Love in the Time of the Dead

by Tera Shanley

  After she parted ways with everyone, she tramped through a layer of snow to Mitchell’s cabin. She didn’t know what she would say, but why sweat the details? She climbed the simple porch quietly and raised her hand to knock. A noise stopped her fist’s advance and she stood there stunned and listening. A strum of notes drifted through the cabin, barely discernible through the thick song of the woods, but still audible to a listening ear. Mitchell was playing the guitar she had given him.

  She lowered her hand slowly and stepped back to lean against the railing of the porch. The notes engulfed her completely. It was a sad melody, as lonely as a wolf howling unanswered into a sliver of a moon. She couldn’t talk to him. He was stubborn, and though he was wrong and confused about her feelings for another, if she tried to explain herself and failed, he would run in the middle of the night and she would never again be able to find him. She had no doubt a man as cunning as he was could disappear and never be found if he didn’t desire it. Like smoke. Like he’d never even existed at all. The thought felt heavy on her heart. She turned and climbed silently back down the porch steps and was startled to find a man’s figure contrasting against the steady snowfall.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Sean asked.

  She pulled her jacket more tightly around her and nodded slightly. “Walk me to my cabin?” she invited.

  “Why now?” he asked as their boots crunched with a satisfying sound on the snow-covered trail.

  “Mitchell’s leaving at first light,” she answered.

  “Did he ask you to go with him?”

  Her silence was answer enough.

  There was a pregnant pause. “Do you love him?”

  “More than anything,” she said honestly. “It just took me a really long time to figure it out.”

  “I guess that means there really is no chance of a future for us,” he said quietly.

  She slid a smile around the edge of her fur-lined jacket hood. “Sean, you and I would go nowhere fast. I will always be a fighter. I’ll always pine for adventure. I’ll never want to stay safe and confined. I’ll bring out the worst of your protective instincts and you will resent both of us for it. You need a partner who is more like yourself.” She turned back to the trail. “Someone like Mel.”

  “Mel?”

  “Oh, come on, Sean. You guys get along great. I’ve never once seen you fight. We fight every time we talk. And you can’t honestly tell me you haven’t noticed that Mel is a stone cold fox. I mean, anyone with eyes in their head can see she is a ten.” She stepped up onto the porch in front of her room.

  “Will you ever come back?” Sean asked, peering at her in the dim light.

  “I don’t know. I have to try to find a place Mitchell and I can both feel at home. Maybe someday. Take care of Adrianna.” She headed for her door before turning back. “Teach her to use a gun when she gets older.”

  Sean chuckled. “Will do.”

  He pulled his hands out of his warm jacket pocket and waved as she shut the door gently.

  A knock before dawn had Laney up and hustling to the door across the cold wooden floorboards. Guist stood outside. The air he breathed puffed like steam from a train.

  “He just left for the front gate. He did most of his packing yesterday, so you’d better be quick about it.”

  She jerked her head as a silent invite out of the cold. Scrambling into her warmest layers, she handed Guist a handwritten goodbye for Eloise. He traded her for her pack, newly stuffed with supplies the way only he could do it. She shoved what clothes she could into the already full pockets and strapped into her weapons. When she was done she looked at him. Here it was. The moment she had dreaded and would forever remember.

  “Stay safe,” he told her. He gathered her into a tight hug and patted her back roughly. “Keep your nose to the wind. Take care of our boy. Promise?”

  Her throat tightened. “I promise.”

  He let her go, and she stepped through the door. She looked back once and could have sworn his eyes were watering. A first. She blinked hard and cleared her throat to keep her own sadness at bay.

  She jogged down the trail to the front gates. The fear that Mitchell would leave without her spurred her heart into an erratic pace. She saw a figure on the trail up ahead and slowed. She squinted through the early morning light. Vanessa. The emotional tidal wave emanating from the girl was almost tangible.

  “Ugh,” she grumbled and high-kneed her way off the path and behind a large tree.

  Vanessa could have easily seen her escape route through her obvious boot prints in the snow, but the girl was immersed in her own private misery. As Vanessa walked by, she muttered something that sounded like “that stupid skank witch,” but maybe Laney was mistaken. Vanessa was far too sweet to mutter such unbecoming things.

  When she had passed and disappeared up the trail, Laney started to run to make up for lost time, and by the time she came to the clearing that encased the front gates, her heart was fit to jump right out of her chest.

  Mitchell was there. He waved to the guards who were opening the gates and limped around the back of the truck they had driven into Dead Run River. Apparently he was still okay with grand theft auto.

  “Mitchell,” she said, hurrying toward him. Her backpack jangled with her movement.

  He opened the driver side door to get in, but didn’t turn at his name.

  “Derek!”

  He paused and turned his head slowly in her direction. She ran for him, her pack heavy and restraining against her back.

  “Derek,” she said again, reaching the bed of the truck. “I thought I was going to be too late. I thought you would leave without me.”

  His face was a mix of shock and disbelief.

  “You called me Derek,” he observed in a low voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “Going with you.”

