She went back into the bedroom and pulled her dress on over her head before she headed for the door of the motel room. She opened it wide and looked out over the parking lot and down the walkway that ran the whole side of the building. She spotted him straight away, sitting in the dark with his boots kicked out in front of him and the trail of smoke drifting up from his cigarette.
“Jonny?” she called. And he turned to her and smiled.
“Come here baby,” he grinned.
She walked towards him over the cold sandy ground in her bare feet and when she got to the bench he pulled her to him so she was on his knee.
“What a day,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.
“One of the worst and also one of the best,” she teased.
“I second that,” he winked.
“They sat together under the stars, wrapped in each other’s arms as the blur of trucks and cars flashed past them on the freeway. It was one of the most calming experiences of Eve’s life, just sitting with the man she was falling for, completely at peace after the crazy day they had had together. She almost couldn’t believe that everything back at the motorcycle club had happened. And the previous night when she had witnessed the murder in the alleyway near the warehouse was like a distant memory. In a way it was like it had taken place only in a dream.
“How long have you been out here?” she asked as she lightly kissed the tip of his ear.
“About half an hour,” he said as he exhaled a plume of smoke up into the night.
“Have you had any word on Mack?” just saying his name made her shudder when she thought of what could have happened to her.
“I’m waiting for a call,” Jonny flicked the cigarette and it bounced across the ground.
“And then what?” Eve’s ears pricked up as she listened intently.
“And then we go home,” he smiled.
“Really? Just like that?” she couldn’t believe it.
“Mack and the rest of the outlaws are all going to be behind bars by the morning,” he smiled. “And then I’ll make sure you’re home safe and no one will ever harm you or come looking for you again.”
She looked into his eyes and she knew that he was telling her the truth. This incredible man had already saved her once and now he was vowing to protect her for as long as she needed him to. Eve suddenly had the feeling that she would need him forever.
“So, everything is going to be okay?” she said with a grin as she clasped her hands together.
“Yeah babe,” he smiled and pulled her into his chest again. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”
They made their way back to the motel room and fell down on the bed together to rest for the remainder of the night when Jonny’s cell phone suddenly sprang to life. He reached out and grabbed it and pulled it to his ear.
“Walker?” he said before he waited for the person on the other end of the line to speak. “Umm hmm. Okay, great. Thanks.”
He hung up and rested the cell back down on the side table.
“So?” Eve asked impatiently.
“So…” Jonny sighed. “Looks like Mack is in jail and won’t be getting out of there for a very long time. They’re not posting bail and he’s looking at a minimum of twenty years.”
“Wow,” Eve exhaled.
Twenty years behind bars. What could be worth risking that for?
“So we can go home?” Eve leaned up on her elbows.
“Yep,” Jonny smiled. “Or…” he trailed off with a mischievous grin on his face and Eve knew what he was going to say. “Or we could stay here a little longer? I’m certainly in no rush.”
He wiggled his eyebrows and Eve felt the familiar beginnings of desire rising within her. She looked down at Jonny lying next to her and at his beautiful physique and tanned chest.
How could she say no to that?
“I’m sure we could figure something out.” she licked her lips as he leaned in for a kiss.
As they rolled towards one another and started to become tangled up in each other’s limbs, Eve felt as if she had finally found happiness. She couldn’t wait to get him back to the city with her and for them to start a new life together. She had the feeling that everything was going to work out because they were bound by more than desire for each other… they were also bound by danger and the fact that Jonny had saved her life. He was responsible for her now, and she could sense his obligation. It made her feel so safe and cared for, it was the most wonderful feeling.
It had been a crazy start to the year, one that she had in no way expected, but one that she was glad she had experienced even if it had at times been traumatic. She looked up into Jonny’s eyes and smiled. He made her feel complete and whole. He was what she never knew she had been missing, but now she knew she didn’t want to ever live without.
He was her savior.
Her protector.
She knew she was about to start the wildest ride of her life with him by her side. The New Year had brought with it some life changing moments already, but she wouldn’t have changed any of it for the world.
THE END
Finding Love in a Dark World 1
Cynthia Wilde
Copyright © 2016 by Cynthia Wilde. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Prologue
Earth is not what it once was, or so the story goes. It had been over twenty years since the third World War began. America was pulled into a conflict between China and Japan over a small set of islands that bordered the two nations. Russia and Iran jumped on one side and most of Europe and Australia jumped on the other. What had begun as a little dispute over a little island in the sea ended up killing billions of people.
