Chapter 1

My husband watched me fall at thirty-six weeks pregnant, then used our only car to drive his ex-fiancée down the mountain.

The last shuttle had left Blackpine Lodge. We had kept a rented SUV so I could leave whenever the baby made me tired.

Then my shoe slipped on the wet stone.

My palm and hip struck the stone. My stomach pulled me sideways, and Sophie went still beneath my ribs. Pain tightened across my abdomen.

I needed a hospital—and Daniel to choose us before he knew how bad it was.

Olivia reached me first, her wedding lace dragging through mud as she called emergency services.

Daniel crouched beside me, his wedding band cold against my shoulder. His eyes measured the empty driveway, not my face.

Thunder cracked above the roof.

Rachel dropped her place cards and backed against the door, gasping, one fist around her silver pendant. I had seen her panic attacks. Her terror was real.

So was my pain.

“We can all take the SUV,” I said. “Drop me at the hospital, then take Rachel to the hotel.”

Rachel shook her head. “I can’t be trapped beside someone who’s hurt. The sounds and the closed space will make it worse.”

The lodge manager offered to drive Rachel in our SUV while Daniel stayed with me. An employee from the hotel could return the vehicle.

Rachel did not look at him. “Daniel knows how to stop it.”

I watched Daniel close his fingers around the rental keys. The plastic tag bore both our names; behind it hung the tiny wooden bear I had bought for Sophie’s nursery.

“Wait until the paramedics answer,” I said. “Please.”

“I’ll be back in forty minutes.” He pulled his sleeve from my grip. “You’re the strong one. Rachel can barely breathe.”

The wooden bear tapped against his knuckles as he stood.

I had always heard *strong* as praise. Now I understood: Rachel’s fear required action. Mine could be left with witnesses.

Olivia rose, mud streaking her white satin. “Claire fell hard. You don’t know if the baby is safe.”

“She has you and the lodge staff,” Daniel said. “Rachel has no one.”

He said it while the manager was still standing beside her.

Rachel’s breathing eased enough for her to walk to the SUV. She clasped Daniel’s wrist, and he bent toward her with the patience he had not given my fear.

I pressed my palm against the stone to stop myself from reaching after him. Water ran between my fingers, carrying a thin ribbon of mud over my wedding ring.

Daniel placed our emergency bag beside Sophie’s empty car seat. My coat caught in the door; he reopened it and carefully tucked the sleeve inside.

He protected my coat from the rain.

Then he drove away with it while leaving me behind.

The taillights passed between the pines and vanished, taking our only immediate route to the hospital.

Olivia folded her ruined train beneath my head while someone covered me with a wool blanket smelling of smoke. I watched the bend, waiting for Daniel to recognize his mistake before the mountain swallowed his lights.

The clock above the lodge doors moved through ten full minutes.

Sophie shifted once—small and weak—then pain locked across my abdomen so hard that my teeth struck together. Warmth spread beneath my dress.

I lifted the pale blue fabric with shaking fingers and saw the first stain of blood.