She was crying

Mitch stiffened as he tried to deflect the sound of Stephanie Shelton’s anguished sobs. His stomach felt as if it were lined with hot tar. The only thing that made the situation bearable was the hope that she’d soon be reunited with her lost child.

Careful to allow her some dignity, he kept his gaze averted from her moist eyes. “Pack a bag for you and your daughter.”

“Why?” Her tone was charged with rebellion.

Then Mitch made the mistake of looking at her.

Her green-gold eyes were as dangerous as riptide and fringed with long sooty lashes. He was none too happy that he was making personal observations about the length of her eyelashes.

He was too seasoned a cop to let himself get sucked in by a pair of pleading eyes. Deliberate detachment firmed his voice.

“You’re coming with me. You’re both under my protection until this is over.”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

We wind up a great summer with a bang this month! Linda O. Johnston continues the hugely popular COLORADO CONFIDENTIAL series with Special Agent Nanny. Don’t forget to look for the Harlequin special-release anthology next month featuring USA TODAY bestselling author Jasmine Cresswell, our very own Amanda Stevens and Harlequin Historicals author Debra Lee Brown. And not to worry, the series continues with two more Harlequin Intrigue titles in November and December.

Joyce Sullivan concludes her companion series THE COLLINGWOOD HEIRS with Operation Bassinet. Find out how this family solves a fiendish plot and finds happiness in one fell swoop. Rounding out the month are two exciting stories. Rising star Delores Fossen takes a unique perspective on the classic secret-baby plot in Confiscated Conception, and a very sexy Cowboy PI is determined to get to the bottom of one woman’s mystery in an all-Western story by Jean Barrett.

Finally, in case you haven’t heard, next month Harlequin Intrigue is increasing its publishing schedule to include two more fantastic romantic suspense books. That’s six titles per month! More variety, more of your favorite authors and of course, more excitement.

It’s a thrilling time for us, and we want to thank all of our loyal readers for remaining true to Harlequin Intrigue. And if you are just learning about our brand of breathtaking romantic suspense, fasten your seat belts for an edge-of-your-seat reading experience. Welcome aboard!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor, Harlequin Intrigue

Operation Bassinet
Joyce Sullivan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joyce Sullivan credits her lawyer mother with instilling in her a love of reading and writing—and a fascination for solving mysteries. She has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and worked several years as a private investigator before turning her hand to writing romantic suspense. A transplanted American, Joyce makes her home in Aylmer, Quebec, with her handsome French-Canadian husband and two children. A visit to the castles populating the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence Seaway gave her the inspiration for THE COLLINGWOOD HEIRS series.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Ross and Lexi Collingwood—He was the Baron of Wall Street. Their precious baby daughter was kidnapped thirty months ago and never returned. One month after the Collingwoods are tragically murdered in an explosion, the Find Riana Foundation receives a ransom demand for the child.

Stef Shelton—Her world is shattered when she discovers that the daughter she has been raising is not her flesh-and-blood child.

Mitch Halloran—The Guardian hired this determined LAPD detective to bring Riana home safe and sound.

Keely Shelton—She’s Riana Collingwood by birth.

Emma—Would Stef’s real daughter be found alive?

Brad Shelton—Had he switched his infant daughter with Riana Collingwood?

The Guardian—Ross Collingwood had been his best friend and had entrusted him with his children’s lives.

Juliana Goodhew—She was looking forward to raising Lexi’s daughter as her own.

Annette York—She’d killed her sister and brother-in-law out of hatred. Was she behind Riana’s kidnapping, as well?

Sable Holden—Ross Collingwood had ruthlessly taken over her family’s company. To what lengths would she go to get her company back?

For my friend Jude, my emotional barometer. And for Rickey, critique partner par excellence.

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to the generous people listed below who answered my tedious questions about their lives and their jobs for this story:

Mathematician extraordinaire Tom McCormick, W. J. Van Dusen, Professor of Management, UBC Commerce.

Sergeant John Martinez, one of LAPD’s finest.

Detective Bob Arbour, Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police Service, and former bomb tech.

Dr. Steven W. Maclean,

who saves my wounded heroes and heroines.

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

Prologue

Thirty months earlier

Stef wasn’t sure what woke her. Maybe the sound of the door closing in her hospital room. Or had the baby cried out? She hovered in a semialert state listening, her tired body yearning to tumble back into oblivion. She’d never been so exhausted. The last trimester of lumbering around New York City like an elephant in maternity clothes and thirty hours of labor had taken its toll, but she’d been rewarded with a beautiful baby daughter.

Tears came to her eyes. She’d seen the pride on Brad’s face when he’d held Keely in his arms. Everything would get better for them now. She just knew it.

“Brad?” she whispered into the darkened room. Had her husband changed his mind about staying over with her and the baby? Her whisper was swallowed up in the silence.

Brad had spent last night in the recliner provided for new dads, but he had another job interview first thing in the morning. She’d sent him home at the end of visitor’s hours with instructions to get a good night’s sleep and wear the Brooks Brothers’ suit with the I’m-in-charge tie.

Keely made a small sound in her bassinet like a mewling kitten. Maybe the nurse had come in to check the time of her last feeding. Stef turned on the bedside lamp and glanced at the clock. It was 2:53 a.m. With a guilty start, she realized it had been more than three hours since she’d last nursed her baby.

Keely mewled again, sounding like a ravenous kitten.

Stef felt an instantaneous tingling sensation in her breasts. “Okay, sweetie, I got the message. It’s chow time. Just don’t expect fast food.” She pushed herself up in the hospital bed, every muscle in her body protesting. Her stomach sagged like a deflated balloon.

Getting out of bed was a Herculean effort. Maybe she should have insisted Brad stay. But he’d been so discouraged after he’d been laid off from his job as the New York City regional manager for Office Outfitters six months ago. He’d gone to countless interviews and the pressure of a first baby on the way hadn’t helped. She wanted him to be at his best tomorrow. They had a daughter to support.

She shuffled to Keely’s bassinet, painfully aware of the stitches where no doctor should have to put a needle, the linoleum floor cool beneath her bare feet.

Stef peered down at her daughter. A tiny miracle, even if she did look like a scrunched-up baby gorilla.

“I’m here, sweetie. Mommy’s here.” She picked up her daughter from the bassinet—amazed anew by the tiny infant’s weight and warmth. She’d swear Keely had already gained a few ounces since birth.

Her daughter snuffled against her breast, looking for nourishment. Stef sighed with equal amounts of pleasure and discomfort as her breasts started to leak. She gingerly eased herself down into the recliner and fumbled with the buttons of her nightgown and the clasp of the nursing bra.

Keely latched on to her nipple hungrily and Stef basked in the special intimacy of the feeding bond between them. “You are my little girl, Keely Jane Shelton. I may not be the smartest or the richest or the prettiest mom, but you are my own gift from heaven and I love you with all my heart. I hope you like me and Daddy, because you’re stuck with us for a long time.” She gave her baby girl a teary-eyed smile. “We’re a family now, little one. Forever and ever. I promise.”

Chapter One

Logantown, Pennsylvania

The lost Collingwood Heir was alive and well and living beneath this roof.

Former L.A.P.D. Detective Mitch Halloran stood on the front step of the modest house, a cold spot forming in his stomach as he leaned on the doorbell.

