Mae Nunn - Her Forever Family

Ignoring him was a challenge, considering he was tall, tanned and very easy on the eyes.

“Excuse me! Dr. Stone!” he called out, trotting to her side.

“What do you want, Mr. Lamar?”

“I wanted to thank you for bringing my son Ethan safely home to me. You righted my world when you hoisted him out of that canyon, and I’ll never forget your bravery.”

At first, Alison didn’t know what to say. Then her brain kicked in.

“Your son’s condition is not my area of expertise, but it took me less than sixty seconds to realize how terrifed Ethan is of being left alone or sent away. Any idiot who feels sending him to a wilderness camp was a good idea should be used for a punching bag.”

Ben folded his arms, stretching his black T-shirt across a broad chest. Then he raised his chin and stared down at her. His eyes were dangerous slits of blue ice.

“I’m the idiot who thought sending Ethan to camp was a good idea.”

grew up in Houston and graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in communications. When she fell for a transplanted Englishman living in Atlanta, she moved to Georgia and made an effort to behave like a Southern Belle. But when she found that her husband was quite agreeable to life as a Born-Again Texan, Mae happily returned to her cowgirl roots and cowboy boots! In 2008 Mae retired from thirty years of corporate life to focus on her career as a Christian author. When asked how she felt about writing fulltime for Steeple Hill Books, Mae summed up her response with one word: “Yeeeee-ha!”

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The King will reply, “I tell you the truth:

whatever you did for one of the least of these

brothers of mine, you did for me.”

—Matthew 25:40

This story is dedicated to my big sister, Pam Hruza. From my very earliest memories she’s been like a second mother. She has prayed for me, defended me, given me medical advice, taken me shopping, taken me trick-or-treating (again) the day after Halloween, and moved me more times than I can count. She’s hauled a chaise lounge for me from Houston to Atlanta on top of her minivan, told me when to hide my eyes during scary movies, loaned me money, loaned me clothes, loaned me her car, and she would loan me her Harley if I was brave enough to get on it. She’s cooked holiday meals for my family, cared for my baby daughter (now twenty-four) so I could sleep on the weekends, loved me without question or judgment when I didn’t deserve it and never once expected anything in return. She is a faithful Christian, a gifted caregiver and a selfless friend, sister, mother and wife. Gail and I love you, Pamela Kay! The three of us share a boundless bond only sisters can understand.

Thanks to Grand Canyon Rescue volunteer Candace Hesson for her invaluable guidance during the writing of this story. If there are any technical errors in the opening scene they are mine alone.

Thanks to author Jill Nutter for her honest input on living with mental illness in the family.

Thanks to Coldwell Banker Realtor Mary Butler for answering all my questions and for providing me with photos of San Angelo.

Thanks to Steeple Hill senior editor Melissa Endlich for making me a better writer.

And, as always, thanks to my husband for loving me enough to waltz me across Texas, over and over again. Together we discover the settings and the characters that come to life in my stories. You make it all worthwhile, Michael!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Questions for Discussion

Doctor Alison Stone dangled five hundred feet above the limestone canyons of Big Bend National Park, her harness secured to the bottom of a Bell Ranger helicopter. The roar from the engines was deafening, but with countless long line exercises to her credit Ali’s concern was not for the din from the ship overhead but instead for the boy who’d been discovered in the small clearing below. As they approached she kept her eyes on the motionless figure, praying this mission would end in a patient rescue and not a victim recovery. Her heartbeat was normal; her hands steady where they clutched the basket litter to secure it in the sixty-mile-per-hour wind wash from the props. She had complete faith in her crew, certain Harry and Sid would deposit her gently on the rocky ledge and then return when she called for pick up.

The search for fifteen-year-old Ethan Lamar had gone on for three days. Three days. Seventy-two hours with the diamondbacks, bobcats and coyotes was a minor survival exercise for a normal hiker. For a boy with Asperger’s syndrome, being without supervision in the wild could be a death sentence. A tragic outcome she knew only too well.

Congressional hopeful Benjamin Lamar had managed to keep his son’s diagnosis a private matter for over two years. But when the former Dallas Cowboys linebacker turned positive-thinking guru went to the media to plead for search volunteers, his personal drama became public fodder.

Ali’s life’s mission was to rescue young people, but this situation had her struggling with how to respond. Fortunately, prayer left her with no room for doubt or recourse. She cancelled her clients for the coming week, loaded her dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, into the Land Rover and the two best friends rushed from their home in San Angelo to the search site. As a woman who’d grown up alone in foster care and knew the firsthand, bottomless pain of losing her family, Ali’s soul ached for the boy. As a psychotherapist who’d written her graduate thesis on the little-known disorder of Asperger’s, she was drawn by the case and the cleverness of the missing kid.

She’d learned that although he was easily startled by the noise of kitchen appliances, he’d been brave enough to leave undetected from a camp for special needs boys, and throughout the weekend Ethan Lamar had eluded the party of rescue workers. But Monday’s first search plane had spotted and confirmed a body wedged in the steep canyon.

Ali blessed Harry’s experience as a pilot when he positioned her directly above the ledge and lowered her as planned. With her boots secure on a slab of rock she detached her harness and the litter from the cable. Two pats to the top of her helmet where her braid was tightly tucked signaled all clear and the ship pulled away, leaving her in the breathtaking silence of the national park.

Sixty vertical feet separated her from the young man curled on his side facing the cliff. His chin was pulled to his chest, his hands cupped over his ears.

“Lord, please don’t let me lose another boy,” she begged for Ethan’s life while she secured webbing to a boulder to form an anchor. She lowered her equipment and then rappelled down the steep incline, dropping less than three feet from her patient.

“Ethan?” She forced herself to remain calm.

No response.

“Ethan!” Ali called his name louder as she pressed her fingers to his neck. A weak pulse throbbed beneath the scraped skin.

“Thank you, Father.” Gratitude thumped in her chest as she put on a thin pair of latex gloves.