Sky loved thrift stores, but this place was so not it. Staring at the options at Barnie’s, the only grocery slash clothing store in town, wasn’t making them better. Dark green rubber boots, commando style, or bright red vinyl boots in disco style. Both vintage, and not the good kind. Too bad her Manolos couldn’t hack it anymore. She had to get something more suitable. Logan was driving her to Paris this evening to get Arnie, but the drop-off was so late, she was afraid the shops would be closed by then. And Logan was so busy, she didn’t dare ask him to take her there earlier.

Time for some “eenie meenie miney moe.” Whatever the result, it would be a fashion fiasco.

Commando rubber boots it was. Yay. They would go so perfectly with her wardrobe.

“Not exactly Barneys New York, huh?” she heard as she grabbed the offensive items. Shayna was standing near her.

No shit. She’d even snapped a picture of the sign to share on her social media as exhibit A of her misfortune. If she weren’t in NoName, Minnesota, stuck with a bunch of survivalists, she would have thought the store name was a clever pun.

“I’ll make do,” Sky said with a sigh. She had to. Getting out of the house for a morning stroll and a coffee was like taking part in an Iron Man triathlon, for Christ’s sake. Which reminded her. “Are you okay?”

Shayna frowned. “Sure. Why?”

Why? Because just three days ago, Shayna had run a 10K while toting a humongous backpack in a bit over half an hour. It had been snowing, but that hadn’t seemed to matter to anyone. “If I’d taken part in the 10K, I’d still be in a coma.”

Shayna waved it off. “Nah. It’s a question of will power. Your legs go as far as your head takes them.”

Sky’s head would have taken her to the bench closest to the starting line. Then again, Shayna had been in the Marines. Every part of her body probably obeyed her head to the millimeter.

“Hey, Barnie, have your fake eyelashes back,” Shayna called, setting a package on the counter. “No way am I putting these on. I’m still trying to scrape the glue from my fingers, and it’s been a couple of days. That’ll teach me to get beauty stuff from you.”

Sky inspected them. Shayna had made a good call. She would have lost her real eyelashes trying to get these off.

“Can’t give you your money back,” Barnie said, approaching. “The package is open.”

“Don’t want my money back. I want you to get better products.”

The old man shrugged. “Eyelashes ain’t a priority around here.”

If those stacks in the back were anything to go by, toilet paper was priority number one.

“Of course they aren’t,” Shayna grumbled and then turned to Sky. “I don’t suppose you have some nifty trick for faking fake eyelashes, do you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. You just need some patience, baby powder, and a spoon.”

“What’s your shoe size?” Shayna asked. “You an eight?”

“Seven.”

“Close enough. Come on,” Shayna said, pulling her toward the exit. “Leave these here. I got boots you can borrow at my place, and I want to hear more about baby powder.”

The “close enough” worried Sky, but what the heck. Couldn’t be worse than Barnie’s boots. Or Logan’s gigantic Wellingtons.

“You in a hurry?” Shayna asked as they hit the street.

“Not particularly.” She’d already checked on her car and contacted the rental company. They’d offered her a replacement, but seeing as she was staying in town for the time being, she’d declined. They agreed to send her a car when she was ready. “I have an English lesson for Logan’s interns in a couple of hours, though.”

“Plenty of time. How are the classes going?”

“Very well.” Logan had been right. The guys’ knowledge of grammar was on point, so it was a matter of getting them to loosen up enough to make vocabulary mistakes. Logan might have tried his best, but he was intimidating, to say the least. Not to mention they depended on him for grades. Of course they had been closed-lipped. With her it had been easier. Now that the landline was repaired, she’d been showing them YouTube videos about Minnesota and recording videos of them talking about their lives.

“So you’re staying?”

Sky nodded. “I’ll move to Paris when the semester starts. Is there another store around here with a better selection than this one?”

“Nope. Barnie’s has the monopoly.”

“He needs a personal buyer, for Christ’s sake,” Sky muttered. “Why the heck does he have so much toilet paper?”

“It’s the prepper’s number-one necessity.”

“Seriously?” She would have thought that to be guns. Or food.

“Totally. The last thing you want during an apocalypse is an itchy ass. Folks will be aggravated enough as it is. No need to make matters worse.”

Man, these people were nuts. The logic was sound, though.

They arrived at the Hacker Shack in a couple of minutes. Shayna gave some instructions to the girl running it and then led the way into the house. It was colorful and mismatched and hippie-ish. With psychedelic posters and lava lamps too.

“Invasion! Invasion! Get your guns. I’m playing dead!” the voice of an old man yelled as they entered, startling Sky.

