After Today (The After Series Book 1)

by Jacqueline Hayley

  He’d played football with Buddy, but Tom was a mean son of a bitch. Not knowing what to expect, Jake slowly swung his door open and made to step out.

  “Hold it right there!” Tom yelled.

  “Tom, it’s me, Jake Brent. We just want—”

  “I said, hold it right there!” Tom growled. “Quinn, check ’em out.”

  At the sight of Quinn—Jake’s cousin—jogging out from behind the truck, his lungs expanded enough for a decent breath.

  “Jesus, Jake. We were getting worried.” Quinn puffed, coming to a halt at the open driver’s door. “We expected you back last night.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Jake was unable to take his eyes from the Ak-47s pointed at them. “Can you tell them to put their fucking rifles down?”

  Quinn waved his arm at Buddy and Tom. “It’s all right, boys, it’s just Jake and Mackenzie Lyons.”

  Tom grunted and climbed down from the truck, his weapon still at the ready. “It’s not all right until they’ve been cleared.”

  “Cleared?” asked Jake.

  Quinn’s face clouded over, his brows drawing together. “It’s been bad. Mayor Townsend is saying more than half the town is gone. He’s set up a quarantine for everyone who comes down with symptoms, and so far no one’s come out.”

  “Gone?” Mackenzie was leaning over Jake to hear Quinn better.

  “Dead.” He confirmed grimly.

  Mackenzie choked on a sob.

  “Chloe?” Jake asked roughly.

  “Chloe, Kat and Rachel are all fine. At least, they were when I saw them an hour ago. Frantic over you two, though.”

  “Have you seen my dad?” Mackenzie said, surprising Jake. He didn’t think she’d seen or spoken to her father in years, but he guessed the apocalypse overshadowed family estrangement.

  “Get out of the truck,” growled Tom, shoving in front of Quinn before he could answer, pulling a surgical mask over his mouth and nose. “No one’s coming into Sanford unless they’ve been cleared.”

  Jake glanced at Mackenzie, concerned at how short of breath she appeared. “It’s okay, let’s just get this over with. Have you got your inhaler?”

  She nodded, and he waited for her to use it, his heart rate mirroring her breathing as it calmed.

  Tom and Quinn backed away so Mackenzie and Jake could come round to the front of the vehicle.

  Jake took Mackenzie’s trembling hand and squeezed. “We’re almost home.”

  Her fear was palpable and Jake’s throat ached with wanting to comfort her, with wanting to draw her into his arms and be far away from this fucking moment in time.

  “And why the fuck aren’t you wearing your mask?” Tom hissed at Quinn.

  Quinn’s features hardened. “Because it’s Jake, and he wouldn’t put the entire town at risk by coming in here if he was infected.”

  “Well, why the fuck does he have dried blood on his shirt?” Tom raised the rifle to his shoulder.

  Jake’s mouth went dry.

  “I can explain.” He stepped forward, raising his hands palm up.

  “Don’t come one foot closer.” Tom slid the bolt of the rifle and loaded a cartridge into the chamber.

  “Tell me that’s not blood, man,” Quinn entreated, his eyes flashing with panic.

  “It’s not! Well, it is—”

  “Don’t make this hard on us, boy. Just get back in the truck, turn around, and go,” Tom ordered in a hard voice.

  “It’s not the virus. I’m not infected, I swear.”

  Sweat beaded on Jake’s forehead, itchy and hot. The relief at having reached Sanford—at being so close to home—crashed swiftly, replaced by a desperation that tasted sour.

  “It was me!” Mackenzie stepped forward, hands also raised in supplication. “I accidentally gave him a bloody nose.”

  “Back off, bitch,” Tom threatened.

  “Watch your mouth!” Jake exploded and turned to Quinn. “He’s a fucking electrician. What makes him qualified to be doing this? Where’s the police chief, or that new deputy, what’s his name?”

  “Deputy Davies. And they’re both dead,” Quinn said.

  That silenced everyone. The sun overhead cast long shadows of their uneasy impasse.

