Relentless Protector. Colleen Thompson

with a sprayed blond helmet of a bob. Following his gaze, she smiled on seeing Lisa. “Oh, she is a pretty thing. A friend of yours?”

      “Not yet,” he said with a wink he wasn’t feeling. “Would it be all right with you if I drop these papers back here first thing in the morning?”

      Misreading his distraction, the manager laughed. “Anything for love. You have a pleasant evening.”

      Cole stepped from her office, feeling for the concealed handgun hidden in his waistband just in case. Licensed to carry in the state of Texas, he had come armed only to safeguard the cashier’s check he’d meant to deposit, a check representing the bulk of his life’s savings.

      Never in his wildest imaginings had he figured on the possibility that he might have to stop a bank job, a holdup by a woman radiating the sort of desperation that got people hurt—or killed.

      He hoped his instincts were off, that his own guilt had him imagining things, and the look he’d seen on her face signaled something far more mundane. Maybe she’d been laid off or was behind with a car payment, not planning to resort to a federal crime. As she reached inside an oversize straw handbag at the teller’s station, he willed her to come up with a paycheck, or maybe a withdrawal slip or her ID.

      He gazed across the bank lobby, but he found no help there. Only a big-bellied, older security guard looking at his watch. Checking to see it was just ten minutes before he could lock the doors and get home to enjoy his evening. Mentally, the man had already clocked out.

      And why wouldn’t he, with no other customers in the lobby but the fortyish business type filling out his deposit ticket at an island counter and the pretty raspberry-and-white scrubs woman who pulled out a piece of paper and passed it to the teller before shoving her hand back into the bag...?

      Where she was holding something, Cole was certain. Something that—damn it all—had to be a gun.

      Though he couldn’t see the weapon, he knew it from the way the petite, red-haired teller stiffened and took on the same pale green color as the maternity blouse that covered the late-term swell of her midsection. Cole edged a few steps closer, his hand on his own gun.

      His heart was thumping, adrenaline priming every nerve and muscle, readying him for a fight he didn’t want—the fight to keep everyone inside this bank alive, including his fellow soldier’s widow. No matter how justified the circumstances, he knew that any discharge of his weapon would trigger an investigation, which could easily result in his missing the start date for his training class. And heaven only knew when there might be another.

      But no matter what it cost him, it wasn’t in Cole Sawyer to walk away from trouble, not the sort of trouble that could get a pregnant teller or a distressed widow killed. Swearing he wouldn’t fire unless he absolutely had to, he took another cautious step.

      “Don’t scream, don’t even think of triggering an alarm, and you’ll be fine, I swear it,” Lisa whispered, the tension in her own voice like the sizzling of a fuse.

      A fuse quickly burning toward a deadly detonation. Cole saw it all too clearly, as the teller’s green eyes widened even farther. She was about to lose it, about to give way to a fit of shrieking guaranteed to spell disaster....

      A disaster he had the chance to stop. A second chance...

      He took another step, trying to gain an angle that wouldn’t put the pregnant woman in his line of fire.

      He was interrupted by a sharp cry of alarm, not from the teller but from the friendly service manager who’d helped him. “Oh, no!” Her terror echoed off the glass and marble of the room. “He’s got a gun!”

      She was pointing at him, he realized, as Lisa whirled in his direction, her weapon rising from her purse.

      Cole acted on instinct, diving to one side to avoid fire from both the robber and the security guard, and getting off a single shot of his own, a shot meant to disable and not kill. Because in spite of all his training and several hard lessons underscoring the damage a wounded combatant could still inflict, an older instinct guided his hand. An instinct prompted by the desperation in the brunette’s beautiful brown eyes....

      And the trickle of bright red blood already dripping from her hairline before he squeezed the trigger.

      Chapter Two

      “No!” Lisa shouted without thinking.

      At the crack of gunfire, she dropped the unloaded weapon Evie had forced on her and bolted toward the door, her mind consumed with getting to Tyler, who was sitting bravely with his dog and stuffed toy inside the car with a pair of stone-souled criminals.

      “You screw this up, it won’t go well for him,” the self-styled Evie LeStrange had warned her. Lisa had done exactly as they’d ordered, complying to the letter, yet everything was self-destructing all around her.

      The next few seconds unfolded in slow motion: the guard reaching for his weapon, then gasping and falling forward, clutching at his chest. For an instant, Lisa thought the tall man who’d fired on her must have somehow hit him. Had the bullet missed her and then ricocheted?

      It was only then that she felt the slash of pain across her upper right arm, an injury that explained why she had dropped the gun. But she couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t think of anything but closing the gap between her and her car before the blue-eyed woman and tattooed man realized—

      As her hand shot toward the door, something struck her like a freight train, but it wasn’t another bullet. Instead, it was the big, athletic-looking “hero” who’d wrecked everything. She screamed as the speed and force of his tackle slammed her to the floor.

      “Please!” Too desperate to register the pain, she struggled to get out from underneath what felt like a brick wall. It was a testament to adrenaline that she partially wriggled free, staring through the glass door—just in time to see her car peeling out.

      “My baby! They’re taking him,” she shouted at the man who’d grabbed her shoulders. “Get off me, you idiot! They’ll kill him if I don’t bring them the cash.”

      * * *

      “W HAT ?” C OLE ’ S brain felt battered by her words.

      “They carjacked us and forced me—please! That’s my Camry they’re driving off in, and my son is inside. They’re getting away.”

      In a fraction of a second, the pieces spun together: the drip of blood he’d spotted; the sheer terror in her eyes; the medical scrubs, sensible tennis shoes and tired appearance of a woman on her way home from work, not someone planning a crime. And she was frantic to get out of this lobby.

      No wonder—if she was being truthful. If her son had truly been abducted by carjackers, waiting around for the cops could get him killed.

      Another man might have left the matter for the authorities to handle, but if Cole’s recent experience as a Ranger had taught him nothing else, it had seared into his brain the lesson that even a moment’s hesitation could make the difference between a positive outcome and an unthinkable tragedy. Another Meador family tragedy to add to his account.

      The hell with that, he decided, hauling Lisa to her feet. As he dragged her with him out the door, he tuned out everything extraneous, from the bank manager’s screams to the businessman’s frozen stare to the security guard’s slow crumple, his hand still clutching his chest. Most especially Cole ignored the folded letter in his pocket, the future that would mean nothing if he had to allow Devin Meador’s child to die to claim it.

      “Get into my truck! We’ll follow,” he shouted as a dark-skinned man in work coveralls ducked behind a vehicle.

      The panicked reaction made Cole realize he was still carrying his Glock in plain sight. But he didn’t give a damn about that; this moment was combat, plain and simple, one thing he understood. Act first and deal with cleanup when the smoke clears. They had to catch up with her car, which had taken a right out of the lot,