“So why are you frowning?”
Now he frowns even harder. “I don’t know. You ever feel like things are goingtoowell?”
“Such a pessimist.”
“Maybe,” he says. “Seemed like we were in shitty situations pretty regularly out on the road. I don’t trust this quiet.”
“How about we just enjoy tonight?”
He’s quiet for a while. Then he says, “If I’m planning for disaster and ways for us to survive…that takes hope, right?”
“Yes. That takes hope.”
“That’s what I thought,” he says with a smile.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WEDNESDAY
We use a couple of pickup trucks for the trip. Charlie and Naomi in one, and Dean and me in the other. The tanks are full but there are containers of gas in the back, along with the siphons, of course. One day we’re going to have to work out how best to access the reserve at the gas station in town. For now, however, there’s plenty just sitting in cars waiting to be used. Extra food and ammunition have also been packed. Just in case.
The store is situated to the east of us on the edge of a much larger town. It’s half an hour’s drive on the highways. But we take the longer way on the back roads just to be safe. Sophie stays behind. She’s more than happy to spend the day hanging out with Hazel. Reema is watching the girls. Natalia and Leon are fishing. And Avan is sorting medicine and medical equipment. He decided to set up a spare bedroom at the bed-and-breakfast as our hospital for now.
I spent the last two days building raised garden beds in our yard with cinder blocks. There was a surplus of them behind the hardware store. Given how reasonably lightweight and easy they were to work with, they won out over timber. I would have had to wait for help from someone else otherwise, and I was keen to get the garden happening.
Once the ground was broken and the grass and weeds were removed, the cinder blocks could be put into place. Then it was just a matter of stealing soil from here, there, and everywhere to build up the garden beds. Talk about spending quality time with a pick, spade, and wheelbarrow. Our local hardware had a few bags of fertilizer, and some people in the area had been composting.
Seed starter trays from the hardware are set up inside the house. Sophie and Hazel enjoyed helping with them. One of the books said it was the right time of year for pumpkins, cucumbers, and zucchini. Books on canning and pickling are going to be needed on the next trip to the library. There’s so much to learn.
My grandmother would laugh if she could see me. She tried to get me interested in gardening when I was a child. We would grow strawberries, cucumbers, and tomatoes together in the summer. But it was never really my thing. Now it needs to be my thing if we want to eat fresh food. So I do my best to ignore the blisters and the aches and pains from all of the picking and shoveling.
However, today I am riding in a pickup truck wearing a pistol on my hip. You never quite know what the apocalypse will throw at you from one day to the next. My nerves are making an appearance. Guess I got used to being in town. Being out on the road again feels weirdly exposed. Like I have a target on me. Though it’s not my only concern. And I can’t stop fidgeting with the cap on my water bottle or the seam on my tee.
“You carried me to bed last night,” I say out of nowhere.
“You keep passing out early on the couch,” he complains.
“I can’t help that you’re such scintillating company.”
His smile is there and gone in an instant. Like he has to hide it or something. And it’s downright unfair the way sunglasses increase his general hotness. “The garden’s wearing you out. How are your hands?”
“I wore the gardening gloves yesterday. You were right—it was better.”
“Can you say that again?” he asks. “The part about me being right…”
“No. And anyway, you shouldn’t be carrying me around. It could hurt your arm.”
“My arm is fine.”
With the window down, the wind tears at my ponytail. We pass fields, forests, warehouses, and the occasional house. No sign of any people out there living their lives. It’s a big, wide, empty world.
“Thought this might be a good chance to talk about how you’ve been avoiding being alone with me for the last few days,” he says, keeping his steady gaze on the road.
“Is that why you vetoed Naomi riding with you? She wasn’t happy.”
Nothing from him, which is interesting.
“Didn’t we just cover that I’ve been tired and crashing early?”
