Chapter One

P resent Day

A kick jolted Libby Daniels awake. She placed her hands on her bulging belly to rub away the pain.

"Baby kicking again?" Her husband, Ben, smiled. "He sure is a wild thing, isn't he?"

Libby looked out the car window. The sky was overcast. Swirls of gray mist rolled across the fields. She pressed her head back against the headrest and sighed. Why Ben had decided to do a Civil War Reenactment in West Virginia when she was only six weeks away from her due date was beyond her. She enjoyed the events, but the trip from Wisconsin and now back home had been long and tiring. Her doctor had given her the go-ahead to take the trip, but she wanted to be home.

Every summer they went to as many reenactments as they could. They both enjoyed history, but Ben's obsession with the Civil War was simply that—an obsession. When he'd heard about one in West Virginia, he'd nearly had a heart attack in his excitement. With the history of West Virginia breaking away from Virginia in the middle of the Civil War and finding out through an ancestry search how one of his relatives fought in West Virginia, Ben nearly did cartwheels as he rushed to his laptop and filled out the registration form in record time.

Libby glanced at Ben. She wasn't the only one tired. Ben had this obsession with driving being a man's job. Especially since she was pregnant again. Libby rubbed her stomach as the baby did flips. Ben was as excited as he had been when Charlie was born. Libby was excited, too, and was hoping for a girl. But she was tired of being tired. She was looking forward to being back to normal.

"Hey, hon, get me a pop, will you?" Ben asked. "How are you holding up?"

Libby struggled over her bulging stomach to reach the cooler in the back seat where three-year-old Charlie slept peacefully in his car seat. "I'm okay," Libby answered. "Hey, slow down, will you? I have to unbuckle my seatbelt to reach the cooler."

"Oh, hell, you'll be okay without your seatbelt for a few seconds," Ben replied in a gruff voice. "I don't know why you make such a big deal about those stupid things anyway. They make me feel trapped. I hate it when you tie up Charlie in his car seat. It looks like he's going to take off into space at any second."

Libby handed Ben his can and re-hooked her seatbelt. "And I hate it when you don't wear yours. I can see you flying through the windshield and bashing in your face."

Ben patted her on the hand like a child. "Ah, hon, you know nothing will ever happen to me. I'll be here to love you forever."

They were quiet for a few minutes as the sounds of country music flowed from the radio. In the silence Libby closed her eyes and thought about Ben's last statement. His profession of love always threw her. Libby had learned at an early age she was unlovable. Her parents had seen to it. In her twenty-eight years, she never got over the idea it was her fault they had to get married. The "sins" of her parents landed squarely on her small shoulders. When Ben first told her he loved her, Libby cried. It was the first time someone had ever said those words to her. They quickly married and Libby was removed from her parents' guilt. As much as she loved Ben, she still couldn't understand why he loved her.

Libby popped opened her eyes when the radio signal rose to a high squeal then instantly cut out. Static replaced the noise before it rose again to a high pitch.

"See if you can find another station, will ya? We must be out of range, but I don't know why we would be. We're heading toward the station, not away."

Libby pressed the buttons across the radio but found more static and whining. "That's odd." She pressed the buttons back to the beginning.

"What the hell?" Ben slowed the car down and pulled onto the shoulder.

Libby looked up from the radio and peered through the windshield. In the distance a wall of white rushed toward them. "Are we driving into a snowstorm?"

"Must be."

"It's impossible. It's too warm."

"With El Nino, anything's possible with the weather." Ben played with the radio. Even with satellite, he couldn't find anything.

"Let's wait ‘til it passes." She stared out the window. "I don't like the looks of this. I feel strange, too. Like my head is floating."

"Must be the baby. I'm going on. It's not like I've never driven in snow before. Remember last year's snow in Wisconsin? I made it through it, didn't I?"

"Put your seatbelt on first," Libby begged. "This isn't natural."

"What—your woman's intuition working again?" Ben joked. "We'll be okay." He pulled back onto the empty highway and drove toward the white wall.

A tremor hit the car. "Ben, stop!" Libby screamed. "The car is shaking."

"What the hell is going on?" Ben yelled, attempting to move the steering wheel. "The steering wheel won't move. I can't control this thing! We're being pulled into the storm!"

A lightning bolt struck in front of the car. They were engulfed in a dark, swirling mass of clouds. Libby's ears roared like the sound of the ocean in a seashell. The temperature in the car dropped.

Ben tried to control the car as it began to skid and spin. "It must be a tornado!" Ben yanked at the steering wheel. In spite of the cold air, perspiration ran down Ben's forehead as he tried to get his foot on the brake.

"For God's sake, put on your seatbelt!" Libby screamed.

"I can't move my arms!" Ben shouted above the roar of the storm. "Can you see Charlie? Is he okay?"

Libby looked in the back seat. Charlie's eyes were wide with fright. Tears ran down his cheeks. His mouth was moving, but no sound was coming from him. "He's terrified. Pull off the road!" Libby shrieked. Like being on a Tilt-O-Whirl, she was pulled against her seat and could no longer move her head forward. Her shoulder-length blonde hair whipped around her face, and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Pressure increased on her stomach. She was going to explode. "The baby!" Libby screamed.

"I can't do anything. Hang on, we're going to crash!"

As Libby was drawn into unconsciousness, Ben's voice came from what seemed a long, dark tunnel, "Libby, I love you!"

Everything faded to black.