He was dreading the task ahead of him. He had to tell this family that their daughter wasn’t theirs. That two female infants had been switched at birth. Whatever pride he felt in proving himself right about the ransom note and the DNA sample that the Find Riana Foundation had received eight days ago was lost in the sickening reality that he was about to plunge this innocent family into a nightmare. With the single-minded determination he’d learned from his grandfather who’d served as a marine in the Korean War, Mitch told himself he’d make it all work out. This wouldn’t be a repeat of the Lopez case. He’d do everything in his means to get them back their own daughter.

Surely it wasn’t too much to ask for two miracles.

The front door opened and Mitch looked into one of the most appealing faces he’d ever seen. It belonged to the woman he’d seen with Keely four days ago when he’d conducted surveillance on the house to filch a sample of Keely’s DNA.

Eyes that were green and gold reminded him of a lucky marble his real dad had given him when he was about six, and they shimmered at him, laughter in their depths. A scattering of freckles drifted across sexily curved cheekbones and dotted a nose that tilted up at the end.

“What are you selling?” she demanded, curling her hands into fists and planting them on her hips. She was wearing a blue-and-green silky blouse that seemed kind of see-through and Japanese and left no doubts that she was wearing a skimpy blue bra underneath. “I’m all yours if you’re hawking chocolate bars with almonds.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m not soliciting. My name is Mitch Halloran, and I’m the director of the—”

“No chocolate bars?” she interrupted him, looking genuinely disappointed.

Mitch held out his empty hands, his gut twisting at her cheery attitude. “Not a one. Sorry, ma’am.”

“All right, then, what do you want? I already signed one of the petitions for the new soccer field.”

Mitch sighed. She wasn’t making this easy. He handed her his business card. “Mrs. Shelton, please. I’m the Director of the Find Riana Foundation. We’re searching for Riana Collingwood, and I’d like to speak to you and your husband privately. It’s very important.”

She snatched the card from him, then held up her hand, palm out, like a traffic cop. “Stay here.” To Mitch’s annoyance, she slammed the door in his face.

He sighed and leaned a hip against the wrought-iron railing, wishing he hadn’t left his raincoat in the car.

The chill of a November wind bathed his cheeks, seeped into his chest. Mitch felt uncomfortably out of place on this quiet street with its middle America working-class appeal. Having grown up in a large metropolitan city, he hadn’t minded the noise and the pace and the towering in-your-face size of New York City. But the tranquil motion-picture perfection of this street bothered him.

Lights blazed in living room and kitchen windows up and down the block. He could smell the scents of meals lingering invitingly in the air. Halloween had come and gone. Fake tombstones and bedraggled scarecrows populated the lush lawns and shreds of gigantic spider webs and pieces of plastic skeletons dangled from bare tree branches. It was nothing like the neighborhoods of stucco bungalows, concrete driveways and parched yards he was used to in L.A.

Halloween was one of the many holidays, along with Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas that he’d grown to hate ever since Paddy, his grandfather, had died. The crime stats always went up—murders, suicides, break-ins, robberies. He’d seen people resort to desperate acts when the reality of their personal and family situations failed to live up to the impossible expectations planted in their minds by TV shows, movies and magazines.

Peace on earth. Right. Most people would settle for peace in their own home a few nights a week.

Holidays to Mitch were a brutally painful reminder that he had no family.

The door opened behind him. Mitch swung around. Stephanie Shelton had engaged the chain lock and was eyeing him up and down suspiciously, a phone plastered to her ear.

“Turn around,” she said to him.

“What?”

She made a circling motion with her finger. “Turn around.” A tiny red heart was painted on her fingernail.

“Hmm-humph? No, not Russell. I’d say more like Dennis—” she paused as Mitch glowered at her. “Nice and…um, where did you work before you came to the Foundation?” she asked sweetly.

Mitch propped a hand on the door frame. “L.A.P.D.—the Robbery Homicide Division,” he replied, making a mental note to have a little chat with the hot-line phone staff.

“It’s him.” The door slammed in his face again. He heard the chain slip off, then the door popped open. Mitch was annoyingly aware of the outline of her bra beneath that top. Stephanie Shelton was slightly nutty and very hot. There was an intriguing line of golden flesh visible between the hem of her shirt and the black leather belt riding her hips. “Come in. The house is a mess, but that’s life.”

The house was not a mess. It was lively and colorful and an irritatingly normal example of how Mitch thought average nondysfunctional, middle-class families lived. He followed her through an entryway cluttered with a child-size pair of red boots, library books and Halloween decorations into a funky living room painted in dramatic colors and furnished with a beige sofa piled with pillows and two gargantuan armchairs. The armchairs covered in olive velvet made him think someone had a grandmother who’d liked Victorian furniture. In an alcove off the kitchen Mitch could see the child whose abandoned drinking cup he’d swiped the other day—dancing along with a furry critter on the TV.

“Have a seat, Mr. Halloran.”

“Is your husband home, ma’am? I’d really like to speak to both of you.”

Those green and gold eyes shone with dewy tears. “My husband died two years ago in a rock climbing accident.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Mitch said, caught off guard. The list of babies they’d been investigating had been too long to do thorough background checks on each family. They’d received confirmation from the lab about the DNA match less than two hours ago.

He took a seat on the sofa as Stephanie Shelton perched on the edge of one of those gargantuan chairs and folded her arms across her chest, bringing even more attention to the color of her bra beneath the transparent fabric of her blouse. “Why would someone from the Find Riana Foundation want to talk to me? Wasn’t she the little girl of that famous couple who were killed in an explosion last month?”

“Ma’am—”

“Please, stop calling me that. Teachers and librarians swathed in polyester prints are ma’ams. My name’s Stef.”

Mitch started to sweat. Damn, she looked so defense-less—so your-best-buddy’s-younger-sister nice. She’d already lost her husband. An image of her dancing around the garbage can when he’d staked out her house four days ago, two fingers held up in a two-point salute after she and Keely chucked a decaying jack-o’-lantern into the can, shimmered vibrantly in his conscience.

His news was going to kill her.

He cleared his throat and told himself to remain unplugged from the drama. “Stef, are you aware of the date Riana Collingwood was kidnapped?”

She frowned. “I think it was the day after my daughter was born. I remember seeing it on the news a couple of days after Keely and I were discharged and being relieved that we weren’t still in the hospital. Of course, the Collingwood baby wasn’t born at the same birthing center, but still, it made me nervous.” She shuddered. “I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must be for that baby’s parents to have their child taken like that. But I still don’t understand why you’re here. I didn’t know the Collingwoods.” Her eyes were clearly puzzled.

In the other room Mitch heard Keely singing a catchy tune about apples and bananas. He mentally cursed a blue streak as the icy hole inside him bore painfully into his soul. There was no way to put off saying the words that would change this woman’s life into a living hell.

He laced his fingers together. “Mrs. Shelton, I have evidence which leads me to believe that whoever abducted Riana Collingwood switched her with your daughter.”

Stef Shelton started to laugh. “This is a joke, right? My brother-in-law put you up to it? He’s such a jerk—” The words died on her lips as her gaze met his. Mitch looked steadily back at her, trying to stay as detached as possible, while fear spontaneously combusted like twin gold flames in her eyes.

She wrapped her arms around her middle as if trying to hold herself together. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What are you saying?”

Mitch felt his stomach catapult out of the wall of his torso and pass through a meat grinder as he observed her every facial reaction, her every gesture, for the tiniest hint of falseness. But there was none. His chest hurt as he sucked in air and he swallowed hard against the anger and the disgust that some lowlife scum had destroyed this lovely young woman’s life.