Shayna didn’t even blink. She took her jacket off and hung it by the entryway. “Don’t mind Bob. First things first. Rubber boots.”

“No need,” Sky hurried to say, hanging her coat beside Shayna’s. “When I get to Paris, I’ll find something there.” Maybe her Manolos would make it until then.

“Forget it. Paris has a shitty selection too. And a bigger price tag. Let me see,” Shayna said, bringing several pairs of boots out of a closet. “Mine are size eight. Nothing that can’t be solved with two pairs of wool socks, which you should be wearing anyway if you don’t want to lose your toes to frostbite.”

“How very feminine.”

Shayna snorted. “Being feminine around here is a total impossibility.”

No shit. They all wore ski gear over their regular pants or flannel-lined jeans, and double socks and huge jackets. It took a big exercise of self-discipline to get out of bed in the morning and pretty yourself up when you knew the wind and snow were going to ruin your look the second you stepped out the door. No wonder most of them looked the way they did.

“Here, which ones do you prefer?” Shayna asked. There was a pair of shiny black boots with red hearts, and another pair in a pattern of faux camouflage, pink and brown and gray.

“I can’t take your shoes.”

Shayna lifted her feet. She was wearing transparent boots with crazy-colored socks underneath. The boots were rubber, but they had laces and looked military. “I can spare a pair.”

“I’m not much of a camo girl,” Sky said.

“Black with red hearts it is then,” Shayna decided, handing them to her. “Keep them.”

Sky faltered.

“If you go back to Barnie’s and get those ugly boots, I’ll be offended.”

“Okay,” Sky conceded, taking them. “They’re a loan, though. As soon as I get some appropriate footwear, I’ll give them back.”

“Paris isn’t a big city, but they have sidewalks there. And they shovel them. You’ll manage in your fancy shoes. At least until your toes fall off from the cold. You didn’t come ready for this weather.”

“No, I didn’t. There was a bit of a miscommunication with my school. I should have ended up in a more hospitable place.”

“You and me, girl. My delivery stork got lost and dumped me in the wrong damn town.” Shayna paused and gave her a scrutinizing look. “How’s it going? Living with Logan, I mean.”

“Okay, I guess.” She barely saw him during the day. In the evening he brought pizza, complained about his interns’ shyness, and tortured her with TV shows she hated.

“He’s been in town for almost two years, and I haven’t seen him with anyone.”

“I’m not with him. I’m squatting at his place.” Although Sky didn’t understand why his house wasn’t crawling with groupies. He wasn’t only fun to be around, he was also incredibly hot. Even with shitty clothes on. Too bad she’d been delirious and didn’t remember seeing him naked. Life was so unfair. Then again, she didn’t recall lecturing him on his scrotal health either, so all in all maybe it was for the best.

Before Shayna could ask anything further, Sky changed the subject. “Now your eyelashes: we need mascara, a cotton swab, baby powder, and a spoon.”

“We are making fake eyelashes, not some kind of drug, right?”

Sky laughed. “Not cooking drugs. We need the spoon to lift the eyelid a bit and apply the mascara from the root of the eyelash without messing up the eyelid. I have a credit card, so we can make do without the spoon if we have to. Oh, and we need a blow-dryer and an eyelash curler.”

“Won’t that mess up your credit card?” Shayna asked, kicking off her boots and directing Sky into the living room.

Now it was Sky’s turn to snort. “My credit cards are as good as toasted already. I might as well use them for something.” She noticed a movement out of the corner of her eye and stopped dead in her tracks. There was a big, black bird on the back of a chair in the middle of Shayna’s living room.

“Sky, meet Bob. Bob, this is Patient Zero.”

Bob was a raven? Did ravens talk?

He whistled. “Hello, gorgeous, nice to meet you.”

That answered her question. They not only talked; they whistled too.

Sky must have looked flabbergasted, because Shayna laughed. “Ravens can imitate human speech even better than parrots, and they mimic sounds and noises to perfection too. My dad taught Bob. The idea was to use him as a way to deliver messages, but that was a fail. Learned all the tricks and more, but the ass says whatever he wants, whenever he wants.”

She’d heard about failed service dogs who mastered the tasks but did them whenever they pleased. Service ravens, though? First frigging time. Failed or otherwise.

“It was a brilliant plan, in theory, at least, because ravens are one of the smartest animals, ranking way up, alongside chimpanzees and dolphins. And they live as long as forty years in captivity, so if you trained one bird, you were set for life. In practice, though, it means we’re stuck with Bob for freaking ever.”

“Bob?”

