Sworn To Protect. Shirlee McCoy

he relayed information into the radio.

      If he was worried, she couldn’t hear it in his voice.

      But, then, he was one of New York’s finest. Just like Jordan had been. He had great training, a good head on his shoulders and the ability to stay calm even in the most challenging circumstances.

      He and Jordan had been best friends.

       My fourth brother.

      How many times had Jordan said that?

      And how often had Katie set an extra plate at the dinner table? How often had she watched as the two men tossed balls for their K-9 partners in the yard behind the three-family house they’d shared with the Jameson clan? Countless times. She and Jordan had lived on the second level of the home. His parents just below them. His brothers and young niece above. They were the family she had longed for after her parents had died. They were the connection she had prayed she would have during the years she had spent drifting from one foster home to the next.

      She had thought life would keep going in the same positive direction. She had thought—wrongly so—that the tragedy of losing her parents in a car accident when she was ten was enough for a lifetime.

      She should have known better.

      There was nothing in the Bible about life being easy.

      There were no promises made to the faithful.

      Except that God would be there. Guiding. Helping. Creating good out of bad.

      The problem was Katie couldn’t see how anything good could come of losing Jordan. Or, of being stalked by a deranged man.

      She shuddered, then her eyes widened. “Ivy! My mother-in-law. He hit her with the gun. Is she all right? I need to know that Ivy is all right!”

      Word came over the radio just then that the building was secure, the suspect was on the loose and one victim, Ivy Jameson, had come to and was being treated for a minor head injury.

      “Thank God,” Katie said, the breath whooshing out of her.

      “It’s going to be okay,” Tony murmured, his hand still on her arm. “We’ll get him.”

      “I hope so,” she replied.

      His gaze dropped from her face to her belly.

      There was a smudge of dirt on her shirt.

      “Are you hurt?” he asked, meeting her gaze again.

      He had the darkest eyes she had ever seen. Nearly black, the irises all but melding with his pupils.

      “I don’t think so,” she responded. The baby was turning cartwheels, little elbows and feet and hands jabbing and poking. She would be an active child, and Katie wondered if Jordan had been that way.

      It bothered her that she didn’t know.

      They’d known each other for only a few years. They’d met, dated and married so quickly, people had probably wondered at their rush.

      “You aren’t sure?” Tony released her arm and turned her hands over, frowning as he eyed the scraped and bleeding flesh.

      “I’m fine. I just... I’d be better if you were going after Martin. I want him caught.”

      “We all do,” he replied. “I called in the direction Martin took. Police are all over Forest Park, looking for him.” He held her gaze for a moment, then motioned at a small group of medical personnel that had emerged from the building and were standing near the clinic’s door.

      “We need some help over here,” he said.

      A nurse rushed over.

      That was no surprise.

      Tony had a way of getting people to do what he wanted. He wasn’t manipulative. He wasn’t demanding. He simply had an air of confidence that people responded to.

      “Mrs. Jameson!” the nurse cried. “I’m so glad you’re safe!”

      “Me, too,” she murmured, suddenly faint, her heart galloping frantically. She couldn’t catch her breath, and she sat on the curb, the edges of her vision dark, sounds muted by the frantic rush of blood in her ears.

      “Katie?” Tony said, his voice faint, his palm pressed to her cheek. She realized he was crouching in front of her, his face filled with concern. The nurse was beside her, checking the pulse in her wrist.

      “I’m okay. I just want Martin caught.”

      “Me, too.” He glanced toward the parking lot’s entrance. Several patrol cars were pulling in, with their lights and sirens on.

      “You can go, if you want,” she said. “There are dozens of people around. Martin would never try to...”

      She stopped, because she knew he would try anything to get to her. There was no telling what he might do. No one had imagined that he’d enter the clinic and go after her there, but he had. He had killed Jordan. He’d kill again to get what he wanted.

      And, what he wanted was Katie.

      Her pulse jumped at the thought, and her abdomen cramped with such surprising intensity, she gasped.

      “Hun, are you okay?” the nurse asked, laying a hand on Katie’s stomach as if she knew exactly what was happening.

      “Yes,” she replied, but she wasn’t certain.

      “Feels like you’re having a contraction,” the nurse said.

      “A contraction?” Tony frowned. “As in the baby is coming?”

      “No. We’re a couple weeks out from that,” Katie managed to say.

      The nurse smiled kindly. “The baby will come when he or she decides it’s time. If today is the day, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it.”

      “Today can’t be the day,” Katie said.

      “If it is, you’ll be fine and so will the baby. You’re at what? Thirty-six weeks? That’s early, but we deliver thirty-six-weekers all the time. They do remarkably well.” The nurse straightened and turned back toward the building. “I’ll get a wheelchair, and we’ll bring you back into the clinic, hook you up to a fetal monitor and see what’s going on.”

      “Today can’t be the day,” Katie repeated, but the nurse was already hurrying away.

      “She’s right,” Tony said quietly. “You and the baby will be okay. Even if she arrives today.”

      “I don’t want to give birth until after Martin is caught.”

      She didn’t want to give birth alone, either, but she didn’t tell him that. She hadn’t told anyone how afraid she was to go through this without Jordan.

      “Like the nurse said, the baby will decide.” He smiled gently. “Noah just arrived. I’m going after Martin.”

      He touched her cheek, then stood.

      When he moved away, she could see her brother-in-law, the new chief of the K-9 Command Unit, rushing across the parking lot, his rottweiler partner, Scotty, bounding beside him.

      “Katie!” Noah shouted, his expression and voice only hinting at the fear she knew he must be feeling. The baby she was carrying was the Jameson family’s last link to Jordan. She knew Jordan’s parents and three brothers cared about her, but the baby was blood.

      “I’m okay,” she assured Jordan’s brother. “And so is your mother.”

      She wasn’t sure if he heard.

      The police sirens were loud. An ambulance was screaming into the parking lot. A large crowd had formed, the murmur of panicked voices drifting beneath the cacophony of emergency sirens and squawk of radio communications.

      There were dozens of people around.

      But,