“We shared a room—don’t you remember? Besides, I knew that once people started saying that she’d killed him, no one would ever laugh at her again. And no one would ever mess with me again when I said I was her sister.”
Lisa could scarcely believe that the shy girl she’d once pitied was so completely insane.
“But when you told your father, it all went to hell in a hurry. Sabra was dead, Mrs. Crowley lost it and they sent me to a new foster family with a father who made Jerry Crowley look like a freakin’ saint. Then, after I turned up pregnant, he dragged me to some clinic and made me get an abortion. Made me kill my flesh and blood so he wouldn’t get in trouble.”
“You...you were molested?”
“Raped.”
“And then he made you get rid of your child?” Lisa found herself beginning to understand how, in a twisted mind like Ava’s, the decision to pay her back by killing Tyler made some sick sort of sense.
But Ava wasn’t interested in prolonging the discussion.
“Now on your feet,” she ordered. “I told you to move, bitch.”
Though Ava prodded her painfully with the muzzle of the AK-47, Lisa didn’t budge. Why postpone her own death, with Tyler gone already? That would only allow Ava more opportunity to torment her.
Attack her, then. Fight back until she’s forced to end things quickly. That way, at least, Cole wouldn’t get himself killed in an attempt to save her.
At the thought of the man who’d sacrificed so much and given so wholeheartedly, the pain of regret shafted through her. I’m so sorry, Cole, so sorry to hurt you this way. Whatever happened that day in Afghanistan, you deserve peace and forgiveness. You deserve...everything.
Ava’s head jerked as she looked toward a sound, a voice, perhaps, that Lisa couldn’t quite make out.
More agitated than ever, Ava started kicking Lisa’s legs. “Get up. Now, or I swear, he’ll find your brains splattered right here. But don’t worry, I’ll give him a moment to shed a tear before I finish him, too.”
The thought of Cole falling prey had Lisa springing to her feet. “No!” she cried, hurling herself toward her opponent so swiftly and decisively that she caught Ava still balanced on one foot.
The other woman fell hard onto her back, reflexively squeezing off a shot, but the AK-47’s muzzle was pointed sideways and the bullets pinged harmlessly off the nearby rocks. Snarling like an enraged beast, she tried to bring the barrel up, but Lisa was already on her, slamming the insane woman back down.
The impact came at a price, though, giving Ava an opportunity to rake her nails across Lisa’s face. Desperate to save her eyes, she jerked back—and that was all the opportunity Ava needed to draw her knees to her chest and kick Lisa off her.
* * *
AS COLE RACED TOWARD the sound of gunfire, agony blasted through his leg with each step, shredding the gauzy curtain between past and present.
And just that quickly, he was once again staggering toward the market in the white-hot desert sunlight. Fighting through pain, carrying a bullet from the ambush that had wounded him and killed another of his fellow Rangers. Not knowing whether the tip about a suicide bomber in the market had been real or just bait to draw his team out, he kept moving, racing the clock, racing his body’s impending collapse, throwing himself into an unsecured position and looking down his rifle’s barrel through the scope.
And hesitating once more as he sighted a female target in the crosshair.... A target whose face was silhouetted by the cold glow of the headlights.
His vision blurred, the searing Afghan sun resurfacing to blind him...until the sound of Lisa’s pained cry cut through the fatal haze.
“Avelyn!” he shouted, suddenly remembering. “Avelyn LeStage!”
Jerking her head upward, a woman looked his way, her weapon rising to take aim.
And in this time, in this place, Ranger Captain Cole Sawyer pulled the trigger just in time.
* * *
“COLE? COLE!” Lisa shouted, stepping carefully around what was left of Ava as she staggered toward him.
He blinked hard, then squinted at her, the shock on his face giving way to relief. Quickly moving forward, he embraced her so tightly she could barely breathe.
“Lisa, you’re alive. I thought for sure that one of those shots—”
Sagging in his arms, she sobbed, “Ava killed him! She killed Tyler, and she was—she was going to kill you, too.”