Shayna shrugged. “My dad insisted he looked like a Bob. Come on, let’s go to my bedroom. I’ll fetch everything we need.”

After Shayna scouted up all the supplies, Sky showed her how to apply the mascara. Before it dried, she sprinkled baby powder on the lashes and spread it with the swab. “We don’t want it to look too chunky, so we use the powder lightly and go big on the number of coats.”

After several rounds of mascara and powder, Shayna’s eyelashes were almost ready. Sky turned the blow-dryer on and pointed it toward the curler.

“That’s safe?” Shayna asked, looking skeptical.

“There’s a treatment in the spa salons called “semipermanent eyelash curling.” This isn’t permanent, but it’s a thousand times cheaper. Just make sure it’s not too hot or you can kiss your eyelashes bye-bye.” After curling Shayna’s eyelashes, Sky gave her a mirror. “What do you think?”

Shayna whistled. “Wow, these look kickass.”

“You like them?”

“I love them. How long did you say you’re staying in town? We need to organize some sort of course at the community center.”

“This is nothing. It’s all over the internet. Anyone can learn.”

“You forget: half the town lives off the grid. The other half believes the government is spying on us through our electronic devices.”

True.

“Say, what are you doing tonight? You could come clubbing with us in town.”

“Clubbing? In prepper land?”

Shayna chuckled. “Yeah. Around here, clubbing means going back and forth from the bowling alley to the only bar in NoName, but we have fun. In the spirit of full disclosure, the bar has a mechanical bull.”

Of course these people would have a mechanical bull. No internet, no cell reception, no proper stores, no sidewalks, but behold the mechanical bull.

“I’m going to take a rain check on that. Arnie is arriving later today. I want to spend the evening with him. He’s going to be pissed at me for dumping him. Don’t want to make matters worse.” Not to mention she really missed the rascal. She’d take Arnie over a mechanical bull anytime.

Over anything and anyone, actually.

“Who’s Arnie?”

“My dog. I can do your makeup if you’re going clubbing. What are you going to wear?”

“A black pinup dress and red shoes with white polka dots. But my makeup supplies are shitty. Like fake eyelashes, makeup ain’t a priority around here,” Shayna said, imitating Barnie.

“Show me,” Sky insisted. If anyone knew DIY makeup hacks, it was her.

Shayna brought out a small beauty bag. “I only have the basics. Mascara. Dark eyeliner. I had white liquid eyeliner, but it’s chunky and all but gone.”

“Glitter? Color pencils?”

“I think so. Why?”

“You’ll see.”

* * *

Following Sky through town as she bounced from shop to shop, coffee in one hand, cell in the other, was like watching a kid in a candy store. She was shining. Smiling so big it made his heart skip a beat. Whether it was the people, the several coffees she’d already drunk, the uninterrupted cell reception that had her device beeping nonstop, or the fact that they were there to pick up Arnie, there was no doubt she was beaming brighter than the red hearts on her rubber boots. Not even realizing that Paris was much smaller than she expected had seemed to diminish her excitement.

“Thanks for agreeing to drive me here a little earlier,” she said. “I know how busy you are. I really appreciate it.”

He’d been swamped with work, but he’d been unable to turn her down when the transport company called to inform her the drop-off was ahead of schedule and she’d come asking for a ride. Begging, actually. She hadn’t asked for anything since arriving at his place. Even in the wretched weather they’d been having, she’d walked to town. The look on her face as she talked about that dog, though, had warmed something he didn’t want to admit was his heart. “Don’t mention it. I had to get some things myself.”

“I never would have guessed,” she said. “The beer and the Sports Illustrated, sure. Romance novels? That was a surprise.”

Yeah. He’d noticed Sky’s face when the clerk mentioned that Logan was running out of titles to buy. “Where to now?”

“Let’s try again,” she said, checking the time. “Arnie might be there by now. I wouldn’t willingly trust a UPS guy with any living thing, much less my precious baby.”

He’d figured that much. When she found out the dog hotel was using a commercial delivery company, she’d hit the roof. By then the dog had been on its way already, so there had been little she could do but yell and fume—of which she’d done plenty. The call saying Arnie would arrive early had redeemed them. Mostly.

“It’s only been ten minutes, Butterfly.” They had been to the UPS office twice so far, though the rescheduled drop-off was still half an hour away. To pass the time, they’d gone back to buying treats for Arnie. Apparently such a small city didn’t carry his preferred brands, so she was improvising—if “improvising” meant buying all sorts of potato chips and junk, then yes, she was big-time improvising. She also had them checking around for dog spas, as if they were in Beverly Hills or some shit like that.

