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Silent Pledge
Hannah Alexander
Dr. Mercy Richmond struggles to balance her roles as a single mother and busy physician whose patients have nowhere else to go.Her small Missouri town has no E.R. and Mercy is overwhelmed by the sick, the injured and the personal problems they bring into her clinic–and her life. If she thought her schedule would help her forget Lukas Bower, the handsome doctor she believes betrayed her, she was wrong. A new Christian, Mercy must make a decision that will change four lives forever–including her daughter's. And then Lukas comes home….
Critical Praise for
HANNAH ALEXANDER’S
Novels
SILENT PLEDGE
“I found a gaggle of caring, interesting people who stole my heart with their struggles and made me cheer with their triumphs. Bravo!”
—Lisa Samson
SOLEMN OATH
“Solemn Oath absolutely hit the ball out of the park. Hannah Alexander is going to have a hard time writing fast enough to keep up with reader demand.”
—Debi Stack
SACRED TRUST
“Alexander is great at drawing the reader into her story line and keeping them hooked until the resolution of the plot.”
— Christian Retailing
A KILLING FROST
“Running dialogue and a few twists will keep romantic suspense fans coming back for more.”
—Publishers Weekly
DOUBLE BLIND
“Native American culture clashes with Christian principles in the freshly original plot.”
— Romantic Times BOOKreviews
GRAVE RISK
“The latest in Alexander’s Hideaway series is filled with mystery and intrigue. Readers familiar with the series will appreciate how the author keeps the characters fresh and appealing.”
— Romantic Times BOOKreviews
Silent Pledge
Hannah Alexander
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In memory of our beloved cousin,
Mark Mercer Patterson,
December 24, 1954 to April 14, 2000.
Cheryl’s childhood playmate and defender.
May his courage and tender heart live on in the
character of Clarence Knight.
We wish to thank Joan Marlow Golan and her
excellent staff for giving us this opportunity to share
our books with a new reading audience.
SILENT PLEDGE
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
Questions for Discussion
Prologue
O dira Bagby sat on the edge of her great-granddaughter’s twin-size bed, soaking a thin washrag with water from an old mixing bowl. She squeezed out the excess and applied the rag to Crystal’s hot tummy. Odira winced every time seven-year-old Crystal coughed.
The hoarse crackle and wheeze sounded loud in their small three-room apartment, and the little girl bent double with the effort to breathe. Her pale, blue-veined face was flushed, and her mouth opened wide as she gasped for breath. The sound of her struggle was worse than a nightmare. Odira caught herself automatically trying to breathe harder and heavier, as if she could take in extra air for Crystal.
The room smelled like Vicks, even though Odira knew that rubbing the ointment on Crystal’s bony chest probably wouldn’t help. It’d never helped before, except to ease Odira’s arthritis for a while and make her feel as though she was at least doing something. Her hands always stayed sore and swollen from the thumping she did on Crystal’s back and chest. Crystal had cystic fibrosis.
“Gramma,” Crystal whispered, stiffening her neck to push the bare sound from her throat. She reached up and pressed her hand against her chest. “Hurts.”
“I know, little ’un.” Odira felt the tears in her eyes that Crystal never cried. “We’ll get help.” Heaving herself up, she lumbered the few feet across the room to her own bed.
She peered at the numbers on the secondhand alarm clock. It was almost midnight on a Saturday night. What was she supposed to do? Crystal’s mom had disappeared last year—and Odira didn’t know who the daddy was. The grandma, Odira’s sweet Millie, was dead. The grandpa “didn’t want nothin’ to do” with the whole mess. There was nobody else.
Bedsprings cried out in alarm as Odira sat down and picked up the receiver of her phone. She leaned forward and peered at the list of emergency numbers on the bedside stand. There was no E.R. in Knolls since the explosion last fall. Odira couldn’t afford a car on her social security, so she couldn’t drive Crystal to another E.R. She didn’t want to wait.
She did all she knew to do. She dialed the home number of Dr. Mercy Richmond.
Buck Oppenheimer woke to silent winter darkness in the bedroom he shared with his wife, Kendra. The room felt like the inside of the unheated toolshed out back, and for a moment he wondered if the pilot light in the central heating system had gone out again.
But as he listened to small sounds gradually creep to him through the house, he heard the furnace popping, and he felt warm air coming from the vent on his side of the bed.
So why was it so cold?
He listened for the soft sigh of his wife’s breathing but didn’t hear anything. He reached toward her and felt the emptiness of icy sheets.
“Kendra? Honey?”
He didn’t hear any sounds coming from the bathroom and no sound of drawers clattering or silverware clinking in the kitchen—sometimes when Kendra couldn’t sleep she’d go in and make some toast.
And sometimes when she couldn’t sleep…
Buck threw back his covers and scrambled out of bed, switching on the lamp. The bedroom door hung open, but there was no light coming from the rest of the house. He didn’t like the feel of this. He pulled on the jeans he’d worn home from the fire station a few hours ago. They smelled like smoke.
“Kendra?” he called again.
No answer.
She hadn’t said much when he came home two hours late from his shift tonight. There’d been a flue fire out in an old home north of town, and he couldn’t get away any sooner. Not that she got mad anymore when that happened, but ever since the arson and the hospital explosion last fall, Kendra was scared. Which was understandable—her fireman father had been killed a year and a half ago in the line of duty. Kendra said she knew that would happen to Buck someday, too.
He went into the kitchen. Kendra wasn’t there, but the door to the back porch stood wide open. Icy January wind blew in, nipping at the bare skin of his chest and shoulders. He stepped to the screen door and looked out, curling his toes up from the cold linoleum.
“Kendra?”
Quiet. Had she gone out again? He fought back the memory of two months ago when he woke up at 1:00 a.m. to find her coming through this very back door, a sweater slung over her arm, her makeup smeared, and the sound of a car motor heading off down the street. She’d acted high on something—not booze, but something. And, man, did they ever have it out that night!
Now he was hearing a car again…the sound of a motor, its chug-chug-chug reaching him through the dark. Music drifted faintly through the icy air. He felt the familiar pain rip through him.
Was she doing it again? After all he’d done for her, didn’t she even love him enough to be true?
He let out a deep breath and watched the white puff drift from his mouth. The air was as cold as he felt inside. How much was a man supposed to take?
Kendra’s mood swings were getting worse. If she wasn’t hiding out at home crying, she was laughing too loudly and flirting with all the guys down at the fire station, going to shows in Branson with her girlfriends, and buying things he couldn’t afford on his fireman’s salary, like lots of jewelry and expensive clothes. There was no middle ground.
He pushed the screen door open and stepped on the back porch, bracing himself in case she came walking in drunk, or maybe even with another guy.
He still heard the car motor idling, but the sound didn’t come from the road. And he recognized that idle. With a deepening frown, he looked toward the small garage where Kendra kept her five-year-old Ford Taurus. The music was clearer now. Clint Black. Kendra’s favorite. The doors were all shut.
But that was stupid. She knew better than to leave the motor running.
“No,” he whispered, then more loudly, “Kendra, no!” He reached inside and flipped on the porch light, then turned and raced down the wooden back steps and across the grass to the side entrance to the garage. Through the windowpane he could see the glow of the car’s interior light, but he couldn’t see around the shelving by the door to tell where she was.
