young woman with his body. And that was when he realized she wasn’t just terrified for herself but probably also for the child she carried.
She was pregnant.
The van kept going, but someone fired out the open back doors of it. And more bullets struck him, stealing his breath.
* * *
MAGGIE JENKINS’S THROAT was raw and her voice hoarse from screaming, but even though the robbers—dressed in those horrible zombie costumes—were gone, she wanted to scream again. She didn’t want to scream out of fear for herself but for the man who lay on top of her. His body had gone limp as the breath left it.
He had been shot so many times. But he’d kept coming to her rescue like a golden-haired superhero. And then he’d covered her body with his, taking more shots to his back.
He had to be dead. Why had he interrupted the robbery in progress and risked his own life? He had claimed to be an FBI agent, but why would he have been alone? Why wouldn’t he have waited for more agents and for local backup before bursting into the bank?
“Please, please be alive,” she murmured, her voice no louder than a whisper. She grasped his shoulders—his impossibly wide shoulders—and eased him back. Something cold and metallic hung from his neck and pressed against her chest. A badge.
So he really was a lawman. But how had he known the bank was being robbed? When the robbers rushed the bank, she hadn’t had the time or the nerve to push the silent alarm beneath her desk before bullets had shattered the glass walls of her office.
Maybe one of the tellers or Mr. Hardy, the bank manager, had pushed an alarm. Whatever the FBI agent had driven to the bank hadn’t had sirens or lights. She hadn’t even known he was there until he pushed open the lobby doors. But, then again, she had hardly been able to hear anything over all of those gunshots. Her ears rang from the deafening noise.
But now she heard his gasp as he caught his breath again. He stared down at her, his face so close that she picked up on all the nuances in his eyes. They were a deep green with flecks of gold that made them glitter. His body, long and muscular, tensed against hers. He moved the hand that was not holding his weapon to the asphalt and pushed up, levering himself off her.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He was apologizing to her? For what? Saving her life? Maybe shock had settled in, or maybe his good looks and his concern had struck her dumb. Usually she wasn’t silent; usually people complained that she talked too much.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Her hands covered her stomach, and something shifted beneath her palm. She sighed with relief that her baby was moving, flailing his tiny fists and kicking his tiny feet as if trying to fight off his mother’s attackers.
But it was too late. This man had already fought them off for her. Of course her baby shouldn’t be fighting to protect her; it was Maggie’s job to protect him or her...
“Are you all right?” the man asked again. He slid his gun into a holster beneath his arm, and then he lifted her from the ground as easily as if she were half her size.
“How are you alive?” she asked in wonder.
He reached for his shirt and tore the buttons loose. The blue cotton parted to reveal a black vest. The badge swung back against it.
She was no longer close enough to read all the smaller print, but she identified the big brass-colored letters. “You really are an FBI agent? I thought you just said that to scare the robbers.”
And she’d thought he had been a little crazy to try that when the robbers had had bigger guns than his. But maybe announcing his presence had scared the robbers into leaving quickly because they’d worried that backup would come.
Where was it, though?
“I’m Special Agent Blaine Campbell,” he introduced himself.
“How did you get here so quickly?” she asked, still not entirely convinced that he wasn’t a superhero. “How did you know the bank was being robbed?”
He shook his head and turned back to the building. “I didn’t know that it was being robbed today. Sarge—Daryl Williams—called me a few days ago with concerns.”
She gasped as she relived the security guard getting shot, flinching at the sound of the shot, at the image of him falling. He hadn’t been wearing a vest, but he’d stepped out from behind that pillar anyway—undoubtedly to save her. “Is Sarge okay?”
The agent shook his head again, but he didn’t speak, as if too overwhelmed for words. He had called Mr. Williams Sarge, so he must have known him well. Maybe Mr. Williams had once been his drill instructor, as he had been her fiancé’s six years ago. The older man worked only part-time at the bank for something to do since he retired from the military.
If only he hadn’t been there today...
If only he hadn’t tried to save her...
The tears that had been burning her eyes brimmed over and began to slide down her face. She had just lost her fiancé a few months ago, and now she had lost another connection to him because Sarge had really known him. Not only had he trained him, but he’d also kept in touch with Andy over the years. He’d worried about him. He’d known that Andy shouldn’t have joined the Marines; he hadn’t been strong enough—physically or emotionally—to handle it. He had barely survived his first two deployments, and he had died on the first day of his last one.
Sarge had come for Andy’s funeral and never left—intent on taking care of Maggie and her unborn baby since Andy was now unable to.
Strong arms wrapped around her, offering comfort when she suspected he needed it himself. Blaine Campbell had lost a man he’d obviously respected and cared about. So she hugged him back, clinging to him—until tires squealed and the back door of the bank burst open to the alley.
Guns cocked and voices shouted, “Get down! Get down!”
Fear filled her that the robbers had returned. She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t look at them again, couldn’t see those horrific zombie costumes again. When she and Andy had been in middle school, his older brother had sneaked them into an R-rated zombie movie, and she’d been terrified of them ever since, even to the point where she didn’t go to Halloween parties and even hid in the dark so no trick-or-treaters would come to her door.
But they kept coming to her.
Had they returned to make certain she and the agent were dead?
“Agent Campbell,” Blaine identified himself to the state troopers who’d drawn their weapons on him.
While he respected local law enforcement, especially troopers since his oldest sister was one in Michigan, he had met some unqualified officers over the years. So the gun barrels pointing at him and the woman next to him made him nervous. But he refused to get down or allow the pregnant woman to drop to the pavement again, either.
She had already been roughed up enough; her light gray suit was smudged with grease and oil from