“Shh, Lisa. It’s going to be all—”
Pulling back, she glared at him. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s going to be all right. Because I can’t live through this again. I won’t.”
“Listen to me,” he said sharply. “Tyler is—”
“I don’t want to listen. I—I just want to take back these past four days.”
“You can never do that,” he said, his voice grim. “All you can do is keep fighting until you find the way forward.”
Without saying anything more, he started dragging her through the woods, though he was limping heavily.
“No! What are you doing?” she shouted, fighting him. Couldn’t he see that she only wanted to lie down and die herself?
“What am I doing? I’m trying to tell you that Tyler needs you and I’m taking you to him.”
“Tyler? He’s alive?” Weakened by shock, her knees buckled. “And you—you left him somewhere out here with his throat cut? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking of saving your life. And I don’t know what Ava told you, but nobody cut Tyler’s throat.”
Ava had lied about killing Tyler? The thought spun dizzily through Lisa’s throbbing head. Of course the woman had lied, inflicting one final dose of her cruel venom.
With that realization, fresh strength surged through Lisa’s body, strength borne of the hope that had kept her going for the past four days. She was going to see Tyler. Going to hold her son in her arms again.
“But he’s still in danger,” Cole was saying. “So—”
Whatever else he said was lost as she rushed past him, until he suddenly pulled her up short in front of what she realized was a long split in the earth.
“Careful,” he said. “That first step is a killer.” Turning toward the void, he shouted, “Tyler? Deputy? I’ve got someone up here who’s just dying to—”
“How ’bout a hand here, Sawyer?” a gruff female voice called from the ravine. “If you can reach down and grab him, I’ve almost got him up.”
“Tyler!” Lisa shouted, tears springing to her eyes as she surged past, threw herself down on her stomach and reached over the edge.
“Mommy!” her son cried, and even in the dark, she could make him out as he struggled to reach her arms.
She inched forward, desperate to touch, to hold, to love forever, the son she and Cole had come so far and suffered so much to rescue.
“I’ve got you, Lisa,” Cole said as he grabbed her belt and held fast, giving her the strength and surety she needed to finally grasp the small arms and lift the tiny boy from the abyss.
“Mommy!” Tyler cried, submitting to her kisses and hugging her while Cole helped the other woman to safety. “Deputy Keller says she has a whole drawer full of junior deputy badges—and she promised she’s going to give me five!”
Chapter Twenty
Sweating and exhausted, Deputy Trace Sutherland was relieved when the physical therapist finally told him it was time to go back to his room.
Still, he forced himself to ask, “Are you sure? I think I could do a little more.”
The toned, dark-skinned woman smiled at him, the silvery threads in her close-cropped hair the only hint of her age. “You’re gonna walk again, Trace Sutherland, and soon. I can always tell.”
Though he hurt in places he’d been unable to feel two days before, he managed to grin back. “Walking? Nothing doing. I’m taking you out dancing this New Year’s Eve.”
She laughed at that and said, “Let’s get you back to your room before you put me in a diabetic coma with all that sugar
of yours.”
As she wheeled him down the hall, the voices floating out from his room sounded anything but sweet.
“I’ve told you more than once, Jill Keller, you’re not welcome here.”
Trace grimaced to hear his mother talking to Jill that way.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs. Sutherland, but I’m not leaving. Not until Trace tells me himself that he doesn’t want me in his life.” Abruptly, Jill’s anger gave way to the streak of sassiness he’d always found so sexy. “It’s not like he doesn’t have experience.”
“Sounds a little intense in there,” the physical therapist whispered. “Want me to wheel you back to PT till this blows over?”
Trace shook his head. “I’d better settle this before the fur starts flying.”
“Knock, knock,” the woman sang before she wheeled him through the door.
