The McClane Apocalypse: Book Two (42 page)

He comes to stand by her at the island; she knows it is Kelly because he places his hand on the smooth surface next to hers and allows his pinkie finger to rest against her own. It is not something any of the family would notice or he would not be doing it. This is something of which she is sure. Suddenly, his smallest finger which is the size of her thumb strokes over the top of hers.

“We’re going to Grandpa’s study, kids. You’re on your own,” Grams tells them all. “Behave yourselves.”

Her words of warning are a jest, and everyone laughs and bids them good-night because they know that the grandparents won’t be back out in the family areas again tonight. This is their routine. It’s kind of always been this way, their way. After dinner, they always sit together, alone in Grandpa’s study to talk and have their own time before they retire.

“You ready, man?” Derek asks, and Kelly immediately removes his hand from the counter.

“Yeah,” he answers her brother-in-law.

“Honey, what are two working on now?” Sue asks Derek with a tinge of impatience. “It’s already dark outside.”

“Just finishing up with the weapons check. Cory’s helping, too. Going through and cleaning all the rifles and doing a thorough ammo listing. Herb has a lot of ammo, but he also has some equipment and gun powder, primers and supplies out there for reloading our own bullets. So we figured we’d teach Cory how to reload. There’s also a manual on reloading, so whatever one of us doesn’t know, he’ll be able to figure it out. He’s pretty smart with analyzing things. It would give him something more to do around here, and let’s face it, it’s not a bad idea for him to learn this,” Derek answers. Kelly has moved a step away from her.

The boxes and crates of items that they’d brought back today from their run and introduction of the Reynolds family to the new families in the condos are mostly full of bullets, weapons and gun supplies they’d found in a few abandoned homes in an elite suburb closer to town. Kelly had set a charge, whatever that meant, and blown a large gun safe they’d found in the basement of one of those homes. Apparently it had been a good find, not that Hannah would know. But the men had talked about it at dinner and had seemed overly excited about it.

“Ok, well, don’t be too long. You guys worked hard all day around here. Plus, both of you have to pick up an extra hour of watch again tonight to cover for John being gone,” Sue says. Hannah can hear her kiss Derek. “And I miss you, mister.”

“I really won’t be long now,” Derek promises and does something that makes Sue shriek and laugh, and they kiss again.

Hannah wishes that she could be out in the open with her feelings for Kelly, but she knows that her family would freak out and even more likely that Kelly would flee the farm on the spot.

Kelly places his hand over top of hers, giving it a gentle squeeze before he leaves her standing alone at the island to go with Derek. This was really something for him. Also, she’s quite sure that nobody had seen again, or he wouldn’t have done it in the first place. But it was still something. Perhaps he, too, was also thinking of their kiss a few days ago when she’d melted into him while he’d groaned and ravished her mouth with his.

“Kids!” Sue shouts out the back door. “Best to get them all ready for bed. Oh, I hate it when it starts getting dark out earlier and earlier,” she laments to Hannah.

“How would I know?” Hannah jibes at herself. Sue laughs and comes to stand beside her at the island.

“Sorry, Hannie,” she says with laughter and a bit of sympathy tingeing her voice.

“It’s ok. I know you don’t mean anything by it when you say things like that. Since I can see shadows, somewhat, I can usually tell when the sun has set. The shadows disappear. Anyways, want some help with the kids?”

“I’m skipping showers and baths. I’m beat. But you could braid Ari’s hair for me so that she doesn’t look like a caveman in the morning,” Sue suggests with a soft laugh.

“No problem. We don’t want the girls around here to start resembling all the shaggy-haired men. I think Kelly’s hair needs trimmed again,” she comments and then regrets it.

“Oh? And just how would you know that?” Argh, her sister never misses anything. She would’ve made a great FBI investigator.

“Um, well, Grams cut it so long ago and I, uh, I don’t remember her doing it again.” Well, that couldn’t have sounded more stupid or made up. She knows his hair is long again because she’d sunk her fingers into it quite a few times in the past weeks. And she wishes to do so again.

“Mm hm,” Sue replies sarcastically as the kids bound into the kitchen with endless energy and enthusiasm and noise. Hannah is also enthusiastic but for much different, darker reasons that she can’t share with anyone but her own wicked mind.

“Ari, let me braid your hair, ok?” Hannah says and takes her niece by the hand. “Want me to do yours too, Em?”

