Savior in the Saddle

by Delores Fossen

  It wasn’t a second too soon because there was another shot ripping through what was left of the glass in the small window. He drew his gun and maneuvered her into the living room and then to the kitchen. He wanted her as far away from those shots as he could manage.

  Hell.

  He hadn’t expected the attack to come this soon. He’d hoped to have Willa tucked safely away before Martin Shore tried to kill her. Brandon obviously hadn’t succeeded, and Willa might pay the price for his miscalculation.

  Brandon used his phone to call for backup from the Austin P.D. He couldn’t risk trying to ring Bo because his temporary partner might be trying to conceal his location from the shooter.

  Willa grabbed a knife and a can of pepper spray from the counter and covered her pregnant belly with her hand. Neither her hand nor the items would provide the baby with much protection, so Brandon threw open the fridge and positioned her behind the door. That would give her an extra layer. He considered pulling out the fridge and placing her in the space behind it, but if Shore moved to that side of the house, the bullets might make it through the wall.

  “You weren’t lying,” Willa mumbled.

  Not about Shore, he wasn’t. But he had told her lies all right. Later, much later, he needed to fill her in on the whole truth.

  There was another shot, not through the bathroom. There was the sound of more glass shattering, and it seemed to be coming from Willa’s bedroom.

  Brandon waited. Listening.

  Where the hell was Bo? And better yet, where had the lieutenant been when that first shot had been fired? Brandon hoped Shore hadn’t managed to injure Bo or worse.

  Another sound, not a bullet this time, sent Brandon’s heart to his knees. Because this one had come from inside. From Willa’s bedroom. It was the sound of footsteps.

  The assassin was in her house.

  Brandon glanced at Willa. Her eyes were wide, and her breath was gusting. She’d obviously heard the footsteps, too, and she knew the danger was bearing down on them.

  He couldn’t wait for word from Bo or for backup to arrive. Once Shore made it to the tiny kitchen, he would see them immediately. They would be sitting ducks, and that meant Brandon had to act fast to keep Willa alive.

  “This way,” he mouthed.

  Brandon kept his gun ready and aimed at the opening that led from the dining room and into the kitchen. No doubt that was where Shore was headed. He maneuvered Willa behind him so he could shield her with his body, and he started to back them out of the room. It wasn’t the best of plans because Shore could double back or even have an accomplice who could come from the other direction, but Brandon had no choice.

  He had to get Willa out of there.

  Each step seemed to take minutes, but he led them across the kitchen and toward the tiny mudroom and the back door. He wasn’t sure what was on the other side of that door, but hopefully it was a yard with some kind of cover. He needed to get Willa behind a tree or something to shelter her from the bullets that would come at them when Shore realized they were no longer inside.

  They made it to the opening of the mudroom where they heard a plinking noise as if something metal had been dropped.

  Brandon glanced back into the dining room and soon noticed something he didn’t want to see: the small, dark green oval object on the floor.

  A grenade.

  “Run!” Brandon shouted.

  Willa reacted fast, thank God. With the knife and pepper spray in her left hand, she pushed her messenger’s bag out of the way, disengaged the locks and threw open the door. Brandon had one last look to make sure Shore wasn’t about to gun them down from inside the house, and changed places with Willa, so he could be in front of her. Either position was a risk because it was possible the grenade was a decoy to get them to run. If so, they were about to run directly into a professional assassin.

  They hurried out onto a small porch and down the steps that led into a yard. No trees, something that made Brandon curse. But there was a small storage shed. He grabbed Willa’s arm and made a beeline for it.

  There was no sign of Bo. No sign of backup, either, but then it’d only been a couple of minutes since he’d made the call requesting help. Bo had likely called, too.

  Well, Bo would have if he wasn’t lying dead somewhere.

  Shore could have managed to take out Bo before he started the attack on the house.

  Brandon hated to force Willa to run, but he had no choice. He prayed this exertion wouldn’t hurt the baby. Of course, the stress couldn’t be good for the child, either. But Brandon also pushed that aside. Right now, he had to keep Willa alive because it was the only way to save the child.

  He positioned Willa to the side of the small wooden shed.

  Just as the explosion ripped through the yard.

  Brandon had considered that the grenade might be a dummy, but it obviously wasn’t.

  The debris from the blast came right at them.

  Brandon tried to keep watch, to make certain Shore hadn’t come into the yard for another attack, but it was hard to see anything. The left side of the house was literally a fireball, and bits of wood, the roof and even wads of fire were raining down on them.

  His instincts and training were to protect his fellow peace officer, but Brandon couldn’t risk taking Willa closer to the house. There could be a secondary explosion, and he needed to put some distance between the burning building and her.

  Thankfully, she still had the bag draped across her body, and she used it to shelter her face from the dangerous falling debris.

  “Is there a gate on the back fence?” he asked her.

  She nodded, tried to speak, but no sound came out. Willa was obviously terrified, and there was nothing he could do to assure her that he could protect her. Shore could have orchestrated this entire attack just to get them out in the open. And the open was where they’d have to go to get to the gate.

