Page 54 of Claimed By My Biker Daddies
We hang for a beat between momentum and rest, then stall.
Silence slams down, fast and complete. The only sound is the breath I am not taking.
Then both babies cry, because they are alive and because their mother made a noise she did not mean to make.
I put my head to the wheel for one heartbeat and let my fear walk around the car and leave.
I sit up.
I turn the key.
The engine coughs and fails.
I try again. Nothing.
The world narrows to two babies and snow hammering the windshield.
“There is no one here,” I say, not to frighten myself, only to name the fact. No headlights. No houses. No service. Only white.
I reach back and find Luca’s foot where he kicked free of his blanket.
I tuck him in.
He calms by degrees because his brother is crying louder and someone has to take notes.
I find Gabe’s pacifier and place it with the finesse of a bomb tech.
He takes it, spits it, wails, then decides on a compromise and sucks like his life depends on it.
“Okay,” I say, breath fogging, mind clearing. “We do the thing where we do not panic.”
The heater is dead, which means the warmth we have is leaving in neat parcels.
I pull quilts from the tote and layer them over the car seats until both boys are bundled like small luxury pastries.
I tug my hat down, pull gloves on, and do math I hate.
Walking with both in this mess is dangerous.
Leaving them while I scout eighteen feet is worse.
The lodge is somewhere in these hills, but my last known direction was toward town.
I rest my forehead on the wheel.
The car smells like orange, sugar, and baby shampoo.
A tear escapes, hot, then cools on my cheek.
I wipe it away.
I am a woman who drove into the teeth of winter for bread and hope.
I do not have time to be tragic.
Wind hits the car and rocks it on its struts, not hard, just enough to remind me the mountain does not care about my schedule. Snow covers the side mirror.
The outside world is blank.