War no longer resembled the entity it once was in the beginning of the 20th century. There were no more boots on the ground. Instead, war was fought with drones and weapons of mass destruction; nuclear weapons were a threat now turned into a reality. Once the first strike was launched, many more followed. No one even knew who started it or why it had begun, and there were few left to wonder. Less than one percent of the population survived the combination of bombs, radiation, EMPs, hunger, civil wars, weaponized flu strains and the full breakdown of society. Many people could not deal with the world the way things were. Many were driven to end their suffering themselves, taking their families with them.
Large cities were turned to rubble and most people didn’t dare go near them. Hundreds of thousands of house pets had taken over the urban areas. They had changed from comfort providing companions into radioactively-charged beasts. A few human survivors still lived in the midst of the chaos, though they lived in the underground, only coming out in the mornings while the beasts slept. Humans were no longer the top of the food chain. They had to learn humility in their new role in the world.
Humans now carved out small communities that were usually no more than a few hundred people, and they quickly learned to stay close together for safety. There were no governments, though there were leaders and followers as there had always been. Man’s evils still found their way into this new world, as they always had in the past.
1
Jessa sighed. It was going to be another hot day. She looked up at the sky and didn’t see a cloud in sight. There hadn’t been rain in weeks and the plants needed it. She resigned herself to fetching pails to water the garden instead. After she was done in her own yard, she still had to tend to the community garden in town. She braced herself for a long day.
They were always long days. She couldn’t remember it any other way. If only they still had those huge irrigation booms that she remembered passing in her childhood. She had passed by them as a little girl, riding in a car back then, with the wind blowing her hair back from her face. Jessa smiled from t
he memory.
After a few hours of watering, Jessa was finally finished, with that part of her day anyways. Her son was wandering around the flowers, looking for bugs. She had to smile at his antics. He was always happy, no matter what. She had feared that the death of his father would make him change for good, but after only a few years he was getting back to himself. Kids were resilient. Jessa sometimes wished that he could remember like she did, the way things were, but maybe this way was actually how it was supposed to be. Maybe it was easier for those that did not have the “before” memories to make the days now seem so much darker by comparison. Or maybe it was better to think of those memories of happier days as bright patches that lit up her life, however fleetingly, before the sun was blotted out again.
“Shane my love, time to come help me in the greenhouse, we have a lot of planting to do this afternoon.”
“Coming Mom.”
The rest of the day was spent under the clear plastic of the three greenhouses in the community garden. It was Jessa’s responsibility to make sure there were always new sprouts and plants to replace the old for the next crop. The village she lived in did not have a name, but they had taken her and her son in after her previous home became uninhabitable. Something had been present in the water, and it had killed most of the community. Her husband, Kraven had gotten them across what once was Mississippi before he died. Jessa found the small village twenty or thirty miles north of his final resting place. She was not sure what state she would be in now, maybe Kentucky would be a good guess, though it really didn’t matter where those once important imaginary lines were now.
The weather was decent there and with the rise in global temperatures, it was far enough from the equator to be habitable. Most gardens could be maintained all year round. There really were only two seasons at this point, the wet and the dry. For the moment, it was the dry season.
“Hey Jessa, are you coming by for dinner tonight?”
Jessa cringed a little inside, yet put on the fake smile that she had learned to add on in the morning when she brushed her hair. She could not stand Teresa and it seemed the women had annoyingly made it a point to make her a friend.
“Yeah. We will be over in a bit after we both wash up.”
“Okay, I have a friend coming over too. I think you guys will hit it off.”
Jessa had to smile to herself as she turned away. No doubt this was another one of her neighbor’s ploys to get her with someone. Why was it that everyone who was married or with someone decided that everyone else must do the same? She would never understand that.
Considering her general lack of any feeling of connection with her neighbor, she doubted that Teresa would ever choose someone that she would even actually consider being with. There were slim pickings in the town. There were quite a few men, but hardly any that were in any way her type. Men actually out-numbered women three to one and as a result it was seen as ludicrous to be a single woman in the new world. Naturally she should be adding to the population and be in the process of creating more babies, or so the prevailing wisdom went. With so many people lost in the last couple of decades, there was a constant push to procreate. But many women were lost in labor, as modern medicine was a thing of the past.
Relationships and sex were just not in her plans at this point. Jessa had lost her true love a few years before and she still was not ready to even think about starting something new. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to stay where she was. She had barely found anyone to talk to that she had anything in common with, and there was only one other child Shane’s age. But for the time being this was home to Jessa and her five-year-old son. She was trying to make the best of it. Anything would be better than being on the road, or heaven forbid being close to one of the old cities. Those were dangerous places in this new world.
