Page 11 of Carmine

“Oh boy. If your cupboards are empty, you’ll kick her mom instinct in,” Klutz said with a smile.

“Should I do something?” I asked, wondering what.

“No, Aurora is happiest when she’s mothering someone,” Klutz answered and took a seat. “So, what can we do?”

“I have the presentation remaining from last time. But I need to update the figures and get all the printouts and put them together.”

“Put us to work, Doc,” Carmine muttered as he stared at me.

I wondered if something was on my face and ran my hand over it. Finding nothing, I let Carmine’s strange behaviour go and started writing a list of everything I needed. Once done, I opened my laptop and began working.

???

Hours passed before I was tapped on the shoulder. Aurora stood smiling as I jumped in my chair and gazed at her wide-eyed.

“How we doing, Doc?” she asked.

Stiffly, I stretched and rolled my shoulders.

“Only this final part remains before assembling the packs. What’s the time?”

“Seven. You’ve been working for hours. At least you ate the sandwiches I made you,” she replied.

“Hell, I didn’t know I had salad.”

“Sorry, Doc, you didn’t. But I went shopping, and you now have cupboards full of food and the fridge is loaded up, too. I checked your freezer and saw you had a little meat and also bought you a load of that,” Aurora said with a happy smile.

“Oh, how much do I owe you?” I asked, looking for my rucksack. That’s where my wallet was.

“Nothing. I love doing shit like this. Please don’t insult me because I got a lot of joy from this,” Aurora replied.

That felt wrong, but I accepted with a begrudging nod.

“I bought steaks out to grill tonight, and I’ll bake some potatoes. But I’m just checking, is there any food you hate?” she questioned.

“Asparagus.”

“Yeah, I hate that, too. But anything else goes?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you’ll be done within the hour?” Aurora asked.

I looked around and nodded. “About an hour and a half. We need to assemble the packs and check they are in the correct order."

“Okay, I’ll get food on. I’ll leave you in peace, Doc,” Aurora said.

“Molly,” I replied lamely and bent my head.

Honestly, the two men with me were quite helpful. They had arranged the papers, printed reports, organised printouts, and put the packs together. The diagrams were updated, and I’d uploaded the historical and most recent data. The escalation chilled me.

Laccoliths did not erupt. But something was happening in the Black Hills, and I feared a volcanic eruption was pending. Maybe not along the dramatic lines of a volcano, but I fully expected the laccoliths to spew lava. If the laccoliths followed my predictions, it would be an unprecedented occurrence. There’d never been evidence of lava flowing from them. But just because it hadn’t taken place in the past didn’t mean it couldn’t now.

The entire thing was a conundrum that drove me insane. My teaching said they could not explode. But my data claimed differently. My peers disagreed. Laccoliths couldn’t erupt. The only other horrifying possibility was South Dakota was about to have its first live volcano form. That was an event I did not wish to witness, as Rapid City would become the modern-day Pompeii.

The chance of a new volcano forming was low, but it did happen. The seismic pressure predicted wasn’t strong enough, but who knew? A sudden big quake, and up pops a volcano.

Worried, I shuddered and turned my attention to my work.

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