A pretty name for a hideous trailer park off Highway 73. Not so much a grove as it is a muddy clearing lined with a few dozen trailers, all of them run-down and propped up on grubby cinder blocks. They surround a cluster of cracked picnic tables and a rusty swing set, the seats and metal chains long gone. Any rental contract should come with a free tetanus shot.

“I’ll take the couch, and I promise not to hog the bathroom or leave my crap all over the place.”

Call me thickheaded, but that’s when the realization hits. This move is for me, too. I’m moving from this place to a trailer. I’m ending up right where I began with a baby in tow.

Chet reads the look on my face, and his voice softens. “It’s only for a little while. We’ll be out of there by the time the baby comes. I swear.”

“How?”

He shrugs. “We’ll figure out a way. We always do.”

He’s right, even though a real McCreedy would be packing up all the valuables right now. She’d swipe the silver, stuff the cash from the safe in a bag and take off into the wind. She’d put this ridiculous sham of a marriage in her past, bail on this accidental pregnancy. If I were anything like my mother, I’d be long gone by now.

But I’m not like her, which is why I’m leaving here with what I walked in with all those months ago. Two pairs of threadbare Levi’s, five polyester sweaters, some underwear and T-shirts and my most comfortable pajamas, stuffed into a Hefty bag by the front door. As far as I’m concerned, this part of my life is like Vegas: what happened here stays here, hanging from velvet hangers upstairs in the closet.

All but one tiny memento, a little seed sprouting in my belly.

I shimmy the diamond off my finger, place it on the counter next to the sink and turn to Chet. “Okay. I’m ready.”

37

The average person can hold their breath for somewhere around a minute. That’s sixty seconds for the clock to tick down and the scales to tip in your body. Oxygen levels plummet while carbon dioxide builds in your bloodstream, blazing like fire in your lungs until instinct kicks in, and you suck an involuntary breath. Air. Water. Either one will put out the flame.

Paul or Bobby. That was the choice presented to Jax that night. His best friend or a drug dealer he barely knew. It wasn’t fair, and his decision wasn’t difficult. Jax chose his best friend, and if he had to do it all over, he’d choose Paul again in a heartbeat.