by Rita Herron
A surge of excitement shot through him as her nipple stiffened beneath his touch.
That damn satin robe clung to her curves, leaving little to the imagination, but he still wanted more. He wanted it off, her bare skin against his, her body wrapped around his own.
A moment of sanity gripped him, and he realized they were standing in the hall in front of the stairs. He didn’t want her on the cold floor—he wanted her in bed lying beneath him.
His heart racing, he swung her up into his arms and climbed the stairs. She clung to him, kissing him greedily, teasing his ear with her tongue then tracing a damp path down his neck where her fingers tugged at the buttons on his shirt.
Hungry for her, he lowered her on the bed, his breathing slashing the silence in the room. The rain had died, and a sliver of moonlight wove through the sheers, illuminating her like an angel lying on the sheets, an angel offering herself to him.
She licked her lips in a devilish grin, her fingers struggling with the buttons. He was tempted to rip the damn thing off, but forced himself to wait. To watch the stormy play of colors in her eyes as she smiled at him, to savor the feel of her fingertips grazing his chest as she slid open the folds of the shirt. Then her hands raked over him, greedily, and she reached for his zipper. His sex was straining to be free, but he caught her hand. “Not yet. I want to see you first,” he murmured. Heat seared his blood as he tugged the belt of her robe and opened the satin so he could feast on her naked breasts. They lay like golden globes waiting for him to hold, her nipples taut and rosy in the moonlight, and he lowered his head and traced his tongue over one gorgeous tip, then the other.
She moaned and thrust her hips upward, making his erection strain against his fly. Smiling, he sucked one taut bud into his mouth and suckled her, then rolled the other between his fingers, teasing and taunting her until she groaned his name.
“Please, Slade…” Her fingers fumbled with his belt, and he let her remove it this time, then he stepped back, slipped her robe the rest of the way off and allowed himself the sheer pleasure of looking at her naked and waiting for him on the bed.
A blush stained her cheeks, but she didn’t cover herself, she simply let him look his fill.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Take off your jeans,” she ordered, one eyebrow lifting as she propped herself on her elbows. “I want to watch.”
So sweet, vulnerable Nina could be demanding in bed. He shouldn’t be surprised. She was a woman who went after what she wanted, and damned if he knew why, but she wanted him.
And he was determined to give her what she wanted. Everything she wanted.
At least for tonight.
So he slowly lowered his zipper, the rasp of it crackling in the tension-laden air, then grabbed a condom from his pocket before meeting her back on the bed. She reached for him and he fell into her arms, then kissed her again, deeper, more intimately, tasting the heady scent of her arousal as he dipped down to tease her breasts again, then lower over her belly and to the sweet, honeyed flesh between her thighs.
She was moist with desire, and he breathed in her essence then licked and teased her legs apart until his mouth closed over her sex, swollen with want and need.
A second later, she moaned his name and her body convulsed, the succulent taste of her release flooding his throat. Breathing like a wild man, he lifted his head and stared at her for a moment. Her cheeks were flushed with pleasure, her eyes glazed and hungry.
She wanted more and so did he.
He tore the condom wrapper open with his teeth, and she helped him sheathe himself, then he gripped her hips and teased her legs apart again with his sex. She closed her eyes and groaned, and he lowered his head and kissed her again, then thrust into her. She was small and tight, and he wondered momentarily if she’d been with another man since that creep William, then knew without asking that she hadn’t.
The fact that she’d allowed him this guilty pleasure moved emotions deep inside him, emotions he didn’t want to feel or face.
But he felt them anyway, just as he felt her delicious body hugging him inside her, felt her muscles clench and tighten around him. She clung to his arms as he thrust deeper inside her, then pulled out and thrust again and again until she rocked her hips upward, matching his rhythm, and they soared to the heavens together.
NINA SNUGGLED UP TO SLADE, her body humming with bliss. Slade wrapped his arms around her, and stroked her hair, his breathing heavy in the silence.
She pressed her face against his chest, savoring the euphoria rippling through her body. Emotions welled in her chest and throat and a tear spilled over.
Slade lifted her head back and searched her face. “What’s wrong, Nina?”
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” she whispered.
Slade tensed, and immediately withdrew from her.
“Slade?”
He sat up, swung his legs over to the side and leaned his head into his hands. She’d made a mistake in blurting out her feelings, but their lovemaking had touched her down to her soul.
She stroked his back, coaxing him to face her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to pressure you.”
He angled his head and stared at her, but he was shutting down in front of her eyes, and the hunger she’d seen earlier had vanished. “Nina, you don’t love me. You’re just grateful that I’ve been helping you—”
Anger knotted her stomach. “I didn’t make love to you out of gratitude.”
“You’re coming off an adrenaline rush,” he said matter-of-factly. “We both are. We almost died tonight.” He gestured toward the rumpled sheets. “That’s all this was.”
Hurt stabbed Nina, but before she could reply, the doorbell rang.
Slade narrowed his eyes in question, and she clenched the sheets. “I wonder who that is this time of night.”
“Maybe the sheriff.” Slade stood, grabbed his jeans and shirt and hurriedly dressed. “I’ll go find out.”
