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“Hale . . . Hale . . . ,” she huffed.

“I’m here.” He scrambled up to be beside her.

“I need to get to . . . your . . . car and lie down. I need to . . . lie down.”

“She gonna have that baby now?” the deputy asked, aghast.

Hale turned on him. “Call somebody. Find out where they are.” Do something!

The deputy headed for his car as if he’d been released from the gate, staggering and slipping, half falling and fighting his way back up, just generally getting away.

Savannah had moved onto her side and was lying on the ground, panting.

“Give me your arm,” Hale said.

She lifted one arm limply. “Can you get my bag? My messenger bag?”

“My car’s over there. You see it?” he asked as the

wind whistled through the gorge. “I don’t want you to walk and fall,” he said, thinking hard.

“I can crawl.”

“Are you sure?”

She started laughing, a hitching sound that said she was fighting tears. “Yes. Remember . . . my bag? In the ditch?”

“I’m getting it.”

He leaned into the ditch and hooked the strap of the bag on the third try. Straightening, squinting through the falling snow, he saw she was on her hands and knees and was edging her way to the TrailBlazer. Hale struggled to his feet, looking around. The deputy was at his vehicle and was trying to make contact; Hale could see the walkie at his lips. Beyond his car and Hale’s, there wasn’t another vehicle on the road.

Slipping and sliding, as quickly as he could, he made his way to her and helped her reach his TrailBlazer. “Can you get in the passenger seat?”

“I—I need to get in the backseat,” she panted.

“The backseat?” he repeated.

“Yes!” She suddenly stopped moving and pulled herself into a ball on her side, breathing loudly in and out as another contraction overtook her.

“How close are you?” Hale asked carefully, knowing the baby was coming soon and wishing to high heaven that he could do something, anything, to help.

She didn’t answer immediately, not until she began to relax from the grip of the contraction. Then she took several deep breaths and said shakily, “The contractions are about two minutes apart. I’ve been counting in my head.”

“That’s . . . close.” Real close.

“Yes, it is. That’s why I need to get in the backseat,” she said determinedly, rolling to her hands and knees and moving forward again. “Kristina?” she asked after a moment, stopping to glance back at him.

“She was still in surgery when I left.”

“It’s bad?”

“I don’t know.” Hale watched her helplessly. Frustrated by the fact that he could do so little to help her, or his wife, for that matter, he glanced toward the deputy once more. The man seemed to be even more boondoggled than he was.

“Can’t get through,” the deputy said, and Hale nodded.

This was on him and Savannah. He looked back at her, struck by how capable she was. It got him in the gut. Tightening his own resolve, he skated the few steps past her toward the TrailBlazer, thinking about the carpet and the blanket and the toolbox with its box cutter if he needed to cut the umbilical cord himself.

Deception Bay was a white world illuminated by windows of light. Through the windshield Ravinia saw there was a gathering place still open—the Drift In Market.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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