Love in the Time of the Dead by Tera Shanley Read Free Book Online Page B

be with you in a few minutes. Adrianna, you stay with Ms. Laney.”
    “Wait, you’re leaving her here with me? But I don’t know anything about kids!”
    “Good luck,” Mona said as she retreated back to the hallway they came from.
    Face down a horde of zombies? That was just another Tuesday. The thought of entertaining a child, however, brought on the cold sweats.
    Another group of guards came into the sitting area, and Adrianna fidgeted nervously as the room became crowded. When one of the men shifted his weight and bumped into the small girl, Laney reached out to steady Adrianna and unleashed a verbal lashing the guard wouldn’t soon forget. The little girl’s solemn brown eyes were filling with tears.
    “Oh, geez,” Laney muttered. She scanned the room in search of help, but the guards seemed to be trying to keep their distance after her little outburst. “It’s okay. Everything is okay, Adrianna,” she crooned. “Your daddy is just in the other room. You’ll get to see him any minute now.”
    Adrianna’s little lip quivered, and tears threatened to spill over to wet her rose-hued cheeks. The look on the child’s face pulled at some deep, long hidden instinct.
    “Come here. You want to sit with me? I won’t let them knock into you again.”
    The child nodded slowly and crawled up into her lap. She tucked her head snugly against Laney’s shoulder and sniffled softly. Laney rubbed Adrianna’s back soothingly. Surely there wasn’t a wrong way to give a hug, but it had been a long time.
    The sitting room was quiet, and she could make out muffled conversation on the other side of the double doors. She sighed in profound relief, both that Adrianna seemed to settle into her arms and that the men in the office seemed to be wrapping up.
    “One more thing, sir,” came the muffled voice of a guard. “The outer fence on the east side has a large crack going up the entirety of it. It looks like Deads have been pummeling it, but no one has reported the incident before now. How do you want me to handle it?”
    There was a short moment of silence before an authoritative voice answered him. “The repairs are to start immediately and any Deads participating in the behavior are to be put down at once. We don’t need them getting smart on us. Also, I want a list of guards who have had a post on the east side any time in the last three weeks. Someone has to have seen something, and I want to know why it wasn’t reported.”
    The man’s muffled voice was intriguing. There was no waver to his orders. No pause or hesitancy in his command, but it was clear he thought his orders out with careful consideration. Sean Daniels was a natural born leader, a man who knew his place in the world.
    Laney tried to see him through the thin curtains but could only make out the shapes of three guards’ backs. The man, Daniels, said something too low for her to hear, and the guards all chuckled and started for the door. She straightened back up in an attempt to appear as if she hadn’t been eavesdropping.
    “Mona?” the man asked.
    That was her cue. “Come on. You ready to see your daddy?” she asked Adrianna.
    The little girl jumped up and led Laney by the hand through the doors of the study.
    “You!” Laney blurted out, instantly regretting her quicksilver tongue.
    Daniels only had eyes for his daughter. Intense blue eyes that Laney hadn’t been able to shake since he’d come to her rescue in the early hours of the morning.
    He had Adrianna wrapped in a tight hug when those eyes came to rest on Laney.
    “Yes, me. What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.
    “Well, let’s see. I was up in this tree—”
    “Not why are you in my colony. I mean what are you doing in my office? And where is Mona?”
    “How should I know? I’m not your wife’s keeper.”
    “My wife?” Sean asked, clearly taken aback. He adjusted his daughter up onto his hip. “You think Mona is my wife?”
    “Well, yeah.” Laney pointed to his