Wild Bride by Jill Sanders

nasty divorce and her husband was trying to get out of paying her anything, even though he’d talked her into giving up a full scholarship to Stephen F. Austin University to raise the kids. Now she was living with her parents and working at the Grocery Stop, just to make ends meet.
    Hearing Carmen’s story really helped her see that it wasn’t just her that had been dealt a blow. Other people actually had it worse. Savannah found herself stopping in the Grocery Stop more often just to chat with Carmen.
    It had been almost two months since Billy had left town for work. He called her almost every evening and she filled him in on everything about Maggie. She’d snapped pictures of them on her phone and sent them to his cell when he requested. He would send funny pictures of himself back and she’d show them to Maggie while he talked to the little girl on speakerphone.
    She felt herself growing fonder of him as time went by. They often spent time talking to one another, and she was really enjoying hearing his voice every evening. She missed his calls when he wasn’t able to make them, and had even played a few voice messages for Maggie when the little girl would fuss. They always seemed to calm the baby down and helped her mind settle as well.
    She hadn’t told him anything about her workouts, feeling like it would somehow overstep the personal line she’d drawn months ago.
    He would talk to her about his work and the men he was in charge of. She found most of it boring, but he would often entertain her with a funny story of the men goofing off.
    She wondered if he went out with the other men on the weekends. She knew that he’d run around with several other women in town after they’d discovered she was pregnant. Every time Billy and Corey had gone out, news had spread fast in the small town, mostly because they were usually in trouble. But somehow she doubted that he had continued his ways now that he was in charge of the work crew. And now that he was a father.
    She fell into a pattern. For the most part, she stayed to herself in the tiny house, just her and Maggie. Her parents would stop by and give almost all of their attention to the little baby. She didn’t mind, since it allowed her to relax a little. Her mother kept bringing Maggie gifts and the little girl’s room was quickly filling up with too much stuff. She thought about arranging everything and maybe even decorating it, but just couldn’t bring herself to believe that they would be living in the small place for very long.
    She really started enjoying her daily walks. Even though the weather had forced her to take them early or late in the day because of the pounding heat, she struck out each time with a smile on her face and enjoyed the way moving cleared her head.
    She’d enjoyed taking the back roads just outside of town more than walking down the busy streets of row houses and people.
    The old highway bridge had always been one of her favorite places to go. The old highway wasn’t used anymore and the old bridge sat high over a slow moving stream. There was plenty of fish and turtles in the water and she just loved watching them move about in the clear water. 
    On several occasions during the evenings, she’d come across the same young girl sitting on the bridge. At first, Savannah only nodded as she walked by, but one evening, she noticed that the girl was crying. Her face was bright red and her eyes were soaked. When she noticed Savannah, she frantically wiped her nose and eyes on the inside sleeve of her shirt.
    “Are you okay, sweetie?” Savannah stopped and took a good look at the girl for the first time.
    She was very thin and pale. She had braces and her auburn hair was matted and pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her clothes were baggy and not stylish at all.
    When the young girl looked up at her and nodded, Savannah’s first thought was that she would have instantly made fun of the girl had she been in school with her. Then she took a