  He looked heavenward as if his patience were being tried. “I can’t do this. This is why I didn’t want to see you before I left. This is why—”

  She threw her pack down and covered the small remaining distance between them. Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed him. His surprise only lasted for a moment before his powerful arms snaked slowly around her waist. He pulled her into his warm body as his lips softened and moved gently against her own.

  Pulling back to lean her forehead against his, she said, “It was always you. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it.”

  She opened her eyes to find him smiling. She hadn’t realized how very much she had missed his smile until that moment. He looked as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.

  “Did you say your goodbyes?” he asked gruffly.

  She nodded slowly and ran her fingers through the back of his hair. “I’m driving,” she whispered.

  He snorted. “No. We’ll be dead in two miles.” He gave her bottom a firm squeeze and sidled around her to throw her pack into the back seat of the truck.

  “Oh, so you think it’s safer for you to drive with a bum leg?” she argued happily.

  He groaned, but his eyes said he didn’t mind a scuffle with her. “Is this what I have to look forward to, Landry?”

  “It’s Laney to you, and yes.” She hopped in the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed with a thud. “Besides,” she said as he climbed into the passenger’s seat, “your driving is terrifying.”

  “Not as terrifying as you in the mornings.”

  “Pfffffft, there’s nothing more serene than me in the mornings.”

  “I was talking about your hair.”

  She rolled her eyes, and they both waved to the guards at the gate as she pulled the truck out of the colony.

  Mitchell reached over and held her hand to his mouth. “Are you sure about this?”

  She squeezed his hand in her own. “Do you love me?”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation.

  “Well, I love you too, and I don’t want to waste any more time being apart.”

&
nbsp; “Okay,” he said. His light brown eyes danced with affection. “No more wasting time, then.”

  She looked in the rearview mirror as the gates of Dead Run River slowly faded out of sight behind them. She wouldn’t ever forget the place where she had chanced upon everything that meant anything. She had found where the Deads had gathered at the water’s edge in the mountains of old. She had found the place where peace could still be found in simple acts of valor and happiness.

  She had found her asylum from the damned.

  Epilogue

  DEREK TOOK HIS EYES OFF THE ROAD long enough to look worriedly at Laney in the passenger seat of the truck. “You’ve been quiet for a long time. What are you thinking about?”

  She smiled at the concern in his voice and pulled her attention from the passing woods outside her window. “I was just thinking about our time at Dead Run River.”

  “Good memories?”

  “Most of them.” She bit her lip and shook her head in disbelief. “I still can’t believe it’s been a year.”

  “A lot has changed since then,” he said.

  “A lot has changed,” she agreed softly before she turned her attention inward again.

  She had been doing a lot of internal searching as of late. It probably had something to do with the swell in her belly that Derek couldn’t seem to keep a protective hand away from. She squeezed his hand gently as it cradled the roundness of her stomach.

  They had tried to settle down. They had agreed early on that they were both tired of the constant motion and uncertainty that came with living as fighters. They had headed south after their stay at Dead Run River in search of a warmer climate, but had only managed to compare every colony along the way to the place they had come closest to calling home. They’d stayed in two separate colonies for a time before growing restless and leaving to search for something that would hold them. Each was missing something crucial that neither of them could quite put their finger on. When she had grown suspicious that she was with child, they started moving north, to the Rocky Mountains, before either of them was conscious of where they intended to end up.

  “Does Guist know we’re coming today?” she asked.

  Derek’s slow smile, the one she adored so much, spread across his face. He wasn’t one to complain, but it was pretty obvious he had missed Guist terribly.

  “He knows it’s today or tomorrow. I bet he’ll be working the front gates. You feeling okay?” he asked for the tenth time in an hour.

  She chuckled. “I feel fine. We’re all right.”

  “A few more miles and we’ll be there. You sure you want to go back to Dead Run River? What if things aren’t the way we remember them?”

  “You know as well as I from the correspondence with Guist that things haven’t changed that much.” She intertwined her fingers in his. “I want to go back. I miss having our little family together.”

  So Aaron Guist and Derek Mitchell weren’t blood. They had been through more together than most families ever would, though. Losing Jarren had been hard, and bitterly so. But she had been lucky to have Derek and Guist there to keep her sure in the knowledge of who she was and where she came from.

  “Besides,” she said flippantly, “everybody around here says Dr. Mackey is the best if you’re expecting.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Derek said as he turned the truck onto the familiar winding road that led to the colony.

  She leaned forward. The finished wooden gate loomed ahead. She squinted at the guards who were standing at the entry, searching for a familiar face. They had a very big job to do. They had to protect the colony and the important assets it boasted. Rumor had it that Dead Run River held the beginnings of a vaccine against the Dead virus. Such a medical breakthrough had to be protected in its infant state until it could be perfected, tested, and dispersed.

  They were still too far away for her to tell if one of the guards was Guist or not, but as she and Derek drew closer, she began to suspect the one on the right was in fact the last member of their trio. The gaping grin on his face gave him away.

