She took several deep breaths and put her foot on the accelerator, and slowly-ever so slowly-the car began to move again. The snow was getting worse. No doubt about it. At the rate she was going, it would be a long time before she reached any sort of civilization. Maybe she should turn around and go back. Maybe no one had realized that she was gone. She could get back in bed and try again another night.

The road was narrow. If she turned around here, she would have to be careful not to slide off the road.

Already the snow was drifting against vegetation and blurring the edge of the roadway.

What if Montgomery had already discovered that she was gone? If she went back, Montgomery would have her locked up. In the tower with Mary Millicent. Or maybe in the cellar. She would never have another chance to escape.

She continued driving forward. Her speed barely registered on the speedometer. She leaned forward, peering over the steering wheel. She blinked her straining eyes and almost missed a curve in the road.

As she inched around the curve, another pain grabbed hold of her body. She lifted her foot from the accelerator, clutched the steering wheel, and waited for it to pass.

Not too bad, she told herself. Not the real thing. There was no reason for her to go into labor three weeks early. She was healthy and had had a normal pregnancy. Freda had said so. In fact, Freda had said she was amazingly healthy. Not a single sign of anything amiss. Her blood pressure was perfect. No sign of toxemia. The baby had a strong heartbeat.

She began to inch forward again. At this rate she would reach the Oklahoma Panhandle sometime next week.

But surely she would run out of the snow soon. Just keep going, she told herself.

She checked to make sure the windshield wipers were on the highest setting.

Her neck and shoulders hurt more than the pains in her belly. Jamie rolled her head around in an attempt to relieve the tension in her neck.

The road curved again, and she spotted something just ahead. A mailbox mounted on a fence post. A place where she could turn around-if that was what she decided to do. She slowed to a stop.

Then the muscles in her abdomen began to contract and another pain grabbed hold of her body. She clutched the steering wheel and willed the pain to pass. This one was harder than the other two and took longer to recede.

She turned off the motor and headlights, then waited in the darkness to see if there was another pain. Without the heater, the temperature in the car immediately began to drop. She reached in the backseat for a blanket and covered herself with it. Then she reached for Ralph and tucked him under it, too.

She stroked his head and prayed. No more pain. Please.

What the hell was she going to do if she was in labor? She would have to go back to the ranch. She had no choice. She would be risking the baby’s life if she didn’t.

What if God was on Amanda’s side?

With that discouraging thought, she began to moan. “I’m sorry, God, if I wasn’t supposed to do this, but I was afraid of what was going to happen to me afterward. And I don’t want Amanda to raise my baby. She might not do bad things herself, but I think she looks the other way and lets bad things happen. Please, if you’re mad at me, don’t take it out on the baby. He hasn’t done anything wrong. I want him to live. Please let him live,” she sobbed. But her sob turned into a gasp as another pain took hold of her body.

When it ended, she stared at her watch with its glowing dial, hoping to determine how much time passed in between pains. But when the next pain started, she forgot to check the time. She grabbed hold of the steering wheel and waited for it to end.

Then she forced herself to stare at the watch as she waited. Almost ten minutes passed before the now familiar pain began once again. And ten more minutes before the next pain. When that pain subsided, she actually felt calmer. She knew what the situation was and knew what she had to do. What she was experiencing was not false labor. Not Braxton Hicks. Snow was drifting against the windshield. The roads were becoming impassable. Pretty soon the car was going to be buried. Unless she found some sort of shelter, she and her baby and her dog were going to freeze to death.

Jamie turned on her headlights and squinted to make out the faded name on the mailbox. It was McGraf. There would be no help for her at the end of this lane, but at least she would be out of the weather.

The lane was completely buried under snow, but she was guided by the fence posts that marched along both sides. Just as she pulled up in front of a small frame house with a sagging roof and boards nailed over the windows, she had another pain-a hard pain that took her breath away.

She took a flashlight from the glove compartment, found her boots among the pile of things in the backseat, and exchanged her sneakers for them. At one time the front door of the house had probably been padlocked, but now it stood open. She shined the light around the small front room. The floor was littered with beer cans and trash. A broken chair lay in one corner. She walked over to a stone fireplace. There was cold air coming down the chimney. A good sign. The chimney would draw.

Working in between the pains, she began gathering wood and piling it beside the fireplace-any sort of wood she could find-twigs, sticks, fallen fence posts, the broken chair, loose boards from the front porch. Ralph was always at her side. Poor little dog. How confusing this must be for him. She would have to remember to feed him and put out water for him when they settled down inside.

She slipped and fell several times, at one point striking her forehead so hard against the edge of the porch that she saw stars. Another time she slipped and slammed her hip against a tree.

Once she had a sizable pile of wood, she dug around in the trunk and backseat, locating blankets, quilts, towels, a box with the few dishes and utensils she had kept from her grandmother’s kitchen, and another box with snacks, dog food, and water bottles she’d packed with her journey in mind.

The pains seemed somewhat closer together. Not unbearable but getting harder. She kept fear at bay with busyness. Doing what had to be done.

There were two old mattresses in one of the bedrooms. She dragged them both into the living room, putting the least filthy one in front of the fireplace.

She piled wood in the fireplace then tore open the spare mattress and pulled cotton batting from it to use for kindling. She had no matches but found a tin can among the trash scattered about the house and poked some of the cotton batting inside it. Then she took the can out to the car and used the cigarette lighter to ignite the cotton.

She knew that one was supposed to boil water before a delivery, although she wasn’t quite sure why. Since she had only three water bottles, she filled her grandmother’s soup pot with snow, and set it close to the fire.

What else might be useful? she asked herself.

She would need string and scissors for the umbilical cord. She waited for the next pain to end, then went back out to the car and located her grandmother’s scissors in the sewing stand. In lieu of string, she cut a narrow strip from a towel. And she placed the scissors and strip by the mattress.

She closed the living room off from the rest of the house to prevent heat from escaping and continued making forays outside in search of more firewood and to collect snow to melt in the pan by the fire. She discovered that it took a lot of snow to make only a little water.

The snow was getting ever deeper, but she had no way of knowing how much wood she would need and decided she would keep gathering wood as long as she was physically able. She tore rotting boards from the front gate and a collapsed shed.