Chapter 20: Krista's Due Date

Annie's POV

Boone never came near me for five weeks, and I did not trust it for one of them.

The text came on a Tuesday at ten past nine, from a number I had saved as K.

It said: At the shop. Contractions 4 min apart. He's at the lodge with his phone off. I'm sorry to ask.

Rafe was forty miles away, hauling a dead truck out of a ditch for a customer.

Maggie was in her bassinet, awake and gumming her fist.

I looked at the screen and understood that no one else was coming.

Then I put Maggie in her car seat, took the keys to Rafe's truck off the hook and went.

The shop's back door was unlocked.

A single light burned in the paint booth.

Krista sat on the concrete floor with her back against a stack of primed fenders.

Her braid was undone, and both her hands were braced on the ground.

She was enormous.

Her face was gray and wet, and she was trying not to cry.

"You came," she said.

"Don't talk. Can you stand?"

"I think so."

"Is it your first?"

"Yes."

"Then we have time, and you're not delivering in a paint booth."

I got an arm under hers and heaved.

She came up with a groan and clutched my shoulder, and a contraction took her halfway.

She hung there with her eyes shut, breathing through her teeth.

"Tell me something," I said, and my voice was steadier than I felt. "Anything. What's his name?"

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