I’d given Mom my basket of laundry, and she’d washed my clothes while I was at work.
I either needed to stop, or I wouldn’t have any clothes for the next three days, because there was no way in hell we were going out in this again if it was going to continue to pour.
Pulling over, I waited while Mom came back.
The moment she was behind me, I got out and cursed when my feet hit the ground and the water rose to the bottoms of my calves this time.
“Jesus, this town needs to work on getting some better drainage.”
It’d always been bad, but the amount of rain we were getting was something the town of Mooresville had never seen before. In all fairness, how in the hell was the town supposed to prepare for something they never saw coming?
That’s right, they couldn’t, but it still didn’t stop me from cursing the engineers who designed the drainage system for the city.
“Sorry,” I apologized as I took the basket out of the backseat.
She waved me off, and I headed back to my car, throwing the basket in the seat next to Tallulah.
Waving, I opened my door and lifted my leg.
“Ohh!” my mother called right when I was about to drop back into my seat. “Her medicine!”
My belly rolled as I realized what, exactly, I almost forgot.
She couldn’t go anywhere without her medicine. If she did, and she had an asthma attack, she could literally lose her life in a matter of seconds.
I had backups at my house, my parents’ house, in my car, and parents’ vehicles.
Today, though, my mom told me that she’d misplaced her meds, so I’d given her the spares out of my car until she found them, intending to have her prescriptions refilled sometime in between leaving the hospital and going to work.
But I’d gotten distracted by Tommy and wound up going to breakfast with him instead.
And just look at where that almost got me!
“Thank you,” I whispered, once again sloshing through the water.
She waved me off, and I dumped the meds into the basket of clothes that my mother had so helpfully folded for me as well.
Tallulah waved at my mother as she pulled a U-turn in the empty street, and I started off in the direction of home.
My eyes were glued to the street around me, and I was driving so slow I likely looked incompetent.
The idea of driving into flood water, though, terrified me.
I’d watched on the news as not one, but five vehicles had been carried away by flood waters rushing over the road, and I wasn’t going to be another one of them.
Or so I thought.
I’d just pulled onto Belk Street that would eventually lead me home when I felt the 4-Runner start to drift.
Water came up over the road, lightning fast. One second I was driving, and the next I was being swept right off the road and through the trees.
My blood froze as I lost control of everything.
My car spun backward, and my heart started to pound.
“Dear God,” I whispered, looking over my shoulder to my child in the backseat.
She was enjoying it. Her arms were flapping, and her cries of excitement filled the air around us.
I, on the other hand, understanding just what kind of danger we were in, was freaking out.
Coming to a quick decision, I reached back for the blanket that she always had to have. This one was one of those muslin blankets that was very thin and tied easily.
I’d used it a hundred different times to tie it around Tallulah’s shoulders so she could use it as a cape.
I also had about five of them in the backseat from where they’d been left there.
Meaning I could tie them together, then tie her to me so I’d have my hands free.
Because I was fairly certain that we were about to go swimming.
My phone rang, but I left it in my back pocket where I’d stored it after speaking with my mother.
Instead, I quickly tied the blankets together. Then I unfastened my seatbelt and turned around in my seat.
The car rocked precariously to one side, and I halted.
My gaze went out the window to ascertain what was happening around me, and I froze when I saw flashlights.
I knew they were flashlights by the way they bounced and swirled.
There were two of them, and they were obviously trying to get my attention.
Brows furrowing, I rolled the windows down, then had the thought that I should probably turn the SUV off.
Which I did in the next second, allowing me to hear the yells.
“Answer your goddamn phone!”
I answered my phone.
“H-hello?”
The car bounced hard, and I turned my head rapidly to the side to find that it’d come to a rest against two trees.
The water was still moving quickly around me, but it was held in place—for now.
“Don’t fucking move. Don’t do a goddamn thing.”
My heart started to thud in my chest.
“Tommy.”
He growled something unintelligible, and I bit my lip and looked over my seat at Tallulah.
Her eyes were growing heavy with sleep, and I swallowed thickly.
She had no clue, and I envied her that.
She had absolutely no earthly idea what kind of situation we were in. One wrong move and the car would be swept out to God knows where, and we’d be along for the ride.
“Are you listening to me?”
Tommy’s barked words had me turning back toward the lights, and then placing the phone back to my ear.
I hadn’t been aware that I’d dropped it from its previous position.
“No, I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m listening now, though.”
He growled.
“We’re tying some ropes off to a tree that’s right here. We’re both going to come get you, okay?” Tommy instructed.
“I’m not by myself. Tallulah’s with me,” I whispered.
At the mention of her name, the eyelashes that started to fan against her cheeks bounced back open.
I smiled at her, trying to dissuade her from thinking anything was wrong.
She smiled back, and her eyes grew heavy once again.
Tommy cursed a blue streak.
“We’re coming. You’re not far off the road.”
I wasn’t?
How was that even possible? I’d floated for what felt like days before I’d hit the trees.
But that was obviously just my brain playing tricks on my rational mind.
Now that I studied the lights that were slowly coming toward me, they were a lot closer than I’d thought they were previously.
By my estimation, I was only about fifty yards off the road, which really wasn’t that far at all.
“Okay,” I whispered, voice trembling now.
The adrenaline, which had been flowing freely through my veins, was starting to recede. And with that, I was quickly wilting.
My eyes started to fill with tears at the realization that I’d nearly killed my daughter—yes, I was overreacting, but that was what parents did—and I held my breath as the two men started toward us.
The flashlights bounced, and my heart raced twice when one of the lights went under water, only to come back up again with a splash and a curse.
“Told you to watch your step,” I heard not only on the phone, but outside my window as well.
At hearing voices, Tallulah abandoned her sleep and turned to watch what was going on.