“I have a feeling he’s here. I don’t want him waiting in the cold.”

Logan rolled his eyes. He was so not looking forward to this. Conceited little purse dogs were nothing but a nuisance. Wearing clothes and jewelry and smelling like eau de Lupine. Vivienne had had one of those frou-frou dogs, a Chihuahua as a matter of fact, which left droppings all over the place and irritated the living hell out of him with its high-pitched bark. Sky had assured him Arnie was housebroken, but Vivienne had said the same about Coco, and that hadn’t stopped the little rat from marking anything within reach.

“Where did you get those rubber boots?”

“Shayna. Oh!” She stopped as if she’d remembered something. “Did you know she has a talking raven?”

“Bob, a cross between a prepper and a dirty old man? Yes, I’ve met him.”

“Totally nuts.”

He nodded. “When people started squatting in Shayna’s yard to catch the internet, Bob would imitate the sound of a machine gun. He was so realistic, they would throw themselves to the ground.”

“Really? Oh my God.”

“Bob even added ‘Arghhh, I’m hit, I’m dying’ to up the theatrics.” That bird was a drama queen.

They turned the corner, and she totally forgot about Bob. There was a van in front of the UPS office, and a clerk signing a tablet. “Ms. Gonzalez, your delivery is here,” he called.

“Arnie!” Sky cried.

The guy by the crate was holding a leash that seemed to be attached to the occupant within. He opened the door and was abruptly pushed back. A frigging seventy-pound hellhound, full of scars and missing an eye, lunged toward Sky, dragging the hapless UPS guy along like a cardboard cutout of a man. Before Logan could react, the beast had thrown itself at Sky and knocked her down. She put her arms around the dog, laughing as it licked her face.

That killer was Arnie, the doggie with salon appointments?

“I see you’re not angry at me anymore for leaving you at the dog hotel, are you?” she asked, holding him tight. “Logan, this is Arnie. Arnie, this is Logan.”

“That’s not a Chihuahua!” he all but yelled.

“Who said Arnie was a Chihuahua?”

Nobody, actually. “I’d just assumed you’d have a…”

“Purse dog?”

“Something like that.” He couldn’t see this beast having a bubble bath and getting his paws massaged.

“Arnie is a cross between a Staffie and—”

“Godzilla,” he muttered, keeping his distance.

Rolling her eyes, she got up from the ground, while the hellhound jumped around her. “I was going to say Rottweiler. He’s a mutt. Is that a problem?”

“No. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

“He’s a rescue. I intended to pick a Yorkie or some cute little mop dog, but Arnie adopted me.”

“How does a dog adopt you?” he asked, opening the truck’s passenger door.

She cocked a brow at him, amused. “You’ve never been to the pound, have you?”

Logan shook his head. He hadn’t had time for pets in his previous life. In this one, there were animals everywhere, none of them strays. All of them nuisances.

With Sky and Arnie both strapped up and riding shotgun, because apparently Arnie only deigned to occupy the front seat, Logan turned on the engine and they headed back home. “Tell me, how does someone as fashion conscious as you end up with a dog so ugly?”

“Shame on you,” she scolded, covering the beast’s ears. Well, the stumps he had for ears, which had been docked and then bitten numerous times, by the looks of it. “He is not ugly. He just doesn’t… conform to the beauty ideal.”

“Come on, Butterfly. Cerberus here looks like he’s gone a couple rounds against King Kong.”

“Not his fault. And don’t call him Cerberus.” She planted a big, fat kiss on top of the monster’s head and continued, “Arnie was found wandering the streets. One of the volunteers down at the animal shelter is an old friend of mine. She told me that a couple of weeks before, a dog-fighting ring had been dismantled in the area. My guess is Arnie managed to escape from there. Which was a stroke of luck, really. Those dogs are almost always deemed unsalvageable and euthanized. Anyway, Arnie passed the pound’s social test, but my friend was afraid he was going to be put down to make way for more easily adoptable dogs. I came to visit, he looked at me, and here we are.”

“And your landlord in Brooklyn gave you permission to adopt him?” Given the choice, most landlords objected to kids, let alone seventy-pound beasts the likes of Arnie.

“I agreed to pay extra rent. I think the manager assumed I was getting a purse dog, because she didn’t ask for specifics. By the time she saw Arnie, I had already bribed my way into her heart with Gucci bags and Vuitton shoes.”

“What if that hadn’t worked?”

“I got Arnie certified as an emotional support animal, just in case. I’m resourceful when I need to be.”

Emotional support animal. Right.

