Shattered Vows. Maggie Price

nodded, looking up at him. Her blond lashes were spiky, her eyes swollen from tears.

      He settled his hands on either side of her waist, lifted her to her feet. When she swayed against his chest, he tightened his grip.

      “Let me carry you.”

      She raised a hand, her trembling fingers brushing his cheek. “I…can…walk,” she croaked. “Need to…walk.”

      Even now she wouldn’t allow herself to lean on him. For the space of a heartbeat he loosened control on the emotion roiling inside him: the need to protect her, to comfort her, the blind rage against Heath for nearly killing her.

      She was alive solely because she was brave and a fighter. She hadn’t needed him to stay alive. Didn’t need him to carry her to the ambulance.

      “Okay, you walk.” He pressed his lips against her forehead. “I’m a step away if you need me.”

      Keeping one hand locked on her elbow, he swept up his Glock, holstered it. Her Sig went into a pocket on his parka. He was about to retrieve the chain when he felt her shudder.

      “Forget walking.” He swept her up gently and headed toward the ambulance. “I’m taking care of you, Tory. No one is going to hurt you again.”

      “Thanks…for the lift.” When she trembled convulsively, Bran tightened his arms around her.

      Gonna eat your heart out. The threat that Heath’s mother had hissed at the funeral home—and that he’d heard coming over Tory’s cell phone during the attack—replayed with new meaning in Bran’s head. One officer’s husband was dead. Another’s wife was missing. Bran didn’t know yet if Heath had gone after the wife of the fourth cop involved in the credit-union shootout, but he figured he had.

      It was clear now that Heath had planned all along to hit the families of the cops who’d killed his brother and cousin, not the cops themselves. What better way to eat someone’s heart out than to target their spouse? It was the ultimate twisting of the blade, a way to deal unending, excruciating, lifelong agony to the cops.

      Grim-faced, Nate strode toward them. Bran inclined his head toward the spot where he found Tory. “There’s a chain back there. It needs to go into evidence.”

      “A chain?”

      “The scum had it wrapped around Tory’s throat.”

      Nate nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

      A pair of EMTs pulled a gurney into view at the same instant Bran reached the rear of the ambulance. He sat Tory down gently on the stretcher, kept his hands locked on her shoulders. He looked into her eyes, felt the tremors that still shook her. “I’m riding to the hospital with you.”

      She rubbed a hand over her mouth, nodded.

      He stepped back to give the EMTs room to work.

      The pain of seeing her hurt was the equivalent to a razor slashing at his heart. Because that pain threatened to overwhelm, he went with anger.

      He hadn’t known what Heath had been planning, but he’d known damn well he would try something. Just as Bran now sensed with cold, hard certainty the bastard would make another attempt on Tory.

      “Try it.” The violence bubbling in his blood transformed his voice into a lethal hiss on the cold night air.

      He spotted Nate, saw the blood-slicked chain dangling from his brother’s fingers. Bran forced himself to take a long, measured breath. Rage, he knew, clouded the mind. So he would throttle his back. Keep it under control. Do what he had to do.

      Bran stepped to the ambulance, swung up into the back.

      Tory was still his wife. His to protect. His.

      And he had just become her shadow.