  Brandon checked the strips of grass and shrubs that made up the side yards. No one was there that he could see. No one was on the porch, either, and it was too much to hope that Shore had blown up with that grenade. No. The man was out there, somewhere, waiting.

  “Let’s go,” he told Willa.

  As he’d done in the kitchen, Brandon kept in front of her and backed her toward the gate. The debris continued to fall, and he could hear neighbors shouting for help. What he couldn’t hear was Bo or the sound of sirens from backup. Until he had help, he had to do everything within his power to get Willa away from there.

  Thick black smoke billowed out from the house, fanning out across the yard, and making it impossible for Brandon to see all the places where Shore could be hiding. He kept his gun aimed. Ready.

  He saw the movement just at the edge of the smoke. It was a man. And it wasn’t Bo. Brandon recognized him from intelligence photos.

  It was Martin Shore.

  The killer was there, coming for them.

  Behind him, Willa fumbled with the gate to open it. She’d obviously put some kind of lock on it, and that lock was now a trap.

  Brandon protected Willa as best he could, but he couldn’t help with the locks. He kept his eyes and gun trained on Shore and was ready to push Willa to the ground if necessary. That wouldn’t take her out of the line of fire, but it might shield her long enough until backup arrived. By now, all the neighbors and anyone for blocks around had probably called for help or come out of their residences to see what was going on.

  And what was going on was that Shore was about to try to kill them again.

  The man kept walking but lifted his gun, aiming it at them.

  Willa cursed, but she must have finally gotten the locks to cooperate because she shoved open the gate. In the same motion Brandon pushed her through to the other side.

  A bullet slammed into the fence.

  The shot came so close to Brandon’s head that he swore he could feel it.

  He jumped out of the way, staying low and lunged out of the yard to join Willa o
n the other side. They made it to a sidewalk that was rimmed with a street and then another row of pristine suburban houses. They could try to duck into one of them, but that wouldn’t stop Shore. He’d just fire into the place and possibly kill some innocent bystanders.

  “We have to run,” Brandon told her. He didn’t wait for her to do that. He put his left hand on her shoulder to get her moving, away from the fence and away from her burning house.

  Running might not even be possible for someone in the last trimester of pregnancy, but he had to get her to cover so he could try to make a stand against Shore.

  Brandon headed up the sidewalk toward the cul de sac where a car was parked. That was their best bet.

  Until he saw the kids.

  There were three of them, all on skates, and probably no more than ten or eleven years old. If he went in that direction, so would Shore’s bullets.

  “Get down!” Brandon shouted to the boys. Hopefully they and anyone else in the area would do as he’d ordered.

  “This way,” Willa insisted, turning and leading him in the opposite direction.

  She obviously realized the danger to the children, but she also had to know the danger of going past her house again. Shore had probably made it across the yard by now, and if he wasn’t already at the gate, he soon would be.

  Brandon adjusted his gun, and aimed, and they hurried past Willa’s section of the fence. The smoke was thicker now, and the wind was carrying it right in their direction. Willa coughed, but she didn’t stop.

  He didn’t want to think of the risk this might be causing the baby. Brandon only wanted to get her out of there. Their best option was the intersection just ahead. Cars were trickling past, but if he could get Willa to that point, he could position her on the side of the last stretch of fence and perhaps get her out of Shore’s line of sight.

  Brandon heard the creak of the wooden gate and glanced over his shoulder just as it opened.

  Shore came out, and he had his gun ready.

  The assassin glanced around and spotted them. Brandon wanted to shoot him then and there, but he couldn’t risk a stray shot hitting the children.

  Shore obviously didn’t feel the same. He reaimed, pointing the gun directly at Willa.

  Brandon grabbed on to her waist and shoved her into the side of the fence.

  A bullet flew past them.

  God knew where it landed, and Brandon prayed it hadn’t gone into one of the houses or a car.

  “We can’t stop,” he told Willa, though he could hear her breathing hard.

  They headed up the street toward a parked car, but then Brandon spotted the city bus. It was only about two blocks away and was lumbering in their direction. If he could get Willa on that bus before Shore saw them, they might be able to escape before the man could figure out where to aim more of those deadly shots.

  Brandon kept Willa positioned behind him, and he hurried toward the bus. He also pushed back his jacket to reveal his badge.

  “Get back inside!” he shouted to an elderly woman who opened her door.

  Still hurrying toward the bus, Brandon flagged down the driver and hoped like the devil the man would stop. He didn’t take his attention off the intersection where he knew Shore would soon appear.

  The assassin wouldn’t just give up.

  The bus inched closer, and with Willa in tow, Brandon raced toward the vehicle. The seconds clicked off in Brandon’s head. He wanted to make sure these seconds weren’t their last ones.

  The driver slowed even more as he approached them. Probably because he was concerned about the gun Brandon was holding.

  “Open up!” Brandon told the middle-aged Hispanic driver. And he flashed his badge again.

  The door swung open.

  Just as Brandon caught a glimpse of Shore.

  The assassin was at the intersection, barely a block away. Willa was still in Shore’s kill zone.

  Brandon pushed her onto the bus and was relieved that they were the sole passengers.

