windowless storage room that doubled as a tornado shelter. They could wait it out there.
Halfway across the slippery, cold, crowded parking lot, Christina felt a sharp pain in her abdomen. She gasped, but it went away as rapidly as it had come. She said nothing until it happened again—a cramp that twisted her insides and made her want to double over.
Fear as icy as the hail washed over her. “Grant!” she said in a panic.
Grant caught the terror in her voice. “What is it, sweetie? What’s wrong?”
“I need to go to the hospital.” Christina’s words caught, her throat tight. “Right now.”
Grant didn’t need to ask a barrage of questions. He understood.
He looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of any fire truck or ambulance yet. Emergency vehicles had to come in from the highway, and the roads were white with falling hail.
“Shit,” Grant said, then started for his truck. “Come on.”
A couple of people tried to stop them and ask what the matter was, but Grant simply shouldered his way through. He got Christina into the truck and cranked it to life.
The patrons from the diner were hurrying through the north side of the parking lot, making for the store, so Grant squealed off to the south driveway, which led them in the opposite direction they needed to go. He drove as fast as he could around three sides of the courthouse square to the north road, and headed out of town.
“Hang on, sweetheart,” Grant said, and drove directly into the storm.
Christina nodded. After the last pain, the cramps had subsided, but she clenched the seat, terrified they would return.
She couldn’t lose this baby. She couldn’t. Christina knew in her heart that if she didn’t bring this baby to term, she’d never have the chance to have another.
Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.
“No,” Christina sobbed.
Grant set his warm hand over her closed one. “I’m going to get you there all right, sugar. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, you got it?”
Christina nodded tightly again.
The truck spun as Grant took the corner to the highway, but he steadied it with an easy touch. No one else was on the road; the pavement was empty and gleaming in the dark.
Lightning filled the sky, and thunder boomed on top of it. The hail thickened, beating on the roof until the din blotted out all other sound.
Christina sucked in a breath as the truck slid again. “Grant, you are crazy!”
Grant let go of her hand to crank the steering wheel until they came out of the skid. “I am, but I’m good at what I do. I’m not losing you!”
“You won’t!” Christina yelled over the hail. “Not ever.” They were meant to be together—all this stuff shoving them toward each other couldn’t be a coincidence.
Call it God or destiny or the grand scheme of the universe, any event that had tried to tear them apart hadn’t been able to part them forever. They came back, like two ends of a stretched rubber band. Didn’t matter how far forces pulled them, they’d snap back together in the end. And who was Christina to defy the universe?
“Hot damn!” Grant shouted in response.
Hail blotted out almost everything, including the yellow line in the middle of the road, the brush on either side of it. Grant’s headlights glittered on falling ice.
Christina shouted, “You know, if we wreck on the way, none of this will matter.”
“We won’t. Hang on!”
The truck spun again, and again, Grant calmly righted it. He knew this vehicle well, and coaxed it to work like he wooed his horses.
Christina laughed out loud. In spite of her absolute fear and this wild weather, Grant was taking care of her, just like he always did.
“I love you, Grant Campbell!” she said at the top of her voice. “Will you marry me?”
“What?” Grant stared at her a split second before he swung back to peer down the road.
“I said, will you marry me?”
“Shit, woman!”
“Is that a no?” Christina was shaking all over from terror and adrenaline rush. “Because I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“Damn it all to hell, baby, I’m supposed to be asking you that.”
“Then why haven’t you?” Christina reached out and put her hand on his warm thigh—not enough to distract him, but because she needed to be touching him. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere!”
“Because I thought you’d want to wait. You know—to find out.”
She laughed again, her laughter tinged with hysteria. “I thought you wanted