Nina waited until he left the room, then grabbed a pair of shorts and a shirt and tugged them on, and ran a brush through her hair. She heard a woman’s then a man’s voice from downstairs, then Slade’s and rushed down the steps.
She was shocked to see Gwen and Roan Waldorp in the doorway. Gwen’s eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and her husband looked angry.
“Nina, they said they have to talk to you,” Slade said.
Dread mushroomed inside Nina. Something was wrong, and she had a sinking feeling it had to do with her daughter.
Chapter Seventeen
Slade must have sensed that she was falling apart, because he guided her to the living-room sofa, indicating for the couple to follow.
When they were all seated, Nina blinked, forcing herself to calm down and listen to what they had to say.
“Why did you come?” Slade asked bluntly.
Gwen glanced at her husband, and he cradled her hand in his. Gwen gripped it as if she needed a lifeline.
“I’m sorry,” Gwen whispered. “We… I wanted to tell you that day you came to the house, but I…was afraid…and ashamed.”
“Then we heard the news about Dr. Emery’s arrest,” Waldorp said. “And we knew we had to come forward.”
“Because you were afraid of being arrested, too?” Slade asked coldly.
Gwen shook her head. “Because it was the right thing to do.”
Nina inhaled a deep breath. “What are you talking about?”
Gwen glanced down at her lap where she was clenching her husband’s hands. “We were supposed to adopt your baby.”
Nina’s heart raced. “What do you mean, you were supposed to?”
“After we lost our child, we paid Stanford Mansfield to find us another one,” the husband said. “He said he’d let us know when a baby became available.”
Slade sat down beside Nina and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Then what?”
“He called a couple of weeks later, and said he’d f
ound a little girl, that her mother abandoned her and she needed someone to adopt her.”
“He told you I abandoned her?” Nina said, furious.
Gwen nodded then lifted her head and looked at Nina again. “We honestly didn’t know she was your baby. We believed him.”
“So he brought my little girl to you?” Nina asked.
“Yes,” Roan said.
Gwen’s lip trembled. “I’m so sorry, Nina. And so ashamed…”
Nina bit down on her lower lip. “Ashamed? Why?”
“Because we…saw her, and she was so frail and needed physical therapy…so we decided we couldn’t keep her.” Gwen swiped back a tear that trickled down her cheek. “We didn’t know how to handle a handicapped child.”
Slade squeezed Nina’s shoulder. “What did you do then?”
“We explained our misgivings to Mansfield,” Roan said, then gave Nina a pleading look. “You have to understand. We lost one child, and we wanted a perfect one…”
Nina nearly came off the chair. She wanted to scream at them to leave, to tell them they were cruel, but she’d forced herself to school her emotions for so long, that she managed to rein in her temper.
“So what happened to Nina’s baby?” Slade asked.
“We have no idea,” Waldorp said. “I assumed someone else adopted her, and a week later, Mansfield phoned that he had another child for us.”
“We had no idea she was your baby back then,” Gwen said shakily. “I was so traumatized from our own ordeal that it never occurred to us that Mr. Mansfield had lied about the mother.”
“And when we came to see you the other day?” Slade asked.
Gwen and her husband exchanged a wary look. “We put it all together and we were afraid,” Gwen said in a low voice.
“Afraid Nina would blame you?” Slade asked. “That you’d lose your daughter?”
Gwen and Roan nodded miserably. “And that you’d think we had something to do with the kidnapping,” Roan said. “But we didn’t.”
Nina understood their fear, and had no idea if it was founded. All she could think about was that this couple had rejected her daughter.
How else had Peyton suffered? And where was she now?
In a home or somewhere lost, alone, feeling abandoned?
SLADE STRUGGLED TO control his rage as the couple left. They wanted a perfect child.
Peyton hadn’t been perfect.
So if they had given birth to a handicapped child, what would they have done—given that baby away, too?
Nina obviously didn’t feel that way.
Dammit. He wanted to put her child back in her arms so badly he could taste it.
“Nina?”
“I don’t understand people like them,” Nina said, her voice laced with sadness.
Just as he couldn’t believe it when his own mother had dropped him off on the doorstep of the orphanage and never returned…
“Not everyone is as strong as you, Nina.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Me? You’re forgetting that I’m the one who had the breakdown.”
“Under the circumstances, having an emotional breakdown was understandable. You’d not only lost a child, but someone tormented you with that loss.” He breathed out deeply to keep from touching her. “I’m going to make some phone calls.”
She nodded, but she looked numb as she walked over, picked up the picture of her baby and stared at it. He imagined the train of her thoughts, and forced himself to block out his ping-ponging emotions.
He stepped into the kitchen and punched in the sheriff’s number. “It’s Slade Blackburn. The Waldorp couple just stopped by and admitted they were supposed to adopt Peyton Nash, that she was alive after that fire. But they declined to keep her because she was handicapped. They also confirmed that Stanford Mansfield handled the adoptions. Have you found him yet?”
“No, I checked his house and it looks like he left in a hurry. I have an APB out on him now.”
“Let me know when you track him down. He might be able to lead us to Peyton.”
