Her Unexpected Joy (Protectors of Jasper Creek #9)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

I’d checked the weather yesterday before I’d left Jasper Creek for Tellico Plains. It had said a ten percent chance of snow. I took those odds. I didn’t have a choice; I had to make the hundred mile trip.

Poor Miss Laughton was being moved to Florida by her son and daughter-and-law next week. She supplied my store with pressed wild-flower art. Besides government money, me paying for her work was the only income she had, and I intended to see she got it.

When I got there, she offered me a cup of tea, and a chance to sit in a comfortable seat for a few minutes.

This was the last time we would see one another, so I took the time.

Plus, the huge watermelon I was growing in my gut for my sister made me cringe at the idea of getting back into the driver’s seat, so I sat down in her comfy chair.

It was while we were in her parlor, that I saw the first flake of snow fall.

She said ‘Heavens’ at the same time I muttered ‘Shit.’ Luckily, she giggled.

“Sorry, Miss Laughton.”

“No need to apologize. Let’s get you back into your Jeep so you can get home.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

We both got our coats and boots on, and she helped me place her artwork into the back of my Jeep.

“You drive careful, you hear?”

“I will,” I promised.

By the time we got the Jeep loaded, and I was back onto the main road, which was basically in the middle of nowhere, the snow was really coming down.

I squinted through the windshield.

Snowflakes were not supposed to be this big.

Plus, they weren’t flakes anymore. They were full-blown white feathers dive-bombing the windshield, sticking to the glass faster than my wipers could swipe.

The world beyond my headlights was just…

white. White road, white sky, white tree trunks looming up out of nowhere like an army of abominable snowmen.

“Totally fine,” I muttered, which was exactly what you said right before things weren’t fine at all. “It’s a dusting, they said. Flurries, they said. It’s February, they said, the roads will stay warm, they said—”

A contraction tightened low in my belly—not sharp, just a slow band of pressure that made me suck in a breath and lift my foot off the gas.

“Okay,” I told my uterus. “We’ve talked about this. Four weeks early is rude. We are aiming for on-time, remember? Your parents are planners. They have charts and graphs.”

Your parents.

I swallowed hard around the lump that always rose with those words. The baby rolled, like she didn’t care whose she was, as long as she had room.

“Fine, your mom and dad,” I corrected quietly. “Chloe and Zarek can have charts. Meanwhile, we can have snacks as soon as we get to Knoxville. What do you think, something from the Little Debbie menu? Maybe a Zebra Cake or a Cosmic Brownie?”

I turned up the heat and the heater wheezed, trying to keep up. My Jeep trudged along the two-lane road toward Jasper Creek, tires humming through slush. The OB in Knoxville had said I was fine to drive short distances, weather permitting. A hundred miles was short, right?

And according to the damn app on my phone, the weather was supposed to permit! Then the weather decided not to permit.

Another contraction rolled through, a notch tighter.

Normally it would only take me about an hour to get to Knoxville, an hour and a half to Jasper Creek.

I’d better start timing these phantom contractions that really aren’t happening.

Because there was no way in hell that I was going to allow this little girl to arrive four weeks before her delivery date.

I checked the dashboard clock. Four-oh-three. Hadn’t I left Miss Laughton’s at three-thirty? This was my third contraction.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and grinned at myself. “See, nothing to be alarmed about.” Even if these were real contractions, I was nowhere close to the delivery point.

My eyes settled back on the road and I concentrated on driving. The visibility was miserable, and I was only going seventeen miles an hour.

I blew out a long breath as the contraction ended. “Good girl. See, I told you, we’re not doing this in my Jeep. We are going to get home, you are going to stay put, and then in four weeks when everyone is ready and very calm, we will— OH SHIT!”

The deer came out of nowhere.

One second the road was just endless white. The next, a brown blur vaulted out of the trees and landed directly in my headlights, eyes wide and glowing like lanterns.

I swore, hard and loud, and jerked the wheel to the right.

The Jeep fishtailed, the back end sliding out. Snow and slush roared under the tires. I tapped the brakes gently just like they said in the driving videos—don’t slam, don’t panic. Like that was even a choice right now.

My Jeep spun. There was a sickening, weightless moment, and then everything tilted.

We went off the road, into the ditch, nose-first.

The impact snapped my teeth together. My seat belt dug into my chest, then locked. The engine sputtered, then died.

For a second, all I could hear was my own breath and the tick-tick-tick of something in the engine settling.

Then my stomach clenched. Deep.

“Oh, hell no,” I whispered.

This one wasn’t a mild squeeze. This was a grab. It started in my lower back and wrapped around my belly like a steel band, pressure spreading downward in a much more insistent manner than the other pains had been.

Nope. Nope. No!