She shook her head, her eyes pleading with him. He steeled himself against a compelling urge to reach out to her. The same type of sympathetic reaction that had had him unwisely reaching out to Theresa Lopez two years earlier when her twelve-year-old granddaughter had been kidnapped.

He’d seen his grandfather in Theresa Lopez’s anxiety-lined face. Saw the thin fingers worked to the bone to support a grandchild who was her sole reason for being. He’d twisted himself inside out trying to bring Carmen home. But he’d lost precious time chasing the wrong lead. By the time he’d realized his error and directed searchers to the killer’s home, Carmen was dead and her killer, the sixteen-year-old boy who did Theresa’s yardwork, had hung himself.

Theresa hadn’t deserved to lose her granddaughter, nor did Stef Shelton deserve what had happened to her. She probably helped old ladies across the street and baked cookies and banana bread for her church’s bake sales.

“I wish to God I didn’t have to tell you this, but that little girl in the other room is Riana Collingwood. DNA tests have confirmed it.”

“DNA?” She glanced toward the alcove, horror streaking her beautiful face like fissures in a broken mirror. “What are you talking about? Keely’s my daughter! I labored thirty hours bringing her into the world.” Her angry gaze shot back to him. “I should know my own baby!”

Mitch struggled to remain detached, with his fingers glued together, so he couldn’t give in to an unprofessional impulse to offer a pair of arms to hold her up. She looked whiter than a sheet of paper and about to crumple.

“There’s no mistake. Riana’s family wants her back. I’m here to make sure that happens, and help you find your daughter.” And to prove to himself that he was the kind of cop, the kind of man his grandfather had wanted him to be.

After the Lopez case, he’d transferred out of the Robbery Special Section, a bureaucratic misnomer because it handled both robbery and kidnapping investigations, into the Rape Special Section in what he saw as a strategic career move. Because of his excellent record, he was assigned high-profile rapes and serial rapist investigations and promoted to Detective II, but over time he began to perceive his transfer and his new achievements as an act of cowardice rather than a step up the departmental ladder. He’d turned his back on the children who’d needed him. He was no longer the man he’d thought he was.

The Collingwood case—or Operation Bassinet as his new employer called it—was his chance to find himself again. Failure was not an option.

Stef stared in numb disbelief at the blond Hollywood Goliath. She no longer thought that his butt was of the same superior grade as her favorite movie star’s. Or that his eyes were the dark cobalt of her Mexican glassware. He was the ugliest, most horrid waste of tanned skin she’d ever seen. And she’d bet his sun-bleached-blond hair wasn’t even natural.

“You’re lying. Or it’s a mistake…or…” She gulped a cleansing breath, pushing her hands out as if ridding the air of toxins. She had to think clearly here, but apples and bananas were whirling in a merry-go-round pattern in her head.

The Neanderthal-brained ex-cop was more likely to see reason and come to the conclusion he’d made a mistake if she stayed calm. She pasted on the let’s-be-reasonable smile she’d reserved for unruly passengers in her former days as a flight attendant. “First of all, how could you possibly have DNA evidence that says Keely isn’t my daughter?”

His cobalt eyes drilled into her, dead serious. There was nothing reasonable about his tone. Each word lacked compromise and lacerated her heart. “Mrs. Shelton, the Foundation received a ransom demand eight days ago. Two items were included with the note— Riana’s hospital identification bracelet and two hairs. A reputable lab conducted DNA tests which told us that while the bracelet had traces of Riana Collingwood’s DNA on it, the hair came from another child. It led us to believe that there were at least two people involved in Riana’s abduction and that one of them was afraid of being double-crossed so they switched Riana with another baby. Whoever sent the ransom note is obviously unaware that they have the wrong child. We checked nearby hospitals for infant girls admitted during that time and came up with a list of possible matches. I collected Keely’s drinking cup from your yard the other day when you and Keely were raking leaves and cleaning up your Halloween decorations. Her DNA matched Riana Collingwood’s DNA. She is Riana Collingwood.”

The idea of this man wandering around her yard—snooping for evidence so he could rip her daughter from her life infuriated her. Her hands fisted on her hips. “You were in my yard, spying on us?”

He didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “I saw no reason to upset you unnecessarily. Keely was only one of many children we were investigating.”

Stef wanted to claw his iceberg heart out. He was demolishing her world—and her heart—with one crushing sentence after another. “This is insane. You’re not taking my baby from me!” She faltered, blindsided by a memory of the second night she’d spent in the hospital with Keely.

She remembered awakening to the sound of her hospital door closing. Oh, God!

Full-blown panic gripped her heart. What if the person who’d entered her room hadn’t been a nurse? What if the Hollywood Goliath was actually telling the truth?

“I want other tests done at a lab of my choosing,” she snapped, clutching the arm of her chair for support.

“Of course. No one wants to make a mistake with a matter this serious.”

She hadn’t expected him to agree to that demand, which convinced her this was no joke. She lurched to her feet. Her sister Lorraine worked in a law firm as a paralegal. She could help her find a lawyer. “I’m calling a lawyer.”

He stood up, too, towering over her. For a second the serious intensity of his expression shifted to something that bordered on genuine sympathy. She had the distinct impression he was about to touch her, but then he locked his expression up tight and threw away the key.

“I’d rather you not do that,” he said.

“Why? Because I’ll discover this is some scam? I think it’s time you left, Mr. Halloran.”

His jaw flexed into an intractable bulkhead, his mouth a flat line. He removed a paper from his pocket. “Read this. It’s the ransom note from the kidnappers.”

Stef heard time throb in her temples like a hammer striking a stake as she made herself take the note from his strong brown fingers. Fingers that were strong enough to take her baby from her. But he’d have to kill her first!

She read the note, each terrifying word.

Riana Collingwood is alive. She is a bright, pretty child with her father’s eyes and her mother’s smile. Prepare a five million dollar cash ransom and await further instruction.

Five million dollars! Oh, God, that wasn’t good.

Neither was the last line.

Involve the police this time and lose her forever.

Stef started to hyperventilate.

The man who had just destroyed her life took her elbow, his hand hot as the devil’s touch. “Hey, sit back down. Now bend forward and put your head between your knees, okay?

“Just breathe.”

She did what he ordered, even though what she really wanted to do was to smack him.

He sat on the arm of the chair and she felt the tentative stroke of his hand on her back like a zap of electricity. “I wouldn’t advise bringing a third party into this now. It could put your real child’s life in danger.”

She sat bolt upright, still gulping for air.

“I’m assuming that the hair samples the kidnapper sent belong to your real daughter. We’ll have to do tests immediately to confirm that. Regardless, the Foundation will cooperate fully with the kidnapper’s demand and pay the ransom.” He rubbed a slow circle that burned into her skin and made her forget all about breathing. “There’s no kind or gentle way to say this—if the kidnapper realizes he has the wrong child, he could kill your daughter.”

Stef glared at him, his Hollywood-handsome face inches from hers. She’d heard all she could take. Tears welled in her eyes. God, somewhere in Mitch Halloran there had to lurk a touch of humanity. He’d tried to soothe her when she’d started to hyperventilate and he was stroking her back, infusing her with the iron-core strength of his hand.

