Relentless Protector

But no matter what it cost him, it wasn’t in Cole Sawyer to walk away from trouble, not the sort of trouble that could get a pregnant teller or a distressed widow killed. Swearing he wouldn’t fire unless he absolutely had to, he took another cautious step.

“Don’t scream, don’t even think of triggering an alarm, and you’ll be fine, I swear it,” Lisa whispered, the tension in her own voice like the sizzling of a fuse.

A fuse quickly burning toward a deadly detonation. Cole saw it all too clearly, as the teller’s green eyes widened even farther. She was about to lose it, about to give way to a fit of shrieking guaranteed to spell disaster....

A disaster he had the chance to stop. A second chance...

He took another step, trying to gain an angle that wouldn’t put the pregnant woman in his line of fire.

He was interrupted by a sharp cry of alarm, not from the teller but from the friendly service manager who’d helped him. “Oh, no!” Her terror echoed off the glass and marble of the room. “He’s got a gun!”

She was pointing at him, he realized, as Lisa whirled in his direction, her weapon rising from her purse.

Cole acted on instinct, diving to one side to avoid fire from both the robber and the security guard, and getting off a single shot of his own, a shot meant to disable and not kill. Because in spite of all his training and several hard lessons underscoring the damage a wounded combatant could still inflict, an older instinct guided his hand. An instinct prompted by the desperation in the brunette’s beautiful brown eyes....

And the trickle of bright red blood already dripping from her hairline before he squeezed the trigger.

Chapter Two

“No!” Lisa shouted without thinking.

At the crack of gunfire, she dropped the unloaded weapon Evie had forced on her and bolted toward the door, her mind consumed with getting to Tyler, who was sitting bravely with his dog and stuffed toy inside the car with a pair of stone-souled criminals.

“You screw this up, it won’t go well for him,” the self-styled Evie LeStrange had warned her. Lisa had done exactly as they’d ordered, complying to the letter, yet everything was self-destructing all around her.

The next few seconds unfolded in slow motion: the guard reaching for his weapon, then gasping and falling forward, clutching at his chest. For an instant, Lisa thought the tall man who’d fired on her must have somehow hit him. Had the bullet missed her and then ricocheted?

It was only then that she felt the slash of pain across her upper right arm, an injury that explained why she had dropped the gun. But she couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t think of anything but closing the gap between her and her car before the blue-eyed woman and tattooed man realized—

As her hand shot toward the door, something struck her like a freight train, but it wasn’t another bullet. Instead, it was the big, athletic-looking “hero” who’d wrecked everything. She screamed as the speed and force of his tackle slammed her to the floor.

“Please!” Too desperate to register the pain, she struggled to get out from underneath what felt like a brick wall. It was a testament to adrenaline that she partially wriggled free, staring through the glass door—just in time to see her car peeling out.

“My baby! They’re taking him,” she shouted at the man who’d grabbed her shoulders. “Get off me, you idiot! They’ll kill him if I don’t bring them the cash.”

* * *

“W HAT ?” C OLE ’ S brain felt battered by her words.

“They carjacked us and forced me—please! That’s my Camry they’re driving off in, and my son is inside. They’re getting away.”

In a fraction of a second, the pieces spun together: the drip of blood he’d spotted; the sheer terror in her eyes; the medical scrubs, sensible tennis shoes and tired appearance of a woman on her way home from work, not someone planning a crime. And she was frantic to get out of this lobby.

No wonder—if she was being truthful. If her son had truly been abducted by carjackers, waiting around for the cops could get him killed.

Another man might have left the matter for the authorities to handle, but if Cole’s recent experience as a Ranger had taught him nothing else, it had seared into his brain the lesson that even a moment’s hesitation could make the difference between a positive outcome and an unthinkable tragedy. Another Meador family tragedy to add to his account.

The hell with that, he decided, hauling Lisa to her feet. As he dragged her with him out the door, he tuned out everything extraneous, from the bank manager’s screams to the businessman’s frozen stare to the security guard’s slow crumple, his hand still clutching his chest. Most especially Cole ignored the folded letter in his pocket, the future that would mean nothing if he had to allow Devin Meador’s child to die to claim it.

