*****
Breakfast was a crowded affair. Mina had slept a bit later than usual, but no one had knocked on her door to hasten her along. Even coming down about forty minutes past her usual time, the kitchen was still crammed with people jammed around the circular table. Others sat against the wall, plates balanced on their laps. She could just imagine how much her mom hated allowing that, since Janie Marsden prided herself on being an exemplary hostess. But what could one do with nine extra mouths to feed and not enough seats, she asked herself with a small shrug.
Mina opted to grab her breakfast and go, wrapping a couple of sausage links in a pancake before slipping from the kitchen. The hot August sunshine was already beating down, even a little past eight, and she grabbed her hat from the rack on the porch before venturing down the steps and out onto the farm.
Her first stop, as always, was the chicken coop. Ever since Mina was a little girl, it had been her job to collect the eggs every morning. That hadn’t changed when she graduated from high school, and it hadn’t changed after The End two months later. On autopilot, she entered the large building. “Morning, ladies,” she said to the clucking girls, before crossing paths with one of their three roosters. “And Lionel.” The fat black bird strutted on without acknowledging the greeting, and she went to work collecting the eggs in a wicker basket Mina had woven in a high school art class.
“You chickies are lucky to have the shade.” The cement and wooden building was a few degrees cooler than the outside. “Otherwise, we’d have boiled eggs before I even got them to the house.”
The door creaked, and she looked up, surprised to see the green-eyed soldier. “Um, hello,” she said a bit awkwardly. Shyness was something she had battled all her life.
He nodded. “Good morning, Ms. Marsden.” Hovering in the doorway, he seemed a bit uncertain. “I was walking by and heard voices.”
She blushed, hoping he would assume it was the heat. “Just the one, I imagine. The girls don’t answer.” Lionel chose that moment to crow. “Though he does upon occasion.”
He grinned. “Just you and the chickens, huh?”
Mina returned to checking the nesting boxes. “It makes getting the eggs easier if you’re friendly with them.”
There was a note of skepticism in his laugh. “That’s funny. My gran always said chickens were so stupid that they wouldn’t know you were stealing their beaks until ten minutes after you’d made off with them.”
She laughed a bit before stifling it. “Shush, you’ll hurt their feelings, Mr….?”
He came closer, holding out his hand to shake hers, which had unfortunately just picked up an egg covered with chicken poop. She hoped that was the reason for the slight grimace. “Cooper Tidwell, but just call me Coop.”
“I’m Mina, Coop.” She tilted her head slightly, eyeing his Army greens. “It seems wrong to call you by your first name when you’re in uniform, sir.”
He tugged at the collar of his T-shirt, as though unconsciously. “This isn’t really a uniform anymore, Mina. There is no Army and no real government, though the last vestiges are still fighting the inevitable. It’s pretty much every man for himself these days, so Coop will do just fine.”
She nodded, hating to hear him confirm what she’d suspected about the state of their world. Part of her had clung to the idea that it was only a matter of time before their government, or one somewhere in the world, got things back to a semblance of normality and started providing aid to the citizens and other crippled nations. Her sister Kelly, a twenty-one-year-old expert on everything, had mocked her hopefulness. “Darn, that means my sister was right. She’ll be insufferable,” she said, interjecting a bit of lightheartedness she was far from feeling.
“Lia?”
She shook her head. “Kelly. She’s the one with the long blonde hair and the annoying attitude. Thinks she knows everything, since she finished college two years early.”
He grinned. “Okay, let me see if I can keep track of everyone. Kelly is the long-haired brat with a bad attitude. I already know Lia has the wildly curling blonde hair, and you have the golden hair that makes your blue eyes pop. Who is the other Marsden girl?”
Her face heated with another blush at the offhanded compliment, though she doubted it held true significance. He probably didn’t even mean it and was just trying to be charming. “Emme, with the straight platinum hair she curses every time she tries to do anything with it besides shove it in a ponytail.”
Coop’s smile widened. “I doubt I’ll be anywhere near her when she’s doing her hair, but I’ll keep that in mind.”
She giggled, wincing at the annoying teenage sound escaping her. “Don’t worry, you’ll hear her. For someone who looks like she should be quiet and calm, she can be loud as hell.”
He leaned against one of the nesting boxes, maintaining a respectable distance between them that in no way sent off any sort of indicator that he found her attractive. Unfortunately. “And what about you, Mina? Are you loud as hell?”
She shook her head. “I’m pretty quiet. Shy even.”
He lifted a brow. “You don’t seem shy.”
She shrugged, not meeting his gaze. “It’s weird. Usually am.” Abruptly realizing she had just gone through the same nesting box for the third time, she straightened fully. Having gone through the other boxes, there wasn’t any reason to linger. Still, she was reluctant to end her conversation with Coop and briefly wondered if he’d stick around while she shoveled chicken shit. Probably not, and since she’d just done it yesterday, her time could be better spent in other ways.
