Emma’s knees buckled, and her back hit the brick wall of the credit union behind her. Air expelled from her lungs as she slid onto the filthy broken asphalt, Henry screaming in her arms.
The bag flew from her useless, flaccid fingers, and the man was in motion, beating a path down the alley, away from the crowd, away from Sawyer and away from Emma.
Henry wailed into her ear, arching his back in distress as Sawyer skidded to a stop at her side.
“Emma!”
She felt her strength giving way. Her arms knew to hold on, but her thoughts slipped into nothing. “Sawyer,” she started, but the darkness rushed in to take her.
Sawyer watched in horror as the man in black pulled back his fist and shot it forward at Emma and her baby. At Sawyer’s baby. Fury burned in his veins, propelling him faster, erasing the final distance between them as Emma’s body began to wobble and fall. She uttered Sawyer’s name as his feet reached the curb only a yard from her side. The desperate, heartbreaking sound was nearly enough to land him on his knees.
Time seemed to stand still as her eyelids drooped shut, extinguishing the final glimmer of her awareness. Sawyer dove for them, catching Emma’s body in a hug as it went limp and pressing both her and Henry to his chest. “Call 911!” he demanded, turning to fix a pointed look on the gathered bystanders.
Sawyer gritted his teeth as the assailant pushed through a throng of pedestrians at the alley’s opposite end and escaped his wrath, for now, with Emma’s bag.
The soft whir of emergency sirens spun to life in the distance, barely audible over Henry’s cries.
Sawyer focused on the lives he held in his arms. He repositioned them, allowing Emma’s arms to fall to her sides, and getting a more comforting hold on Henry. “Shh,” he whispered to his son. The seething anger he felt for Emma’s attacker would have to wait. “I’ve got you, and you’re going to be okay,” he vowed, kissing the child’s head on instinct, cuddling him tighter. And he would return the man’s assaulting punch at the first opportunity.
Emma’s lids fluttered open. “Henry.”
“I’ve got him, and help is on the way for you.” Sawyer took a moment to evaluate the rising bruise on her cheekbone. Her assailant’s fist had been large enough to mark her from jaw to temple, and Sawyer felt his fingers curl once more with the need to return the hit. “The police and ambulance are almost here,” he assured her.
The sirens were loud now. Emergency vehicles would arrive at any moment.
Then Sawyer could plot his revenge on the man who’d done this to his family.
A SLOW AND GENTLE jostling roused Emma once more. The low murmur of a crowd and distant sounds of traffic pricked her ears. A cool and hearty breeze roused her with a snap. Suddenly, Emma’s muddled thoughts pulled together in a sharp and deeply horrific memory. A man had attacked her and Henry outside the credit union. He’d taken all of Sara’s things. Stolen the diaper bag from her hands. And hit her. “Henry!” Her eyes jerked wide.
“He’s here,” Sawyer answered. He appeared at her side, baby tucked safely in the crook of his arm. “He’s okay.”
Henry worked the small blue pacifier in his mouth. A broad grin stretched beneath the little soother when he caught her in his sight.
Emma sighed in relief. “Thank you,” she whispered, fighting tears and taking inventory of the changes in her situation. The assailant was gone. Sawyer was here, and she was strapped to a gurney. An EMT pressed cool, probing fingers to her wrist. “Did he get away?” she asked Sawyer, craning her neck for signs of a policeman with the lunatic in handcuffs.
“Yeah,” Sawyer answered. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “You saved Henry.”
The muscle pulsed in Sawyer’s jaw. His eyes were hard and cold. “The man who hurt you got away.”
Sawyer’s voice raised goose bumps over her skin. His calculating expression didn’t help.
“Your cheek will be tender for a while,” the EMT said. He explored the red-hot ache with a gentle touch. “Skin didn’t break,” he said. “There’s no need for a bandage or stitches, but I recommend ice for swelling and aspirin as needed for pain.” He flashed a blinding light into her eyes, and she winced. “Blurry vision?” he asked.
“No.”
“Memory loss?”
“No.” She frowned. That wasn’t completely true. “I don’t remember you arriving,” she said, “but I remember being cornered, robbed and assaulted by a man in head-to-toe black. He wore a scarf across the bottom half of his face.”
The EMT nodded, a small frown on his lips. “I’m sorry that happened to you and your baby.” He pocketed the light. “If you develop any nausea or unusual neck pain, go to the ER. Tell them about this.”
“Okay,” she agreed, eager to get off the gurney and avoid an ambulance ride she absolutely couldn’t afford. “I can go?”
He raised his attention to Sawyer, already moving into position so he could help her down. “You’ll drive her?” he asked.
Sawyer reached for Emma’s hand. “Yes.”
“Not so fast,” a vaguely familiar voice interrupted. The detective who’d come to her home to take the report of Sara’s abduction moved into view, pen and paper in hand. “I have a few questions, if you don’t mind. I’ve spoken to several witnesses, and I’d like to get your statement as well before the details become murky from time.”
Sawyer stepped between the detective and the gurney. His pale blue eyes locked onto hers. “You don’t have to do this now if you don’t want to. He can come by later, or I can take you to the station when you’re feeling better.”
Emma took a deep, settling breath and lifted her chin. “I can do it now,” she said, and then she slowly relived the second-worst experience of her life in vivid detail.
When it was over, she told Detective Rosen about Sara’s hidden notebook, and he promised to pick it up personally, after he’d finished with the current crime scene.
At home, she showered until her skin pruned up, attempting and failing to wash the feel of the man’s hands off her. Then, with Henry dozing in his crib, she cried herself to sleep in the middle of the afternoon.
She woke to an empty crib at her bedside and the tangy scent of barbecue in the air.
She was on her feet instantly in search of her son. The scents of her grill suggested all was well, that Sawyer was grilling, but she wasn’t sure she liked him nabbing Henry without letting her know. She crept down the hallway toward the kitchen warring with herself. Henry was his son, but surely common courtesy dictated that he at least let her know before taking him like that. No one else in her world
