kitchen as the adults scatter to different areas of the house.
“John, you and Reagan go ahead and get your showers. I’ve only got to get Arianna in because the other ones grabbed theirs earlier,” Sue offers as she catches John in the upstairs hall.
“Sure, thanks, Sue,” he tells her. It’ll feel great to get the day’s grime off of him.
When he goes into the second floor public bathroom, the shower is already running. John eases back out. Guess he should’ve knocked first. A few minutes later, Reagan comes out wrapped in a towel. Her shoulders are still wet. Her hair is wrapped in a second towel. John would like to yank the one concealing her body clean off.
“Privacy?” she barks.
“Just waiting my turn, boss,” he remarks with a laugh. She stalks off in a huff and goes up to their bedroom. It sounds nice thinking of it as their bedroom. He also likes looking at her bare, damp calves as she rounds the corner. When his shower is finished, it’s dark outside, and he can hear Sue and Derek in their bedroom talking. Cory passes him on his way to his new bedroom; his freshly cut hair is damp. Grams has trimmed everyone up again.
“I told Kelly I’d still shower downstairs so that we don’t have too many of us using the bathroom up here,” Cory tells him.
“Cool, dude. Derek and Sue have their own bathroom, though. Sue has been having the kids use the bathroom in the basement. So it’s ok if you want to share this one with me and Reagan,” John offers.
“Yeah, ok. Thanks,” he replies. He’s carrying a book. This is what he normally does now. It looks like a tractor repair manual.
“‘Night, dude,” John tells him, which he returns.
When John reaches the attic, Reagan has clothed herself- unfortunately. She sits at her desk looking over a book and making notes on a notepad.
“Watcha’ working on?” John asks her. The towels she used are hanging from the balcony. She spins in her chair to look at John.
“Jesus! Put some clothes on, freak!” she screeches like a banshee. His damp towel is wrapped around his waist and knotted at his hip. It’s all he wears, but it’s all he has that’s clean.
“Easy, babe. Gimme a second,” he says as he makes his way to the bed. There are clothes waiting for him that aren’t his.
“Grams brought them up before she went to bed,” Reagan explains and John catches her looking at his stomach and chest with her mouth slightly parted. If she wants to stare at his body, then that’s fine with him. He stares at hers all the time, though she doesn’t know it.
There are three pairs of jeans, a pair of cargo khakis, four t-shirts, socks and underwear that are still in their packages, thank God. There’s even a light jacket. Most of the clothes are in a size large, but he’ll make it work if they’re too small. The pants are going to be a tad long in the inseam, but they’ll be ok. The underwear are a size larger than he wears, but beggars can’t be choosers. He looks at Reagan, who still stares at him.
“Better look away, boss,” he says and rips the towel off and tosses it on the bed.
“What the fuck?” she yells at him. Her head whips to the side so quickly that he’s afraid she might’ve gotten whiplash. He chuckles at her. She flips him the bird. He just chuckles again.
“I said look away. I can’t help it if you don’t listen,” he reprimands her as he throws on some of the new clothes. Grams or Hannah must’ve laundered them because they smell clean. It’s so hot in the attic that he just pulls on a muscle shirt that almost fits too snugly and a pair of boxers than hang crookedly on his hips. The hard work on the farm is making him bulk up. He hasn’t been this big since he went through Special Forces training, which had sucked. And he sure as heck hadn’t had so much to eat back then.
“What are you working on?” he asks her. She rises from her chair and turns off all of the lights except for the small desk lamp. House rule. Only one light per bedroom at night and don’t keep it on too long.
“It’s a bisection of a diseased liver. I’m just taking notes on it. There’s a doctor in the Ukraine who did a study of patients last year with liver disease and he gave them lemon water, lima beans and the supplement S-adenosylmethionine three times a day for six months and saw a reduction in the spread of the disease, and some patients were even showing significant healing results,” she explains. It’s hard to remember sometimes that she’s a doctor. He sure as heck never knew any doctors who ran around in short shorts, tank tops and looked like her.
