Boondocks

Chapter 14: New Arrivals

WILLOW

Tex was a man who liked routine. Unlike the swamp, where there was always a new adventure, nothing in the camp ever changed. The men talked about war, planning and planning without ever saying when. They counted bullets and cleaned unused guns. They went on hunting excursions, always returning empty handed, and the supply runs, so far, hadn't benefited anyone.

Croc provided. From sunrise to sunset, he caught fish, he cleaned fish, he cooked fish, he stared at his keychain. I'd never seen him so distracted. Well, I had, but up until then, the distraction had always been me. From the moment I stepped into the swamp, it had been me he stared at like that. Lately, he barely looked my way.

I might have been more upset if I wasn't so exhausted. Between the kids and the garden, I never sat still, and I must have eaten something foul, because my stomach rebelled anytime I even thought about food.

But everything changed when the girl arrived.

Fern was the camp's new obsession. She may have been thin and weak physically, but her mind was sharp. Considering I had nothing more than a few words to go off of, it was likely my imagination filling in blanks, but I sensed it. Even Tex had said so. Daily. Religiously. She's different. She was going to help us. She knows this and this and that. He treated her like the key to winning the war, and God help anyone who said anything even remotely inappropriate.

"Willow?"

I jolted out of my thoughts, turning to find Croc watching me at a distance. "You done already?" I asked.

"For a while." He walked over, picked a wet shirt out of the basket of clothes I'd been hanging to dry, and pinned it to the line.

I'd grown so accustomed to not seeing him, for a moment, I didn't know what to say. I resumed working, and with two people, it didn't take long to finish.

Croc gently cupped my elbow and led me toward our tent. "I brought you something to eat."

"You did?" I bent through the opening then paused. "Where are the kids?" They'd been coloring. Where did they sneak off to now?

"Merle's watching them." His words caressed my ear, his body so close to my back I could feel his heat.

I turned, and we were face to face. "When? I didn't even notice—"

He kissed me, and it was as if it'd been building in the absence between us. I melted. I buckled. I nearly wept. If anyone had ever told me I would miss a man, I'd have called them insane. But, finding him, experiencing him, then having it all disappear had affected me in ways I hadn't thought possible.

Croc pulled back with a low rumble. "Eat something, then let's go for a swim."

"I'm not hungry," I breathed, seeking his mouth again.

He groaned and kissed me harder, setting my blood on fire. It had been so long since we'd been this way. Too long since that night in the swamp, when the world was a memory, and the only thing to do was fall in love.

He backed me into the tent, his palm sliding under my shirt, up my spine, across my shoulder blade, down my waist, as if he wanted to touch all of me at once.

But when he lowered me to the mattress—where a plate of fish sat steaming—everything shifted. The smell hit me like a truck, and all the contents of my stomach lifted into my throat. I shoved him away and scrambled for the exit, barely making it out before I retched into the dirt.

Not a second layer, Croc gathered my hair back, then gently gripped my shoulders. "Are you okay?"

I couldn't respond. My body hated me. That was the only way to explain how I kept heaving long after it was empty. I was so sick of being sick, and I wished I knew what was causing—