  “I’m Sheriff Ruiz,” he said identifying himself. “Drive!” Brandon ordered the man behind the wheel.

  He dragged Willa to the bus’s floor, praying that Shore hadn’t seen him.

  But he obviously had.

  Because a bullet came crashing through the bus window.

  Chapter Five

  Willa covered her head with the bag when the glass spewed across the bus.

  The nightmare wasn’t over.

  Shore was still after them, and if he managed to injure the driver, then the bus would almost certainly crash. The crash alone might not be fatal, but it would leave them wide open for another attack.

  “Don’t stop,” Brandon warned the driver, “and stay low in the seat.”

  The driver was cursing and praying at the same time. Brandon was mumbling something as well, but Willa didn’t think she had the breath to utter anything.

  Her baby began to kick, hard, but Willa welcomed the movement. It meant her daughter was safe. For now. But they weren’t out of danger.

  The next bullet proved that.

  It came through the back window, tearing the glass apart, and it exited through the front. Thankfully, it didn’t come near them or the driver, and the driver slammed on the accelerator to get them out of there.

  “Shore’s on foot,” Brandon reminded her. “He won’t be able to come after us for long.”

  Willa held her breath, waiting and trying to brace herself for more bullets. But the shots didn’t continue.

  Brandon lifted his head and looked out the window. “He’s gone,” he let her know.

  Willa still didn’t move. She lay there and prayed the threat was truly over.

  “Drive to the nearest police station,” Brandon told the driver, and he took out his phone.

  While Brandon punched in some numbers, he helped her from the floor and moved her onto one of the seats. He dropped down onto the seat directly across from her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Willa nodded, but she doubted he believed her. For one thing, she was still breathing so fast that she was close to hyperventilating, and she was trembling from head to toe. It might be part of Brandon’s job to be on the business end of gunfire, but until the hostage situation at the maternity hospital, Willa had never known what it was like to face real danger.

  Well, now she knew.

  And it couldn’t continue.

  Somehow, she had to find a safe place for her and her baby. If there was such a thing as a safe place. This was the third attack in four months. Four attacks if she counted being taken hostage at the hospital. Part of her was furious that time after time someone or something had endangered her precious baby. She wanted answers. She wanted justice.

  But another part of her only wanted to run and hide.

  Willa looked back at the broken glass and damage the bullets had done to the seats. She also looked out at the sidewalk that was zipping by. No sign of Shore, thank God. Maybe they had finally lost him.

  She listened while Brandon gave an update to whomever he had called. He also asked about Lieutenant Bo Duggan, and then about Martin Shore. Brandon’s forehead bunched up when he apparently got a response.

  “We’re on our way,” Brandon said to the person on the other end of the line, and he snapped his phone shut.

  “They got Martin Shore?” she immediately asked.

  He shook his head. “But they’re looking. Backup arrived, and there are officers fanning out all over the area.”

  The hopeful tone was tinged with doubt. And Willa knew why. From what Brandon had told her, Martin Shore was a professional killer, and he probably knew how to evade the police. He was no doubt on the run so he could regroup.

  And come after her again.

  “Bo Duggan was shot,” Brandon added, his voice practically a whisper. He closed his eyes a moment but not before she saw the flash of anger mixed with pain. “He’s on the way to the hospital.”

  “I’m sorry.” Not that it w
ould probably help, but Willa reached out and touched his arm.

  That touch brought his eyes open, and he met her gaze. “So am I. Sorry for the lieutenant and sorry that I didn’t get to you sooner so I could stop this attack.”

  Willa didn’t intend to take the blame for this, but it certainly wasn’t Brandon’s fault, either. The problem was she didn’t know where to place the blame.

  “You were trying to talk me into leaving with you and Lieutenant Duggan,” she reminded him. She groaned softly. “And I was trying to figure out a way to escape.”

  He glanced back at the street and shook his head. “I wish to hell you had gotten out there before Shore arrived.”

  So had she. But here they were. Seconds after nearly being killed. Willa wondered if she would ever have peace of mind again, or if she would have to stay on the run for the rest of her life. It was possible that she could never give her precious baby a normal life.

  “The police station’s just around the block,” the driver told them.

  Willa had to take a deep breath. A police station filled with people she didn’t trust. But she couldn’t very well jump off the bus. Shore could still be out there. And besides, she didn’t even have a house to return to. Other than the meager items in the messenger bag, the only things she had were Brandon and her memory.

  Both were somewhat suspect.

  “Don’t trust the cops,” Brandon mumbled, repeating what he’d seen on her computer screen and notes.

  “Yes. But as you can see, I had my reasons for that distrust.”

  “And you still do?” he asked.

  It wasn’t a simple question, and there seemed to be a Texas-size amount of emotion behind it.

  “I think I can trust you,” she admitted. “Because I believe you truly are my baby’s father.”

  Other than his word and the DNA results that could be fake, she had no other reason to believe him. But she did. Willa only hoped that didn’t turn out to be another mistake.

  The driver took a left turn and she spotted the police station just ahead.

  Brandon put his hands on her shoulders and forced eye contact. “Look, when we get inside, I have no idea where they’ll take us or what SAPD will tell you when they arrive.”