The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 674

Chapter 674 Phone Call Reunion

Quinn’s mind raced. How tall is she now? What does she look like?

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Megan had shown her a handful of snapshots–a toddler splashing in a basin, a gap–toothed preschool grin–but none from the past year.

During that year, Megan had left the small town for Hexton, chasing work, and she didn’t manage to take any new photos of the girl.

After waking, Quinn had asked how she had arrived in Kandria at all, and why Megan, once a stranger, had risked so much for her and the baby.

“We first met on a smuggler’s boat,” Megan began, voice low but steady. “The captain hauled you from the water. When we landed in Kandria, he meant to sell you for a good price, but you never woke. He sold me instead, and after that, I lost track of you–until I found you again, lying in the hospital morgue.”

“What?” Quinn gasped. “You were trafficked?”

“Yeah,” Megan said softly. “That captain tricked naïve girls with promises of high–pay jobs in Kandria. I believed him—right up to the moment he sold me.”

Megan spoke with a calm that tasted of old scars, turbulence long since pressed flat.

Quinn understood that the calm was merely the crust over years of upheaval.

“When I found you in the morgue, I was searching for the body of the friend who’d escaped with me,” Megan went on. “I assumed you were dead too–until I felt a pulse. Somehow you were still breathing, and, incredibly, you were giving birth to Dawn right there. Back then, I’d lost the will to live. But watching you fight for that child in the dark, I realized I couldn’t give up either. I smuggled both of you out of the morgue. At first, I lived on odd jobs to keep you alive. Later, luck landed me a private–secretary post with better pay, so I placed Dawn with an orphanage for proper care.”

Patient and unhurried, Megan laid out every detail, granting Quinn a map of the missing months.

“Thank you, Megan,” Quinn said, gratitude ringing clear.

Without Megan, they would have perished in that refrigerated hall.

“While you were in labor, you kept muttering the word ‘Whitethorn.‘ I thought it was your surname, so I gave Dawn the same. And her given name–Dawn–because she was a shaft of

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Chapter 674 Phone Call Reunion

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sunrise to me. Her birth felt like my rebirth. If you don’t like it, we can choose another.”

Megan’s explanation hung in the air, gentle and earnest.

“No, I love it,” Quinn assured her. “The name is perfect. As for Whitethorn–that’s actually my husband’s surname.”

So that was the truth: during the agony of labor, she had cried only one name–Julius- holding to it the way a drowning woman clutches driftwood. By some twist of fate, the infant was named Dawn Whitethorn, a name that tasted of first light and promise.

“Mom, you’re awake–are you going to fall asleep again?” Dawn balanced Megan’s oversized phone in both hands, the call to Quinn still open as the car rocked gently around her.

Megan, meanwhile, guided the car onto the return route, tires humming a low, nervous song against the pavement.

Her original plan had been simple–circle Edmund Arnold’s fortified estate, spot a weakness, slip inside, and spirit Dawn away. Fate proved kinder; before the gates even appeared, she found the child racing along the highway shoulder, wild hair flying like a victory flag.

“No, sweetheart. From now on, I will go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning like everyone else.”

The yearning to hold her daughter throbbed through Quinn’s chest, sharp and unstoppable. In only a handful of heartbeats–just a few more miles–their eyes would finally meet.

The speaker crackled, and Megan’s voice burst out, “D*mn!”

“What happened?” Angela, seated beside Quinn, blurted, anxiety tightening her knuckles around the dashboard.

“There’s a police checkpoint up ahead–they look like they’re hunting someone. Could be us. I’ll call you once we’re clear!” With that rushed warning, the line went dead, leaving only the hollow hiss of silence.

Angela’s pulse spiked. “If they recognize us, what then? Every cop around here is on Edmund Arnold’s payroll.”

Quinn pivoted, eyes keen. “Do you have a computer in the house?”

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