I blew out a slow breath, the way the childbirth video had said. “You are fine,” I told myself. “This is fine. You hit a ditch. You scared yourself. That’s all. It’s adrenaline. Adrenaline does weird things.”

Everything settled.

I fumbled for my phone, groping blindly for it on the passenger seat.

It wasn’t there. Of course it wasn’t there.

I looked on the floor. Not there. I jammed my hand between the two front seats.

My fingers brushed the case once, twice, then closed around it.

Victory flared—until I brought it up and saw the spiderweb of glass across the screen.

The phone was black.

“Oh, come on.” I hit the side button. Nothing. Tried again. “Don’t you dare die on me, you little—”

Another wave of pain started to build.

“Are you fucking kidding me? It hasn’t even been four minutes!” I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, as the pain spread.

The baby pushed down against my pelvis, and I groaned.

“I thought you liked the Little Debbie plan,” I gritted out.

The pain swelled.

“Traitor,” I muttered.

The contraction peaked, wiping the rest of my thoughts right out of my brain.

I rode it out with my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, breathing like a woman trying very hard not to scream in a Jeep, in a ditch, in the middle of a snowstorm.

When it ebbed, sweat prickled at my hairline. The car was already getting colder.

“Okay,” I panted. “Okay. New plan.”

What was the plan?

I had no plan.

I could try to climb out, but the thought of waddling uphill between contractions while eight months pregnant made my spine cringe in advance. Anyway, the road would be empty because the snow was coming down harder now, and nobody but me would be out in this shit.

I put a hand on my belly instead. The baby pushed back, a firm, reassuring curve.

“Listen,” I told her. “This is not the story we’re telling.

You hear me? Your aunt is supposed to be in a hospital bed with good lighting and cute socks as she delivers you.

Your mom is supposed to be holding her hand and cheering her along.

Your dad should be terrified in the corner, and I should be throwing him sass, because I’ve had an epidural and feeling no pain. That’s how this goes.”

My eyes stung.

“Then, when everything is done, and you’re here, and everyone has stopped crying and taking a million pictures, I give you to them, and I go home and eat my weight in cinnamon rolls. That was the deal.”

I looked down at my regular serviceable watch, not the fancy kind of watch with its own phone number, and made note of the time. I needed to track exactly how long between each contraction. When were things going to get really real?

Snow piled up against the side window.

I don’t know how long I continued to talk to my niece, but it seemed like hours. It was really only a half hour but my teeth were starting to chatter.

Headlights reflected off my side mirror.

They cut through the swirl of white like a miniature sunrise, too bright and too close. For a panicked second, I thought the car was coming straight for us, but then the beams swerved, slowed, and eased to a stop on the shoulder above my ditch.

A dark truck. Four-wheel drive. Big tires.

Salvation on rims.

“Oh, thank god,” I breathed.

The driver’s door opened. A man dropped down, tall and broad in a heavy coat, knit cap pulled low. For a weird half-second, I thought, please don’t be a serial killer, and then another contraction hit and I decided I’d take my chances.

He picked his way down the slope, boots crunching on packed snow, and rapped on my window.

I pressed the button for the window to roll down. Of course it didn’t, because my damn Jeep didn’t have any juice. I opened the door halfway, cold air knifing in.

“You, okay?” he called over the wind. His voice was deep, steady. I swore I heard a kid’s voice talking from somewhere behind him—inside the truck, maybe—high and urgent.

“I—” I started, and then a sharp, undeniable pressure bore down low in my pelvis. My breath hitched. “Define okay,” I managed.

His gaze dropped to my belly, then sprang back to my face. His eyes were blue. Very, very blue.

“I’m stuck,” I said, because that was easier than I think I’m in labor in a ditch.

“I see that.” He nodded. “We need to get you to my truck, and get us to Knoxville to ride this out.”

“I don’t think we’re going to make it to Knoxville,” I grimaced.

“My truck can make it, trust me.”

“You don’t understand. I’m having a baby.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” His left lip twitched upward.

“Now,” I said succinctly. “I’m having a baby now. You can’t be driving.”

His eyes widened. Just for a heartbeat. Then something shuttered down, like a switch flipping from “civilian” to “crisis mode.”

“Right,” he said. “Okay. I’m Adam. I’m going to help you.”

“Zoe,” I blurted. “I’m Zoe. And this isn’t my baby.” Because that seemed important to clarify before things got really weird.

That same corner of his mouth twitched again. “That sounds like a longer conversation,” he said. “Let’s get you out of this ditch first.”

The contraction started to climb.

“Yeah,” I gritted. “About that…we might have to multitask.”

Because of course. Of course, my life was about to introduce itself to this stranger with a snowstorm, a crash, and the world’s second most complicated birth story.

Welcome to my life, Adam.