He disconnected the call, then phoned Gage and asked him to have Ben Camp find out if Mansfield had a second house or vacation spot where he might be hiding out.
Then he spoke to Derrick McKinney and explained the latest revelations in the case.
When he ended the call, Slade pocketed his phone then went back to the living room.
Her gaze met his, tension thrumming between them. “I’m going to lie down.”
He stared at her for a long moment, the memory of their lovemaking taunting him. He wanted to go back to bed with her.
But she had declared her love and he had thrown it in her face, so he knew he couldn’t join her.
Still, he wouldn’t give up.
He had to find Peyton for her. He couldn’t fail her as he had his sister and mother.
NINA LAY AWAKE, RESTLESS and emotionally wrought. She found herself hating the Waldorp couple for giving her daughter back. If they’d kept her in Sanctuary, she might have recognized her, discovered where she was sooner.
All these years wasted.
Stop it, she reminded herself. When you find her, you’ll make up for lost time. That is, if she found her. If she had been adopted, she might never be able to locate her. The people could have moved anywhere, even out of the country….
And if she hadn’t? How had her little girl suffered?
Downstairs, she heard Slade moving around and prayed he’d come upstairs, crawl into bed and hold her.
But like so many other times, her prayers went unanswered.
Slade had slept with her because she was available and needy. God, he’d probably felt sorry for her.
Embarrassment flooded her and she vowed not to throw herself at him again.
She’d survived all these years alone. She would survive now.
She closed her eyes and focused, tried to hear her little girl singing to her. But the sound of a child’s crying echoed in her head instead.
Peyton was lost and lonely and needed her mommy….
She climbed from bed and retrieved the tiny dress she’d bought years ago and inhaled the scent. Then she crawled back into bed, buried her head in the covers and sobbed her heart out.
Finally dawn streaked the sky, and she forced her achy body from bed and showered. Her face looked puffy, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen, and she made a futile attempt to cover the splotches with powder.
What difference did it make how she looked? Slade wasn’t waiting downstairs to tell her he loved her.
She dressed in jeans, a cotton T-shirt and sandals and headed down the steps for coffee. Slade was sitting at the table with a cup already. His gaze met hers, deep and probing, and she wondered if he’d heard her crying.
But if he did, he didn’t mention it. “I’m going to the jail to question Emery.”
She poured herself a cup of coffee and sipped it. “I’ll go with you.”
For a moment, he looked as if he intended to tell her no, but she needed to see this through and would refuse to take no for an answer.
The storm clouds from the night before still lingered, painting the sky a dismal, dreary gray and adding a chill to the mountain air that sent a shiver through her as she stepped outside. Traffic was light, but a few shopkeepers were starting to open up, and the diner looked packed with the breakfast crowd.
Slade parked in front of the sheriff’s office, and they headed inside silently. Her ankle still ached, but she managed to walk inside without reaching for Slade for help.
No more doing that. Keep it professional.
But as soon as they entered the front office, Nina knew something was wrong. The medical examiner was standing in the front talking to Sheriff Driscill in a hushed voice.
They glanced up, both looking haggard, and the sheriff shook his head as if in disgust.
“What’s going on?” Slade asked.
Driscill blew out an exasperated breath. “Dr. Emery is dead.”
“What
?” Nina gasped.
The medical examiner ran a hand through his gray hair. “He committed suicide sometime in the night. Hanged himself with his own belt and tie.”
SLADE GLANCED AT NINA’S pale face and cursed. The damn coward had known he’d rot in jail, and couldn’t face it. But he’d taken his secrets with him to his grave.
No…maybe not.
“Sheriff, did you get a subpoena for his files? He may have kept a database of the adoptions he arranged.”
“I’ve put in a request,” Sheriff Driscill said.
Slade’s phone buzzed, and he glanced at the number. GAI. Maybe they had a lead.
“I need to get this.” Nina gave him an inquisitive look, and he stepped outside to answer the phone.
“Blackburn, this is Derrick. I just talked to Brianna, and you won’t believe this. We may have a lead on Peyton.”
“What?”
“The social worker Nina knows called and there’s a little girl who was just turned back into the system. She’s been in foster care for years, has vision problems, and her latest foster parents say they can’t take care of her.”
“When and where was she born?”
“Sanctuary Hospital, eight years ago.”
Slade scribbled down the address and disconnected the phone, then turned to Nina. He hoped to hell this little girl was her child, and that she wouldn’t have to face another disappointment.
REBECCA HUGGED HER rag doll to her chest, rocking her back and forth, as she sat huddled on the cot in the orphanage. A big girl with a bulldog face stared at her as if she didn’t want her around, and downstairs a little boy was crying.
The place smelled dusty and a spider had spun a web above her bed on the dirt-coated window.
“So those people didn’t want you?” the girl said with a snarl.
Rebecca shook her head, but clutched the doll tighter.
“You’d better get used to this place,” the girl said. “No one wants kids who ain’t normal.”
Tears pushed at the back of Rebecca’s eyes. The girl was right. The old lady had said the same thing. She’d called her a freak, said she knew why no one had ever kept her.