“Get into my truck! We’ll follow,” he shouted as a dark-skinned man in work coveralls ducked behind a vehicle.

The panicked reaction made Cole realize he was still carrying his Glock in plain sight. But he didn’t give a damn about that; this moment was combat, plain and simple, one thing he understood. Act first and deal with cleanup when the smoke clears. They had to catch up with her car, which had taken a right out of the lot, then zoomed past a strip mall before careening around a curve and disappearing.

Desperate as Lisa Meador was, she still hesitated for an instant, clearly paralyzed by her fear of the man who had just shot and jumped her.

“It’s all right!” he shouted at her. “Get in. I’m Ranger Captain Cole Sawyer.”

Whether it was his rank, the mystique of the Ranger reputation or desperation to reach her son, she scrambled into his truck, a big black Ram that should eat up the distance between them and her sedan in no time. When he fired up the engine, he saw that he was leaving prints all over, bloody prints from where he’d fought to hold her down.

“That way.” She pointed out the direction the silver car had taken. “I’ll bet they’re heading out of town on Sunset.”

He zoomed through a narrow gap in the light traffic, setting off the squeal of wheels as he bulled his way in. He focused on a wreck just ahead, where a motorcycle lay on its side, its leather-clad rider climbing free. He took it as a sign that the fleeing car had made the left, most likely cutting off the cyclist.

Forced to slow to avoid hitting another driver who had stopped to help the downed rider, he turned onto Sunset Avenue, toward the tree-lined river, a perfect spot to dump a small corpse. He tried to wipe the thought from his mind, to remind himself of a recent news story about a Dallas carjacker who, after discovering a sleeping toddler in a backseat, had carefully dropped off the sleeping child in her car seat outside a fire station, where she was soon found safe. Maybe there was hope these criminals would have mercy on Lisa’s son, too.

But there were no safe havens along the muddy Brazos River, nothing but the rough dirt roads traveled by fishermen and boaters, or, more often, by hungry coyotes and scavenging feral hogs. So even if the boy did get dropped off somewhere alive, he and Lisa had damned well better find him quickly, before they lost the light.

As Cole zoomed toward the outskirts of town, small businesses gave way to well-kept older houses, many with equally well-kept gardens or pens containing a few horses or some kid’s 4-H heifer. After all the violence he’d seen in the Middle East, it was stunning to think of crimes as serious as robbery and abduction affecting this seemingly idyllic place.

“Tyler, baby, hold on,” Lisa murmured. “Mama’s coming.”

Noting her pallor, he suspected she was closing in on shock. “There’s a clean hand towel in the glove box,” he said. “You’ll need to put pressure on that arm to slow the bleeding.”

Not seeming to hear him, she kept staring out the windshield. “We’d just picked up our dog at the groomer’s when she shoved a gun in my back. Then she made me take her and her partner in my car.”

Making note that one of her assailants had been female, he repeated his suggestion as an order. “Get the towel out now. Apply pressure, or you’ll pass out. Then where will your son be?”

“You know what, Captain? ” she fired back. “If you hadn’t gone and interfered, this would already be over.”

“Maybe you didn’t notice, but that teller you were terrorizing was about to scream when I made my move. You think I was going to stand there and let an armed robber shoot a pregnant woman? Or me? ”

“If you’d just stayed out of it—”

“Are you going to sit there arguing until you keel over, or are you going to listen and help me save your kid?”

Her wide-eyed gaze flicked toward him, but after a moment’s hesitation, she did as he’d ordered, then returned her attention to the road.

“Buckle up.” Shoving his gun beneath the seat, he followed his own advice. There was every indication this was going to be a bumpy ride.

The click of her seat belt assured him she was holding herself together for her child’s sake. Probably wasn’t even feeling any pain.

But as obvious as her distress was, he reminded himself that, widow or not, she might not be the innocent she’d claimed to be. For all he knew, she could be a willing conspirator, one who didn’t trust her partners not to dispose of the encumbrance of her child now that their scheme had gone to hell. If she had really been so irresponsible as to willingly leave the boy in the getaway car while she’d knocked off a bank, she was a far cry from the caring mother the newspaper article had made her out to be.