Both women turned toward him, and in Jill’s eyes he saw something softer and far more vulnerable than he’d ever seen there before. Even after the miscarriage, she’d been so quick to strap on her armor, to vent her fury at the man who’d been jailed for beating her so savagely, that he had only caught rare, sidelong glimpses of her pain.
But the moment she spotted him, something cracked wide open, and, without even waiting for the physical therapist to help him back into bed, she went to her knees beside his chair, taking his hand and pressing her face to it.
“Forgive me,” she begged, voice breaking. “Please forgive me, Trace.”
As the physical therapist quietly withdrew, Trace shook his head in confusion, feeling Jill’s tears dampening his skin—the first tears he had witnessed in all the years he’d known her. “For what? Surely, you can’t think— You couldn’t have possibly known there’d be an accident.”
“I don’t mean just the accident. I’m talking about how I always kept you at a distance, how I pushed you away after our baby... My priorities were so far out of line. My stubbornness, my pride...”
“I knew it was all her fault.” Nodding sagely, his mother crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “The accident, the marriage. I told her you wouldn’t want her here, sapping your energy and delaying your recov—”
“Mom,” he interrupted, “I love you very much, and I’m glad you’re here for me. But right now I need to be alone with my wife.”
“Sweetie, you’re still confused. Jill’s your ex-wife. Remember?”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he told her, “because if I have anything to say about it, Jill and I aren’t finished. Not by a long shot. Now please, will you excuse us?”
Sighing loudly, his mother shook her head and said, “If that’s what you really want...” as she walked out the door.
Once they were alone, he lifted Jill’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “Jill? Jill, look at me, please.”
She looked up into his face, her blue eyes reddened and her lashes clumped with moisture.
Wiping away her tears, he said, “Never, ever apologize to me for who you are. I fell in love with you because you’re opinionated, gutsy as hell, exciting—the polar opposite of me.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say you’re not exciting....” she murmured, the wicked spark in her eyes reminding him of times the two of them had been alone and out of uniform.
“I love you because you’re you,” he said, “and I was wrong, very wrong, to try to change you with some stupid ultimatum about your job.”
“Maybe,” she whispered, “but do you think we might be able to find some middle ground?”
“I know we will,” he said, pulling her into his arms and kissing the woman he had vowed to love for all his life.
* * *
LIGHT AGAIN, A brilliant glare that made Cole’s head hurt when he first cracked open his eyes. Raising his hand to cover them, he felt a pinch in his arm.
“Careful. You’ll pull out your IV,” a female voice said.
A voice he would know anywhere, though it was thickened with emotion.
“Lisa,” he managed, his throat so parched the words came out a hoarse rasp. “What? Where are...?”
“I’m furious with you, Cole Sawyer.”
He blinked, squinting in complete confusion at the fuzzy image of her scowl. “How did I get—”
“You passed out the moment you got Jill Keller out of that ravine. Scared the devil out of me. And when I finally saw how much blood you’d lost...” Her face loomed over his, its beauty coming into focus as she squeezed his hand. “I was afraid I’d never get the chance to tell you how much everything you’ve done has meant, and how I feel about—”
“Where’s Tyler?”
A warm smile misted her eyes. “Fast asleep at the hotel, with his octopus in his arms and my dad sitting right beside him. The doctors checked him out and released him yesterday. He’s going to be okay—thanks to you and Jill Keller.”
“Your father’s here? How did he get— Where are we?”
“You were taken to Alpine, to the nearest hospital,” she explained. “Things didn’t look good by the time you got here, but they gave you a transfusion to get you stabilized.”
“How long ago?” he asked, noticing she was wearing a white blouse and a pair of jeans he hadn’t seen before. Other than a few scratches on her face, she looked unharmed.
“I’m sorry, Cole. That was yesterday morning, and you had surgery earlier today to remove the bullet from your leg. It’s going to be fine, but...you missed your meeting in Georgia.”