“You of all people can’t fault me for being resourceful,” she added. “Not when your truck smells as if it runs on French Fries oil.”

“It’s called biodiesel. And it doesn’t smell like French fries.”

She didn’t answer, just looked at the beast. Logan could swear they rolled their eyes at one another in commiseration.

Sky spent the whole trip talking to the dog and petting him, while he all but sat on top of her, trying to lick her face. When they arrived home, Sky stepped onto the porch. “Come on, Arnie.”

The big hound glanced at the handful of steps and then at her, and parked his ass on the ground.

Shaking her head, she went to him. She whispered something Logan couldn’t hear, picked up the dog—all seventy pounds of him—and climbed the stairs.

“What are you doing?” he asked, steadying her as she wobbled.

“Arnie doesn’t do stairs.”

“Excuse me?”

They walked into the living room and she put the dog down. Arnie didn’t move from her side. “Not sure what the problem is. He can manage to climb two or three steps, but then he shuts down. He seems terrified. I don’t know why. Rescue animals are like this. They have their own traumas.”

Jesus Christ. “So let me get this straight, Butterfly: you rescued a killer dog that weighs more than half what you do, and you have to carry him up the stairs because he’s afraid?”

Her expression turned feisty. “I’m not sure I like your tone. I don’t think Arnie does, either. But yeah, basically.”

“What about exchanging him for a Yorkie or a Chihuahua?”

“You don’t trade the ones you love when problems appear,” she stated very seriously. “You treat the problem or you work around it. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t fit anywhere.”

“Right. You guys going to be okay? I have some more errands to run,” he said, sensing she’d welcome a change of subject.

“Go.” She waved him off. “Arnie and I will be cooking tonight as a token of our appreciation for your hospitality. Give us a couple of hours and we’ll be ready for you.”

“Get him to wash his hands before he starts cooking.”

“Don’t be silly,” she answered with an evil smile. “He helps with his mouth.”

He could hardly wait.

Logan jumped into his truck and drove to his sister and Alec’s place, not surprised in the least when he found them on the porch swing, covered with a thick quilt. She was lying on top of her man, sound asleep, while Alec rocked them. Megan loved the cold.

Logan nodded in greeting and sat on the chair nearby. Alec nodded back. “Is she okay?” Logan asked. They had made it back from Minneapolis today, after several days in the hospital there.

“She will be.”

Logan didn’t doubt it. She was strong. Alec was too. Logan might have been a bit apprehensive about their relationship at the beginning, but not in a million years could he have imagined a better companion for his sister.

“What did the doc say?”

“That was the last round. They’re pretty confident she’s in the clear.”

Thank fucking God.

They sat there for a long while, neither of them talking. Alec was a man of few words. How Logan’s bubbly sister had ended up with him was a miracle.

“You missed the pasta party and the 10K.”

Alec’s expression softened in a half smile. “We’ll make it next time. Thanks for sending snapshots of the 10K. Your sister loved it. Especially the face-plants in the snow.”

He’d known she would. Megan was a sucker for any and all events happening in NoName—the crazier, the better. In the last Tough Prepper race—an insanely hard obstacle course that belonged in a Parris Island boot camp—she’d stationed herself near a climbing wall, and every time someone landed in the mud on the other side, she’d snapped a pic.

“How did things go around here?” Alec asked, stroking Megan’s back. “Any glitches?”

That depended on what one considered a glitch. “Nothing special. The pandemic squad took it upon themselves to ensure Sky didn’t break quarantine, which ended with her trying to jump through a window and checking that she still had two kidneys.”

It was a testament to how long Alec had been living with that bunch of nutjobs that he didn’t even raise a brow at Logan’s words. “I take it your guest is now healthy and far away?”

“Healthy, yes. Far away, no. She’s going to be staying for a couple weeks. Teaching English to my guys in exchange for room and board.”

Alec stopped stroking Megan’s back and frowned. “At your place?”

Logan nodded.

“If you want, I can check if any of the rental cabins are available.”

“Nah, thanks. They’re pretty remote. She has a monster of a killer dog, so security-wise, it wouldn’t be an issue, but she doesn’t have a car.” And she’d be far away from him. He liked having her around, although not in a million years would he admit that to Alec. Or anyone else for that matter.

“Before I forget,” Logan said, reaching for the plastic bag he’d brought and handing it to Alec. “I got Megan a new romance novel from that author she loves. The six-pack and the Sports Illustrated are for you.”

“Thanks, man.”

“It’s nothing.” The least he could do, really. “I’m going to head out. Let me know if you guys need anything.”

Alec nodded again.