“Please, can’t you just go away? The Collingwoods are dead. Just say it’s a mistake. No one will know. Mistakes happen all the time in labs, don’t they?”

His cobalt eyes flickered like shadows in the night, indicating he was considering her request. Her heart filled with hope as she prayed he’d relent.

“Is that what you really want me to do, Mrs. Shelton?”

His voice dipped with scorn. “Just go away and forget about your real daughter, who doesn’t have red rubber boots or a real mommy to take her trick or treating?”

Fury gripped her at his callousness. She tried to shove him off the arm of the chair. “You bastard.”

To her shock, he grabbed her in an attempt to gain his balance and landed on top of her in the chair, his chest pressed against hers, his nose inches from her face. She could feel the steely hardness of his muscled body and smell the scents of citrus and sea salt on his skin.

Even his teeth were Hollywood perfect. “You’re not thinking straight,” he said bluntly. “I saw you in the yard with Keely. I know if you thought you had a child out there, you’d move heaven and earth to get her back.”

Stef felt hot tears slip onto her face. Her stomach knotted as she tried to imagine the face of the little girl the kidnapper had described, who’d come from her womb. Yes, in her mother’s heart she desperately wanted her child. But all she could see was Keely’s face—the beloved little girl whom she’d fed and changed, and whose voice was the sound of happiness. She elbowed Mitch in the ribs. “Get off me!”

Oh, God, this wasn’t happening!

“Are you going to take Keely from me?” she demanded as he levered himself off her.

Stef saw the stark truth in his face before he could shutter his expression.

“That’s not my job. My concern is finding out whether the child being held is your daughter and getting her back safely. I’ll need a DNA sample from you. And I’ll need something that might have your husband’s DNA on it.”

“Like what? I have some of Brad’s things stored away that I thought Keely might find comforting to have,” she said, trying to bend her mind to comprehend the sickening thought that her flesh-and-blood child had been in the care of kidnappers for the past thirty months. Her heart jerked. Had her child been neglected? Or abused?

“Did you keep a jacket or a ball cap? Something that may have come in contact with his neck, wrist or forehead is more likely to have his DNA on it.”

“I’ll see what I can find.” She forced herself to stand and brush past his towering frame. On stiff legs, she marched to the alcove to get Keely. She wasn’t leaving Mitch Halloran alone with her daughter.

Her daughter. A sob clawed up her throat. Even if another DNA test proved Keely really was the Collingwood heir, she couldn’t accept for a moment that Keely wouldn’t be in her life forever. As soon as this was over, she’d get a lawyer. Surely no judge in the country would take a baby away from the woman who’d raised it if the biological parents were dead?

But this isn’t any baby, insinuated a doom-and-gloom voice in her mind that sounded remarkably like Mitch Halloran’s blunt-edged baritone. Her sunshiney daughter who loved to dance and sing and bake cookies was the Collingwood heir—the heir to one of the largest family fortunes in the United States.

Who was she kidding?

Stef stopped in the arched doorway to the alcove, overwhelmed by the battle she was up against. Keely, the delightful center of her universe, was pretending to feed toy plastic fruits to a doll. “Eat, baby, eat,” she chanted. She glanced up and saw Stef and her blue-green eyes rounded with empathy.

“Mommy—sad?”

Stef sank onto the floor and pulled Keely into her lap, committing to memory the tropical scent of her hair, the perfect peanut shape of her nose and the snug heaven-on-earth feel of her compact body. How could she bear losing this darling child? “Mommy’s very sad, Kee. But when I hold you everything’s better.”

To Stef’s dismay, Keely started to sing their “I love you” song. The tears Stef had been struggling to hold back burst out in a torrent.

She rocked Keely tightly in her arms. “I love you, too, baby. I love you, too.”

SHE WAS CRYING.

Mitch stiffened as his every muscle tried to deflect the sound of Stephanie Shelton’s anguished sobs. His stomach felt as if it were coated with hot tar. The only thing that made the situation bearable was the hope that she’d soon be reunited with her own lost child.

Mitch knew what a gift a mother like her would be to that child. Everything his own mother had never been.

He’d give Stef a few more minutes, then gently prod her into action. Time wasn’t on their side—there was no way of knowing when the kidnapper would again make contact with specific instructions for the ransom. For all they knew, whoever had switched Riana and Keely could have another plan in the works to switch them back.

Flexing the tight muscles in his shoulders, Mitch unclipped the cell phone from his belt and punched in The Guardian’s phone number.

“The Guardian,” G.D.’s militarily brusque voice said.

Mitch’s lips curled in wry humor. Uncomfortable with his new boss’s curt directive to address him as sir, he’d quickly dubbed The Guardian “G.D.,” which stood for goddamn. As in goddamn he couldn’t believe he’d handed in his gun and his badge because The Guardian had asked him for assistance with this case.

Mitch had wanted to be a detective since he was twelve, when he’d gone to live with his grandfather who worked as a janitor in the Parker Administration Building of the L.A.P.D.

On days when Paddy’s back had pained him from his shrapnel injury—a nasty souvenir from the Korean War—Mitch would come along to pick up wastebaskets and mop the floors in the Detective Headquarters Division. He’d never thought about not being a police detective. He’d thought he’d probably drag his last breath on the streets of L.A.—a fitting way to go for the life he’d chosen.

Mitch angled a surreptitious glance at Stef who was guiding Keely toward the bedrooms. His heart tightened at the paleness of her face and the moist path of tears on her cheek. For the first time in two years he had no doubt whatsoever that he was right where he was supposed to be.

He could almost hear Paddy telling him to keep soldiering on. It never gets any easier, son.

His chest filled with an echo of longing for the gruff man who’d given him the only home he’d ever known. Who’d given him clumsily wrapped Christmas presents and had taken him to Dodger games to celebrate his birthdays where he’d slipped Mitch sips of his beer. They were not the kind of memories that made sappy movies, but they were incredibly precious to a kid starved for attention.

Mitch realized his thoughts were drifting when G.D.’s voice rumbled, “Who’s calling?”

He snapped back into focus. “Operation Bassinet. It’s Halloran, G.D. I just spoke to Mrs. Shelton. She’s devastated, but she’s on board.”

Concern edged The Guardian’s tone. “Is Riana okay?”

“Right as rain. We should be back in the city tonight. By the way, the husband is dead. Two years ago. In a rock climbing accident. Think there’s anything fishy in that? It could be a coincidence, but whoever abducted Riana from the hospital knew how to rappel.”

When Mitch had accepted the job one day after the ransom demand had been received, The Guardian had apprised him of the details of Riana’s kidnapping. The suspect was a Caucasian male who’d sneaked into the maternity postpartum wing during visitor’s hours using a stolen visitor’s badge and a hospital identification bracelet similar to those given to the new dads. He’d hidden in an unoccupied room and zapped the nurse, who’d been returning Riana Collingwood to the nursery after a late night feeding, with a stun gun.

Within minutes the kidnapper had bound the nurse and made his escape with the baby through a hole he’d cut in the second floor window to circumvent the hospital’s state-of-the-art alarm system and the high-tech baby identification bracelets equipped with receivers.

By the time the staff realized the Collingwood heir had been stolen, the kidnapper had been long gone.

“I’ve already assigned some men to do a background check of the family. I’ll ask them to dig up what they can on the husband’s death. Brad Shelton would have been in a perfect position to switch the babies. If a man walked into a hospital carrying a baby, who’d question him if he walked out carrying one?”