Walking into the little house that Jessa was given when she moved into town, she instructed Shane to pour some water in the basin and wash himself. It was still warm enough outside to enjoy the cooler water and he happily went into the bathroom to take a sponge bath of sorts before they went to Teresa’s house. Teresa was also the mother of the one boy Shane’s age, Aidan, so Jessa tried extra hard to play nice with the neurotic housewife next door.
Sighing again when she saw her reflection in the mirror, she poured herself a small basin of water to wash up in. She grabbed a wash cloth and started to wash away the day’s sweat and grime and she quickly was able to see her face once again. The years had not changed her that much, though there were a few more lines from the last time she had cared enough to look. Deciding that her hair needed the same treatment, she refilled the basin with water and unwound her waist length hair to dip into the water. She quickly had her blonde hair cleaned and combed.
“Mom, are we going to Aidan’s tonight?”
“Yes honey, as long as you still want to go.”
“Yeah I do. Aidan found a new toy car yesterday and I have been dying to see it and he just got back this morning.”
“Well if you would spend some time looking, maybe you could find some new toys too. There are tons of houses that haven’t been searched up the hill that are safe to go to.”
“I know Mom.” The last syllable dragged out for emphasis.
2
Jessa decided on one of the dresses that she had not worn in a while. She did not know why, but she wanted to look nice for once. She even put on a little makeup before she brushed her hair out and left it down. The dress held close to her curves and accentuated the woman’s long legs. She usually did not dress that way so as to deter unwanted attention. As the new girl in town she got a lot more of it than she wanted anyways. They had been there almost 6 months in the town with no name and she still was receiving lascivious looks from all the wrong people.
About a half an hour later, Jessa knocked on the door of Teresa’s little villa style home with her son swinging his arms by her side.
“Come on in, dinner is almost ready.”
“Do you need any help?”
“Sure, come on in the kitchen, the men will be here soon. You look real nice. I don’t see you dress up much. Is it because of the fella I told you about?”
“Well there is rarely a reason to anymore, so I thought, ‘Why not?’”
“Isn’t that the truth.”
Shane ran off in the direction of Aidan’s room, knowing the way by heart. Teresa had one of the larger houses in the community and the two boys played there often. Her house was bigger, not because of her family size, but because she was married to the leader, Billy. He was a nice enough guy, though Jessa didn’t like the way he looked at her when his wife looked the other way or tended to something in another room. That was just another reason to dislike Teresa. She was unable to keep her man on a leash.
Jessa couldn’t stand those types of men, one eye always looking for a woman on the side. Times had changed with so many more men to women, and as such, a woman had to be extra careful even going out of the community. There was no longer an option to be a victim or the luxury to leave personal safety in someone else’s hands. Luckily, Jessa was raised to defend herself from just about anything.
A person could not be over ten years old without a gun or some similar type of weapon. People used crossbows, spear guns, and sometimes just relied on hammers or crowbars. Whether it was a gun or a baseball bat, one thing you could count on was that everybody was packing something. While many would think this would make things more violent, it seemed to have the opposite effect. People respected each other and their space a lot more than they used to back when government and business ran the world.
Women had more of a choice in how they were treated, though they had to stick to groups to avoid becoming prey to some man’s indiscretions. In the few years since Kraven’s passing, she had been both in groups and on her own at times. She found the group she was with currently and had stuck around. It was just safer in numbers, especially for women. If you were an attractive woman, with a face like Jessa�
��s, and an ass to boot, you had to be twice as careful.
Jessa stuck with the group for many reasons. A group would typically accept anyone to boost its numbers, but her survival skills and planting and herb knowledge made her a valued member. The fact that she already had one son boasted towards her fertility as well, which was highly valued. She was 29, a bit older than society used to like, but she was a survivor. That was what was needed now, and had become more highly valued than a delicate figure. Of course she happened to be both skilled and hot. She was tall and lean, with a mind that was sharp and thoughtful. She could grow, preserve and cook food better than most and she knew the skills needed to thrive in the rough landscape. She was a prize in many eyes, yet she had no desire to give herself up to a man.
Still, she had to admit that there were some aspects of being with a man that she missed, and not just because of the protection such an arrangement offered. Her physical needs often drove her to consider a toss with one of the locals, though she hadn’t broken down just yet.
Jessa was in the kitchen next to Teresa. They were talking about their day and making final touches to the meal. In addition to being her annoying neighbor, Teresa was the local teacher to the colony. Shane adored her as a teacher, so despite her irritation with the woman in general, Teresa tried to keep it in check for his sake. And there was still something deep down that she liked to preserve – a sense of neighborliness that she missed from the world she had grown up in. Besides, as much as it pained her to admit, she could see that Teresa had the best intentions.
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