  Derek hopped out almost before the truck was in park to greet him. She took a little more time. Though she was only a little over halfway through her pregnancy, she seemed to ache more and more after long trips. She zipped her jacket closed against the frosty air, effectively hiding the small bump that protruded tellingly.

  “Laney!” Guist bellowed as he picked her up in an uncharacteristically affectionate hug. Eloise had obviously been rubbing off on him. And for the better.

  Derek looked at her in panic.

  “I’m fine!” she mouthed, unable to stifle her giggles at Guist’s oblivious happiness.

  He put her down and pulled a radio to his lips. “Mel?”

  “Yep,” came the answer from the other end, followed by static.

  “Can you and Sean bring Eloise down? Tell her I have a present for her at the front gates.”

  “Are they here?”

  “Yep,” he replied excitedly.

  There was a pause on the other line. “Be there in a minute.”

  Laney looked at him accusingly. “You didn’t tell her we were coming?”

  “She likes surprises,” he said remorselessly. “You want to know what housing assignment Mel gave you?”

  She grinned. “Lay it on us.”

  “Well, Mel moved us to a roomy trailer farther up the mountain, and since you guys got a noise complaint last time you stayed in Dead Run River—” he winked “—you aren’t okayed to stay in the connected cabins, so we’re going to be neighbors. Sort of. You guys will be a few trailers down from us, but on the same row.”

  “Noise complaint?” Derek laughed as he put his arm around her. “Blame that one on Laney.”

  “What?” she said in mock anger. “He complains, but I got us upgraded.”

  “Laney?” a familiar voice called.

  She spun around with a ready grin. Eloise had changed drastically in the past year, mostly due to the huge swell of her belly that led the way as she waddled quickly toward her.

  “Eloise? What happened to you? You look like you swallowed a basketball!” Laney laughed with amazement. No jacket could hide how far along she was.

  Laney jogged over and hugged her tearful friend, careful not to knock her own belly.

  “Oh, Aaron.” Eloise sniffed. “This is the best surprise ever!”

  Laney pulled away and wiped her own eyes. “I have another surprise for you.” She unzipped her jacket and turned to the side. She couldn’t contain her grin as Eloise stared in wonderment at a matching pregnancy only a few months behind her own.

  Guist recovered first—likely because Derek was clapping him on the back and congratulating him.

  “Laney, you’re pregnant?” he asked in shock.

  She giggled and nodded. The look on his face was priceless. Like he had just realized his little brother could bear children.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked Derek, the first signs of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You dog! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We wanted to surprise you. Why didn’t you tell us?” Derek gestured to Eloise, who had gone completely rosy in the cheeks.

  “Same reason. And I figured from the way you were sounding that you were headed back here sooner or later. I was just banking on sooner so you wouldn’t miss everything.”

  Guist grabbed Derek’s shoulder and shook it slowly as their news set in. Laney rolled her eyes at their laughter and turned to Eloise.

  “You’d think they were the ones having the babies from the way they’re congratulating each other.”

  Eloise snorted. “Well, it was a very important thirty seconds of work those boys did.”

  Movement caught Laney’s eye. The woods were just as she remembered. Dark, safe, inviting. Magic. Sean, Mel, Adrianna, and Finn all smiled from the edge of the tree line. Sean had his arm around Mel’s shoulders, resting on her comfortably, and Mel was talking quietly with the most relaxed
expression she’d ever seen on the woman’s face. Laney’s heart welled with happiness that those two had found each other. She waved and headed for them while the others followed.

  It felt better than she could ever have imagined, having her family and friends back together in one place again. She slid her hand into Derek’s and smiled happily at him. She knew she was glowing with contentment. She could see it reflected in his eyes.

  They were home.

  Acknowledgments

  It takes village to write a book. A heartfelt thanks to my husband, Anthony, for supporting me through all the crazy late nights of clicking away in the corner of our room, and for giving me a romantic life to draw inspiration from. My parents for hearing me say, “I’m stressed about a deadline,” and interpreting it as a need to take my kiddos on a surprise library adventure to give me time to work. To Grammy, success cheerleader and bear-hugger extraordinaire. I’m thankful to my dear all-weather friend, Amy Vesper, for not blinking when I admitted I wanted to go on this crazy adventure called a writing career and plopped a giant first draft manuscript and a red pen into her outstretched arms. To the editors at Omnific Publishing for using their magical abilities on a book that means so much to me. To Traci Olsen for her unwavering dedication to marketing the pen-and-ink renderings of the voices in my head. And lastly, the sharing of the story of Love in the Time of the Dead wouldn’t be possible without Omnific Publishing, who took a chance on a hopeful author with an apocalyptic love story to tell.

  About the Author

  Tera Shanley has completed twelve romance novels of different sub-genres. A self-proclaimed bookworm, she was raised in small town Texas and could often be found decorating a table at the local library. She currently lives in Dallas with her husband and two young children, and when she isn’t busy running around after her family, she’s writing a new story or devouring a good book. Any spare time is dedicated to chocolate licking, rifle slinging, friend hugging, and the great outdoors. For more information about Tera and her work, visit: