Apokalypsis | Book 6 | Apokalypsis 6 Morris, Kate (cheapest way to read ebooks TXT) 📖

comforter next to her head. Dixie sniffed with appreciation but held off. She was probably waiting to see if her options were going to get any better, as in begging from them.

“Miss picky pants,” Wren chided but petted her anyway.

“No way to cook food, so I found stuff that was able to be eaten cold.”

“That’s okay,” she eased his worries.

“Washed my hands in the snow,” he said and showed her his clean hands that looked a little red, probably from being cold. “Brought you some wipes.”

She rose, took the package about ten feet away, and opened the wet wipes to cleanse her own hands of Dixie’s blood. Wren used a bottle of water from her pack to rinse and scrub at them until they looked spotless and sanitary again.

When she returned, Elijah had laid out food for them, which was a box of Saltines, tubes of peanut butter for on-the-go snacking, pre-mixed packets of tuna, applesauce cups, four cans of soda, bottled water, and pureed fruit in squeeze packs like someone would give a toddler.

“Yeah, not the greatest, but we can’t heat anything,” he remarked. “We should try to find one of those little portable grills like tailgaters used to use. We could all keep one in our vehicles for when we’re stuck out like this. Or small camping grills with those cans of ethanol gel.”

“No, this is fine,” she said and sat on the bed next to them. “I’m sure that kind of stuff was snatched up as soon as people started losing electricity anyway.”

They ate quietly by the candle, and Dixie ended up mooching some crackers with peanut butter spread on them. She also ate her own food. Wren had learned a while ago that this dog would eat anything. Even the occasional shoe left lying around unattended.

She glanced over her shoulder uneasily towards the front of the store.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “When I went out back to get the food, I checked everything out. Even went to the front to see if I could see the candle in here. Nothing. It looks pitch black and unoccupied. The snow is drifted so dang high against the front of this place you can’t see much anyway. Darn near to the top of those windows.”

He touched her knee gently to reassure her again, but Wren never felt safe when she wasn’t at the farm now. It was probably a bad habit to feel that way. Nowhere was safe, and she knew that, but sometimes it just felt good not to worry for a minute.

“Okay,” she agreed but looked again.

They finished their meal, and she took the candle to the bathroom with her to do her business. She did so in record time and hurried back to find Elijah gone, too. Trying not to panic, Wren waited on the bed until he returned with Dixie. He was carrying her again.

“Figured she should go,” he said. “I just took her into the warehouse and let her wazz back there. Who cares, right?”

She smiled, “Yeah, right.”

They turned in, sleeping side by side with Dixie beside them on the connecting bed. She seemed exhausted and went right to sleep.

“Where do you think everyone went, Elijah?” Wren asked him in the dark since they’d blown out the candle.

“Not sure,” he said and rolled onto his side to face her. She scooted a little closer, and Elijah took the cue and pulled her against him to share warmth. “Maybe those quarantine camps. Stephanie and Roman said they were evacuating their neighborhoods. I don’t know where anyone from mine went. I guess they just split. Probably had family in other areas or other states they wanted to get to.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

They both had their shoes on, but Wren hitched a leg over his hip and eased closer.

“Cold still?” he asked and rubbed her back.

She shook her head. “No, warming up.”

It felt safe in Elijah’s arms, and she was starting to feel other things, too.

“Sorry if I have bad breath,” he apologized.

“We have the same breath,” she said with a chuckle. “We ate the same meal, Elijah.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, grinning, which she could just make out. “Guess so.”

“Thanks for helping with Dixie.”

He leaned back, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and said, “Wren, I’d do anything you asked. I thought you knew that by now.”

In a bold move, much braver than she usually was, Wren slid her hand up his chest and inside his flannel over-shirt. She was met by a t-shirt. She liked it better at the farm where he didn’t dress in so many layers. He, in turn, ran his hand down to cup her bottom. His hand took up most of it. There was something in that which ignited a spark of desire in Wren. Elijah was precisely the way a boy- no, a man- was supposed to be built. Bigger than her, stronger, wider, tougher. He made her feel protected. Jamie always made her feel this way, and she hadn’t felt that since his death. Losing herself in that safety, which was probably a false sense of it, for just a few minutes here and there made her feel happy for a change, and that wasn’t something that had come around a lot in the last four years of her life.

She shifted her weight and pushed at his chest at the same time until he was on his back and she was straddling him. His hands immediately went to her face, and he pulled her down to kiss her. Elijah had told her he didn’t have a lot of experience with this, but he sure seemed like he did. He knew what he was doing that first time, and Wren found herself daydreaming and reliving that night all the time, nearly constantly, truth be told. It was all she could think about. She’d even tried avoiding him and pretending to be asleep when he turned in so that she didn’t have to face this desire down again. Then his brother had insisted on