Chapter 2 - The Edge of the Highway
The autumn rain began to fall in heavy, icy sheets over the rolling hills of Williamson County.
My heavy black SUV tore through the winding country backroads at ninety miles an hour, wipers slapping frantically against the windshield.
The headlights swept across the desolate shoulders, cutting through the dense mist that rose from the pine forests.
"Where are you, Megan?" I muttered, my hands trembling against the leather steering wheel. "God, please... just let them be alive."
Two miles past the abandoned lumber yard, a flicker of movement caught the edge of my high beams.
A slender, soaked silhouette was dragging a massive burlap sack through the mud, her back bent nearly in half under the weight.
Strapped against her chest beneath a soaked denim jacket were two small bundles wrapped in faded blue flannel, their heads tucked beneath her chin.
I slammed the brakes so hard the vehicle skidded thirty feet across the gravel shoulder, stopping diagonally across the ditch.
I kicked open the door, vaulting into the pouring rain without bothering to grab a coat, sprinting toward her through the mud.
"Megan!" I screamed, the cry ripping from my throat.
The woman froze, her spine locking into a defensive crouch as she instinctively dropped the sack of cans and wrapped both arms around the babies on her chest.
She reached into her waistband, pulling out a rusted flathead screwdriver, holding it toward me with shaking hands.
"Stay back!" she rasped, her voice hoarse from the freezing rain and exhaustion. "I took the twenty dollars and left! I'm off your land, Rowan! Don't touch my boys!"
I stopped five feet from her, dropping to both knees in the freezing, red Tennessee clay.
The cold water soaked straight through my designer trousers, but I didn't care. I looked up into her hollow, rain-streaked face, seeing the raw, feral terror of a mother who had fought the entire world alone for three hundred and sixty-five days.
Beneath the worn wet blankets, two tiny faces peeked out.
May you like
Lucas and Noah looked at me with wide, brilliant silver-gray eyes—the exact mirror of my own eyes staring back from the dark.
"Megan..." I sobbed, tears cutting through the rain on my cheeks as I bowed my head until my forehead touched the muddy earth before her worn sandals. "I know. I know everything."