“Lemons huh? Don’t think we’ll be getting any of those anytime soon,” he tells her. John walks to the windows and looks out with night vision binoculars.
“No, unfortunately we won’t. So don’t get liver disease would be my suggestion,” she jokes. It’s not often that she makes a joke, and he laughs.
“You don’t need to keep watch anymore. We’ve got it covered. Your grandparents and you girls can sleep the night through now,” he offers kindly. All of the women on the farm work as hard as the men. Their work is just different but no less important. If it wasn’t for them, the men would eat deer meat all winter and nothing else.
“I don’t sleep the night through, so it doesn’t matter,” she explains distractedly while she continues reading and looking at disgusting pictures in her med book. He glances over at her and is awestruck as usual. Her hair is piled in a damp mess on top of her head, held there by two, what looks like, chopsticks. She sits on the edge of her chair, her toes pointed into the hardwood floor, balancing her. Of course she doesn’t sit back in the chair. That would almost be like relaxing.
“Well you’ve got me up here now. So you can sleep easier at least,” he says, trying to be comforting. She snorts at him.
“That’s supposed to make me sleep easier? Yeah right,” she scoffs.
“Your virtue is safe, my lady,” he jokes good-humoredly and gives his best, royal bow.
“What do you know about my virtue or lack of?” she asks smugly and gives him a sidelong glance.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve got your number on that account,” he says self-confidently. John is about a hundred percent sure that Reagan is a virgin. She said she’d never had a boyfriend.
“Maybe I’ve had my share of one night stands, too, pretty boy,” she mocks. He doubts that.
“Mm hm,” he murmurs as he looks over the driveway. A tree-lined drive is great for aesthetics and does give them more privacy, but it also affords people a lot of places to hide should they choose to.
“What makes you think I’m not telling the truth?” she asks and crosses to the bed with a different book. He’d not noticed what she was wearing before, but it’s a thigh skimming long t-shirt and quite possibly nothing else. He’d like to find out. Why the heck did he make this sleeping arrangement? Wonder how the family feels about cold showers at midnight? Is there a rule against it? He might be breaking it... a lot.
“Just a hunch, kid,” he teases and looks over his shoulder at her. She’s got a sucker in her mouth and is lying on her stomach on her bed reading another book. Where does she keep getting candy?
“You don’t know anything about me, but you think you know I’ve never had sexual relations with someone?” she asks. Oh boy.
“And you see there? That’s how I know you haven’t, book worm” he says with a laugh.
“What? What do you mean?” she asks stupefied.
““Cuz, babe. Nobody says sexual relations unless they’re ninety or something,” he explains patiently and goes to his own bed where he lays on top of the blanket on his back. Cory has first watch, and John has no doubts that the kid is one flight down right now pacing.
She harrumphs at him, clearly embarrassed.
“Look, if I need stitches or... my liver fixed or my spleen operated on, I’ll come see you. But don’t try to act like your some sort of sex siren. I think that we both know it isn’t so,” John tells her decidedly and crosses his arms behind his head.
“I could be if I wanted,” she says saucily as she sucks on her sucker unaware of the sexuality of it. Damned lucky sucker. He swallows hard.
“I have no doubts, boss. But I like you just the way you are,” he tells her solemnly. “Once you’ve been around the world about seventeen times and seen the crap me and Kelly have seen, being around people like you and your family is refreshing. Believe me.”
She’s quiet and looks at him thoughtfully. He wishes he could read her mind.
“You should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow,” he tells her and gets a grimace and a nose wrinkle.
“I’m fine.
You
should get some sleep,” she orders sassily. Always gotta have the last word.
“Fine, I will,” he says impatiently. Just fighting with her all day, every day is exhausting enough. “Dang, it’s hot in here. How do you sleep up here?”
“I like being hot. I don’t like the cold. And you are welcome to go back to the basement. I hear it’s nice and cool down there,” she challenges.