First Responders (Lough)

If he had only answered that last phone call from the World Trade Center.... Minutes before two jumbo jets changed US history, New York police officer Austin Finley ignored the call from his brother, who'd been bugging him for days. Trying to live with his one regret causes hatred and bitterness to consume Austin, and when counselor Mercy Samara recommends desk duty, Austin resigns. Haunted by her own memories of 9/11, Mercy takes a job as a school counselor in Baltimore.

Highly skilled Search and Rescue (SAR) team leader Honor Mackenzie works almost as hard at guarding the dark secrets of her past as she does when training SAR dogs. As for widowed Sun reporter Matt Phillips, not even his former SAR work is as important as protecting his 10-year-old twin boys. When a jumbo jet crashes outside Baltimore one cold night, their respective jobs put them face to face at the grisly scene.

On a steamy spring morning, Dusty Parker - part-time pastor, part-time search-and-rescue team member, and full-time administrator of a school for troubled boys - joins the search for a missing teenage girl. He partners with volunteer and inner-city schoolteacher Grace Sinclair, and what they find bonds them in ways neither could have expected. As they begin to build their lives together, a visitor from the past causes Dusty and Grace to further open their hearts and home.