“We’re on the same wavelength, G.D.”

“Will you be able to get the husband’s DNA sample?”

“I’m on it.”

“Excellent. We don’t want any doubts as to the identity of the child the kidnapper has. I’ll be waiting for you and Mrs. Shelton at the hotel.”

The Guardian disconnected the call, but not before Mitch heard the distinct cry of a baby in the background and the soothing murmur of a woman’s voice.

That was odd. He hooked his cell phone back onto his belt and went to check on Stef. Had The Guardian been with another client? Or did G.D. have a personal life?

G.D. was a man cloaked in mystery and Mitch was determined to at least learn his name. A man who didn’t know who he was working for was a fool of an employee.

He’d already had a buddy in L.A.P.D.’s Scientific Investigative Division lift G.D.’s fingerprints from the paper on which he’d written his ridiculously high offer to Mitch. But all he’d discovered was that The Guardian’s lily-white fingerprints weren’t on file. Figured.

Mitch walked down the hall and found Stef and Keely in the tiny master bedroom, which was crammed with a walnut double-bed, a matching chest of drawers and a sewing machine in a cabinet. Keely was petting scraps of orange fur on the floor near the sewing machine and calling them “kitty” while Stef rummaged through the closet.

Mitch took in the intriguing view of Stef’s jeans-clad bottom as she reached for the jumble of clothes, luggage, shopping bags and shoe boxes piled up on the closet shelf. “Careful,” he warned as Stef stood on her tiptoes and tugged on a shoe box.

Too late.

A landslide of shopping bags, sweaters and shoe boxes slid off the shelf in slow motion, raining down on her.

Keely giggled and clapped her hands. “Oopsie, doopsie, all fall down, Mommy!”

Stef rolled her eyes and Mitch heard the tears hovering in her voice. “It’s not supposed to all fall down on Mommy, Kee. Now we have a real mess on our hands.”

Shoulders hunched, Stef plucked a royal-blue ball cap from the debris field and held it out to him, her face flooded with color that made her seem even more vulnerable. Mitch was consciously aware he was treading into no man’s land, becoming too hypersensitive to her emotions. He gave himself a mental kick in the butt.

“Will this do? Brad wore it for company ball games.”

Careful to allow her some dignity, he kept his gaze averted from her moist eyes and examined the inner headband of the Office Outfitter’s cap. It was stained with sweat. “This’ll do.” He gestured at the mess on the closet floor. “Since you’ve already got your luggage out, pack a bag for you and your daughter.”

“Why?”

Mitch made the mistake of looking at her. Her green-gold eyes were as dangerous as a riptide and fringed with long sooty lashes. He was none too happy that he was making personal observations about the length of her eyelashes. He was too seasoned a cop to let himself get sucked in by a pair of pleading eyes. The anguish in Teresa Lopez’s eyes when he’d informed her that her granddaughter was dead would haunt him to his dying day.

Don’t think about Carmen or Theresa, he told himself. This is another case. Another chance to save a child.

Cold detachment firmed his voice. “You’re coming with me. Keely’s the Collingwood heir. You’re both under my protection until this is over.”

THE KIDNAPPER WAS CAREFUL to arrive after dark to avoid being seen. Aunt Helen and Uncle Fred’s farmhouse was set back from the road, but you couldn’t be too careful.

Aunt Helen answered the door, her worn face brightening into a smile. “Well, this is nice, two visits in a month. I was just washing up the dinner dishes. Let me cut you some cake. It’s chocolate with butter-pecan frosting. Emma put the pecans on all by herself.”

“Then I definitely want some. Where is she?”

“Helping Fred feed the rabbits out back.” Aunt Helen stopped in the dingy hallway papered with faded blue windmills and folded her gnarled fingers in prayer, her voice a fervent whisper. “Have you heard from him?”

“Sorry, but I got an e-mail from Emma’s mother’s sister. She was looking for her sister and didn’t know about Emma.”

“Did she offer to take her?”

“I didn’t ask in so many words, but I told her about Emma and offered to send a picture. I’m hoping once she sees her she’ll be open to the idea of looking after her.”

“That would be wonderful. I can’t understand how adults can just abandon their children and their responsibilities. Fred and I love her dearly but we won’t be able to take care of her forever. Fred’s getting more and more forgetful. Yesterday he forgot he’d turned the kettle on and nearly started a fire.”

The kidnapper made sympathetic noises. What Aunt Helen didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Killing her son had been an unpleasant, but necessary precaution. And frankly, the world was better off without that shiftless SOB. “I’m sure he will turn up eventually. You know I’ll do whatever I can to help with Emma’s expenses. I’m just sorry I can’t come by more often.”

Aunt Helen shook her head. “We know you’re busy.” She made shooing motions toward the kitchen. “Now come sit down and tell me what’s going on in your life.”

The kidnapper winced, the question striking too close to home. Everything would work out according to plan as long as The Guardian cooperated with the ransom demand. “Didn’t you say something about cake?”

Aunt Helen cut a thick wedge of cake and served it on a chipped china plate.

The fork rattled as boots clomped up the back steps and the rear kitchen door burst open.

Emma, barely as tall as Uncle Fred’s knee, entered first in a navy-blue jacket, her blue eyes glowing beneath a dark fringe of bangs and her cheeks like polished apples. “Gamma, we’re ba-ack.”

“So you are, little duck. Take off your jacket and your boots,” Aunt Helen said with a smile, rising to help her. “And come say hello to your daddy’s cousin.”

“Quack-quack,” Emma sang back vociferously.

“That means hello,” Uncle Fred interpreted, shrugging out of his red-and-black plaid wool jacket and hanging it on a wooden peg near the door. The retired electrician looked thinner than ever, his pants held around his waist with a belt cinched small as a dog’s collar. Even his handshake felt feeble.

They sat around the table and talked while Aunt Helen fixed tea and Emma drew pictures on construction paper with stubby crayons.

When it was Emma’s bedtime, the kidnapper offered to read her a story. It was simple enough to snap a picture of her in her pajamas holding the front page of today’s edition of the New York Times.

Soon, the picture would come in very handy.

Chapter Two

Stef held Keely in her arms and stared mutinously at Mitch Halloran over the roof of the black luxury sedan as he stowed their luggage in the trunk. She was not ready for this. Night surrounded them with cold velvet. The stars were crystal-clear overhead.

Stef couldn’t bring herself to touch the door handle. It had been hard enough to pack clothes and toys for Keely and to allow Mitch to collect a DNA sample from their mouths with a swab. She did not want to get into this car and drive toward an uncertain future, which might not include the precious baby she held in her arms.

She couldn’t do it.

She had to do it. Another child needed her.

Mitch closed the trunk and stared back at her, not saying a word, but his Goliath expression said plenty.

She hated him, she really did. Hated how he loomed over the car—a golden malevolent griffin with sun-bleached hair. Hated how she noticed how endlessly broad his shoulders were and how she could feel his eyes silently reminding her that her flesh-and-blood child was spending yet another day without her real mommy.

That was the worst part of it. Nausea and anger churned in her at the heart-wrenching thought that she’d only known her real baby for a day. What if her real daughter was dead? Or would be killed once the ransom was paid. What if she never saw her again?

“Mommy?” Keely’s voice sounded pitifully small and tired in the darkness. “I don’t like that man. He makes you sad. I want my snuggie and my beddy-bye time.”

