Chapter 1 - The SUV Door
The night of the fire, the sky behind our cabin turned an ugly orange.
Ash fell onto the porch like dirty snow. My phone had already screamed twice with evacuation alerts, and every neighbor on Pine Ridge Road had either left or was throwing bags into cars with shaking hands.
I was six months pregnant, standing in the hallway with one hand under my belly and the other gripping the SUV keys.
“Brett, we have to go now,” I said.
My husband came out of the bedroom with his jaw tight and his phone pressed to his ear. Behind him, his mother, Eleanor, buttoned her pale pink coat like this was an inconvenience, not an emergency.
And at the bottom of the stairs stood Tessa Vale.
Tessa, who Brett had told me was helping with a charity project.
Tessa, whose overnight bag sat by the front door.
Tessa, who would not meet my eyes.
I looked at Brett.
“What is she doing here?”
He reached for the keys.
I stepped back.
“Answer me.”
Outside, the wind shifted. Smoke pressed against the windows. Somewhere down the road, a car horn blared and kept going.
“Natalie,” Brett said in the calm voice he used when he wanted me to feel irrational, “this is not the time.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s time to leave.”
I started toward the door.
Brett caught my wrist.
Not hard enough to bruise.
Just hard enough to remind me he was bigger, faster, and already done listening.
Then he took the keys from my hand.
I froze.
“Brett.”
“I need to get my mother out first.”
“I’m your wife.”
His eyes dropped to my stomach for half a second, then moved away.
“I know.”
Those two words hurt more than if he had denied it.
Eleanor pushed past me toward the porch.
“Brett, get in the car,” she snapped. “If Natalie wants to stand here making a scene, let her.”
Tessa followed without saying a word.
The SUV was already running.
Eleanor climbed into the front passenger seat. Tessa slid into the back.
The back seat.
Where I should have been.
“Brett, please,” I said, grabbing the open driver’s door. “I’m carrying your baby.”
He would not look at me.
“You have your phone. Call someone.”
“The road is closing.”
“Then stop arguing and call.”
He pulled the door shut.
I slapped my hand against the window.
Tessa looked down at her lap.
Eleanor stared forward.
Brett rolled the window down two inches.
May you like
“You always make everything worse than it is,” he said.
Then he drove away.
