Private Vows

The early-June evening and the location were perfect, but they weren’t working their magic, weren’t dissolving that edgy, irritable feeling. He sat upright in the seat, fingers clenching the steering wheel, eyes darting from side to side, glowering at other drivers, ready to lean on the horn if somebody committed a slight infraction. What the hell was the matter with him? He should be happy!

He’d just turned in his final report on his last job, helping a large corporation catch an embezzler. Last month he’d found proof of fraud in an insurance scam. Business was booming, and it was good business. It paid better than being a cop and was certainly less dangerous.

And he felt totally useless.

Up ahead a woman emerged from between two buildings and paused, looking up and down the street. Cole sat even straighter and blinked, doubting his own eyes.

The woman wore a formal bridal gown.

Her clothing alone was enough to make him take notice, but it was her face, pale in the gathering dusk, her eyes wide with fear, that really caught his attention.

His foot jerked off the gas pedal and hovered over the brake but he ordered himself to go on. This was none of his business. He wasn’t a cop any longer and hadn’t been a very effective one when he was. The woman didn’t appear to be hurt. There was no reason for him to interfere.

A shabbily dressed man approached her and laid a hand on her arm. She screamed and whirled on the man, pummeling him with both fists. He tried to grab her hands, but she bolted into the street, directly in front of Cole’s car, the inappropriate yards of satin and lace billowing around her as she moved.

Cole slammed the brake pedal to the floor. His stomach lurched and a cold hand squeezed his heart as he felt and heard the sickening thud when over a ton of metal collided with a hundred pounds of flesh and bone.

The bride and all her regalia vanished from sight, hidden by the hood of his car.

He vaulted into the street, cursing himself, the woman, the man who’d frightened her…the world.

She lay on her stomach, almost hidden by the folds and layers of that damn frilly material.

Cole knelt beside her and picked up her arm encased in a lacy sleeve fastened with a bunch of little buttons. His big fingers trembled as he wrapped them around her slim wrist, searching for a pulse while his own pounded in his ears and made hers that much harder to distinguish.

He’d been a cop for twelve years. He ought to be used to this kind of thing.

But he wasn’t and he hadn’t been even when he lived with it on a daily basis.

He found her pulse, weak and fast as though she was in shock…or the terror he’d seen on her face still gripped her, but at least she was alive. Thank God he’d been going slow, that he’d already been poised to brake.

“Is she okay?” a man asked. Not the street person who’d scared her but a jogger, his face damp with perspiration.

“There’s a cell phone in my car! Call 911. Hurry!”

A small crowd of half a dozen people was starting to gather around them—concerned citizens, curiosity seekers.

The bride moaned and moved as if she was going to turn over. Well, she couldn’t be very comfortable with her face shoved into the street.

“Easy,” he cautioned. “Try not to move until the ambulance gets here.”

She gave no indication she even heard him, but rolled slowly and languidly, one arm flung above her head, as though she were turning over in her bed at home. She gazed up at him, light blue eyes blank in shock, not yet registering her situation.

She blinked then. Confusion surfaced and finally the fear again, her pupils shrinking to a pinpoint, the surrounding blue so pale it appeared almost silver in its translucence.

“No!” she choked, pushing herself into a sitting position, and he saw for the first time that the front of the dress was splattered with blood—lots of blood.

Cole broke into a sweat as the image of another woman, covered in blood because of him, flashed across the screen of his memory.

The woman in the bridal gown scooted away from him…toward the traffic in the street.

“Damn it, lady!” He grabbed her arm to pull her back, to keep her from further injury, and she burst into tears, collapsing against him.

“Let me go! Please let me go!” she begged.

Much as he’d like to do just that, let her go and pretend the whole thing never happened, he couldn’t. Instead, he held her as securely as he dared, considering the extent of the wound he must have caused.

“You’re going to be all right,” he assured her, though he wasn’t certain that she would be with all that blood on her dress. “That bum who was bothering you is gone.” The guy was probably harmless enough and her reaction to him had been, Cole thought, a little over the top, but he’d say whatever necessary to reassure her.

He stroked her back soothingly, the roughness of his palms snagging on the smooth satin. Her clean, innocent scent of lily-of-the-valley or some other white flower drifted up to him, cutting through the smell of hot pavement. She was thin and fragile, as if she would snap from too tight a grip.

Again that image of a broken doll, broken because of him, assaulted him.

Damn! This shouldn’t be happening. For the twelve years he’d been a cop he’d had no problem dealing with murderers and thieves and drug dealers, looking them in the eye and backing them down without even breathing hard. But this was asking too much, to expect him to cope with a terrified, fragile woman. He couldn’t. He’d long ago proven that.

“Lie back,” he ordered brusquely.

“No, no, no!” Face still buried against his chest, she shook her head, the netting of her veil shivering with the movement.

“There’s blood on your dress. I need to see how badly you’re hurt.” Reminding himself that she was in shock, he spoke more softly, made an effort not to startle her.

She continued to shake her head and cry.

He gripped her thin shoulders and pushed her away, forcing her to look at him. “Listen to me! I’m not going to hurt you. But you need to let me examine your wound.”

A woman from the group of onlookers knelt beside her. “Let me see, honey. Okay?”

Her tears stopping as if something inside had turned off, the bride gave the woman a puzzled glance then lifted her gaze to the chattering group around her as though she’d suddenly noticed her surroundings, suddenly woke up.

“The front of her dress,” Cole directed, and the woman nodded, gently turning the now-pliant bride to face her.

“Oh my God!” the woman exclaimed when she saw the crimson stains.

The bride’s gaze followed the other woman’s, and she gasped, then lifted her eyes to his again. Those eyes were even wider and more confused than ever, more frightened.

Now that Cole had a better look at the blood, he saw with a rush of relief that it was not coming from a fresh wound, nor was her gown torn. Either it had come from a preexisting wound or from somebody else. Not from her. Not from a wound caused by him.

Had she cut the man who’d approached her?

Automatically he rose to investigate the sidewalk where she and the man had been before she’d run into the street, to check for blood or a weapon.

“Don’t leave me!”

A hand gripped his arm with surprising strength and he turned to see the bride struggling to her feet. She was tall, which only emphasized her slender build, and she swayed as if she might not be able to stand without his support.

On the positive side, the fact that she was able to stand at all meant she couldn’t be hurt too badly. He clung to that, to the faint hope that he hadn’t caused her any permanent harm.

“A minute ago you were doing your damnedest to get away from me,” he reminded her.