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considering you don’t know anything about me or my spiritual practices, which I consider to be very private, by the way.”  He started to interject, but she held up her hand.  “No, now you’ve spoken your piece and it’s obvious you’ve been wanting to for quite some time.  It’s also obvious that you’ve done your homework – that was really good, that information about the original Hebrew and Greek – and you certainly caught me unprepared.  That won’t happen again.  Because you know what?”
    She paused, gathered her groceries, popped open the car door and slid out.  Then she bent down to grin at him.  “Game on, Jack. Thanks for the ride.”
     
    ~~~
     
    While Scott was gone, Naomi distracted herself with the feeding of “Naomi’s Ark” as Scott called her collection of animals – little Persephone and Zeus, the aging lab that was Scott’s constant shadow; Ares and his two subordinate kitties, Athena and Artemis; and finally Poseidon, the blue Macaw she’d rescued just a few months before Macy was born.  Macy would take care of her little family of mice and the fish when she got up; unlike Piper, she had inherited her mother’s love of animals.
    If Naomi had her way, the menagerie would include some backyard chickens and maybe even a miniature goat or two, but Scott had put his foot down.  For a while, she had fostered animals in the process of being re-homed, which was how they’d ended up with Zeus and Artemis.  Once they were in her home, she couldn’t bear to give them up.  Now, she volunteered her time at public awareness events for Dream Power Animal Rescue, and Scott had begged her to please, please refrain from holding the featured animals, which was how she’d fallen in love with Persephone.  The little mixed-breed dog was ridiculously cute, with her sturdy, terrier-like body, her silky, golden fur, and her cascading, Papillon-like ears.  Persephone had curled up in her arms, trusting, warm and sweet, almost like a newborn baby, and that had been that.
    Caring for the animals calmed her, as always.  By the time Macy shuffled into the kitchen, her rosy golden hair a snarled halo around her sleepy head, Naomi had started a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls and had a pot of ham and bean soup simmering on the stove.  She got Macy some breakfast, then smiled when Persephone snapped to attention and raced to the back door.  A few seconds later, she heard the faint rumble of the garage door opening; Scott was home.
    She left Macy eating breakfast and joined him in the garage.  He’d backed his truck partway in, and was unloading case after case of bottled water.  She peered past his shoulder, noting that the back of his truck was packed almost to the roof of the cap with not only water but canned and dry goods as well.  Scott straightened, and their eyes met for a moment.  Met and held.  Then he shrugged, and started unloading again.
    “It was time to re-supply and rotate anyway,” he said, and to Naomi’s ear, his casual tone sounded just a little forced.  “I had this on the list to do over spring break, but now’s as good a time as any.”
    Scott was what he called a “prepper” – not a hard-core survivalist, per-se, but he believed in having emergency supplies on hand, in the event of a catastrophe.  He had lost family in the wake of hurricane Katrina – an elderly aunt and uncle who had died in their own home of dehydration and heat stroke – and to this day, the ease with which their deaths could have been prevented haunted him.  Ever since, Scott had stocked and maintained a storage space with several month’s worth of bottled water and non-perishable food, as well as other emergency supplies.  He rotated the supplies regularly and donated what they hadn’t used to a local food bank.  The dual-purpose plan was quintessential Scott:  It was a way to both protect his family and give back to the community.
    And while Naomi had never shared his