on your team an EMT?’ his partner yelled at the ESU guys. ‘Get him over here!’
Excellent—someone else to fuss over him. Anyone would think he was the first person in the world to get shot.
‘I’ll call your family when we get to the emergency room,’ his partner said in a lower voice.
‘You do that I’ll kick your ass.’
‘Anyone you do want me to call?’
‘No.’ Since shaking his head took too much effort, he frowned again. ‘Don’t want to worry her.’
‘We all need someone who does that.’
‘You’d like her.’ His voice slurred.
‘Can’t be that good a judge of character if she likes you...’ His partner moved to make room for someone else. ‘We need to stop the bleeding.’
‘I’m on it,’ a voice he didn’t recognize said. ‘Stay with us, brother.’
With his eyelids growing heavy Tyler used up some of his waning energy on what probably looked like a sappy smile. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve it but she did like him. Unless he was very much mistaken—and he prayed he wasn’t—she liked him a whole heap. Way he saw it she was his—he just had to find a way to make her believe it, too. Jo hadn’t been his one who got away. But if he was dumb enough to let Miranda go without putting up one hell of a fight she would be.
They just needed a little more time....
‘Stay awake, Ty. Where the hell’s that bus?’
It was the second time in less than twenty-four hours he found his ass on wet ground while he wondered when he’d fallen for her. The first had been the ‘there you are’ moment that identified her as the one he’d been waiting for all along. He’d even laughed with joy. She was the reason he’d been emotionally unavailable to other women. She was the reason he hadn’t told Jo how he’d thought he felt. At times she drove him nuts but she was smart and funny and gutsy and sexy as hell. It shouldn’t have been such a great surprise he wanted to hold on to her. Any guy would. But they could forget it. She was his.
‘Tell her,’ he mumbled.
‘Tell her what?’
Somewhere along the way she’d got under his skin and crawled inside, filling him up until everything else was pushed out. It didn’t matter if it was too soon or that there was still so much for him to learn about her. It was just there...like air...without it...
He couldn’t breathe.
‘Ty, come on, man, you gotta hold on.’
He hadn’t known love could be so...big. He felt crushed under the weight of it. If he knew she could feel the same way it would lift him up higher than he’d ever been before. But until they got a chance to talk he just needed a little nap—he had to be at full strength to fight for her. Forty winks should do it.
With sirens sounding in the distance she was the last thought on his mind as he passed out.
TWENTY-FOUR
Miranda opened her eyes and groaned as she squinted at the bright light shining through a crack in the curtains. When she turned over to check the time on the alarm clock the handcuffs snagged her wrist.
‘Damn it, Tyler.’
The three gentle knocks on her bedroom door echoed inside her head as if they’d been made with a demolition ball. ‘Grace?’ she asked tentatively.
The door opened a crack. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Yes.’ Miranda fought embarrassment as the older woman crossed the room. ‘Tell me there’s a key in that envelope.’
‘With a note which said to bring this...’ she held out a bottle of aspirin ‘...and that you’d probably want a bucket of coffee...’
‘You have no idea.’ She took a deep breath while Grace negotiated the lock on the loop above her head. ‘You’re probably wondering what’s going on.’
‘I don’t need an explanation.’
Miranda held up her arm when it was freed from the bed. ‘You have a soft spot for him, don’t you?’
‘Well, he is handsome...’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘And you have been happier in the last few weeks...’
When the second loop opened she rubbed her wrist. ‘Yes, I was.’
Grace studied her face with knowing eyes. ‘I wouldn’t give up on him yet. A man doesn’t handcuff a woman to a bed to keep her safe if he doesn’t care.’ Setting the handcuffs on the bedside cabinet, she lowered her voice and smiled with a rare glimpse of mischievousness. ‘Not that there aren’t other things you could do with them...’
‘Grace.’ Miranda gasped. ‘I’m shocked.’
‘No, you’re not.’ She