Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Only when he was done did he say, “The radar said that it was heading right toward us.”
I felt my stomach sink.
I’d hoped that I wasn’t right about where my thoughts were headed.
“We survived two disasters already, right?” I asked nervously. “What’s one more?”
The lights went out, and the bravado I’d been feigning fled the scene.
I tensed, but only until a set of arms came around me. “Let’s sit down.”
So that was what we did.
We listened to the world around us, not saying a word, until finally the wind was just gone.
In its place was such total silence that it made my eyes squeeze shut.
“We’re not dead, are we?” I teased.
The arms around me squeezed a little tighter. “No.”
“What do we do now?” I breathed.
He threaded one hand up into my hair and started to massage my scalp. “We wait for my club to find us.”
It took them eight hours.
And I’d never in my life been so happy to see a group so scary.
Mostly because I was way overstimulated because the tiny baby had absolutely refused anything bottle-wise since he’d had the last one his mother had prepared.
I was at my wits’ end, and listening to his hungry cry for a second longer sounded like torture.
But Finnian wouldn’t allow us to leave.
We’d exited the closet, but we hadn’t gone farther than the living room.
When the first sounds of a four-wheeler reached our ears, Finnian stood up languidly, unfolding himself from the couch with a savage grace that sent shivers down my spine.
“That’s them.”
His club had arrived, and they were as scary as ever.
I stood up, the baby in my arms crying like crazy, and headed to the front door right along with Finnian.
When we got there, it was to see several very large men getting off four-wheelers and side-by-sides, looking rugged and handsome, and a hell of a lot intimidating.
I didn’t miss how one of the biggest of them all, a man with the name “Knight” on his breast pocket, walked right up to Finnian and lifted him straight off his feet in a large bear hug.
But they didn’t keep my attention.
No, what held it was the massive gash on one of their arms and the angry look on all of their faces.
Oh, and the destroyed outside world that’d taken even more damage after the sun had gone down and the wind had hit.
Finnian was sure that we didn’t get hit by another tornado, though. Just damaging wind.
We wouldn’t know for sure until we got back to civilization.
“Here,” one of the men said as he got off his four-wheeler and started walking toward us, a cooler of something in his hand. “I brought breast milk and some formula. We weren’t sure which to get you.”
“Thanks, Audric.” Finnian walked forward to take it. “Kid’s not havin’ any powdered milk. We tried, but he definitely didn’t like it. I’m guessing it was breast milk. Formula and powdered milk can’t be all that different, right?”
Audric.
The man who’d lost his wife the same day that Finnian had lost his son.
The one with the baby—though she couldn’t be much of a baby anymore. She was likely a toddler now. School age almost.
“You’re the computer genius.” Another man walked toward me and stared down at the baby in my arms. “Got a set of lungs.”
“Yeah,” I said, not thinking when I shoved the kid at him. “Can you take him?”
He blinked and took the baby, but he did it so expertly that I knew that he had kids of his own.
He didn’t fight me on taking the kid, and instead said, “Finnian, get me set up. I’ll feed him.”
I was more than happy to let them take the reins.
I did, however, walk back into the house for the laundry room where I’d spied the first aid kit.
I caught it up and walked back outside to hear Finnian saying, “…Dru. She was seated next to me on the plane.”
They all looked up to me when I came back out.
I set the pack on the railing and pointed at the scary one with the gash on his arm. “Come here. Let me clean that up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the scary one said instead of arguing.
I didn’t make a big deal of all the burn scars on his arms, face, and neck—all the available skin I could see—but I did note that they were old. Healed as best as they ever would be.
“Jasper, we’ll leave you here. Gotta go clear more of that road.”
Jasper, obviously the one that I was working on, jerked his chin up. “Ten-four.”
I fixed him up in complete silence while the rest of the men went to help clean up the area so we could get out easier.
I did notice that they’d given a bag to Finnian—they called him Apollo, though—and ordered him to get changed.
He came back out long moments later in worn-out jeans, a t-shirt, and work boots.