Saviour in the Saddle

Great. Just great. She hadn’t wanted to do this, but she was obviously going to have to give him a hit of the pepper spray. She reached into her bag to retrieve it, but he caught her wrist.

Then he grabbed the bag.

“I’ll hold this for you. It can’t be good for a pregnant woman to carry around this much weight.”

“It’s not that heavy.” Willa glared at him and kept a firm hold on her bag. “Why don’t you just back off?”

“Because I can’t. Forget about the personal connection we have because of the baby, forget about how you feel or don’t feel about me. Just remember, I’m a lawman, and I’m not going to stand by and let that assassin come after you.”

She had to tamp down her anger so she could try to reason with him. “The last two times I trusted a lawman, I was nearly killed. You know that. You’ve read the reports. I’ve done a lot better on my own.”

“But you’ve never come up against a hired gun like Martin Shore. He’s not someone you can get away from without help.”

For some reason having the name attached to the assassin made her heart pound even harder. “Martin Shore,” she repeated. “How did he even find me?”

“Apparently Shore’s boss has been trying to track you through neurologists all over the state. Nearly a dozen doctors have had their files hacked. Including Dr. Betterman, the OB you saw four weeks ago.”

She shook her head. “But I didn’t use my real name, and I paid him in cash.”

“You did, but in your hacked medical record, Dr. Betterman had written your diagnosis of post-traumatic amnesia and post-concussional neurosis resulting in short-term memory loss. He also listed your age, the date of the onset of the symptoms. And that you were in your third trimester of pregnancy and therefore couldn’t receive traditional medications.”

Oh, God.

There wouldn’t have been many patients who fit into all those categories.

Then, Willa remembered something. “I didn’t give the doctor my street address. He said he needed to mail me the results from my latest EEG, so I gave him the address of the rental box at a private mail facility all the way across town.”

Brandon nodded. “The clerk there was murdered about four hours ago. We’re pretty sure after he was tortured before he gave up your physical address to someone who wanted to find you. Because it was about an hour later when a deep-cover agent intercepted the intel about Shore being hired to kill you.”

Willa choked back another Oh, God, and the tears that threatened to follow. She wouldn’t cry. It would only waste time because she knew what she had to do.

“Just let me go,” she begged Brandon. “If this is really your child as you say, then please help me get away.”

“It is my child. And I can’t let you leave.”

“Swear it,” she said, sounding as desperate as she felt. “Swear on my life that the baby is yours.”

Brandon put his fingers beneath her chin and lifted it to make direct eye contact. “I swear on your life. On mine. On our baby’s life. The child you’re carrying is mine.”

He sounded so sincere. Looked it, too. Still, there was something, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“If you’re lying to me—”

But Willa didn’t get a chance to finish that threat. There was no warning. No time to get down.

A bullet slammed through the bathroom window.

Chapter Four

Brandon latched on to Willa and pushed her out of the bathroom.

It wasn’t a second too soon because there was another shot ripping through what was left of the glass in the small window. He drew his gun and maneuvered her into the living room and then to the kitchen. He wanted her as far away from those shots as he could manage.

Hell.

He hadn’t expected the attack to come this soon. He’d hoped to have Willa tucked safely away before Martin Shore tried to kill her. Brandon obviously hadn’t succeeded, and Willa might pay the price for his miscalculation.

Brandon used his phone to call for backup from the Austin P.D. He couldn’t risk trying to ring Bo because his temporary partner might be trying to conceal his location from the shooter.

Willa grabbed a knife and a can of pepper spray from the counter and covered her pregnant belly with her hand. Neither her hand nor the items would provide the baby with much protection, so Brandon threw open the fridge and positioned her behind the door. That would give her an extra layer. He considered pulling out the fridge and placing her in the space behind it, but if Shore moved to that side of the house, the bullets might make it through the wall.

“You weren’t lying,” Willa mumbled.

Not about Shore, he wasn’t. But he had told her lies all right. Later, much later, he needed to fill her in on the whole truth.

There was another shot, not through the bathroom. There was the sound of more glass shattering, and it seemed to be coming from Willa’s bedroom.

Brandon waited. Listening.

Where the hell was Bo? And better yet, where had the lieutenant been when that first shot had been fired? Brandon hoped Shore hadn’t managed to injure Bo or worse.

Another sound, not a bullet this time, sent Brandon’s heart to his knees. Because this one had come from inside. From Willa’s bedroom. It was the sound of footsteps.

The assassin was in her house.

Brandon glanced at Willa. Her eyes were wide, and her breath was gusting. She’d obviously heard the footsteps, too, and she knew the danger was bearing down on them.

He couldn’t wait for word from Bo or for backup to arrive. Once Shore made it to the tiny kitchen, he would see them immediately. They would be sitting ducks, and that meant Brandon had to act fast to keep Willa alive.

“This way,” he mouthed.

Brandon kept his gun ready and aimed at the opening that led from the dining room and into the kitchen. No doubt that was where Shore was headed. He maneuvered Willa behind him so he could shield her with his body, and he started to back them out of the room. It wasn’t the best of plans because Shore could double back or even have an accomplice who could come from the other direction, but Brandon had no choice.

He had to get Willa out of there.

Each step seemed to take minutes, but he led them across the kitchen and toward the tiny mudroom and the back door. He wasn’t sure what was on the other side of that door, but hopefully it was a yard with some kind of cover. He needed to get Willa behind a tree or something to shelter her from the bullets that would come at them when Shore realized they were no longer inside.

They made it to the opening of the mudroom where they heard a plinking noise as if something metal had been dropped.

Brandon glanced back into the dining room and soon noticed something he didn’t want to see: the small, dark green oval object on the floor.

A grenade.

“Run!” Brandon shouted.

Willa reacted fast, thank God. With the knife and pepper spray in her left hand, she pushed her messenger’s bag out of the way, disengaged the locks and threw open the door. Brandon had one last look to make sure Shore wasn’t about to gun them down from inside the house, and changed places with Willa, so he could be in front of her. Either position was a risk because it was possible the grenade was a decoy to get them to run. If so, they were about to run directly into a professional assassin.

They hurried out onto a small porch and down the steps that led into a yard. No trees, something that made Brandon curse. But there was a small storage shed. He grabbed Willa’s arm and made a beeline for it.