Unthinkable as it sounded, he couldn’t rule out the possibility. Which meant that for the moment he couldn’t fully trust anything she said.

“What’s really going on here, Lisa Meador?” he asked, knowing that, even under duress, the use of a person’s name was the one thing most likely to gain his or her attention. Or cooperation, which was critical right now.

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“I saw that article in the newspaper,” he said, though he’d known who she was long before that. “Your son’s name is Tyler, isn’t it?”

Tears leaking, she nodded. “He’s only five, and he looked so scared and little in his car seat. How can they do this to him, after everything we’ve been through?”

Compassion squeezed in his chest. So much for keeping his head and reserving judgment. If her son wasn’t really in that car with two kidnappers, she had to be the best liar on the planet. Or a truly gifted actress who knew exactly how to push his buttons.

Changing the subject, he said, “We need to call the sheriff’s office. Bring them in on the chase.”

The moment the words were out, a stomach-dropping realization hit him. Of all the damned luck. “Ah, hell. I don’t have my cell phone.”

Since mustering out three weeks earlier, he’d gotten back into the habit of never leaving home without it. Unfortunately, his habit of checking his pockets before doing laundry hadn’t been as quick to return. He’d cursed himself this morning, then ordered a replacement, which his provider had promised would be expressed to him tomorrow. Hell of a lot of good that did him now. “What about you, Lisa? You have a phone?”

“That woman took it when she switched my purse with this bag. Then she hit my head with her gun right in front of Tyler. I was so scared he would cry again and the man with the tattoos would...” Her voice choked down to nothing.

So she’d been pistol-whipped as well as shot, in addition to the emotional trauma they’d inflicted. Allegedly inflicted, he reminded himself, though his conscience screamed that he owed it to her to believe her. Owed it to her to make things right, though he’d been forbidden to make contact with her.

He drilled her with another question. “Tell me more about these people. Did you know either one?”

“Not the skinny man with all the tattoos, I’m sure of that. But the woman—” She pointed with the bloody towel. “Look. Is that a car?”

It had to be. Beyond a ridge of trees, a rising yellowish dust cloud indicated a vehicle traveling a rutted access road running alongside the muddy Brazos River, no more than a mile or so ahead and to their right. It was heading toward them, but the timing convinced him it had to be their quarry. Maybe they’d dumped her son, then turned around to head back to the main road and make their escape.

Or maybe all that was just a fantasy borne of his desperate hope that this rash act would quickly pay off. That he hadn’t just thrown away his future for a beautiful pair of lying brown eyes.

Chapter Three

As the truck jounced along the narrow, tree-lined dirt road, agony flared in Lisa’s head and right arm with every bump. Swallowing back a cry of pain, she gritted her teeth and braced herself. She had to get through these next few minutes, had to put her injuries out of her mind until she had her son safely in her arms.

She focused on that image, on Tyler’s smile beaming and Rowdy’s tail wagging beside him. She poured her soul into a prayer that the vicious Evie and her partner would drop him off and keep going. That all they’d really wanted was the money and not revenge against a helpless child.

“Hurry,” she urged Cole Sawyer, her senses so abnormally heightened that she cataloged every detail of the man she had no choice but to depend on. The strong hands on the wheel, the jaw set with determination, the steel-eyed gaze peering out the windshield—everything about him radiated power and the confidence of a man in his prime. As she would expect from a Ranger, his light brown hair was cut military-short, and now it flashed, tipped with gold, as he drove through long, low rays of sunlight splintered by the trees.

He might be helping her now, but she could not forget what his interference might have cost her. Couldn’t let go of her fury until her only child—everything that she had left of Devin—was recovered safe and sound.

The truck jolted through a washed-out dip, and black splotches splashed across her vision. Unable to will away the pain shooting through her head and body, she cried out as a wave of dizziness engulfed her.

“Hold on, Lisa,” he urged. “We’ll be on them any second.”

Groaning, she slumped against the door, her gaze drifting, drooping, until Cole said, “See? They’re coming this way. Tell me, is it them?”

