Chapter Forty-Nine

“Stop worrying, Fawn.” JohnScott tapped the screen on his cell phone as he opened the back gate. “Only five minutes.”

“Five minutes there and five minutes back, or five total?” The wind swept a curl across my eyes, and I turned into the onslaught, letting the air hit me full in the face. Stress seeped from my pores, spiraled down my hair, and snapped from the end of each wind-tossed curl.

“How about four each way?”

“Good deal.”

JohnScott led me in a wide berth around the pile of bark that had once been my woodpile.

“Is it safe to walk at this time of day?” I asked.

“Not the best idea we’ve had, but at least there’s a full moon.”

“We need Rowdy.”

“I’ll bring him back from Mom’s house tomorrow. Should’ve already.” JohnScott activated the flashlight on his cell phone and slipped his hand into mine.

My body had almost gotten back to normal, and I had pent-up energy longing for release. The four-minute time limit created a mental safety net around my maternal instincts, and I picked up my pace.

“Slow down,” JohnScott said. “I can’t keep up.”

“You too old?”

“Now … don’t go there.”

“You listening for the monitor?”

He held the receiver to his ear. “Not sure I’ll be able to hear much in this wind.” He adjusted the volume control, and we both heard the baby cry slightly.

My heart lurched, and I spun around and began walking back to the house.

JohnScott laughed. “So much for our four-minute sprint.”

I reached for his wrist and turned his phone to see the screen. “Three and a half. That’s not bad.”

The baby cried louder, and my milk let down, instantly moistening the pads I had placed inside my bra. Thank goodness I had done that. The personal problems associated with breastfeeding were not something I wanted to share with JohnScott.

I pressed my forearms against my chest, pretending to straighten my necklace, but when I heard a man’s voice over the intercom, all thoughts of leaking milk were lost.

“Hush up, boy.”

Gravel ground beneath my feet as I jerked to a stop, gripping the intercom between sweaty palms. “What’s Tyler doing here?”

JohnScott kept walking, faster now. “Probably just came to see Nathan.”

We were halfway back to the house. No need to worry.

But when Tyler spoke again, his stilted voice made my skin go cold. “Daddy’s here, Ty, and you’re never going to be a kicker.”

In the moonlight, JohnScott looked like a mountain lion, ready to pounce, and when the screen door slammed, he took off at a sprint, his flashlight swinging crazily as he hurdled cactus.

I ran after him, stumbling across the moonlit pasture with my soft insides jiggling in protest. But even as I considered the possibility of crossing the path of a rattlesnake, anxiety propelled me faster and faster. Branches lashed my shoulders, and tall grass slapped against my jeans.

The glow of Tyler’s headlights shone around the side of the house, and guttural sobs choked from my throat. My legs felt weighted as I clunked past the new woodpile, feeling clumsy and inadequate and slow.

JohnScott charged around the corner just as Tyler’s truck spun, sending a shadow of dust into the wind.

He wouldn’t take the baby, would he? My chest heaved as I ran across the front yard. “Where’s Nathan?” I screamed the words and lunged toward the porch. My baby would be safely in his crib, right where I left him. But JohnScott grabbed my arm, wrenching me toward his truck, and as my skin burned from his grip, I remembered Ruthie giving me a two-handed sunburn in first grade.

“Get in!” He lunged for the driver’s door, but time moved in slow motion, and a mired-in-quicksand frustration pressed against me as though I were in a nightmare. My fingers clawed at the handle, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the road.

Tyler’s brake lights fishtailed lazily, illuminating the jagged drop-off each time the truck swung to the left. A low grinding filled my ears as the tires locked and slid across gravel, but the sound gave way abruptly, unbelievingly when the truck sailed over the edge and into a free fall. For a long moment, I heard nothing but the soft purr of the engine echoing against the caliche walls.

My feet were cemented to the ground, but I took one faltering step before the oxygen around me thickened with the paralyzing racket of metal on rock. The vehicle carrying my baby—my world—had just dropped fifteen feet and slammed to the uneven ground below. I could no longer see the truck, but I stared into the blackness as the Ford rolled end over end down the Caprock’s steep decline, its taillights casting a beam into the night sky like a grand-opening celebration.

Suddenly the wind slacked, and sounds became amplified in my ears. The horrifying crunch of the truck’s frame. The shatter of breaking glass. The thick snap of a cedar. The rumble of a small avalanche of rocks and pebbles.

Then horrific, mind-numbing, tangible silence pressed against me, holding me captive and suffocating me with the odor of gasoline.

I screamed.

And I screamed.

And I screamed.