“Well, it was nice talking to you, Coop, but I have to get these back to the house and start on my chores.”
He stood up. “The lieutenant—I mean Shane—has called a meeting of our group with your father in a few minutes, to figure out the logistics of us all staying here.”
“It’s nice to have more people.” She gave him a quick smile and a wave, suddenly having the urge to flee before she blurted out something embarrassing, like admitting she was glad to see some men around the place, even if none of them ever had a smidgeon of interest in her.
In the house, she went straight to the pantry, pulling out the salvaged cardboard containers they used to store the eggs. Even in the heat, they would be well preserved in the cool, dark pantry for at least a month.
“Are you okay?” asked Janie, who was tidying the kitchen. “You’re flushed.”
“It’s hot out there,” she mumbled, rotating the newest eggs to the back of the stacks. A few deep breaths helped get rid of the jittery feeling that had invaded her, and she hoped she looked close to normal when she turned to face her mom. “I’m not looking forward to weeding today.” It was a tedious job in a backyard garden, but practically overwhelming on a working farm, especially with only seven adults available to help. “I sure hope some of those Army guys step up and volunteer to help.”
Janie’s expression firmed. “Volunteer, my fanny, Mina. Your father is going to insist they all carry their weight around here. We’re glad to have extra hands, and more defense, but only if everyone involved is worth the extra expenditure of food.”
She nodded, pained to hear her mom speaking so pragmatically. Once upon a time, her mother was the type who would have taken in anyone in need. A couple of times of being burned by the wrong people in the days following The End had left them all a lot more wary and cynical about providing a helping hand.
There was one lone pancake left, and she rolled it up, taking a large bite before saying, “I’d better get to it. The weeds won’t pull themselves.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, girl. You were raised better than that.” Janie waved her away, but with a smile to soften the rebuke.
She finished stuffing the pancake in her mouth before joining her brother and sisters already in the field. Lia wasn’t present this morning, but she wasn’t annoyed. Most days, her sister strapped Ty on her back and was there alongside everyone else doing whatever w
ork needed to be done. Mina supposed if her husband had come home after being missing for thirteen months, she’d want a day with him to herself too, and she didn’t begrudge her sister the privilege.
She had to admit her heart ached with the concept of having a husband, or at least someone important in her life, almost as much as her lower back and fingers hurt after an hour of pulling weeds. A few months shy of nineteen, she should have been dating a host of boys in college and getting ready for the next phase in her life. As she’d given up on those dreams, one by one, Mina found herself searching for new dreams and new ways to make this new version of life enjoyable. Inevitably, she’d found herself drawn to the idea of a partner. Not just someone to share her body with, but her fears, doubts, happiness, and burdens too.
Of course, the body sharing part was of particular interest. She was still a healthy young woman with the normal urges. Unfortunately, the choices were slim these days, with her world mainly consisting of her family and the very occasional passing stranger her parents allowed to stay for a night or two. None of them had been men anywhere close to her own age, and a couple had made her downright nervous. They were always denied the option of staying around, even for a meal, as though her father had a good sense of who was dangerous and who wasn’t, with the notable exception of a couple of thieves who had stolen from them in the beginning of the turmoil. Maybe that sense came from having four daughters and being an overprotective daddy.
She found herself starting to sing as the excitement of having new people fizzed in her veins. As she belted out a song, feeling cheerful for the first time in a while, she ignored her brother’s gagging sounds.
“For pete’s sake, Mina, it’s bad enough we have to be out here in the sun, but your caterwauling is making it that much worse,” said Finn.
She paused briefly to stick out her tongue and fling a clod of dirt at her little brother. “You wish you had my talents, baby bro.”
“Sure do. I could lure all the bullfrogs from the pond, and we could have a delicious supper.”
She rolled her eyes at her brother, but still laughed. It had been a good comeback. To please him—and because the arrival of the soldiers to help out inhibited her off-key singing—she let the melody lapse and focused on weeding the garden. All the while, she was conscious of Coop working two rows ahead of her. When he paused to strip off his T-shirt, using it to wipe his sweating face and brow, her mouth fell open, and she almost forgot how to breathe. Only Kelly laughing beside her snapped her attention back to the plants and away from his seriously toned body.
“Do you have a little crush?” teased Kelly.
Mina ignored her sister, making a conscious effort not to look at him again. Her sister couldn’t stifle the mental image still in her head, and she savored it as she worked. The droplet of sweat that had streaked down his abdomen insisted on repeating over and over in her mind, and she couldn’t resist imagining what it would be like to run her tongue down the same path. That led to imagining his stunned reaction, which quickly aborted the fantasy, though she was sure she’d break it out again later and replay the moment in her mind when she had some privacy.