It was like a hip-deep slog through hardening concrete, sucking in a deep breath and forcing herself to sit up. Finding the bloodstained towel and pressing it against her oozing wound, she welcomed the stab of agony to rouse her.

But it was the sight of the gun in Cole’s hand that brought her fully to awareness, that and the dark resolve in those flint-gray eyes of his. He meant to shoot the two abductors if he had to. But what about Tyler? He could be hit, maybe even killed, in the cross fire.

Fresh adrenaline surging through her, she focused on the bumper of the vehicle emerging from the trees. She clamped down on her terror and tuned out the roaring in her head.

“No!” she cried. “That isn’t my car.”

Her denial didn’t stop Cole from pulling into the center of the dirt road and blocking the beat-up sedan coming their way.

As the gun disappeared beneath his jacket, he ordered, “Stay here, and I’ll find out if this guy knows anything.”

“No. I’m coming, too. I have to...” Lisa began, until the trees, the truck, the entire world, spun like a whirlwind all around her. Before she could say more, the black splotches roared back with a vengeance, and she slumped a second time and went completely limp.

* * *

C OLE GRIMACED WHEN HE saw her pass out, though it solved one potential problem. If the other driver got one look at the blood on her, there could be a lot more trouble than either he or Lisa needed.

Climbing from his Ram, he waved his hands urgently, trying his best to look like someone in distress rather than a threat. The shaggy-bearded, graying driver in faded overalls stared at him, his expression a mixture of caution and confusion. Cole could not be certain, but he thought he saw the man reach for something underneath his seat.

Possibly a weapon, and Cole didn’t blame him, not in this secluded, rural spot. He approached slowly, keeping his palms raised.

The window lowered, and a wary squint creased the corners of the driver’s eyes. “You need help, mister? You hurt?”

He was staring at the smear of blood on Cole’s hand. Damn it. Cole had to come up with something quick to get the driver on his side with a minimum of explanation—and no suspicious-sounding details about a bank robbery gone wrong.

Improvising, he said, “I was coming home from work, and saw these two thugs, a man and woman, robbing my wife right in our driveway. Before I could stop them, they hit Lisa and took off in our Camry with our five-year-old inside.”

The fisherman paled, barely managing a low “Damn, mister.”

“We followed them to Sunset Avenue before they got away,” Cole said. “But when I saw the dust coming off this road, I thought—did you see them? Did they pass you? We have to get our Tyler back before they—”

“No, sorry. That was only me, comin’ up to grab the tackle box I forgot. No car could go any fu’ther back. There’s a big tree ’cross the road, and no way past but over.”

Cole cursed softly, his heart sinking at this failure. A mistake that might cost Lisa Meador’s child his life. “Damn, I’ve just given them an even bigger lead. I’ve gotta get back after them on Sunset.”

“You report this to the sheriff?”

“No time.” He shook his head, the knot in his gut tightening. “We have to hurry.”

“Wait! We need to call 9-1-1 and get you some backup. And what about your wife? Is she hurt?”

But Cole was already sprinting back to his truck. Leaping inside, he jammed it into gear and made a sloppy three-point turn, taking out a couple of small trees with his bumper. By that time he was past caring about any dents and scratches, or whether or not the fisherman actually called for help. Waiting for a patrol car would take too long and result in hours of interviews. He had to get back on the road and catch up with the Camry fast.

Reaching the end of the dirt track, he waited for traffic. “Come on, come on,” he said, foot tapping. As the clutter of vehicles passed, however, another glance at the unconscious woman stopped him from pulling out again.

A few more drops of blood had dripped down her temple, a startling contrast against her pallor. Full and parted, her lips had gone as colorless as a corpse’s. Which meant that her injuries might be more serious than he’d thought.

As badly as he needed to get going, he was seized with the fear that his bullet might have killed her just as surely as his failure had cost her husband his life. Throwing the truck into Park, he felt for the carotid pulse beside her windpipe, a practiced move he had repeated on many a military mission.

His pounding heart pushed into his throat, but this time, thank God, he was not checking a dead body. He felt the flutter of her pulse, more rapid than it should be, but she was alive. Determined to keep her that way, Cole found a first-aid kit he kept beneath the seat, along with a clean T-shirt he had stuffed inside the bag he’d planned to take to the gym later. Thankful for the basic combat medic training the Rangers had provided, he got out and went around to her side, then ripped the shirt at the seams and improvised a pressure bandage for her arm.

