Unbreakable Bond

But Nina had been trembling and afraid. He’d seen the relief in her eyes that finally someone believed her story, and he hadn’t been able to resist.

Oh, hell…it was more than that.

She’d fought against all odds to find out what had happened to her baby girl. How could he not admire her dedication and determination?

And now…one touch wasn’t enough.

He traced his hand down her hair, then along her cheek.

She tensed slightly as if to pull away, and he tilted her chin up with his thumb.

“I promise you I’ll find out what’s going on,” he said in a deep voice.

She nodded. He traced his finger over her mouth, and her breath hitched, desire flaring in her eyes. “Slade…”

Her raspy sigh was his undoing.

He groaned, then lowered his head, angled his mouth and closed his lips over hers.

Dear Reader,

Twenty-four years ago I gave birth to my third child, a beautiful little girl I named Emily. As I wrote Unbreakable Bond she was pregnant with her first baby. Watching the excitement and anticipation as she carried her son brought back precious memories of having my own children and the unbreakable bond between mother and child.

It also reminded me of another special little girl, the real Rebecca, the daughter of a very close friend of mine. She was due to be born around the same time as my daughter, but was one of triplets who came prematurely. Sadly, the other two babies didn’t make it, but although Rebecca weighed less than a pound and had several health issues, she not only survived, but went on to touch and inspire the lives of everyone around her.

While one would think she might have complained or been a sad child, Rebecca had (and still has) a glow about her.

Unlike the little girl in my story, Rebecca was blessed with two wonderful parents who loved her unconditionally and gave her every opportunity available.

When I see or hear about other challenged children, I often wonder how different it would have been if she hadn’t had those parents. And as most mothers, I’ve thought about how awful it would be for any mother to be separated from her child.

All those elements came together to inspire me to write this story, one I hope will touch you, as well.

So hug your children, love them unconditionally and cherish every precious memory you make together. Children are godsends to us all.

Sincerely,

Rita Herron

Unbreakable Bond

Rita Herron

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my beautiful daughter Emily

and her new son, Bradford

And to the real Rebecca.

Thanks for inspiring us all!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning author Rita Herron wrote her first book when she was twelve, but didn’t think real people grew up to be writers. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job. A former kindergarten teacher and workshop leader, she traded her storytelling to kids for romance, and now she writes romantic comedies and romantic suspense. She lives in Georgia with her own romance hero and three kids. She loves to hear from readers, so please write her at P.O. Box 921225, Norcross, GA 30092-1225, or visit her Web site at www.ritaherron.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Slade Blackburn —Finding missing children is his job—but he can’t let his heart get involved.

Nina Nash —Everyone thinks she’s crazy, but she believes her daughter Peyton, who police ruled dead, is still alive.

Brooks Nash —Nina’s father was upset with her for keeping the baby; does he know more about Peyton’s disappearance/death than he’s telling?

William Hood —The father of Nina’s baby never wanted the child—could he have had the baby kidnapped?

Mitzi Hood —William’s wife hated Nina for getting pregnant with his child—would she steal the baby to keep William to herself?

Eileen Hood —William’s mother was furious about the child. How far would she go to protect her son’s future?

Diane and Dennis Lucas —William’s sister and brother-in-law have an eight-year-old daughter who was born around the same time as Peyton. Could the child possibly be Nina’s?

Dr. Don Emery —The ob-gyn who delivered Peyton claims there was no way the child survived or was kidnapped. Is he lying?

Paula Emery —Dr. Emery’s wife. How far would she go to protect her marriage and money?

Carrie Poole —A nurse on the neonatal unit. Does she know what happened to Peyton?

Stanford Mansfield —Does he arrange illegal adoptions?

Gwen and Roan Waldorp —Gwen gave birth to a stillborn child the night of the fire. Could she have stolen Peyton to replace her own baby?

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Prologue

A thunderous boom rocked the hospital walls and floor, jarring Nina Nash awake. What had happened? Had she been dreaming, or had there been an explosion?

Screams and shouts suddenly echoed in the halls, and footsteps of people rushing around outside her room pounded. Somewhere a food cart crashed and glass shattered.

Then the smell of smoke wafted to her.

Panic seized her. Dear God, there had been an explosion. The hospital was on fire.

She threw off the covers, not bothering to grab her robe or slip on her bedroom shoes, but the stitches from her C-section pulled as she shuffled to the door and shoved it open. Smoke flooded the hallway in a cloud so thick that she immediately coughed, her eyes watering.

She had to get to her baby. Little Peyton had been a preemie, less than five pounds, and was in the neonatal intensive care unit.

What if the fire was near the babies?

