the knowledge of how close she’d come to dying nearly overwhelmed him.
She was down to shuddering breaths when she said, “I thought…I was…going to die.”
“I know.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I know.”
“Did you…get him?”
Bran realized she didn’t know she’d killed her attacker. That news could wait until she was steadier. “Yeah, we got him.”
Still stroking her hair, he glanced across his shoulder when a siren whooped nearby. Four black and whites and a crowd of onlookers now filled the lot. If Heath had been in the vicinity, he was gone.
An ambulance barreled into view. Emergency lights pulsed. Bran settled his hands on her shoulders and inched her gently back. “An ambulance is here. Let’s get you out of the cold.”
She 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.
Chapter 4
During the two hours following the attack, Tory’s neck was poked, prodded, X-rayed, then wrapped in gauze. Now she lay in a hospital bed, her brain and body growing more sluggish by the minute, compliments of the sedative a nurse pumped into her.
Despite her hazy state of mind, Tory was keenly aware she was under the watchful eye of every McCall who lived within a hundred-mile radius. Although she cared deeply for her extended family, she felt overwhelmed with her cramped, antiseptic-scented room packed with warm bodies.
Adding to her unease was that she was still a McCall solely because Bran had yet to scrawl his name on a couple of dotted lines.
Still, whenever a McCall’s gaze shifted in her direction, she saw open caring, grim concern and a glint of hard-edged fury that one of their own had come under attack.
That same deep caring shone in her mother-in-law’s eyes when Roma McCall stepped to the side of the bed. “I’ve shooed everyone out so you can get some sleep.” Her face taut with worry, Roma placed a hand on Tory’s and squeezed. “We’re all thankful you weren’t hurt worse.”
Feeling woozier by the second, Tory managed a half smile. “Thanks…for…coming,” she croaked, then winced. Her throat felt as if someone had dragged sandpaper across her vocal cords.
“Don’t talk, dear,” Roma cautioned. “Rest.”
Roma was a tall woman, sturdily built, with dark hair, flawless olive skin and shrewd brown eyes. Those eyes flicked upward when her eldest son stepped beside her. “Brandon, you’re staying close by Tory tonight?”
“I’ll sleep there,” he said, dipping his head toward the recliner angled into a corner.
“Good. Call in the morning to let us know how she’s doing.”
“Will do.” Bran wrapped an arm around his mother’s waist and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Thanks for being here.”
After another squeeze to Tory’s hand, Roma turned and disappeared out the door.
The click of the latch had Tory realizing she and Bran were alone for the first time since the ambulance had delivered them to the ER.
Gazing down at her, he brushed her hair back
