Unbreakable Bond. Rita Herron

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