train’s brakes screamed. Metal scraped against metal. The crackle and scorched smell of sparks flying, shouts of terror, smoke and dust filled the air.
Amid all the chaos, she heard her baby cry.
Noah was terrified, and his shrill piercing wail was a plea for help.
Marin tried to move him so she could see his face, so she could make sure he was all right, but her peripheral vision blurred. It closed in, like thick fog, nearly blinding her.
“Help my son,” she begged. She couldn’t bear his cries. They echoed in her head. Like razorsharp daggers. Cutting right through her.
Sweet heaven, was he hurt?
There was some movement, and she felt Lucky maneuver his hand between them. “He’s okay, I think.”
His qualifier nearly caused Marin to scream right along with her son. “Please, help him.”
Because she had no choice, because the pain was unbearable, Marin dropped her head against the seat. The grayness got darker. Thicker. The pain just kept building. Throbbing. Consuming her.
And her son continued to cry.
That was the worst pain of all—her son crying.
Somehow she had to help him.
She tried to move again, to see his face, but her body no longer responded to what she was begging it to do. It was as if she were spiraling downward into a bottomless dark pit. Her breath was thin, her heartbeat barely a whisper in her ears. And her mouth was filled with the metallic taste of her own blood.
God, was she dying?
The thought broke her heart. She wasn’t scared to die. But her death would leave her son vulnerable. Unprotected.
That couldn’t happen.
“You can’t let them take Noah,” she heard herself whisper. She was desperate now, past desperate, and if necessary she would resort to begging.
“Who can’t take him?” Lucky asked. He sounded so far away, but the warmth of his weight was still on her. She could feel his frantic breath gusting against her face.
“My parents.” Marin wanted to explain that they were toxic people, that she didn’t want them anywhere near her precious son. But there seemed so little breath left in her body, and she needed to tell him something far more important. “If I don’t make it…”
“You will,” he insisted.
Marin wasn’t sure she believed that. “If I don’t make it, get Noah out of here.” She had to take a breath before she could continue. “Protect him.” She coughed as she pulled the smoke and ash into her lungs. “Call Lizette Raines in Fort Worth. She’ll know what to do.”
Marin listened for a promise that he would do just that. And maybe Lucky Bacelli made that promise. Maybe he spoke to her, or maybe it was just her imagination when the softly murmured words filtered through the unbearable pain rifling in her head.
I swear, I’ll protect him.
She wanted to see her son’s face. She wanted to give him one last kiss.
But that didn’t happen.
The grayness overtook her, and Marin felt her world fade to nothing.
Chapter Two
Working frantically, Lucky slung off the debris that was covering Marin Sheppard and her son.
No easy feat.
There was a lot of it, including some shards of glass and splintered metal, and he had to dig them out while trying to keep a firm grip on Noah. Not only was the baby screaming his head off, he wriggled and squirmed, obviously trying to get away from the nightmare.
Unfortunately, they were trapped right in the middle of it.
“You’re okay, buddy,” Lucky said to the baby. He hoped that was true.
Lucky quickly checked, but didn’t see any obvious injuries. Heck, not even a scratch, which almost certainly qualified as a miracle.
As he’d seen Marin do, Lucky brushed a kiss on the boy’s cheek to reassure him. Though it wasn’t much help. Noah might have only been eight months old, but he no doubt knew something was horribly wrong.
This was no simple train derailment. An explosion. An accident, maybe. Perhaps some faulty electrical component caused it. Or an act of terrorism.
The thought sickened him.
Whatever the cause, the explosion had caused a lot of damage. And a fire. Lucky could feel the flames and the heat eating their way toward them. There wasn’t much time. A couple of minutes, maybe less.
And even then, getting out wasn’t guaranteed.
They couldn’t go through the window. There were jagged, thick chunks of glass still locked in place in the metal frame. It wouldn’t be easy to kick out the remaining glass, and it’d cut them to shreds if he tried to go through it with Noah and Marin, especially since she was unconscious. Still, he might have to risk it. Lucky had no idea what he was going to face once he left the car and went into the hall toward the exit.
Maybe there was no exit left.
Maybe there was no other way out.
“Open your eyes, Marin,” he said when he finally made it through the debris to her.
Oh, man.
There wasn’t a drop of color in her face. And the blood. There was way too much of it, and it all seemed to be coming from a wound on the left side of her head. The blood had already seeped into her dark blond hair, staining one side of it crimson red.
“Look at me, Marin!” Lucky demanded.
She didn’t respond.
Lucky shoved his fingers to her neck. It took him several snail-crawling moments to find her pulse. Weak but steady.
Thank God, she was alive.
For now.
But he didn’t like the look of that gash on her head. Since she was breathing, there was no reason for him to do CPR, but he tried to revive her by gently tapping her face. It didn’t work, and he knew he couldn’t waste any more time.
Soon, very soon, the train would be engulfed in flames, and their chances of escape would be slim to none. They could be burned alive. He wasn’t about to let that happen to her or the precious cargo in his arms. He’d made a promise to protect Noah, and that was a promise he intended to keep.
Moving Marin could make her injuries worse, but it was a risk he had to take. Placing Noah on her chest and stomach, he scooped them both up in his arms and hugged them tightly against him so that Noah wouldn’t fall. Noah obviously wasn’t pleased about that arrangement because he screamed
