Startled when they broke from the tree line into the open, she bolted away.
They stood quietly, holding hands, listening to the sounds of the birds beginning to roost in the tops of the surrounding trees. An opossum beat a hasty retreat out of the broken-down house, glaring sullenly at them on his way to the woods.
“It’s so quiet here right now.” Rick swiveled his head to catch the sounds. “It’s hard to believe a month from now, it’ll be crawling with kids again.”
Summer took his other hand and turned to face him. “Actually, a few months from now, this place may never be quiet again.” Her mysterious smile didn’t mesh with the tears shining in her eyes.
“Why is that?”
She let go of his hand and reached into her pocket, bringing out some kind of stick. She held it out to him.
“What’s this?”
She laughed softly. “My new magic wand.”
Rick squinted in the fading light. “Positive,” he read aloud.
Summer nodded. “Positive by about two weeks, I think. So in about eight and a half months...”
Eight and a half months? It took several seconds for the math to catch up with him, but then his heart started to beat at a quick rhythm. “You’re pregnant?”
Summer nodded, her face breaking into a radiant smile.
He couldn’t, didn’t want to, contain his happiness. “Ooh-rah!” He let out a whoop sure to be heard all the way to the lake.
In one leap, Summer was in his arms, her legs locked around his waist, and he was twirling around and around, in a dance of the most ecstatic joy he’d ever known.
They laughed and kissed and shouted, then laughed and kissed some more, until Summer finally begged to be put down.
“I don’t want to get sick,” she insisted, and he reluctantly set her on her own feet.
He looked around at the Byassee place. The ramshackle old house seemed an odd choice for such an announcement. Catching Summer’s chin with his finger, he raised her face. “So the angels have returned?”
“The angels never left.” She took his hands and kissed them tenderly. “They were here watching over us the whole time.”
He pulled her close and lowered his mouth to hers. “I can’t argue with that,” he whispered. “Right now, I’m holding two of them in my arms.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Other Side of Us by Sarah Mayberry!
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CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS WET and dark and cold. At first she didn’t know where she was, then she realized she was in the car, the wipers working overtime, the road a shiny black ribbon stretching in front of her. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, but it felt rubbery and insubstantial beneath her hands. Panic welled inside her. She knew what was coming next. What always came next.
Then she saw it, the dark mass of rocks blocking the middle of the curving mountain road. Her scream was swallowed by the explosive crash of glass breaking and metal crushing as the car hit, then there was nothing but pain and the realization that she was going to die out here on this godforsaken stretch of road....
Mackenzie Williams bolted upright, heart racing, sweat cold and clammy on her body. The bedclothes were a heavy tangle around her legs and for a few disoriented seconds she fought to free herself before reality reasserted itself.
She was alive. She was at the beach house in Flinders. And she ached. God, how she ached. Her hips, her shoulder, her back...
She scrubbed her face with both hands, then let out her breath on an exhausted sigh. It had been almost two months since she’d had a nightmare and she’d hoped they were a thing of the past. No such luck, apparently.
She threw off the covers then swung her legs to the floor. Her joints and muscles protested the action, as they always did first thing in the morning or when she’d been sitting in the same position for too long. She gritted her teeth and pushed herself to her feet anyway. If she