Page 110 of Promised to the Cowboy

I run.

The vest drags at my chest. The rifle slams against my back. My boots tear through loose dirt and flattened grass. My heart hits hard once. Then again. Fast, but steady.

Evie reaches the bottom of the ridge and sees me. Even from fifty yards away, I feel the exact second she does.

Her whole face changes. “Gabe!”

The sound rips through me. “I’m coming.”

I don’t know if she hears. I say it again anyway. “I’m coming, darlin’.”

One of Voss’s men cuts across her path.

Evie changes direction. He follows. She can’t outrun him. Not on this ground. Not carrying our daughter.

I push harder. My lungs burn. The old pressure starts beneath my sternum.

I ignore it.

Twenty yards.

The man catches Evie’s upper arm. She spins and strikes at his face. He jerks back, but he doesn’t let go.

I reach them at speed. My shoulder hits him beneath the ribs, and we go down together. The impact drives the breath out of me.

He rolls fast—trained—and reaches for the weapon at his side. I get my forearm across his throat before he clears it.

“Run,” I tell Evie.

She doesn’t.

Of course she doesn’t.

She stands three feet away, breathing hard, one hand over our daughter and murder in her eyes.

“Evie, get behind the trucks.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

The man beneath me drives a fist into my side. Pain flashes white. I slam his wrist into the ground until the weapon comes loose. Boots pound toward us. More of Voss’s men.

Then Daniel’s voice cuts through the field. “DOWN!”

Evie drops immediately. I throw myself over her. Gunfire cracks above us. Not aimed at us. Daniel and Wire’s men are putting rounds into the dirt and open space ahead of the advancing contractors, forcing them back without hitting anyone.

“Stay down,” I tell her.

Her hands fist in the front of my vest. “You came.”

The words nearly break me.

I look down at her. Dirt streaks one cheek. Her braid is gone completely now, hair wild around her face. But she’s breathing. Our daughter is protected between us.

“Always.”

Her face crumples for one second.

Then the man beneath my knee moves.