“Kee, that was rude. Mr. Halloran is a detective, which is kind of like a police officer, and he needs Mommy’s help. So we’re going to go with him and help him, okay? It’ll be fun. An adventure.”

Keely didn’t look convinced. Her brow wrinkled like a plump raisin. “No.”

Stef saw the white flash of Mitch Halloran’s patient smile in the darkness as he walked to the driver’s side door. He obviously knew better than to clash wills with an obstinate two-and-a-half-year-old. She smoothed the hair back from Keely’s forehead and kissed her frown away, her throat tightening with suppressed emotion. “Sometimes, Kee, we have to do things even when we don’t want to do them.” God, what an understatement! “I have snuggie and I’ll tuck it around you and we’ll have our beddy-bye time in the car.”

As she spoke, Stef opened the rear door of the car. The door handle felt cold in her grasp. “Okay, baby gorilla, into your car seat. I’ll sit right beside you.”

To her relief, Keely obeyed, though she moved at an excruciating turtle’s pace. Stef fastened her daughter into the car seat and covered her with her snuggie, the crocheted rainbow-pastel blanket that had been a gift from Brad’s former boss. Then she handed Keely her cup of milk with the leak-proof lid.

Stef was uncomfortably aware of Mitch Halloran’s unrelenting size filling the car, his scent commingling with the scents of leather and the sweet baby smell of Keely’s blanket. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so aware of a man’s presence. It had probably been her wedding day when she’d walked down the aisle and seen Brad waiting for her at the front of the church.

Brad. He’d been handsome, engaging and unreliable.

Funny how she’d fooled herself into thinking he’d always be there for her. The fact that he was estranged from his parents, who hadn’t been invited to their wedding, should have been her first clue that family wasn’t at the top of Brad’s priority list. She wouldn’t be going through this nightmare if he’d stayed overnight in the hospital with them. But he’d had that job interview the next morning, which he’d blown anyway by arriving late.

Guilt struck her. It wasn’t Brad’s fault that someone had stolen their baby.

Mitch looped an arm across the back of the front passenger seat, his face a study of intense sharp angles as he backed the car out of the driveway—away from the home she’d bought with the money from Brad’s life insurance policy. At least he’d been responsible enough to buy life insurance when Stef had discovered she was pregnant.

Angry tears blurred her vision. She licked her dry lips as Mitch put the car in drive and her house receded from view. Next time she came home, would Keely be with her?

She straightened, lightly stroking Keely’s hair. She had to think positively. As soon as her real daughter was safely returned, she’d hire a lawyer and fight for custody of Keely, even if she had to sell her house and everything she owned to pay the legal fees.

Were there even any Collingwood family members who’d fight for custody of Keely? The Collingwood murders had been all over the news—speculation running rampant on the talk shows over who would get the money because there were no other living relatives except Lexi’s greedy sister, Annette York. Annette was probably going to get the death penalty for killing her sister and brother-in-law.

Stef cleared her throat and glared at the back of Mitch’s head. “Where are we going?” she asked.

His face was reflected in the rearview mirror. He drove the way the cops on those reality TV shows drove, both hands on the wheel, his body language vigilant as if he expected trouble to come leaping out of the bushes.

Oh, God. Did he?

Visions of car-jackings raced through her mind. She suddenly realized that if Keely really was the lost Collingwood heir, she’d stand to inherit a fortune, which was why she’d been kidnapped in the first place. Her inheritance would make her vulnerable all of her life.

“We’re going to New York City,” Mitch said, his baritone bursting Stef’s panicky realization that he hadn’t exaggerated when he’d said Keely needed protection. “The Foundation has offices there. My boss has reserved a suite at a hotel. He’ll meet us there.”

“Who’s your boss? Is he related to the Collingwoods?”

“He calls himself The Guardian.”

Stef wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “Excuse me?”

“He’s a private security consultant who keeps his identity under wraps to protect his clientele. Ross Collingwood hired him after Riana was kidnapped. He was the one who nailed Annette York for killing Ross and Lexi Collingwood.” Mitch’s voice held deference and respect. “When I was with the L.A.P.D., I heard stories about him from officers who’d assisted him with celebrity stalking cases.”

Stef didn’t care who The Guardian was or what he’d done. She was prepared to dislike him on sight. As far as she was concerned, The Guardian was just a man who wanted to take Keely away from her.

“Are there other family members? I’ve only heard about the sister—she doesn’t sound like someone I want to meet.”

“That information is being kept under wraps.”

Stef rolled her eyes. From the tone of Mitch’s voice, she wasn’t going to get any information out of him about the Collingwoods. Maybe she’d have better luck with his boss.

Keely popped the cup out of her mouth and twined her tiny fingers in Stef’s hair. “Mommy, beddy-bye story?”

“Sure, baby.” Stef curled an arm across her daughter’s body as if shielding her from Mitch’s real-life tales of pseudonymous detectives, celebrity stalkers and murderers.

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Keely, who lived in a cozy blue house on Maple Lane. One fall day Keely and her mommy were outside raking leaves when they heard a bell-like voice say, ‘Ouch!’ Keely looked down into the grass and found a tiny fairy who was just big enough to fit in her hand. The fairy was crying. The rake had ripped one of her beautiful wings and now she couldn’t fly home.”

She made a scooping motion with her hand and held it up to her daughter’s face. “Keely took the fairy home and made a soft bed for her with her snuggie. And her mommy put a special bandage on the fairy’s wing. The next morning when the fairy woke up, her wing was all better and she could fly home. To thank Keely, the fairy promised to grant her one special wish. And what did Keely wish for?”

Kee popped the cup out of her mouth again and yawned sleepily. “A daddy.”

Stef gaped at her in surprise. Where the heck had that answer come from? Keely had never said anything like that before. But then, she’d never been whisked away from her bed at night by her mommy and a towering stranger, whom she perceived as making her mommy sad. Keely was just a baby. Too young to understand that her daddy had died and gone to heaven. But instinctively old enough to articulate that she wanted a daddy to protect her and her mommy from Mitch.

Stef’s heart broke. Keely didn’t need a daddy. She had a mommy who loved her more than life itself and surely a judge would recognize that and rule in Keely’s best interests even if Stef wasn’t Keely’s biological mother. No matter how big of a fortune was involved.

Yeah, and Stef had bought into the fairy tale that she and Brad would live happily ever after, too.

“Oh, Kee,” she whispered, pressing her mouth against her daughter’s silky head and fighting to keep her tears from clogging her throat and upsetting Keely even more. “That’s a lovely wish. Now close your eyes and go to sleep just like the fairy.”

Softly, very softly, Stef sang her daughter the “I love you” song they’d invented and glared at the sleek golden outline of Mitch Halloran’s head.

MITCH SWORE under his breath as he attempted to tune out the love and desperation in Stef’s voice as she sang to Keely.

He’d witnessed some horrible things in his career—butchered bodies, neglected and abused children, junkies so strung out they’d take a life for a couple of bucks to buy their next fix. Now he could add this poignant moment to that list of worst evers.

All he could do was hold fiercely to the fragile cord of hope that somehow Stef Shelton would get her real daughter back alive. Or this would destroy her.

Just as another girl’s death had destroyed another heartbroken woman who had depended on him. Theresa Lopez had died of a stroke eight months after Carmen’s death.