Every second delayed what he now saw as his mission, so he worked with swift efficiency, thankful to be finished before the fisherman showed up with more questions to delay them.

He snatched up an old army blanket from behind the front seat, then tossed it over Lisa to help protect her from shock. After slamming the door behind him, he made his way behind the wheel.

Strapping in, he pushed the pickup’s powerful V-8 to eat up the lost miles and within minutes overtook the knot of traffic that had delayed him. He deftly passed one vehicle after another until a blind curve obscured his vision and he was forced to flash his high beams at the clueless driver of an ancient rust bucket puttering at the head of the parade. When the car still failed to yield, he tapped the horn twice until the old woman finally pulled onto the shoulder.

After that the road unspooled before him in a dark, unbroken ribbon. He goosed the gas again, quickly gaining speed. But what if he was wrong, if right at the outset he’d guessed incorrectly that the kidnappers were heading out of town on this rural farm-to-market road? And what about the intersection he knew was coming up? Though they might well keep to the smaller roads in the hope of avoiding capture, that would be slower than the interstate.

Each option had its advantages and pitfalls, so how was he to choose the right one? And how could he be certain he wasn’t chasing after a mirage, a desperate wish to find redemption for the unforgivable?

* * *

L ISA FOUGHT HER WAY through the blackness, through her pain, and toward the son who needed her.

“Tyler,” she murmured, forcing her eyes open, blinking at the way the landscape had shifted into grassy hills studded with occasional rocky outcrops.

All too quickly, memory roared back and she choked down a cry. Bolting upright, she looked toward the man who might have cost her everything.

“Where’s my son?” she asked helplessly. “What happened?”

“He wasn’t down that dirt road.” A grimace tightened Cole’s square jaw. “They didn’t go that way.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure as I can be about anything right now.” He flicked an assessing look in her direction. “You feeling any better?”

A laugh slipped out, dry and mirthless. “You really don’t want to know the answer to that question.”

“There’s some aspirin in the first-aid kit if you can reach it.”

Though her head pounded with the movement, she picked up the plastic box off the floorboard, mostly relying on her uninjured left arm. She found the bottle but couldn’t open it one-handed.

Passing it to him, she asked, “Could you, please?”

He popped the top and handed back the open container. “Take that water from the center console. It’s not the freshest, but you need to drink as much of it as you can. It’ll help keep you from blacking out again.”

She forced herself to wash down two of the tablets, then finish every drop of the water.

“Thanks,” she managed, struggling to stave off the panic flashing through her brain like summer lightning.

“We’re coming up on an intersection with the interstate in just a couple miles. I’m figuring they’ll stick to back roads, since for all they know, there’s already an AMBER Alert out for your son. What do you think?”

Anxiety paralyzed her. Maybe they should make finding a phone a priority so the police could really activate the alert. But she couldn’t bear the thought of losing their chance to catch up with Tyler. If only she had some way of knowing which route the kidnappers might have taken.

A single thought pierced the fog: the final errand on her day’s list. “They’ll have to stop for gas soon. I was going to fill up on my way home from the groomer’s.”

“If they cut over to the interstate, there’ll be an exit in about ten miles if they backtrack or another twenty-five or so if they keep heading west.”

“If they stay on this road, there’s a little town up ahead.” She’d driven through it last month, on the way to a friend’s ranch, where Tyler had taken his first horseback ride. The memory of his laughter choked her, but she swallowed hard and forced herself to focus. “There’s a mom-and-pop store on the main drag—look, you see the sign?”

“Be pretty hard to miss that,” Cole said.

Large and crudely painted, the homemade billboard stood along the grassy roadside. Texas Two-Step, Gas-Groceries-Grill, 8 Miles Ahead, Y’all Come See Us!

Not far ahead, she saw a more official sign, with its arrow pointing to the right, indicating a connection to the interstate. And the knowledge crashed down on her that if she made the wrong choice, Tyler could be as lost to her as the husband she had buried.