Relentless Protector. Colleen Thompson

fear of the man who had just shot and jumped her.

      “It’s all right!” he shouted at her. “Get in. I’m Ranger Captain Cole Sawyer.”

      Whether it was his rank, the mystique of the Ranger reputation or desperation to reach her son, she scrambled into his truck, a big black Ram that should eat up the distance between them and her sedan in no time. When he fired up the engine, he saw that he was leaving prints all over, bloody prints from where he’d fought to hold her down.

      “That way.” She pointed out the direction the silver car had taken. “I’ll bet they’re heading out of town on Sunset.”

      He zoomed through a narrow gap in the light traffic, setting off the squeal of wheels as he bulled his way in. He focused on a wreck just ahead, where a motorcycle lay on its side, its leather-clad rider climbing free. He took it as a sign that the fleeing car had made the left, most likely cutting off the cyclist.

      Forced to slow to avoid hitting another driver who had stopped to help the downed rider, he turned onto Sunset Avenue, toward the tree-lined river, a perfect spot to dump a small corpse. He tried to wipe the thought from his mind, to remind himself of a recent news story about a Dallas carjacker who, after discovering a sleeping toddler in a backseat, had carefully dropped off the sleeping child in her car seat outside a fire station, where she was soon found safe. Maybe there was hope these criminals would have mercy on Lisa’s son, too.

      But there were no safe havens along the muddy Brazos River, nothing but the rough dirt roads traveled by fishermen and boaters, or, more often, by hungry coyotes and scavenging feral hogs. So even if the boy did get dropped off somewhere alive, he and Lisa had damned well better find him quickly, before they lost the light.

      As Cole zoomed toward the outskirts of town, small businesses gave way to well-kept older houses, many with equally well-kept gardens or pens containing a few horses or some kid’s 4-H heifer. After all the violence he’d seen in the Middle East, it was stunning to think of crimes as serious as robbery and abduction affecting this seemingly idyllic place.

      “Tyler, baby, hold on,” Lisa murmured. “Mama’s coming.”

      Noting her pallor, he suspected she was closing in on shock. “There’s a clean hand towel in the glove box,” he said. “You’ll need to put pressure on that arm to slow the bleeding.”

      Not seeming to hear him, she kept staring out the windshield. “We’d just picked up our dog at the groomer’s when she shoved a gun in my back. Then she made me take her and her partner in my car.”

      Making note that one of her assailants had been female, he repeated his suggestion as an order. “Get the towel out now. Apply pressure, or you’ll pass out. Then where will your son be?”

      “You know what, Captain? ” she fired back. “If you hadn’t gone and interfered, this would already be over.”

      “Maybe you didn’t notice, but that teller you were terrorizing was about to scream when I made my move. You think I was going to stand there and let an armed robber shoot a pregnant woman? Or me? ”

      “If you’d just stayed out of it—”

      “Are you going to sit there arguing until you keel over, or are you going to listen and help me save your kid?”

      Her wide-eyed gaze flicked toward him, but after a moment’s hesitation, she did as he’d ordered, then returned her attention to the road.

      “Buckle up.” Shoving his gun beneath the seat, he followed his own advice. There was every indication this was going to be a bumpy ride.

      The click of her seat belt assured him she was holding herself together for her child’s sake. Probably wasn’t even feeling any pain.

      But as obvious as her distress was, he reminded himself that, widow or not, she might not be the innocent she’d claimed to be. For all he knew, she could be a willing conspirator, one who didn’t trust her partners not to dispose of the encumbrance of her child now that their scheme had gone to hell. If she had really been so irresponsible as to willingly leave the boy in the getaway car while she’d knocked off a bank, she was a far cry from the caring mother the newspaper article had made her out to be.

      Unthinkable as it sounded, he couldn’t rule out the possibility. Which meant that for the moment he couldn’t fully trust anything she said.

      “What’s really going on here, Lisa Meador?” he asked, knowing that, even under duress, the use of a person’s name was the one thing most likely to gain his or her attention. Or cooperation, which was critical right now.

      “How do you know my name?” she asked.

      “I saw that article in the newspaper,” he said, though he’d known who she was long before that. “Your son’s name is Tyler, isn’t it?”

      Tears leaking, she nodded. “He’s only five, and he looked so scared and little in his car seat. How can they do this to him, after everything we’ve been through?”

      Compassion squeezed in his chest. So much for keeping his head and reserving judgment. If her son wasn’t really in that car with two kidnappers, she had to be the best liar on the planet. Or a truly gifted actress who knew exactly how to push his buttons.

      Changing the subject, he said, “We need to call the sheriff’s office. Bring them in on the chase.”

      The moment the words were out, a stomach-dropping realization hit him. Of all the damned luck. “Ah, hell. I don’t have my cell phone.”

      Since mustering out three weeks earlier, he’d gotten back into the habit of never leaving home without it. Unfortunately, his habit of checking his pockets before doing laundry hadn’t been as quick to return. He’d cursed himself this morning, then ordered a replacement, which his provider had promised would be expressed to him tomorrow. Hell of a lot of good that did him now. “What about you, Lisa? You have a phone?”

      “That woman took it when she switched my purse with this bag. Then she hit my head with her gun right in front of Tyler. I was so scared he would cry again and the man with the tattoos would...” Her voice choked down to nothing.

      So she’d been pistol-whipped as well as shot, in addition to the emotional trauma they’d inflicted. Allegedly inflicted, he reminded himself, though his conscience screamed that he owed it to her to believe her. Owed it to her to make things right, though he’d been forbidden to make contact with her.

      He drilled her with another question. “Tell me more about these people. Did you know either one?”

      “Not the skinny man with all the tattoos, I’m sure of that. But the woman—” She pointed with the bloody towel. “Look. Is that a car?”

      It had to be. Beyond a ridge of trees, a rising yellowish dust cloud indicated a vehicle traveling a rutted access road running alongside the muddy Brazos River, no more than a mile or so ahead and to their right. It was heading toward them, but the timing convinced him it had to be their quarry. Maybe they’d dumped her son, then turned around to head back to the main road and make their escape.

      Or maybe all that was just a fantasy borne of his desperate hope that this rash act would quickly pay off. That he hadn’t just thrown away his future for a beautiful pair of lying brown eyes.

      Chapter Three

      As the truck jounced along the narrow, tree-lined dirt road, agony flared in Lisa’s head and right arm with every bump. Swallowing back a cry of pain, she gritted her teeth and braced herself. She had to get through these next few minutes, had to put her injuries out of her mind until she had her son safely in her arms.

      She focused on that image, on Tyler’s smile beaming and Rowdy’s tail wagging beside him. She poured her soul into a prayer that the vicious Evie and her partner would drop him off and keep going. That all they’d really wanted was the money and not revenge against a helpless child.

      “Hurry,” she urged Cole