Free Where You Least Expect by Lydia Rowan Page A

anchored the shopping center—one look at it and the seemingly endless number of people teeming to get inside had squelched any ideas about a quick stop for groceries—but it had taken another half hour just to get out of the parking lot. And then, when she’d finally, finally, gotten on the highway, it had been packed and people had been driving like the asphalt was an ice rink, though a single drop of rain had yet to fall. After crawling along for another hour and becoming increasingly concerned at the way the clouds seemed to swell before her eyes, she’d made the decision to get off the highway and take the state road home. She’d known doing so would lengthen the trip, but she’d been going nowhere fast on the interstate and the urge to move had made it impossible for her to stay on that path.
    The state road had been much clearer, and she’d made up a lot of time, but now, the clouds appeared about to burst, and she was still a good ten miles from home. A surge of panic hit her, though she tried to suppress it. These roads were not as well maintained as the highway and could get messy, even in a simple rainstorm, so all bets were off when it came to heavy rain or sleet and snow. Gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter, she breathed deep and grasped for calm. There was no reason to be concerned yet. If she just kept moving, she’d be home in no time.
    Clink. Clink.
    It couldn’t be. She heaved a sigh and looked up. It was. Tiny pellets of what sounded like sleet fell from the overly ripe clouds, one or two at first, followed by three, four, and then more than she could count, all dropping at an increasingly rapid pace. It seemed that modern meteorology had failed yet again. The weatherman had forecasted rain and then sleet, but Mother Nature had found it fit to dispense with the rain and get straight to the main event.
    She gripped the wheel a little tighter and pressed the gas a little harder, but was wary of going too fast. Between the traffic on the interstate and the main roads and what would soon be deteriorating road conditions, it was unlikely that anyone would be able to reach her if she did something stupid like flip the car, so she needed to be cautious. She turned on her windshield wipers as the sleet began to fall faster, and in what felt like the blink of an eye, the entire hood of the car was covered, as was much of the road in front of her. She eased off the gas, but didn’t slam on the brakes as instinct told her to. Somewhere, she couldn’t remember where though, she’d heard advice that slamming on the brakes in ice would cause a vehicle to spin out, so the best bet was to keep a slow but constant pace. Of course, she could be entirely wrong about what to do, could have been misremembering the advice, but she couldn’t think of a different approach.
    Crawling along at a snail’s pace, she made it a few miles more, but the sleet didn’t let up; in fact, it came down harder and harder, the blinding white of the pellets eventually obscuring most of her vision. And the rapidly darkening sky didn’t aid her cause. It’d been midafternoon when she’d left, but it was close to evening now, and between the clouds and the time of day, only the faintest hint of sunlight remained. She turned on her high beams and slowed the car a bit more, shrieking when her front tire skidded on a patch of ice. While she was able to quickly regain control of the car, her heart thudded wildly and she slowed down even more, moving the car at less than ten miles an hour.
    A shadow of something up ahead caught her eye, and she squinted, trying to figure out what it was. Her heart stopped thudding and dropped when she realized what she now stared at. A massive tree lay across the road, its twisted branches trailing across the asphalt and onto the shoulder. The roots were still intact, so it must have been only the top portion of the tree that had come loose. But that was still plenty. The tree was enormous, as thick