“Um, sure, I guess,” the young girl answers uncertainly. She is still very introverted, but is making a lot of positive progress just like her brother.

“Ok, then come along and we’ll get you girls cleaned up and ready for bed,” Hannah tells her and leads them both to her own bedroom where it is easier for her to navigate.

“I’m tired,” Ari states on a yawn.

When the kids crash for the night, they crash like dead people. Hannah’s heard them snoring like the night she stayed in Kelly’s room when Isaac had been born. That seems so long ago.

“I don’t doubt that you’re tired. You guys play so hard all day. Ari, you go in and wash up in my bathroom, and I’ll braid Em’s hair first,” Hannah tells her rambunctious niece who bounds off.

“Ok,” is her simple reply, but she bangs the bathroom door loudly, completely oblivious to other people.

Hannah sits at her dressing table bench and says, “Here, Em, sit on the floor in front of me, and I’ll get it brushed and braided for you.”

Hannah carefully untangles the girl’s hair with a brush, parting it down the center of her head. She has a bit of a wave in her hair and, from what she knows from Sue describing Em, the girl’s locks are a rich, dark brown color. Sue has told her how handsome both of Kelly’s siblings are, and that Em’s eyes are a light hazel in color in comparison to Kelly and Cory’s, both of whom have brown. They all three have darkly tanned complexions, she’s heard from Reagan. Most everyone on the farm is a dark tan with the exception of her and Grams who spend most of their days indoors doing chores.

“Hannah?” Em asks quietly.

“Yes?”

“Could you, I mean if you ever have the time or would even want to... I mean... never mind,” Em says in a fluster.

The poor child is so passive and unsure of herself. Hannah knows the feeling because she’d also lost a mother at an age very close to Em’s. But at least Hannah had her grandparents and her sisters to look after her. This young, innocent girl only has the kindness of virtual strangers and her two huge brothers who are fiercely protective of her, yet also rather clueless.

“What is it, Em? You can ask me anything, sweetie.”

“Well, if it’s not too much of a bother, could you teach me to play the piano someday? I mean, I know how important the work is and that it needs to come first and all but maybe just a few simple songs or something?”

“Absolutely!” Hannah says with genuine excitement. “And maybe John or Reagan could teach any of you kids that want to learn the guitar, too. But I can teach you for sure on the piano, Em. My music is written in Braille but Reagan’s isn’t. She has most of the same books that I do, but they are for people with sight. We used to play together just about every day, so we wanted the same song selection. Grams plays some on the piano, as well. But she wasn’t trained like we were. She just plays by ear, which means she can hear music and copy it. I have to read and then memorize and Reagan- well, she’s Reagan, so once she looks at it once it’s in her head forever. But I’d love to help you learn music,” Hannah explains.

Em shrugs her shoulders in a gesture of discomfort that Hannah has come to recognize. She does this frequently. Sometimes when Hannah is sitting next to her, she can feel her do it in response to questions. She also does it when people compliment her or pay too much attention to her.

“Thanks, Hannah,” she says.

“It’s no trouble at all. We love music around here. Grams used to drive us to the bigger cities like Nashville and Memphis, even St. Louis once to listen to orchestras and Broadway plays and the opera. I used to love the opera. I even studied some Italian so that I could better understand them. Grams told me a long time ago that her grandmother had been a performer in New York City, in the ballet, when she was young before she met Grams’s grandfather and moved to New Orleans. But I took piano lessons from a teacher from the blind school. I would meet with him twice a month. Grams would drive me all the way over to his house that was almost an hour away. She’s very devoted to music, you see,” Hannah tells her.

“I went to an opera once with my mom,” Em confides.

She never speaks of her own mother. Hannah knows that it’s just too painful, and from what she’s learned from Kelly of Em’s mother, she was a kind, loving parent to her two children and also with Kelly whom she’d legally adopted.

“Yeah? Did you like it? Goodness, Em, your hair is almost to your waist.”

“I know; it needs cut. But, yes, I liked the opera, even though it was kind of confusing. The music was pretty, though,” Em explains.

Hannah finishes the second ponytail braid, and Em stands again right as Arianna comes out of the restroom. Her tiny footsteps alert Hannah that she is trying to sneak from the room to avoid the hair brushing.

“Over here, Miss Arianna. You aren’t getting out of this,” Hannah warns her.

“Aww, nuts!” she nearly swears.

