Page 1

Chapter One

I’d checked the weather yesterday before I’d left Jasper Creek for Tellico Plains. It had said a ten percent chance of snow. I took those odds. I didn’t have a choice; I had to make the hundred mile trip.

Poor Miss Laughton was being moved to Florida by her son and daughter-and-law next week. She supplied my store with pressed wild-flower art. Besides government money, me paying for her work was the only income she had, and I intended to see she got it.

When I got there, she offered me a cup of tea, and a chance to sit in a comfortable seat for a few minutes. This was the last time we would see one another, so I took the time. Plus, the huge watermelon I was growing in my gut for my sister made me cringe at the idea of getting back into the driver’s seat, so I sat down in her comfy chair. It was while we were in her parlor, that I saw the first flake of snow fall.

She said ‘Heavens’ at the same time I muttered ‘Shit.’ Luckily, she giggled.

“Sorry, Miss Laughton.”

“No need to apologize. Let’s get you back into your Jeep so you can get home.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

We both got our coats and boots on, and she helped me place her artwork into the back of my Jeep.

“You drive careful, you hear?”

“I will,” I promised.

By the time we got the Jeep loaded, and I was back onto the main road, which was basically in the middle of nowhere, the snow was really coming down.

I squinted through the windshield.

Snowflakes were not supposed to be this big.

Plus, they weren’t flakes anymore. They were full-blown white feathers dive-bombing the windshield, sticking to the glass faster than my wipers could swipe. The world beyond my headlights was just…white. White road, white sky, white tree trunks looming up out of nowhere like an army of abominable snowmen.

“Totally fine,” I muttered, which was exactly what you said right before things weren’t fine at all. “It’s a dusting, they said. Flurries, they said. It’s February, they said, the roads will stay warm, they said⁠—”

A contraction tightened low in my belly—not sharp, just a slow band of pressure that made me suck in a breath and lift my foot off the gas.

“Okay,” I told my uterus. “We’ve talked about this. Four weeks early is rude. We are aiming for on-time, remember? Your parents are planners. They have charts and graphs.”

Your parents.

I swallowed hard around the lump that always rose with those words. The baby rolled, like she didn’t care whose she was, as long as she had room.

“Fine, your mom and dad,” I corrected quietly. “Chloe and Zarek can have charts. Meanwhile, we can have snacks as soon as we get to Knoxville. What do you think, something from the Little Debbie menu? Maybe a Zebra Cake or a Cosmic Brownie?”

I turned up the heat and the heater wheezed, trying to keep up. My Jeep trudged along the two-lane road toward Jasper Creek, tires humming through slush. The OB in Knoxville had said I was fine to drive short distances, weather permitting. A hundred miles was short, right?

And according to the damn app on my phone, the weather was supposed to permit! Then the weather decided not to permit.

Another contraction rolled through, a notch tighter. Normally it would only take me about an hour to get to Knoxville, an hour and a half to Jasper Creek. I’d better start timing these phantom contractions that really aren’t happening. Because there was no way in hell that I was going to allow this little girl to arrive four weeks before her delivery date.

I checked the dashboard clock. Four-oh-three. Hadn’t I left Miss Laughton’s at three-thirty? This was my third contraction.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and grinned at myself. “See, nothing to be alarmed about.” Even if these were real contractions, I was nowhere close to the delivery point.

My eyes settled back on the road and I concentrated on driving. The visibility was miserable, and I was only going seventeen miles an hour.

I blew out a long breath as the contraction ended. “Good girl. See, I told you, we’re not doing this in my Jeep. We are going to get home, you are going to stay put, and then in four weeks when everyone is ready and very calm, we will— OH SHIT!”

The deer came out of nowhere.

One second the road was just endless white. The next, a brown blur vaulted out of the trees and landed directly in my headlights, eyes wide and glowing like lanterns.