“What?” I answered my cell phone for the third time in less than five minutes.

“Are you there yet?”

“Yes. I’m walking in right now,” I snapped at Ian.

“Check it over and make sure they spelled our names correctly. Don’t fuck it up.”

“I won’t fuck it up. Jesus Christ, I’m almost thirty.” I hung up my phone without saying goodbye to yet another brother. If they were all so worried about it, they should have come to get it themselves. I’d argued about the gift, stating that our mother deserved the fucking Nobel Peace Prize, Congressional Medal of Honor, and a Star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame just for surviving us or at least not drowning one of us, but they squashed my ideas.

I waited for the lady at Neiman’s to acknowledge me, when she did, “Hi, I’m here to pick up a bracelet under the name Christakos.”

The woman smiled at me, but I was too tired to care that she was hot. I’d been on shift since six that morning and wanted nothing more than to be home where I didn’t have to watch my back nonstop.

“Is this for your mother?” the woman behind the counter asked as she unbuttoned her top button. “Or are you buying it for your wife?” The last question she directed to my crotch, but he wasn’t much of a talker.

“Yes, it’s Mother’s Day weekend, after all.”

“Do you need a gift for your wife?” She batted her eyelashes, and I wanted to tell her to stop. I didn’t know one guy that found that sexy.

Really? I wasn’t even going to answer her. What was it with women and men in uniform? It was as if they lost their minds. I stopped being a man and became an object, which was slightly ironic considering how most men thought about women. Most. Not me. It made me really freaking uncomfortable. Normally, I would have gone home and changed to avoid this shit, but the mall closed in ten minutes and this couldn’t wait until tomorrow. My patience hung on by a thread, so I had no time for aspiring badge bunnies.

Finally, she turned over my bag and receipt, and I left, nodding to the two security guards as I passed them on my way out.

The automatic doors to the mall’s west entrance slid open. I took my first step out, and my head snapped to the right. Listening.

“Help!”

I wasn’t on shift, but that didn’t matter. I raced toward the voice, cutting through aisle after aisle of parked cars before two men came into view. My blood boiled. They were carrying a woman between them—one holding her ankles and the other with his hands hooked under her arms. The woman, who seemed so tiny, was screaming and thrashing between them. I drew my sidearm without stopping and shouted, “Police! Freeze!”

They ignored me, they didn’t freeze.

They never did. They slammed her against a car and took off. I had a choice: pursue them or help her.

“Fuck it.” I pivoted toward the car, and radioed into dispatch.

“This is thirteen twelve.” My badge number told dispatch exactly who I was. “Female down. Need backup and FD at Mall at Millenia west side perimeter road. Responding units, locate and hold two subjects wearing dark jeans, black T-shirts, and dark ski masks. On foot, heading south through the parking lot.”

Keeping my gun at the low-ready, I scanned the nearby cars, looking for witnesses or other accomplices as I neared the woman. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before returning my gun to its holster.

Her body lay splayed on the ground, her red hair spread out around her as if she were only asleep. Taking in her outer appearance as I bent down I noted her missing shoe and black leather biker vest. No patches or emblems. Her wrist was already blooming with purple and blue bruises, so I was as gentle as possible as I checked for her pulse, which was strong. My relief was short lived when I brushed her red hair away from her face. She was covered in blood, but it didn’t look like any of the glass cut her. Then I lowered my eyes to hers and stared into piercing green eyes that seemed to hide years of worry in their depths.

“Can you hear me? I am Deputy Kayson Christakos; I’m here to rescue you. Paramedics are on the way. Don’t try to move. You’re safe.”

Sirens wailed, getting louder the closer they came, and the lights swirled brightly in the twilight. The ambulance, fire truck, and two cruisers came screeching to a stop not too far away.

As a motorcycle deputy, my job involved traffic, crowds, and speeders. I didn’t work crime scenes. So, when the two rookie deputies climbed out of their cruisers, I gave them the run-down and then stepped aside. I was free to go. I was off shift and they were there to secure the scene until a detective arrived. I should head to the station and fill out my statement but for some reason I didn’t want to leave this woman. Her eyes spoke to me, and they begged me to keep her safe.

I needed to see her eyes, make contact one more time, but they’d covered her with a metallic insulated shock blanket and strapped a c-collar around her neck. Two EMT’s knelt next to her body while a third held her head.

“On three—one, two, roll.” As a unit, they all moved at the same time to roll her onto the backboard, and for the first time, I could see her entire face. Her lips were split and her forehead had a large gash.

In a flurry of movements that had her lifted and on a stretcher, someone called out, “Heading to ORMC,” and I found myself nodding, even though anxiety twisted in my stomach.

Shit. Why were the paramedics taking this woman to Orlando Regional Medical Center when Sand Lake Hospital was closer? She was slammed into the car and hit the ground. The paramedics were obviously worried about spine or neck injury, both of which could be catastrophic.

The stretcher was loaded and locked, and before the doors swung closed, I edged around for one last glance wondering if the woman would survive.

Green eyes stared back at me.

Blink.

The doors slammed, and the paramedics were off.

“Hi, Sergeant Christakos.” I ripped my attention from the fading taillights and turned to the two deputies that came to a stop next to me.

“Here’s her other boot.” Dean, a rookie announced as he held up a single black-and-red tooled cowboy boot. “Damn. Something ’bout a chick in cowboy boots that gets me hard.”

“Let’s hope she survives to wear them again,” I said, cutting a severe glower at them both. Though, I wasn’t quite thirty, I felt ancient compared to these callous dickheads. They may as well call me fucking Buddha with the wisdom I doled out nowadays.

“Ariel Louise Beaumont, twenty-seven years old. Five feet and two inches tall, red hair, green eyes—”

I grabbed her license from the other deputy for a brief second, I knew that I couldn’t keep it but I wanted to learn what I could about this woman. When I looked down, her beautiful smile was shining back at me. It was those eyes, which were full of hope and questions, that stalled the breath in my lungs. They told my heart to inform my brain that everything in my life had just changed.