Decisions usually came easy to Mitch. He didn’t waste time agonizing over what to do. He made a decision and went with it until the circumstances changed and he had to make another decision. Paddy had taught him that valuable lesson after Mitch had been dumped on his doorstep because his mother’s boyfriend didn’t like having a teenage boy with an attitude hanging around. The visit with his grandfather was supposed to be for a few days. But those few days had stretched into a month, then a couple of months.

After watching Mitch check the window every time a car pulled in the drive, Paddy had told him he had to quit worrying about when and if his mother was coming back—events he couldn’t control—and to make a decision to soldier on and focus on things he could control such as making friends, getting good grades and figuring out what his mission in life was. Most importantly, deciding what kind of man he wanted to be.

Mitch had used Paddy’s advice to control his destiny ever since—cracking the books to get the grades he needed to get a degree in criminal justice, busting his ass in the police academy and distinguishing himself as a detective.

He stole another look at Stef in the rearview mirror. Her left arm was curled protectively around the top of the car seat, her head pillowed on her shoulder. He steeled his emotions to the heartbreaking story of love and fear her body language projected.

“Is she asleep?” he asked tentatively, trying to establish a rapport with her. Whether she liked it or not, he was in this with her.

Her tone was charged with rebellion. “Yes, finally.”

Oh, boy.

He kept his tone even. “I know this is rough, but I need to ask you some questions.”

“Such as?”

“Do you remember anything unusual happening in the hospital after Keely’s birth? Did you see anyone suspicious near your child? Maybe a nurse or a hospital worker?”

“Why would I tell you anything that would help you succeed in your ridiculous claim that Keely isn’t my child?”

“Because, ma’am, deep down you know my claim is not ridiculous and beneath the anger and the fear you’re feeling, you want to do everything you can to get your daughter back home to you safely.”

She snorted. “If you knew anything about my feelings, Mr. Halloran, you’d stop calling me ‘ma’am.’ Or maybe you don’t want to do that because you sleep better at night by treating people as if they’re just another nameless face.”

He felt a strong poke in his shoulder. It took every ounce of his self-control to remain relaxed and to not tense up. He assumed it was her finger and not a gun, but who knew to what extremes a distraught parent might go under the threat of having to give up their child?

“You take a good look at my face, Halloran,” she continued bitterly. “My name is Stef Shelton. This is my life we’re talking about. My family. So don’t you talk to me like I’m some nameless, faceless person.”

Her words hit Mitch like a match to a fuse. He jerked the car over to the side of the road, switched on the overhead light and turned to face her.

There was no gun. Just one very defiant woman, who was in real danger of losing her family. His stomach catapulted again.

He pointed two fingers at his eyes, his voice just as hard as hers had been. “Stef, look at me. Right here. I can’t afford to be emotional or I’d spend half my waking hours guzzling beer and the other half puking my guts out over the stuff I see day in, day out. I am thinking about your life. Your family. Your daughter. I want to know who took her, and I want to get her back for you alive. Now answer my goddamn question.” The hardness in his voice turned to a plea. “Please.”

He saw the defiance leak out of her, saw her eyes turn to liquid gold in her pale face as they filled with new tears. His chest grew unbearably tight. She was a nice woman. And hot enough that he’d take a second interested glance if she weren’t intimately connected with the case. Stef Shelton loved Keely the way mothers were supposed to love their children. She’d never dump her child with a relative and disappear for years. Mitch didn’t even know whether his mother was alive or dead. He hadn’t seen his own dad except for that one time when he was six years old.

“I know this doesn’t seem fair, but we have to move beyond that and make smart decisions.” He snapped his mouth shut before he added the sorry platitude that life was rarely fair. He knew damn well that there was a chance that Stef Shelton’s real daughter could be buried in a shallow grave that would never be found.

But he wasn’t going to consider that possibility until he had strong evidence to suggest it was the case. He reached into the back and touched her knee, breaking the fundamental rule of successfully sustaining detachment, the line he never should have crossed with Carmen’s grandmother: don’t touch, don’t feel.

The moment he felt the wiry strands of Teresa’s gray hair against his cheek as she’d hugged him desperately, he’d lost his perspective. But he needed Stef’s cooperation. He had no badge that he could wave to induce her to talk.

She felt brittle and delicate as if sheer force of will was holding her together. “Trust me,” he said. “I only want to help.”

She took a shaky breath, her eyes still fixed on his. He could see the decision-making process going on in her head. Do I hate this bastard? Or do I trust him to help me?

Trust won out.

Mitch had the uncanny sensation he were staring down a gold-paved tunnel into her soul as she wet her lips and finally confided, “I woke up around 3:00 a.m. The sound of the door woke me. I thought it was the nurse or my husband coming to check on us because he’d decided not to stay overnight in the hospital with us. Dads can do that, you know.”

And she blamed her husband for not being there. He could tell by the defensive shift in her body language and the rigid tilt of her chin. But then, she was probably still angry with her husband for dying. Mitch was familiar with that kind of anger. Paddy was the one person he’d counted on being there for him. Always.

“Did you see the person? Could you tell if it was a male or female? Did you notice anything they were wearing?”

“No, sorry.” She sounded sincere.

“Did you notice anything unusual about Keely at all? Her hair? Her weight? The ID bracelets?”

She frowned, thinking back. “Nothing significant. It was two and a half years ago. To be honest, I don’t think Brad or I looked that closely at the ID bracelets. Having a baby is a pretty exhausting experience.”

“I’ll bet. I don’t have any kids, but I suspect they call it labor for a reason.” He squeezed her knee, intending to leave things on a friendly note and to get the sedan back on the road, but she stopped him, catching his hand with hers. Mitch’s heart kicked up a beat at the hesitant, light-as-a-feather touch of her fingers.

“Mitch…?”

He nodded encouragingly. It was the first time she’d used his name. But it also triggered a tremor of unease on the back of his neck at the level of intimacy it created.

“The ransom note you showed me—it said the little girl had her father’s eyes and her mother’s smile. W-what color were Ross Collingwood’s eyes?”

He held her gaze, smiled gently, relieved to see that she was rallying and wasn’t going to stay in denial about her biological daughter’s fate. He imagined Stef Shelton had strengths she hadn’t tapped yet. “They were blue. And the hairs that accompanied the note were dark brown.”

“Brad had blue eyes,” she said wistfully, releasing his hand.

Mitch searched her determined, tear-streaked face and Keely’s slumbering form for a second longer, then turned out the overhead light and pulled back onto the road.

Her lost daughter was becoming real to her.

HUNTER AND JULIANA SINCLAIR waited anxiously in the penthouse suite of the New York Clairmont Hotel for Riana’s arrival. Unbelievably, incredibly, after thirty long months, Ross and Lexi’s daughter was safe in Mitch Halloran’s custody and on her way home to them.

But what should have been a joyous event was overshadowed by the grim knowledge that another child’s life was perilously at risk. Poor Stephanie Shelton, the woman who’d unknowingly been caring for Riana, had just learned that the child she’d raised was not her own.

Juliana empathized with what Stephanie must be thinking and feeling. When Ross and Lexi Collingwood were murdered in an explosion six weeks ago, The Guardian had expected her to give up the Collingwoods’ five-month-old son, Cort, whom she’d been raising in secret to keep him safe from harm. Ross and Lexi had appointed The Guardian as the legal guardian of their children, Riana and Cort. Even though Juliana had been raised in the Collingwood household, it spoke to The Guardian’s intense security that she hadn’t known that Ross and Hunter were best friends or that Hunter was Cort’s godfather.