God, no…

Stumbling forward as fast as she could with her sore abdomen, she heard the sound of voices shouting again, another person crying. The fire alarm trilled, adding to the chaos. Through the gray fog, she spotted patients stumbling outside their rooms, everyone searching for an escape, confused and frightened.

“The east wing is on fire,” someone yelled.

“Find the stairwell and get out!” someone else shouted.

“Help me!” a woman screamed.

Someone bumped Nina as they raced down the hall toward the stairwell.

Heat flooded the hall and an orderly grabbed her arm to push her toward the staircase. “This way, miss.”

“No, I have to get to my baby,” Nina cried.

“No time, the nurses and firefighters are getting the infants out! And that corridor is engulfed in flames.”

“Then I’ll find another way,” she said and tore away from him.

Another woman darted into the fog of smoke, coughing as she collapsed onto the floor, and the rescue worker rushed to help her.

Determined to save Peyton, Nina hurried down the hall. But just as she reached the end, the ceiling crashed down, and flames shot all along the wall and floor, blocking the turn into the corridor.

She pivoted and headed in the opposite direction, feeling along the wall until she reached the next corner, but the smoke was so thick she could barely see, and flames rushed toward her. No… There was no way to get through….

Tears mingled with the sweat on her face as the heat scalded her. She had to try another direction.

Coughing, she dashed back the way she’d come, but suddenly another explosion rocked the building, the floor shook, and the ceiling crashed down.

Nina covered her head to dodge the debris, but plaster rained down on her, and a piece of metal slammed into her head. Another pummeled her leg and foot, and ceiling tiles smashed into her stomach, ripping open stitches. Pain rocked through her, and she screamed as she collapsed onto the floor. The scalding flames crawled toward her.

Through the haze, more footsteps rumbled, then a firefighter appeared and scooped her up. “My baby,” she cried. “I have to get her.”

“We’ll find her,” he said. “Just let me take you outside before the whole wing is engulfed in flames.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks as he carried her through the blazing hallway, dodging flames and more falling debris. She gulped in the fresh air as he burst out the front door and raced down the steps to the lawn. Blinking her stinging eyes to clear her vision, she searched the haze and chaos.

Firefighters were scrambling to help victims and extinguish the flames, but at least half the hospital was ablaze. Patients, hospital employees, doctors, nurses and visitors ran, crawled and helped each other from the burning building.

She spotted one of the neonatal nurses unconscious on a gurney, and two nurses holding infants, and hope shot through her. The firefighter carried her toward an ambulance, but she pushed against his chest. “Let me down.”

“Ma’am, you need to see a medic. You’ve been injured.”

She didn’t care if her head was bleeding, that her stitches had popped or her leg was throbbing. She had to make sure her daughter was safe. “No, not until I find my baby.”

She managed to get on her feet, then stumbled toward the nurses. But her heart sank when she realized neither of the babies was Peyton.

“Where’s my little girl?” she cried. “She was in the neonatal unit.”

One of the nurses frowned, and the other one shook her head with worry. “I’m not sure. Maybe one of the other nurses got her.”

Another baby’s cry rent the air, and she turned and raced toward the sound. A medic was holding the infant, but when she neared him, she realized the baby was a boy.

Panic clawed at her, and she ran from medic to medic, from nurse to doctor to orderly. Screams and cries flowed freely as people were carried from the hospital and the body count began to rise. More sirens and cries reverberated as police, friends and relatives of the hospital employees and patients arrived, each searching for loved ones.

Finally she found one of the nurses who’d cared for Peyton lying on another stretcher, and she hobbled toward her. “Where’s my baby?”

Sorrow filled the nurse’s eyes as she looked at Nina. “I don’t know. I thought someone else rescued her.”

The sound of the NICU exploding rent the air, and Nina’s legs gave way, a sob of terror ripping from her.

Dear God…

Where was her baby?

Chapter One

Eight years later

Finding missing children was the only thing that kept Slade Blackburn going. The only thing that kept him from giving into the booze that promised sweet relief and numbness from the pain of his failures.

That was, when he found the children alive.

The other times…well, he locked those away in some distant part of his mind to deal with later. Much, much later when he was alone at night, and the loneliness consumed him and reminded him that he didn’t have a soul in the world who gave a damn if he lived or died.

Voices echoed through the downstairs as the agents at Guardian Angel Investigations entered the old house Gage McDermont had converted into a business and began to climb the stairs.

Slade’s instincts kicked in. He’d arrived early, situated himself to face the doorway in the conference room so he could study each man as he entered.

Not that he hadn’t done his research.

Gage had started the agency in Sanctuary and recruited an impressive team of agents.

The moment Slade had read about GAI in the paper, he’d phoned Gage and asked to sign on. Leaving his stint in the military had left him wired and honed for action, yet the confines of the FBI or a police department had grated on his newfound freedom.

Too long he’d taken orders, followed commands. Now he was his own man and wanted no one to watch over, not as he’d had to do with his combat unit.

But he needed a case.

Bad.

Being alone, listening to the deafening quiet of the mountains, remembering the horrific events he’d seen, was wreaking havoc on his sanity.

He refused to be one of those soldiers who returned from war damaged and suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

He would not fall apart and become needy, dammit.

And he would keep the nightmares at bay.

By God, he’d survived his childhood and Iraq, and he wouldn’t go down now.

Still, returning to the small town of Sanctuary, North Carolina, held its own kind of haunts, and when he’d passed by Magnolia Manor, the orphanage where his mother had dropped him off without looking back, he’d questioned his decision to settle in the town.

Gage McDermont strode in and took the head seat behind the long conference table while the others filed in. Slade maintained his stoic expression, honing his self-control.

Gage gestured toward Slade. “This is Slade Blackburn,” he said. “He just finished his first case and returned Carmel Foster’s runaway daughter to her.”

The men surrounding the table nodded, then Gage gestured to each of them as he made the introductions. Slade analyzed each one in turn.

Benjamin Camp, a dirty-blond-haired computer expert with green eyes. Brilliant techy, he’d heard. Slade would bet he had a shady past. Maybe a former criminal with skills that could come in handy in a pinch.

Levi Stallings, former FBI profiler, black hair, military-style haircut, dark brown eyes. Intense, a man who studied behaviors and got into a killer’s mind. He cut his gaze toward Slade as if dissecting him under his microscope, and Slade forced himself not to react, to meet him with an equally hard stare.

First rule of engaging with the enemy: Never let on that you’re afraid or intimidated.

Not that he was, but he didn’t like anyone messing with his mind or getting too close.

Adopting his poker face, he angled his head to study the man, seated next to him, whom Gage introduced as Brock Running Deer.

“Running Deer is an expert tracker,” Gage said in acknowledgment.

A skill that would be needed in the dense mountains. He was also big, slightly taller than Slade’s own six feet, had shoulder-length brown hair, auburn eyes and was part Cherokee. He scowled at Slade as if he were permanently angry, but Slade shrugged it off. He hadn’t come here to make friends.

“And this is Derrick McKinney.”

Slade nodded toward him.

Next Gage introduced Caleb Walker, who also looked mixed heritage. He had thick black hair, black eyes, and wore a guarded expression. Gage didn’t elaborate on his particular skill, which made Slade even more curious about the man.

Gage gestured to the last man seated around the table. “This is Colt Mason, a guns and weapon expert.” Slade sized him up. Short, spiked black hair, crystal-blue eyes, sullen and quiet. He had that military look about him, as well, as if he’d stared down death and it hadn’t fazed him. Probably former Special Ops.

The door squeaked open and a petite brunette with hair dangling to her waist and large brown eyes slipped in.

Gage’s face broke into a smile. “This is Amanda Peterson, our newest recruit. Amanda is a forensics specialist, and we’re glad to have her on board.

“Now that we’ve all been introduced, I want to get you up to speed on the latest case and the arrests made in Sanctuary. Brianna Honeycutt, now the wife of Derrick, adopted an infant son when the baby’s mother, Natalie Cummings, was murdered. Our investigation revealed that Natalie learned about a meth lab in town that was connected to the creators of a lab eight years ago, the one that caused the hospital fire and explosion that took dozens and dozens of lives.”

Gage paused and twisted his mouth into a frown. “The police have made several arrests, but locals are up in arms now that they know who was responsible. There’s also been speculation that there might have been more locals involved in the lab. Lawsuits are cropping up each day, and people who lost loved ones are asking questions. Due to the fire and contamination of evidence, there are questions regarding some of those who were presumed dead.”

Slade frowned. “Presumed?”

“Ones whose bodies were never found or identified,” Gage clarified. “Among those were women and children. I expect that we might have some work ahead of us.”

Slade’s blood began to boil. Women and children…who’d died because of some stupid drug lab. Women and children whose bodies had never been identified.

Families with no answers just as his own hadn’t had answers when his older sister had disappeared. Not until Slade had found her in the morgue.

Maybe it was right that he’d come back to Sanctuary. If he had the opportunity to find closure for even one of the families involved, it was worth it.

Then maybe he could finally find peace and forgive himself for his sister’s death.

NINA’S BABY’S CRY HAUNTED her every day.

Peyton would have been eight years old had she survived, the same age as the children Nina taught at Sanctuary Elementary.

