Chapter Eight #3
a step away. He hoped to make his escape before the rest of the neighborhood showed up.
Mary Alice shrugged. “Oh, I imagine we’ll be fine. We have a few canned goods put back, and plenty of peanut butter to put
on some apple slices. We didn’t go to the meeting at the school right after the power went out, but JD did, and he keeps us
up to date on what’s going on. Carol Allen is in charge of organizing things, but I don’t think this will go on much longer,
do you? People always blow things like this out of proportion, they see disaster in everything.”
Jim frowned and cleared his throat. “The power better come back on pretty soon. Mary Alice is going to run out of her prescription
pills in a few weeks. We’ll need to get a ride into town to get refills. My old car’s already out of gas. I had close to a
full tank, but JD and I siphoned it to use in his generator, to keep it running a while longer. I thought the service stations
would reopen, but so far they haven’t.”
Jesus. They were a disaster waiting to happen. “I hate to tell you, but this is going to last for months.” They both looked
dismayed, but they needed to be dismayed; maybe that would wake up what little survival instinct they seemed to have. This
wasn’t a damn picnic, and before long their little neighborly cookout was going to look like a damned feast. In spite of himself,
he turned to look down at short, plump Mary Alice. Maybe it was his imagination, but she didn’t look as plump as she had when
she’d invited him to dinner several months ago. “What meds do you take?”
“Oh, just my blood pressure and heart pills.”
He scrubbed his hand over his face. He didn’t know much about medications, other than to pop an Ambien when he needed some
sleep before a mission, or inject morphine in a wounded brother to ease the pain. For years he had slept on the military’s
schedule, which was nothing like a normal circadian rhythm. Blood pressure and “heart pills” weren’t in his wheelhouse, and
there was no way he could research them.
“You have to conserve them,” he said firmly. “Cut them in half, if they’re tablets, and take them only every other day or
even more spread out than that. Make them last as long as you can. Same with food, same with everything.” God, some medications
weren’t made to be halved, but desperate times, desperate measures.
Her eyes got wide, and he saw some dawning of comprehension that they needed to assume the worst. She slowly nodded. “I understand.
There are some people here in the valley who know about herbs and things, I can probably handle my blood pressure that way.”
“Good idea,” he said. “I’ll check back by every now and then. You folks take care. C’mon, dog.” He and the pup started back
the way they’d come, though the dog was reluctant to leave the smell of cooking meat. Thank God he didn’t run into any of
the neighbors as they walked away from the Livingstons’ house. His well of social chat had just run dry.
He and the dog reached the highway and made their way down it to Sela’s neighborhood. There were more people walking the highway
than he’d expected, and he was taken aback when several people waved and called out hellos. He didn’t recognize them, so how
the hell did they think they knew him? Then again, for the past few years he’d made a practice of not looking directly at
people so they wouldn’t try to talk to him, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been looking him over. It was something of a
shock, scraping uncomfortably on his nerves, to realize that a lot of people in the valley would know him by sight.
He returned the waves, but kept walking. God save him from friendly people. What the hell was wrong with them?
When he reached Sela’s side road he realized he’d assumed she’d be at her own house, but in reality she could be anywhere.
The two most likely choices, though, were her house and her aunt’s house. He passed the yellow two-story she’d said belonged
to her aunt but didn’t stop, because he didn’t want to deal with any extra people; he’d had enough for the day, about all
he could stand. If she wasn’t at her house, he’d go back to the mountain.
But she was there; he saw her sitting on the screened porch. When she spotted him, she laid aside the book she was reading
and stood. The pup barked in greeting and tried to bound forward, to be thwarted by his grip on the leash.
Walking across her yard, though, didn’t fill him with dread. Somehow talking to her was different, as if the night they’d
watched the aurora together had gotten him past that stage with her. Maybe seeing the outline of her breasts had something
to do with it, he thought with a tinge of amusement. Amusement. It had been a long time since he’d been amused by anything, much less himself.
“You have a dog!” she said as she opened the screen door, smiling down at the pup.
A quick glance told him she was wearing a bra, which was both a relief and a disappointment. At least he wouldn’t have to
fight to keep his mind on the conversation, but damn, he missed the view. “He wandered up; he’d either gotten lost or been
abandoned.”
She opened the door wider. “Come on in, and bring him, too. I’ll get him some water. Do you want some tea?” She gestured to
the half-full glass sitting beside her open book. “I have some fresh sun tea.”
He hadn’t acquired the Southern taste for sweet tea, but he said, “Thanks. I’ll keep him here on the porch, though. I’m not
sure of his manners in a strange place.” Plus going inside her house was something he was reluctant to do, though he couldn’t
say why.
“I’ll be right back.”
He watched as she went inside, and yeah, he noticed the way her jeans cupped her ass. Her dark hair was in a ponytail, and
she was wearing a red T-shirt. No shoes. He’d never seen her dressed to attract attention; for the most part, she seemed to
be content to be under the radar.
She came back out with a glass of tea in one hand and a bowl of water in the other. He took the glass and she set the bowl
down on the porch for the dog, who began lapping as thirstily as if he hadn’t had plenty to drink from the creek just an hour
before. He released the leash and the dog began sniffing around, dragging the rope behind him.
“Have a seat.” She gestured to the porch chair beside hers, separated by the small table on which she’d set her book and tea.
She took her own seat and pulled her feet up into the chair, curling to the side toward him. “What brings you down the mountain?”
He couldn’t say, exactly, but used the opening to ask, “Do you know the Livingstons, just off Covemont? Jim and Mary Alice.
Old couple.”
“I do, though not well. Jim stopped at my store for gas, every Saturday.” She smiled. “About half the time he didn’t need
much, but he always topped off the tank anyway.”
“They didn’t make any preparations for the power to be out this long. They’re low on food, though the neighbors are helping.
Mary Alice takes blood pressure and heart medications, and is running short on both.” With amazement, he heard the words coming
out of his own mouth. He sounded like someone who was involved. Shit. “Do you know anyone in the valley who knows about medicines?” Mary Alice had said she knew some herbalists, but he
figured having backup wasn’t a bad idea.
“I do. I’ll get in touch with them, have them talk to Mary Alice. We have a flowchart set up with people who volunteered to
help, what they can do. I wish we had a pharmacist or a doctor, but so far we’ve been able to get by.”
He took a slug of the tea, and was relieved it wasn’t too sweet. Some of it he’d tried was like drinking candy. He drained most of the glass and set it down, looked for the dog. It
was nosing around a potted plant and he said, “Here, dog,” to call it away before it began eating the leaves. The pup trotted
over to him and he rewarded it with a scratch behind the ears.
“He’s well behaved,” she said, leaning forward to stroke the dog’s sleek head.
“Evidently you didn’t notice him about to eat your plant.”
She smiled, and something in him warmed, not just at her smile but knowing he’d put it there. He wasn’t exactly a jokester.
“I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve been thinking about the gasoline in my storage tanks at the store.”
That got his attention. His head snapped around. “You have gasoline?” Right now gasoline was worth more than gold.
“I turned off the pumps the day you told me what was going to happen.”
“Smart thinking. Does anyone else know?” His tone was sharp, but this was serious business.
“Carol, for certain. I don’t know if she’s told anyone.”