Page 5 of Tara's Warriors

“We’ll be down in a few, Larry,” Tara said with a smile. “Thank you.”

Ducking down, Larry ran a worn, scarred and tanned hand over Jillian’s hair. “Make sure your grandma brings you down, Jillibean. Martha made you your favorite apple dumplings. Said she’s savin’ the biggest one for you.”

Jillian giggled and nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Larry.”

Giving Jillian’s head another pat, Larry nodded to the women and left.

Making her way over to the campfire in the center of their circle of tents, Tara stepped over legs and blankets. She headed toward Rachel, who sat smoking her pipe as she stared into the fire with swollen, red eyes.

“Hey, Jillian,” Tara said in a soft voice. “Why don’t you go talk with Auntie Nelly for a few minutes? I need to speak with Miss Rachel.”

Jillian darted a glance over at Rachel, then whispered back, “Okay.”

Once she was sure Nelly had Jillian, Tara raised a hand then made her way over to Rachel.

Sitting down on the blanket next to her friend, Tara picked at the grass along the edge, her heart aching for the other woman.

In a gentle voice, she asked, “Any news?”

Rachel was silent for a few moments, her gaze not wavering from the flames. “No. The signal on the radio keeps going in and out, but they’ve repeated it twice now—any plane that was in the air during the Event crashed. My brother was flying from Chicago to Florida this morning. I keep hoping maybe he missed his flight, or maybe he got bumped, or maybe some miracle happened to kept him out of the sky today. I can’t… I can’t stop thinking about how terrified he must have been when the engines on the jet suddenly quit working. I can’t help but think about what his final thoughts must have been, how terrible it must be to know you’re going to die.”

Tears burned Tara’s nose as she swallowed hard. “Had those same thoughts when Nathan died. How long did it take him to pass after the harvester fell on him? Was he in a lot of pain? Did he suffer? I used to torture myself with those worries, cut my own soul to shreds. Then I realized that, even though Nathan was gone from this earth, he was in heaven, no doubt watching me torture myself and wanting to strangle me for even thinking that shit.”

Rachel took a puff from her pipe, then slowly blew the fragrant cherry scented plume of tobacco smoke toward the fire. “Things I’ve seen during my time as a sheriff, the evil I’ve witnessed firsthand, it all sometimes makes me wonder if there is a God.”

“Well, if there’s evil, then there must be good.” Tara turned her head slightly, then reached out and gave Rachel’s hand a squeeze. “People like you are out there fighting the good fight. From what you’ve said about your brother, he sounds like a really great guy.”

“He’s the best.”

They talked for a while after that, until Tara’s stomach rumbled so badly, it felt like it was chewing on her spine. Keeping an eye on her surroundings, she took Jillian down for some dinner. The atmosphere remained tense, despite the Festival site having power again. Lots of people wanted to get home, but only the older cars seemed to be fixable. The newer ones were mostly computers, and the circuits had been fried by the magnetic blast from somewhere around Pluto—or at least that was everyone’s best guess at the moment.

Tara took Jillian over to a table with other kids and made sure to keep the conversations with her friends light around the little ones. The other adults did as well, so by the time they were ready to go, Jillian was yawning into her dessert. Tara didn’t turn Larry down when he offered to have one of his son’s walk her and another woman and her child back to the campsite. An air of danger lingered beneath the thin veneer of civilization, and she noticed people stuck close to their campfires, and everyone kept an eye on those who passed by.

When she made it back to her camp, she was glad to see Rachel in a better mood, or at least hiding her sorrow. Lights blazed from the sides of the bus, and Tara’s heart lifted at the sight. People clustered around the lights, and she was glad to see a few more people who were police officers in the real world hanging around and keeping the peace. They all crammed into the bus to watch the news when they could get a signal, and bottles and flasks of various adult beverages were passed around.

By the time Tara decided to call it a night, she was a bit tipsy and utterly exhausted. She kicked off her shoes inside the tent and managed to get into her pajamas without waking up a softly snoring Jillian. One of the many blessings God bestowed on them with Jillian was that she was a deep, deep sleeper. Tara could literally vacuum her bedroom, and Jillian would sleep through it.

Kneeling down onto the queen-sized air mattress, she climbed beneath the quilt her grandmother had made then curled into Jillian, hugging the little girl close.

It took some effort, but she managed to hold back her tears as she pressed her nose into her granddaughter’s hair. She prayed that, wherever Lacey was, she was safe.

A cool, delicious breeze lifted the hair off the back of Tara’s neck as she stood on the precipice of an enormous snow-covered cliff. Far below, in a bowl that reminded her of an enormous crater left by a meteor strike, a vast city made up of silver and gold towers glittered in the bright light. On the horizon, six moons of various sizes shone like pale peach, green, and gold against a bluer than blue sky. No words could accurately describe the colors of the clouds with their burnished gold that had hints of purple to the edges. Around her, the pale snow shone with hints of purple, looking almost an impossibly pale lilac instead of the blue tinge she expected.

The soft wind swept over her body again, and she laughed as she looked down and decided she’d watched her granddaughter’s favorite princess movie about a snow queen one too many times. Her dress certainly looked like something that could belong to Elsa. Made up of thousands of tiny, shimmering blue crystals, it glittered in the strange sunlight like it was made of fairy dust. The fabric was soft as silk and transparent in places, offering teasing glimpses of her body.

Given the translucent nature of the fabric, and the low cut bodice that showed off her incredibly perky breasts, evidently in her dreams she got a boob job. She should have been cold, but she was as comfortable as if she was inside an airconditioned home instead of standing in glacial wilderness.

Footsteps crunching in snow came from behind her, so she turned, her breath catching as two of the most impossibly handsome men she’d ever seen came prowling out of the whirling snow.

Okay, so her dream wasn’treallylike a Disney movie. More like a porno.

Not that she minded, because these men were impossibly fine.

The man on the left had short, dark hair that had hints of purple in it. He was tanned, but that purple sheen that seemed to color everything gave his nipples a dark, dusky hew. Like the man next to him, the dark haired guy wore only a pair of black leather pants that displayed thick, powerful thighs and an impressive bulge. He had a short, neat beard that framed a pair of firm, cupid’s bow lips.

The guy on the right had a crazy mane of red, gold, and black streaked hair that flared around his head in lion-like waves. While the guy on the left had a nice patch dark hair on his rugged, masculine chest leading down his chiseled abs in a happy trail, the man with the colorful hair’s chest was smooth and so defined there didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat on him. Every muscle was carved to perfection, a living statue of male strength and power. His features were different from the dark haired man’s masculine good looks. The guy with the striped hair radiated danger somehow, a contained violence that itched along her skin. Instinctively, she knew this predatory man didn’t mean her any harm, and she lifted her chin as they approached.

As they got closer, she could see the dark-haired man had lovely, deep amber eyes. He was what she always thought of as lumberjack sexy—perfectly hairy and thick in all the best ways. A man as solid as a tree trunk with shoulders broad enough to carry the world.

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