  “Do you have any symptoms? Fever? Headache? Aching joints?” Quinn asked finally, his voice threaded with a mix of angst and hope.

  Jake shook his head, heart in throat. “I swear it, Quinn. Neither of us are sick.”

  “He’s been bleeding from his nose. He ain’t coming in,” Tom growled.

  “What if I vouch for him?” Quinn said.

  “Your vouching means nothing if we’re all dead.”

  “Okay, then we compromise. Let them over the bridge, but not into the Safe Zone. They can stay in one of the houses outside the boundary for forty-eight hours, and then we reassess.” Quinn rolled his heavily muscled shoulders to release tension. “I’m not turning them away, Tom.”

  “Safe Zone?” said Jake.

  “We can’t defend the entire town, so Townsend has sectioned off a part as a safe area—the Safe Zone—and everyone is inside that boundary, except those who’ve been quarantined.”

  “Who are you defending the town from?” Mackenzie asked, shading her eyes from the glare of the sun and inching closer to Jake.

  He pulled her against his side, his arm bracketing her shoulders.

  “People like you,” snarled Tom. “Infected people looking for safety and instead killing us all.”

  “We don’t know they’re infected,” Quinn said firmly. “They aren’t exhibiting any of the signs except the blood on the shirt, which they’ve explained.”

  “They can’t prove it,” said Tom.

  “Neither can you. I’ll escort them into the Evac Area and guarantee they’ll stay there until we’ve cleared them.”

  “If they approach the main gate before I’ve personally cleared them, I’ll shoot them on sight.” Tom promised before swinging his large frame away and striding back to the fire truck, spitting on the ground as he went.

  “Lovely welcoming committee you’ve got going,” Mackenzie murmured. “Thank you for standing up for us.”

  “Not a problem,” Quinn said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I might hold off on the welcoming hug. Drive around to the left and I’ll move the barricade, and then follow me. Jake, your home’s inside the Safe Zone, but you can crash at my house. It’s in the Evac Area.”

  Which meant Chloe was also in the Safe Zone. The tension in Jake’s gut eased some. His parents were on vacation, and Chloe would be looking after their grandmother. Not for the first time, he wondered how his parents were faring.

  Tom grudgingly waved them through the blockade, and they followed Quinn, riding a dirt bike across the bridge and into the outer suburbs of Sanford. The streets were disconcertingly vacant, save for a band of dogs that were nosing around a knocked-over trashcan.

  Pulling up in front of Quinn’s brick home, Jake pulled on the handbrake and turned to face Mackenzie. “We made it. Quinn’ll let the girls know we’re here, and we’ll see them in forty-eight hours. We’re safe.”

  Mackenzie wrapped her arms around her middle, and Jake noticed she was shaking. “It just doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel like home. And what if we are infected, and we’re just not showing symptoms yet?” she whispered.

  It’d been a niggling thought at the back of Jake’s mind also, but he refused to give it credence.

  “We’re not sick, Mac. We’re going to be fine.” Leaning over, he cupped her face tenderly, stroking calloused thumbs over the smoothness of her cheek. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  Chapter Five

  Mackenzie came awake in slow degrees, her body boneless and mind drifting. The keening woman on the highway, holding her dead child, jerked her into full consciousness.

  Heart in throat, she squeezed her eyes together, wishing the oblivion of sleep would drag her back under. She wasn’t prepared to face her
life—the world—right now.

  She’d tumbled into bed as soon as they’d arrived at Quinn’s house and slept deeply. Dusk was now falling, so she assumed she’d only been asleep an hour or two. Just enough to take the edge off her exhaustion. Sighing, she relaxed back into the pillows and peered around Quinn’s bedroom. It was beyond weird to be sleeping on sheets that he’d lain in not so long ago.

  The fact they were in Sanford but still so far from Kat, Chloe, and Rach turned Mackenzie’s yearning sharp, and she clenched her hands in the sheets. The need to be with them was a visceral tugging in her stomach.

  Maybe if she just curled up under the covers for long enough, the world would right itself by the time she emerged. But when her stomach complained loudly, she knew she couldn’t avoid reality any longer.

  Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she searched the room for her backpack. She’d been in such a daze when they’d arrived, she couldn’t remember where she’d left it. Maybe the family room? She wondered where Jake was, if he were asleep somewhere in the house.

  The need to see him hit her fiercely. She craved the sense of safety he instilled in her.

  “Jake?” she called quietly, venturing downstairs to the open-plan living area.

  He was asleep sitting up, muscle-corded arms spread along the back of the couch, legs thrown wide in an overtly masculine position and head tilted back, exposing a strong throat that had Mackenzie licking her lips.

  Oh, my goodness. What am I thinking? What would Chloe think?

  Clamping her lips firmly closed, Mac skirted his sleeping form, spying her backpack. She reached in and rummaged quietly for a clean tank top without waking Jake. Turning to face the wall, she whipped off her stale top and shrugged into the new one, turning as she did so.

  Looking down, she gasped.

  Jake was watching her intently, riveted to the exposed skin of her stomach before the material dropped into place. His throat swallowed before he raised his eyes to hers—there was pure, undiluted sex in his gaze and a liquid heat rushed straight to her core.

  “Remember that yellow bikini you used to wear?” Jake asked huskily.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I still think about that bikini.” He finally released her from the intensity of his gaze as he sat up, stretching. The movement bared his own stomach, and Mackenzie flushed at his leanly defined muscles dusted with golden hair.

  “Is there an air conditioner in here?” she asked abruptly.

  “Just the fan.” Jake pointed to the lazily revolving ceiling fan above them.

  “Does Quinn live with anyone?”

  “Nah, he’s too hung up on—” He paused. “Never mind.”

  “Too hung up on who?” Mackenzie was intrigued.

  Although Sanford was a small town and everyone knew everyone, Quinn was a few years older than Mac and she hadn’t had a lot to do with the big, burly man, except to know he was a distant cousin of Chloe’s and a part owner of Jake’s mechanic shop.

  And there was that one time Kat had been dancing on top of the bar at The Strumpet and, thanks to the copious volume of vodka she’d consumed, fallen. Hadn’t it been Quinn who’d caught her?

  Mackenzie’s stomach rumbled again. Loudly.

  “Hungry?” Jake grinned.

  “Starving.”

  She walked into the kitchen, acutely aware of how closely Jake followed behind. Acutely aware of everything about the man. Having found a safe haven, there was now nothing to distract her from his declaration of love, and while she knew he was confusing love with lust, she couldn’t deny her own attraction.

  “Quinn has bacon, I can make us BLTs,” she said, keeping her face stuck in the refrigerator to cool her suddenly warm cheeks.

  They flared hotter when she felt him close in behind her, his chest pressed against her back.

  “Sounds good.” He plucked a beer from the shelf above her head and stepped back. “Want one?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Closing her eyes, she counted to ten. Mac was completely fine with being alone with Jake. Completely fine. They’d just spent the last twenty-four hours together. She could totally do this. Grabbing a beer for herself, she withdrew from the refrigerator and set about preparing the wings, resolutely ignoring the shiver of desire that sparked as their fingers brushed when he passed her a spice jar.

  They’d discovered that Quinn wasn’t much of a cook, and his almost-bare pantry reflected that fact. Even with the food they’d bought with them from the supermarket in Chicago, they’d have to venture into the neighbor’s homes tomorrow to see what kind of food they could scavenge.

  Mac shivered at the thought of heading back outside.

  “Do you think Grams is okay?” she asked. She wondered about her father as well, but didn’t voice it. He was a topic she avoided at all costs, whereas Jake and Chloe’s grandmother had always been kind to her and she was genuinely concerned for the woman.

  “She’ll be with Chlo.”

  “Not your parents?”

  “They’re in Hawaii. I’m sure they’ll be trying to get the next flight home, but with O’Hare out of action… I hope they wait until this is all under control.”

  His voice had an undercurrent of uncertainty that Mackenzie found hard to reconcile with the charmed, and charming, Jake.