“Ari, that’s not a nice word to say, young lady,” Hannah half-heartedly corrects her as she plops in a huff between Hannah’s legs on the floor. “Em, you can use the bathroom now.”

“Sorry, Auntie Hannah,” Ari grumbles before Em leaves, closing the door softly behind her. A short while later she returns while Hannah is still trying to get Arianna’s hair straightened around.

“Em, is your whole name Em or is it short for Emily?” Hannah asks as she tries her best to brush Ari’s tangled mop without making her scream. Em has come to stand next to her at the dressing table.

“No, it’s short for Emma. My mom liked all the Jane Austen novels, so that’s how I got this name. It’s Emma Elizabeth in full. She wanted Cory’s name to be Darcy, but I guess our dad said no way. They liked to joke about it,” she says with a sad laugh.

“That’s funny. My middle name is Elizabeth, too. I’ve always loved those books, as well, but Reagan hated them. Not enough slimy, disgusting anatomy pictures or something for her, I’m sure. But, yeah, I can see your father saying that over Cory’s name if he was anything like Kelly,” Hannah comments.

“Oh yeah, they were like pea pods according to mom. He was a little bit shorter than Kelly but he was... awesome,” Em says with pride for her deceased father.

Hannah doesn’t correct her about the pea pods being peas in a pod since the girl is actually talking in full sentences with her for a change.

“Really? Was he patient and kind like Kelly?”

“Oh, yeah. Dad never yelled at us or anything like that. He’d always make mom do it,” Em says with another chuckle.

“Yeah, I can’t see Kelly being the tough, rule-enforcing parent, either,” Hannah agrees.

“No way. He’s a big teddy bear. When he’d come home sometimes on leave, the guys would all go fishing, and I’d tag along. Kelly always put the worm on my hook for me, though. Cory would get mad and tell Dad that I should have to do it, but he never made me. We missed Kelly a lot when he was gone. He kept telling Dad that he wanted to quit, but then something would come up and he’d be gone again. I think it was really hard on our Dad, though, because he worried so much. He really loved Kelly,” the insightful young girl explains these things with wisdom beyond her twelve, soon to be thirteen, years. Hannah’s heart breaks for Em because she can hear the love she feels for her two deceased parents.

“Kelly doesn’t talk about him all that much. I think it’s too painful for him. But, then again, I guess that nobody much has time for talking anymore,” Hannah reflects sadly.

“The day before... you know... he was on the phone constantly trying to get in touch with Kelly. And then Kelly finally called in on that satellite thingy. Dad was so glad. He said he could sleep for the first time in days. He was worried sick for Kelly. That’s probably why... it happened. Dad probably fell asleep too hard and didn’t hear those guys break in,” Em says gloomily, and Hannah reaches for and finds Em’s hand which she squeezes gently.

“Maybe, or maybe they were just able to surprise him because they were really bad people, professional criminals. What they did to your parents they probably did many times before. Even before this all happened,” Hannah tries to offer some small semblance of light to the grim facts of her story and Em nods.

“Maybe you’re right. What happened to your parents, Hannah? I mean if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. It’s cool,” Em says, trying to be so grown up.

“My mom got sick, cancer, when I was a few years younger than you. And our dad- I don’t know- couldn’t handle it I guess and left us with our grandparents here on the farm,” Hannah recalls. It’s hard for her to think of her mother. It still hurts, and the ache in her heart has never gone completely away, nor the feeling of guilt that it was her fault that her mother got sick in the first place.

“Do you remember her?” Em asks.

Hannah has finally finished with Ari’s braids and invites them to sit on her bed, but Ari runs off to look for Justin. But, thank heavens, Em decides to sit and talk a while longer with her.

“Oh yes, I remember her like it was just yesterday that I was sitting at her feet and she was braiding my hair like I just did for you and Ari. She always smelled good. I really remember that. Kind of like shampoo and mint gum and flowers all rolled into one. There’s a picture of her on the wall going upstairs if you ever want to see what she looked like. It was the last family picture we had taken. Our dad’s not in it, though, ‘cuz he was away on duty somewhere as usual. So you see we’re not so different. Your big brother was gone a lot, and my dad and brother were, too. But our father just never seemed to care whether or not he got to come home and see us, whereas Kelly really loved being with you guys. I mean that’s obvious; he’s with you now,” Hannah observes softly.