Regardless, she had not been willing to give up Cort without a fight. To protect her precious charge until he was old enough to claim his inheritance, she had married Hunter Sinclair, aka The Guardian. They were raising Cort as a Sinclair, their own son, giving him all the love that Ross and Lexi would have given him.

She rested her head on her husband’s solid shoulder, her heart bearing equal burdens of elation and anxiety. In the short time since their marriage she knew Hunter so well she could practically hear the gears turning in his pragmatic mind, assessing the extraordinary situation for legalities and lawsuits and risk management options.

He’d been overcome with emotion when he’d taken the call from Mitch Halloran earlier this evening. He’d excused himself from the dining room when the call came, then returned a few minutes later and silently held out his hand to her, blinking back tears.

She’d walked out to the greenhouse with him where he’d told her the news. They’d wept together at the miracle, mourning the fact that Ross and Lexi weren’t alive to welcome their lost little girl home themselves.

Hunter had promised her that he’d do everything possible to ensure the safe return of Stephanie Shelton’s real daughter. Then he’d put on his Guardian hat and told her in his endearingly arrogant way that they were going to act with the utmost caution until they knew who was behind Riana’s kidnapping. Riana’s return could be a trap.

The timing of this ransom demand so shortly after Annette’s arrest for the Collingwood murders was awfully suspicious. Annette and her lawyers were claiming she was innocent—that she’d been framed for the bombing and murders by someone higher up in the Collingwood Corporation.

The new ransom demand could be an attempt to make it appear as though another party was behind both the murders and Riana’s kidnapping. Annette had already proven herself a master of plotting and deception. They still couldn’t fathom why Annette hadn’t revealed Cort’s existence or Hunter’s identity as The Guardian to the press. Either she didn’t want to share the media spotlight or she planned to use the information as a trump card during her trial.

“I’m coming with you tonight,” Juliana had insisted.

He’d kissed her forehead, gently, tenderly, in that protective way that told her he was afraid.

“I’m not sure that’s wise at this point.”

She’d smoothed her palms over his chest, emotion choking her voice. Beneath his ever-present shield of caution and restraint, her husband deeply valued his family. “She’s Cort’s sister. Our daughter. I want to see her.”

“I want to see her, too. But I don’t want to put you at risk if it’s a trap.” His azure eyes clouded. “I came too close to losing you last month. And Cort needs you. You’re safer here. Del and Lars aren’t going to let a fly land on this island without their scrutiny and permission.”

Juliana wasn’t taking no for an answer. Lexi’s daughter, their daughter, needed her. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be with you. I’ll stay away from rivers and other bodies of water,” she added, referring to the terrifying night when she’d jumped into the St. Lawrence River to avoid being shot by Annette after Lars and Del had been seriously injured by her hired assassin. “I promise.”

Hunter sighed. “It constantly amazes me how frequently I give in to your unreasonable demands. You may come, but Cort stays at FairIsle with your father and Prudy. And, you’ll accompany me as the Collingwoods’ butler’s daughter, not as my wife. Leave your wedding rings here. I have no intention of revealing that I’m Riana’s legal guardian until we know what’s really going on. I still haven’t told Mitch about Cort or our marriage.”

Juliana had smiled and slid her finger inside the collar of his black sweater. He was the sexiest, most suspicious man she’d ever met and she loved Hunter with her whole heart and soul. Their marriage may have been brought about by the tragic deaths of Ross and Lexi Collingwood, but there was nothing artificial or contrived about their feelings for one another now.

“Does that mean we can’t make love to celebrate Riana’s return while we’re in New York?” She rose on tiptoes to nibble his ear. It was his Achilles’ heel, guaranteed to instantly divert his thoughts from logic to lovemaking. It brought the desired wolfish grin to his face.

His hand had slipped under her skirt, warm and proprietary. “How about a pre-celebration now?”

Juliana jumped as the ringing of the phone in the penthouse suite yanked her into the present. Hunter took the call. “That was the front desk. They’ve arrived.”

Juliana smoothed the black pantsuit she’d changed into for the helicopter trip to New York and tucked her long blond hair behind her ears. She was so nervous. What if Riana was afraid of them? Didn’t like them? She shot a quick glance at her husband.

He had his imperturbable Guardian face on again. They’d agreed earlier that she would make the introductions. It would be less threatening.

“Riana’s going to be so confused,” she said. “She’s not old enough to understand any of this.”

His eyes warmed lovingly. “We’ll make it work.”

“But what if—”

He laid a finger over his lips and motioned for her to greet their guests as the private elevator that served the penthouse suite arrived. The doors slid open.

With her heart in her throat, Juliana smiled at the gorgeous blond man who must be the hot-shot L.A. detective and the defiant dark-haired woman carrying a sleeping toddler. The toddler was wrapped in a blanket that Juliana could only describe as a dream coat because of its beautiful colors.

Riana.

The delicate nest of Riana’s dark curls brought a fluid rush of warmth coursing through Juliana. She could almost feel Lexi’s smiling presence in the room with them.

Juliana stepped forward, aching to touch those beautiful curls, but sensing that such a gesture would be ill-advised. “How do you do, Mrs. Shelton? I’m Juliana Goodhew. My family has worked for the Collingwoods for many years.” She gestured at Hunter. “And this is The Guardian, the Collingwoods’ chief security consultant.”

Hunter nodded. “Mrs. Shelton.”

This was so awkward. Juliana felt a warning chill pass over her spine as the tension mounted. Stephanie Shelton looked scared to death and she noticed that Mitch Halloran moved slightly behind the young woman as if providing her with emotional and moral support.

Juliana’s heart went out to Stephanie. This situation was going to be difficult on them all. “You’ve had a long drive and must be exhausted. Perhaps you’d like to get Riana settled first, then we can sit down and talk privately.”

Stephanie Shelton didn’t budge. Her green eyes glittered with the ferocity of a lioness protecting her cub. “Her name is Keely. Even if the DNA tests prove she’s Riana, I’m not giving her up without a fight. You can relay that message to her family on my behalf.”

Oh, dear. Juliana shot Hunter a look of dismay.

Hunter stepped forward. “Be that as it may, Mrs. Shelton,” he said courteously, “we still need your cooperation. If you’re the parent of the child the kidnapper is holding, then only you can make certain decisions about the ransom demand and how you wish to proceed. I suggest we leave the legal battles for the lawyers. Have you provided Mitch with some DNA samples? It takes three to four days to get DNA test results back from the lab, and we may hear from the kidnapper again before then. I have a courier standing by in the lobby.”

“This should do it.” Mitch Halloran passed Hunter two DNA test kits, then partially slid a royal-blue baseball cap from a paper bag. Office Outfitters was embroidered in red above the bill of the cap. “This was his ball cap.”

A guarded stillness came over Hunter. “Was your husband associated with Office Outfitters, Mrs. Shelton?”

“He worked for them for seven years until he was laid off when it was taken over by some big corporation.” She faltered, fear illuminating her eyes like flash-bulbs.

“Taken over by whom?” Hunter prodded gently.

Stephanie Shelton took a hesitant step backward and bumped into Mitch Halloran’s muscled bulk. The detective’s hands shot out to steady her. With nowhere to go, Stephanie clutched Riana more securely to her breast and admitted baldly, “The Collingwood Corporation.”

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