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” she reassured, although privately she wondered if anyone was fine anymore. “They’re going to be thrilled to see me again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just said that out loud, didn’t I?”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her.

  “Forget it.”

  “Forget what? You think my parents won’t be happy to see you?”

  “Not as happy as they were to get rid of me,” she mumbled. When she turned to face him, the confusion on his features had her sighing. “Forget it, Jake. It’s ancient history.”

  “Mom and Dad pretty much raised you, you were part of the family.”

  “Your parents are good people, and they took care of me when they could, which I’ll always appreciate. But they did it because they felt obligated, not because they wanted to. Trust me when I tell you they didn’t love the fact that Chloe chose me as a best friend.”

  Mackenzie wasn’t sure she could articulate the many subtle ways his parents had made her feel she didn’t belong. And to be honest, she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to relive those days of feeling like an outsider, and she didn’t want Jake to think badly of his parents.

  Because right now, as crazy as it seemed, she did feel like she belonged. Belonged with him.

  The idea of being with Jake brought as much security as it did butterflies. She wished, for just a moment, she were any other girl. One who could fall into his arms with no reservations about her past or her history with this town. One who was worthy to bask in the glow of Sanford’s golden boy.

  Because she was tempted. Oh, she was tempted.

  Jake couldn’t pull his eyes away from Mackenzie, stacking the dishes from their meal in the sink. Her new tank was white and—fuck me—she wasn’t wearing a bra. The curving outline of her generous breasts, the dusky shadows of her nipples, were enough to cause his head to spin. Every drop of blood in his body was now pulsing in his cock.

  Registering the intensity of his stare, she blushed, a pretty pink spreading across her cheeks. Would she flush like that when her legs were locked tight around his hips?

  “Jake?” She raised an eyebrow, and that slight smirk had him instantly imagining those lush lips wrapped around his—

  “Earth to Jake.” She rounded the kitchen counter to stand beside him, gently knocking her hip into the side of his thigh. “You need an early night, buddy.”

  She smelled warm and cinnamony—and goddamn, his balls were aching.

  “Here, I made you tea,” he said.

  “You know how I take my tea?”

  “Two sugars, lots of creamer.”

  Those big green eyes of hers stu
died him over the rim of the mug. “Careful Jake, you’re showing your hand.”

  “Babe, my hand is flat on the table, facing up.”

  Jake shifted, nudging her back against the counter and stepping closer, until he swore she could feel the beat of his heart in his chest. But he didn’t touch her. Not yet.

  “You know I’m in love with you, Mac. The question is, how do you feel about that?” he asked, low and husky.

  Her grip was unsteady as she placed the mug behind her, but he saw the fluttering pulse in the hollow of her neck. He recognized the banked desire in her heavily lidded eyes.

  He knew she was the other half of his soul, and because of this faith, it was inconceivable she wouldn’t feel the connection between them. Circumstance, age, history… they’d all worked against him. But now, with life stripped back and nothing between them—no significant others, no distracting friends, how could she not feel it?

  “Jake,” she breathed, hands fluttering at her sides before coming to rest against his chest.

  But she didn’t exert any pressure signaling he should step back, and he reveled in the knowledge.

  “This is all kind of… sudden,” she hedged, biting on that plump lower lip, and fuck if he didn’t want to suck it between his own lips. “Because of Chloe, because of Peter, I just haven’t ever…”

  “Haven’t ever what?”

  “I haven’t ever thought of you that way before.” Her eyes dipped to where her fingers were unconsciously kneading at his chest, kitten-like. She stilled.

  “Don’t stop,” he urged gruffly.

  Mac blinked inky lashes, and the moment spun out between them, consuming and full of possibility.

  “I just—it feels wrong to be feeling like this. You’re you. You’re like my—”

  “Don’t say it. I’m not your little brother. Does anything about me feel little to you?”

  The need to pull her closer was overwhelming, but until she gave her consent to explore their ratcheting attraction, he held firm. This had been one-sided for too many years.

  “Jake? Can we talk about this in the morning? I’m exhausted and I can’t think straight.”

  Hiding his disappointment, he moved back, catching her hands as they fell.