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Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for the novels of Mia Sheridan
  3. About the Author
  4. NOTE TO READERS
  5. Dedication
  6. prologue
  7. chapter one
  8. chapter two
  9. chapter three
  10. chapter four
  11. chapter five
  12. chapter six
  13. chapter seven
  14. chapter eight
  15. chapter nine
  16. chapter ten
  17. chapter eleven
  18. chapter twelve
  19. chapter thirteen
  20. chapter fourteen
  21. chapter fifteen
  22. chapter sixteen
  23. chapter seventeen
  24. chapter eighteen
  25. chapter nineteen
  26. chapter twenty
  27. chapter twenty-one
  28. chapter twenty-two
  29. chapter twenty-three
  30. chapter twenty-four
  31. chapter twenty-five
  32. chapter twenty-six
  33. chapter twenty-seven
  34. chapter twenty-eight
  35. chapter twenty-nine
  36. chapter thirty
  37. chapter thirty-one
  38. chapter thirty-two
  39. chapter thirty-three
  40. chapter thirty-four
  41. chapter thirty-five
  42. chapter thirty-six
  43. chapter thirty-seven
  44. chapter thirty-eight
  45. chapter thirty-nine
  46. chapter forty
  47. chapter forty-one
  48. chapter forty-two
  49. chapter forty-three
  50. chapter forty-four
  51. chapter forty-five
  52. chapter forty-six
  53. chapter forty-seven
  54. chapter forty-eight
  55. epilogue
  56. acknowledgments

Dear Garcia Family,

Our names are Emily and Tuck and we stayed here for three days. We cared for the horses and ensured that they’re all healthy and injury-free. We also added one more to your herd, a palomino that we found walking alone on the road that we named Providence. She was quickly accepted by the others and they’re all doing well.

We hope you reunited with your son and that the three of you are home and reading this together. We pray that you are.

We are taking the car in your garage, and if there is any way to return it, we promise to do that. And if there’s any way to pay you for the rental and the mileage, we vow to do that too.

(I also took a few feminine items, and hope with all my might that the world is such that I might replace those someday soon.)

We want to thank you for the three days of peace your home brought us as we’d been traveling since the solar flare hit. Our journey was filled with challenges and setbacks, and we saw the worst of humanity on display. But we also saw the best, and I hope you saw it too. It’s what we have to hold on to now in this new, chaotic world. And if this journey has made anything clear, it’s that that is how we’ll all survive. With the kindness of strangers, and the help of our friends.

And though you didn’t grant permission ahead of time, I hope you’ll extend forgiveness, and accept our deepest gratitude.

All our best,

E & T

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chapter thirty-six

Emily

Day Thirteen

I wiped the tears from my eyes as we drove away from the ranch where we’d spent three magical days, looking over my shoulder as the horses grew smaller and smaller.

“You okay?” Tuck asked, pulling me against him and kissing my temple.

I nodded, swallowing heavily. “I just worry about the horses.”

“They’ll be okay. The Garcias left them enough food for many months.”

Would that be enough though? The world was breaking down by the day. It’d taken us nearly two weeks—even with a number of rides clear across states—to make it from Illinois to New Mexico, but we’d left directly in the wake of the solar flare hitting. We’d had several days—at least—where much of the world was at a standstill as people just waited. We’d entered that pause—because of Tuck’s instincts to get on the road—and because of it, we had probably moved much more quickly than others who hadn’t.