“It’s not important,” he said, knowing that between the investigation into the events of the past few days and his injury, his chances of becoming a U.S. Marshal any time soon had gone down the drain. “You and Tyler are safe, and that’s all that matters.”
A debt repaid to a man he had once failed. Yet somehow he had screwed up again, allowing himself to fall in love with Lisa. Allowing himself, a man without a future, to imagine taking Devin Meador’s place beside his wife.
“What about you?” he asked. “Are you feeling better?”
“I’ll need to take it easy for a few weeks,” she said, gingerly touching her head, “but I’m going to be just fine. Except I’ve wanted so badly to tell you how very much I...”
When words failed her, she showed him instead, bending to press her lips to his mouth, softly, gently, until living sparks beneath his skin caught fire. Before he could stop himself, he slid his hand along her forearm, reveling in the sensation of her smooth flesh beneath his calloused fingers. The fact that she was kissing him at all, that she could accept what he had told her about that day in Lashkar Gah—accept him—inflamed him further. He pulled her even closer, his desperation growing with the knowledge that, for the sake of honor, he was kissing her goodbye.
Just one more minute and I’ll let her go. I’ll let her go forever. But one minute tumbled into the next, and the hand that grazed her sweet breast stopped to linger, his fingers toying with the budding nipple, his excitement swelling at her soft moan. When he reached to unfasten the front clasp of her bra for better access, she finally pulled away.
“Better slow down, Cole,” she whispered, sounding breathless, “or we’ll pull out those stitches for sure.”
“I—I’m sorry,” he said. His skin was burning and his body—a body that cared nothing for either decency or honor—was aching to reach for her, to claim her for his own. “I shouldn’t— I have no right—”
“I want you to know,” she said, “I care about you, too. I had no idea how much until I saw you lying there, so pale and—I was terrified that I would lose you, too. Like Devin.”
“Don’t you remember what I said about your husband?” he asked carefully. “About being there that day when...”
“You nearly died to save my son, Cole Sawyer. You nearly died to save my life. Whatever happened in Afghanistan, whatever you insist on blaming yourself for, I won’t believe it was your fault. Were you the one who strapped an explosive harness on your body? The one who found that crowded market my husband was pa
trolling and—”
“Of course not, but I should have—”
“If it’s forgiveness you need, you’ve more than earned mine, Cole,” she said quietly. “You deserve—we both deserve—the chance to move forward. Please.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I know it’s probably too soon, and maybe I’ll scare you off, but after everything I’ve been through, I don’t want to waste one more day of my life being frightened. I want to wrap my hands around this chance and—” She laughed softly, clearly at herself, then looked at him through lowered lashes. “I’m trying to tell you that what I feel for you goes so much deeper than gratitude. I love you, Cole. I truly love you, and I want...I want more than anything to have you in my life—mine and my son’s.”
As a blush darkened her cheeks, he let her words sink in, the unimaginable gift of them. Just one of many gifts she’d given him these past few days. But as badly as he wanted to tell her that he, too, had fallen in love, he couldn’t break free of the past’s hold—or his concerns about his future.
So instead he said, “It’s been a tough time, Lisa. A
really emotional time for everyone involved. How ’bout we let this thing cool off for a while? Until we can both be certain and I have a—”
“I’m certain,” she said, without an instant’s hesitation. But already she was pulling back, her brown eyes shuttering, telling him that his clumsy attempt to allow her a graceful way out had instead hurt her deeply. “But maybe you’re right. In the heat of the moment people say things, like you did the other night in the car, after we—”
“Lisa,” he tried, grappling for some way to make her understand.
But she was already backing toward the door, her head shaking. “It’s all right. You don’t have to explain. I understand that you’re a bachelor, with no strings to hold you. Why would you want to tie yourself down to a woman with so much baggage?”
“Lisa, please. That’s not it.” But it was too late. Turning away, she rushed through the door, and when he tried to follow, a brutal stab of pain from his fresh incision knocked him back to the pillows.
Relentless Protector Page 18