She tried to envision what her daughter would look like now as she watched her students rush to the school bus, squealing and laughing, excited to be out for summer break. Most of the teachers were jumping for joy, as well.

“Freedom at last,” one third-grade teacher said with a laugh.

“Vacation,” another one boasted.

But instead of dreaming about long, lazy days at home or a vacation road trip, tears filled Nina’s eyes.

To her, summer break meant weeks of being without the kids. Long, lonely days and nights of silence. Of no tiny hands reaching out for help, no sweet voices calling her name, no little patter of feet or giggles, no little arms wrapping around her for a big bear hug.

Tortured nights of an empty house and more nightmares of what her life would have been like if her little girl were alive.

For a moment, she allowed herself to dream of taking her daughter to the beach. They’d build sand castles, collect shells, ride bikes. She could almost hear her daughter’s laughter in the wind roaring off the ocean….

The bus driver gave a big honk of its horn, jerking her back to reality. Kids waved and screamed out the window, and the bus roared away. Teachers cheered and waved, laughing and talking about their plans as they dispersed back to their rooms to tidy up for the day.

Nina wrapped her arms around her waist and watched until the last bus disappeared from the school drive, then turned and walked back inside, her chest tight.

She should be over the loss of her daughter, people had told her. “Move on with your life,” her father had insisted. “Let it go,” the ob-gyn had said.

But sometimes at night, she heard her baby’s cries, and she sensed that Peyton was still alive. That she hadn’t died in that fire. That she was out there somewhere, and that she needed her.

Moving on autopilot, she went to her classroom, packed up boxes, wiped down the chalkboard, stripped the bulletin boards and cleaned out her desk.

Finally she couldn’t procrastinate any longer. The empty room was almost as sad and overwhelming as her house. Here she could still see the kids’ cherub faces, hear their chatter and smell their sweet, little bodies.

She stuffed her worn plan book in her favorite tote, one emblazoned with a strawberry on the front and sporting the logo Teachers Are Berry Special, then added a copy of the language arts guide for the new language arts program the county had adopted, threw the tote over her shoulder, flipped off the lights and headed outside.

The late-afternoon sunshine beat down on her as she walked to the parking lot. The sound of engines starting up filled the air, and she noticed a group of teachers gathering for an end-of-the-year celebration.

Celia, her friend from the classroom across the hall from her, looked up and waved as she climbed in her minivan. Celia had invited her to join them, but she’d declined. Celebrating was the last thing on her mind.

Instead she drove to the little bungalow she’d bought in town, picked up the newspaper on the front stoop, then dragged herself inside and poured a glass of sweet iced tea. Hating the silence that engulfed her, she flipped on the television, then glanced at the front page of the paper.

The headlines immediately caught her eye.

Murder of Natalie Cummings and Kidnapping of Her Son Ryan Leads to Answers about the Hospital Explosion and Fire Eight Years Ago.

Nina skimmed the article, her own memories of the explosion taunting her. For years now the town had mourned the lives lost back then. Now they finally had answers.

Police have learned that a meth lab built by local teenagers at the time was the cause of the explosion that killed dozens. Recently Natalie Cummings had overheard students at Sanctuary High discussing a new meth lab nearby, and she was apparently murdered when she connected the current lab to the one eight years ago.

Derrick McKinney, an agent from Guardian Angel Investigations, was instrumental in uncovering the truth about the explosion, the kidnapping and murder connection.

Nina frowned, her heart racing. That night had been horrible. The explosion, the fire, the terrible confusion. The burning bodies.

Her frantic rush to find Peyton…

Her stomach knotted. She’d wondered if her baby might have been confused with another that night, or if she could have been kidnapped in the chaos.

But the investigation had been a mess, and the sheriff had assured her her fears had been unfounded. Even worse, the P.I. she’d hired had been convinced she was just a hysterical mother and had done nothing but take her money.

Still, one question nagged at her. They had never found Peyton’s body.

She glanced at the article again. Guardian Angel Investigations. They specialized in finding missing children.

Her hand shook as she went to the mantel and picked up the photo of her newborn. Peyton had been so tiny Nina had been able to hold her in one hand.

If someone had kidnapped her, how would she have survived?

Still, every night when she crawled into bed, she heard her cries. And every time she closed her eyes, a little angel’s voice sang to her in the night.

Determination and a new wave of hope washed over her as she grabbed her purse. “I’m going to find you, baby.”

If GAI had dug deeply enough to find out who’d caused that fire, maybe they could dig even deeper and find out what had happened to her daughter.

JUST AS THE MEETING was about to disperse, the bell on the downstairs door jangled. Gage gestured for the group to wait while he descended the stairs. A minute later, he returned, escorting a young woman with him.