“It’s hard to say,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “In that picture, your son was so tiny. Mine was born full-term. Eight pounds, seven ounces. He had chubby cheeks. Still does,” Delaney added in a whisper.
Full-term. One of the joys of parenthood that Ryan had never gotten to experience. But then, Adam’s life had been so short, that neither he nor his son had experienced a lot of things.
While he gave her answer some thought, he tested the high beams of his headlights, but they merely bounced back the reflection of the rain. Ryan switched back to low beams and fastened his attention on the dark, slick road that would take them to the highway.
“You don’t happen to have a picture of your son, do you?” Ryan asked.
“No.” Her response was as fast as the bolt of lightning that slashed on the horizon in front of them.
She was lying.
And she was really bad at it.
Her voice actually cracked. There was, no doubt, a picture or two tucked inside her wallet. What new mother wouldn’t carry around photos of her baby? Still, Ryan had no intentions of calling her on that lie. In a way, he welcomed it. Because if he saw a photo of her son, he’d scrutinize it and pick it apart until he forced himself to see something. Anything. That would only cause the hope to grow.
There was no room left in his heart for hope.
“I don’t know if my father ever contacts you,” she said. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan watched her twist the trio of rings she had on her thumb, pinkie and middle fingers of her right hand. The one on her middle finger had a tiny jeweled butterfly charm dangling from it. “But if he does, I’d prefer that you not mention anything about this visit.”
“Your father only contacts me through his lawyers. And the last thing I’d discuss with him or anyone else is what happened tonight.”
“Thank you.” She paused and did more of that nervous fidgeting with her fingers. Delicate fingers. For that matter, a delicate face. Not drop-dead gorgeous, but attractive in a woman-next-door sort of way. Unfortunately, he found that appealing.
Even though that hadn’t been the case until tonight.
“But you will check up on Dr. Keyes and the embryologist, won’t you?” Delaney asked.
“Absolutely. If there’s some kind of scam, I’ll find out.”
She blew out a long breath, probably not from relief. By now, she was probably kicking herself for even coming to the estate.
He understood how she felt.
There was another flash of lightning, and as the white-hot spear sliced through the darkness, Ryan thought he saw something on the road just ahead. A shadow, maybe. Maybe one of the horses had gotten out of the pasture. He automatically leaned in closer to the windshield, trying to look through the rain and the murky night to determine what it was.
But it was too late.
The dark-colored car came out of the thick curtain of rain. Not on the other side of the road, either.
Right at them.
Ryan heard Delaney scream. A sound of terror that he was sure he would remember for the rest of his life.
If he had a rest of his life, that is.
As he swerved to the right, it occurred to him that this could turn out to be a fatal accident. He knew what was out there.
A deep, six-foot-wide irrigation ditch.
Almost certainly overflowing with rainwater.
A second later, Ryan took out the almost certainly. Even though he tried to keep the car on the road, he wasn’t successful. They hit the narrow shoulder of soggy, slick gravel, skidded and then plunged right into the watery ditch.
Chapter Four
One second Delaney was breathing.
Then, she wasn’t.
The air bag hit her face and chest. The impact of the collision into the ditch, coupled with that slam, knocked the breath right out of her. Before she could react, she felt the icy cold water begin to gush into the car, spilling onto her feet and legs.
Reality quickly set in.
They were no longer on the road. The car was on its side, her side, harshly angled into a gaping ditch. The collision had crushed in her door, so much so that it vised against her right shoulder.
Trapping her.
If she didn’t do something fast, she was going to die.
She forced herself not to panic. No easy feat. Her heart was already pounding, and adrenaline was pumping through her.
Frantically, Delaney batted back the milky-white air bag so she’d have some room to maneuver and so she could see. Beside her, she felt Ryan do the same. She wasn’t successful. With each jab of her fist, each slam of her hands, the air bag shifted, but there was no place for it to go. And along with the crushed-in interior, it was literally holding her in place.
The water didn’t cooperate, either. It got deeper. Fast. It came in not as a trickle but a flood. Rushing into the car through the edges of the windows. The doors. And from the floor. Filling it. It rose past her knees. To her waist.
And it just kept on coming.
Along with it came the panic. The fear. She had to get out of there.
She felt Ryan’s hand bump against her left hip. Because Delaney was still battling the air bag, she didn’t immediately realize what he was doing. She quickly became aware that he was unlatching her seat belt.
“Come on,” he said.
It wasn’t a shout, but a calmly spoken statement as if this weren’t the life-and-death situation it had quickly become.
Ryan didn’t wait for her to comply. He caught on to her shoulder. Pulling. Tugging. Delaney did some maneuvering of her own. She rammed her forearm into the air bag, shoving it aside, and she slipped through the opening and into Ryan’s waiting arms.
It wasn’t an easy fit.
Even though his side of the car wasn’t bashed in, there was an air bag in the way, and he hauled her onto his seat, sandwiching her between the air bag, the steering wheel and his solid body.
He didn’t waste any time. With the exception of headlights that were buried beneath the water, it was pitch-dark and she couldn’t see much, but Delaney heard the soft grind of his window. It seemed to take an eternity to lower.
With each passing second, her heart beat faster. She prayed, while the water got deeper. Rushing into the car and rising until it swirled around her chest.
Then the soft grinding sound stopped.
The window stopped.
The
