When Never Comes

by Barbara Davis

once joked. Leave it to Stephen to think he could buy his way out of the end of the world. She closed the safe and was preparing to leave when she looked down at her left hand, at the ring that symbolized her marriage—a colorless two-carat emerald cut. Nothing but the best for the wife of Stephen Ludlow. It slid easily from her finger; apparently she’d lost weight after a week of subsisting on tea and toast. Her hand felt strangely light, but there was no sense of guilt as she placed the ring on the desk. Stephen had walked away from their marriage some time ago. Now it was her turn. She held her breath as she peered out the front windows. As far as she could tell, the coast was still clear, no news trucks parked outside the gate, no photographers crouching in the boxwoods. Breath held, she shouldered her bags, stepped out onto the porch, and made a break for the Rover sitting in the middle of the driveway. Her heart hammered as she scrambled up behind the wheel, locked all four doors, and started the engine. The gates slid soundlessly as she pressed the remote, and then she was through them with nothing but empty road before her. The exhilaration was almost heady, but unsettling too as the memory of another night—another hastily packed bag, another breathless getaway—came rushing at her. It was hard not to see the irony. At the age of sixteen, she had slipped out of a house in the middle of the night and run for all she was worth. Now, twenty years later, she was running ...