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For a moment she narrowed her eyes at Rand as they sat there nose to nose, and then he said, “Ravinia. You should have black hair with that name.”

“Yeah, well, we’re all blond. Mine’s the darkest.”

Earl pulled onto the highway, his chains ching-ching-chinging as the truck lumbered down the road.

“You’re the one that escapes all the time,” the younger man said.

“Rand,” Earl admonished as he fiddled with the truck’s heater and stared through the windshield to where the wipers were fighting with the ever-falling snow.

“Who the hell are you?” Ravinia demanded.

“I’m Earl’s son. We’re related, you and I. Somebody in the past that—”

“Rand,” Earl barked with more heat, and the younger man desisted.

But Ravinia was having none of it. Her mother’s journal—the treasure she’d stolen from Catherine’s room—felt hard against the small of her back. “Somebody in the past that what?”

“One of your kind that fooled around with mine.” Rand stared past her at Earl. A challenge.

She’d heard the tales, of course, but now maybe this man had some real information. “Who?” Ravinia asked as Earl turned onto the main highway. The old truck shuddered, its wheels catching.

“Your mom,” Rand said, with a “Duh, stupid” hiding in his words.

Earl growled low in his throat, whether from frustration or anger, she couldn’t tell. But Ravinia was through asking Rand questions, anyway. She found she didn’t like talking to someone who obviously knew so much more about her ancestry than she did.

But Rand’s comments made her all the more determined to learn some home truths about her family.

“You okay there?” Hale asked Savannah, staring down at her in the backseat.

“Just drive,” she gritted. Despite the cold, her hair was damp, her face warm. “Fast as you dare.” The contractions were coming more rapidly and hard—so hard she could barely breathe.

He nodded, then climbed behind the wheel. She waited impatiently for him to get the engine going and hit the accelerator. She wanted to go.

But the deputy was standing outside the TrailBlazer, and Savannah chafed at the delay. “The ambulance should get here soon,” he said as Hale cracked his window.

“No time!” Savannah yelled again. “Let’s go!”

“Drive ahead of us, and make sure we can get through,” Hale ordered him. The sheriff’s man was so damn dense, Savvy wanted to scream.

“I don’t know. The roads are worse and—”

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sp; “If you won’t do it, get out of the way!” she yelled, just managing not to scream at him.

He stepped back, unsure. But when Hale switched on the engine, he turned and raced, sliding mostly, as fast as he dared back to his Jeep. Once in his vehicle, he hit the lights, eased the Jeep around, and started west. Hale touched his accelerator, and they began to move, following after him.

Pain ripped through Savannah, and she bit down hard so as not to groan. She was in trouble. “Wait . . . wait.... We have to stop!” Then another, deeper spasm dug into her, and she let out a low cry.

“Savannah?” Hale glanced over his shoulder, his face white with concern, then stared forward again, his jaw taut. Braking slowly, he threw the SUV in park and slip-slid out the door, opening the backseat driver’s door and looking in on her. Outside, the deputy’s car had gone around a corner, its red taillights winking out.

The contraction was harder. Took her breath away. She lay her cheek on the window and felt the weight in the small of her back and her limbs, like something shifting, a gravitational pull that made her lower half feel twice as heavy.

“We’re not going to make it to the hospital.”

Hale’s breath was near her, warming her ear. “Okay.”

And then another gush of something warm down her leg. Blood. Fluid. Delivery time.

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