The Paediatrician's Personal Protector. Mallory Kane

gasped, at first thinking it was her attacker’s voice. But no. This voice was tinny, mechanical. Was it her phone? She squinted.

      There. She saw the light from the display. Thank God. But it was halfway across the room.

      Forcing a deep breath into her spasming lungs, she tried to pull herself up enough to crawl toward it, but her right wrist was useless. Worse than useless. If it didn’t stop throbbing, she was going to throw up. The pain was making her sick.

      Giving up on trying to move, she cried, “Help me!”

      God, what was the name of this place? Her brain was so fuzzy, and she hurt so bad. “Three—! she cried breathlessly. “Cottage Three,” Christy sobbed. “Please hurry!”

      REILLY DROVE LIKE A bat out of hell toward the Oak Grove Inn. What if he was wrong? What if he’d misunderstood Christy Moser’s sobbing words? The only cottages he knew about were on Oak Street in Chef Voleur, about two miles from his Covington high-rise condo.

      He should have asked her where she was staying when he’d gotten her phone number. Now it was too late. Something had happened to the beautiful black-haired serial killer’s daughter, and she’d called him—because his number was the latest number in her phone.

      “Christy? Christy can you hear me?” he yelled into his phone. “Hang on. It’s Reilly Delancey. I’ll be right there.” He kept talking to her because the line was still open. He had no idea whether she could hear him or not. Holding his breath, he listened. Was that a sob? Or harsh, panicked breathing?

      “Christy. Talk to me. Where is Cottage Three? Is it Oak Grove Inn?”

      “Oak—?”

      Fear arrowed through him at her weak, rasping voice. “Christy? I’m coming. Hang in there.”

      He careered around the corner onto Oak Street and into the driveway of the B&B. His brain registered three vehicles in the parking lot. A silver Avalon with rental plates, a light blue pickup with Louisiana plates and a Prius with a Mississippi vanity tag that said LVG CPL. He pulled into the parking lot beside the pickup and vaulted out of his car.

      Cottage Three. As he sprinted toward the row of small cottages lined up on the grounds of the Oak Grove Bed-and-Breakfast he grabbed his weapon and flashlight from his belt.

      “Hey!” he shouted. “Guerrant! Guerrant, you in there?” The owner, Guerrant Bardin, lived in the back of the main house. “Call the police!”

      “What the hell?” he heard just as a motion-sensing light flared.

      “Call 911!” Reilly shouted. “Get the police over here. A woman’s been attacked.”

      More lights came on. He saw Bardin standing on his back porch in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, with his phone at his ear.

      The door to Cottage Three was standing open. Reilly slowed down and approached carefully, holding his gun and his flashlight ready.

      He rounded the door facing and the flashlight’s beam hit a female body sprawled on the hardwood floor.

      Christy! Horror turned his blood to ice. Then she moved and gasped, and relief flooded him. Automatically, he swept the room with the flashlight’s beam and called out to no one in particular, “Clear.”

      Then he crouched beside the black-haired beauty and brushed her silky hair out of her face. “Christy?” he said softly. “Hey, Christy, talk to me.”

      “No—” she moaned, trying to push him away.

      “It’s okay. I’m Reilly Delancey—” He took a breath. “The police,” he clarified.

      At that instant, crunching footsteps approached. Reilly whirled, aiming flashlight and gun at the doorway. “Hold it right there,” he barked.

      “What’s going on?” a voice growled. He heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun shell being chambered.

      “Guerrant? It’s Reilly Delancey. Did you call the police?”

      “Hell yeah, I did.” Bardin stepped into the doorway and reached around to flip on the lights. He’d pulled on blue jeans over his boxers. “Oh, crap. What happened?”

      “I think she was attacked. Don’t touch anything. Wait out there for the police.”

      “Is she alive?”

      As Bardin spoke, Christy moved her right arm and cried out in obvious pain.

      With the lights on, Reilly saw that her slim skirt was ripped, her stockings were torn and one foot was bare. Beyond her, toward the bathroom, her purse had slid across the floor and spilled. A bottle of wine in a paper bag had rolled into a corner. Her phone lay just out of her reach.

      “Guerrant, guard the door. If you see anything, holler. I need to clear the area.” Reilly slipped out the door of the cottage and canvassed the area. He didn’t see anyone. He checked the seashell-and-gravel path that connected the cottages. It ended at the fence that surrounded the inn’s grounds. The fence was green chicken wire, designed to disappear amid the landscaping. It would be absurdly easy for someone to climb it and vault over. He shone the flashlight into the thicket on the other side of the fence. Nothing.

      He circled around the cottages, just to be sure there was nobody lurking, then walked up to the door where Guerrant was standing guard.

      “Didn’t see anybody here,” Guerrant reported.

      When Reilly entered, Christy was struggling to sit up. She looked up at him. There was a scrape on her cheek. She blinked. “Reilly Delancey,” she said hoarsely. “Not the detective.”

      “Are you okay? Are you hurt? “

      She squeezed her eyes shut. “The scaphoid bone in my wrist is fractured, although it’s not displaced. Please help me up.”

      Scaphoid bone? Reilly had no idea what she’d just told him, but he had heard the words wrist and fractured. “No. You stay right there. Don’t move. I’m calling—”

      Christy pushed herself up using her left hand and pressed her right hand protectively against her ribs.

      “—the EMTs,” Reilly finished with a sigh. Super-confident. Super-cool, even after being attacked. Even with a broken wrist. Did that come from being a physician? Or from what must have been a very difficult childhood? Either way, he was glad she was alive.

      Giving up on the notion that she might listen to him, he crouched beside her, ready to steady her if she felt faint or got sick. She looked a little green around the gills.

      “Help me up,” she ordered. When she tried to move, her mouth tightened and the tension along her jawline increased.

      He had his phone out. “No. You’ll wait for the ambulance—” he started.

      Using just her left arm, she struggled to get her feet under her. With a sigh, he slid his hands under her arms and helped her to her feet. “Do you ever listen?”

      “I—know my own body,” she replied, putting a notion in Reilly’s head that he quickly banished.

      She teetered between one high heel and one bare foot. Earlier at the courthouse, he’d observed that she was just about as tall as his nearly six feet. But now, as she put her weight on her bare foot, she seemed small. Her shoulders under his hand felt bony—feminine—sexy.

      She still appeared dazed, and if the situation weren’t so dire, she might have looked comically awkward with one shoe on and one shoe off. He gently pushed her down into the chair, a little surprised when she didn’t protest.

      He watched her carefully. She held her wrist cradled against her, protecting it. A large red area on her forehead was swelling and turning purple. Her lips were white at the corners. The scrape on her left cheek blossomed with tiny beads of blood, like early morning dew on a red flower.

      She caught him