Renegade Protector. Nico Rosso
now, and none of it was worth his hurting himself. He disappeared completely in the flames. She threw the door open. Despite the heat, cold panic raced through her muscles. “Ty!” She crouched low, beneath the choking smoke. “Ty!” Water from the sprinklers splashed on her as she pressed forward toward the flames. He’d helped her, stepped into her fight, and she couldn’t just leave him in the fire.
He burst through the flames in front of her. The two of them retreated for the back exit as relief washed over her. Once they were outside, she saw that he held a stack of the old framed photos from her shop walls. The same photos he’d been examining when he was there earlier.
“It is important,” he said. “This is why you’ve got to keep standing up.” He shuffled the antique pictures until he got to one of a group of nineteenth-century cowboys and frontierswomen of different ethnicities, posing along a ridge next to a sprawling oak tree.
She laughed without any joy. Her shop burned. Exhaustion dragged her down. “I can’t stand up anymore.”
The sirens grew louder. He glanced in that direction. “You’ve got to.” He held up the picture. “This is us. This is my organization.”
Maybe she’d hit her head during the attack. Maybe this was all a dream. “So you’re a cowboy from the past who’s come to help me?”
The continuing fire etched Ty’s serious face as he pointed to a man in the group. “This is my ancestor. These people formed a group to protect anyone without a voice. People like them. Poor. Immigrants. Women. Workers.” He looked again to where the sirens were coming from. He’d fought a man, saved her from the speeding car and dived into her burning shop, and still he stood strong before her. “That job isn’t finished.”
“Look what they did.” Tears burned her eyes as the flames mocked her. A fire truck finally pulled up in front of her store, firefighters rushing out before the wheels stopped.
“I know you’re under the gun.” He put a hand on her shoulder, and his energy radiated into her. “That’s why I’m here.”
She winced as more glass shattered. The firefighters raked it out of the frames so they could access the fire. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
His gaze held hers. “We’re going to turn around and take the fight to who’s doing this.”
“Why?” There had to be a catch.
“This is what we do.” He handed her the picture of the group of people. “This is who I am.” Red and blue police lights flickered into the parking lot. Ty’s eyes narrowed as he watched the approaching car. “Don’t tell them my name.”
“You’re not leaving.” She tried to hold him with her voice. Ty had been the only good in this terrible night. Hell, he’d been the only good she’d seen since this ordeal began.
He looked back from the approaching police car and into her eyes. “I’m with you all the way. Until it’s over.” His broad shoulders straightened. He radiated power. “You are not alone.”
The police car stopped and its searchlight swept over the back of the shop, then onto her. She blinked. Ty was gone. As if he’d never been there. But his impact was clear. He’d protected her and saved what he could from the shop, including the old photo she held. The stern-faced people stared at her with the same strength and determination Ty had. But he’d disappeared somewhere into the deep shadows.
She needed him back, to feed on his strength if this fight was to continue. And to chase that spark of a connection she’d felt when they’d first glanced at each other in her store. Somehow, they were tied together in all this. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel alone.
His lungs burned, his knuckles were scraped and bleeding, his damp jacket soaked a chill toward his aching muscles, and Ty still wanted to chase down those two bastards and make them pay for what they just did to Mariana Balducci.
It had been harder to leave her alone in the parking lot just then than it was to run into her burning shop. But he wasn’t ready to try to explain himself to any local cops, and it was best if he stayed off everyone’s radar until he had a better handle on who exactly was threatening Mariana and her property.
One detail he picked up tonight: the bald man could fight. His moves were from the street, not a cardio class, and intended to do maximum harm. Ty knew that Mariana had to be tough to run an orchard and her shop alone, but if the bald man had got ahold of her... Ty couldn’t consider that outcome.
He watched her interact with the two officers, both white men, from the patrol car, reassured by how she stood strong, gesturing more with anger than defeat. He stood in the deep shadows between an old tree and a cinder block wall on the far side of the parking lot, hidden from the cops’ view, even when they looked around to follow the story she described.
But the officers’ search of the asphalt with their flashlights wasn’t as thorough as Ty wanted. If he’d been in his jurisdiction, every resource would’ve been in that parking lot working inch by inch, then in the shop once the fire was out. As it was, his San Francisco badge probably wouldn’t get him more than a polite cup of coffee with the chief and little more info than a press release.
According to any county and city authority, his business in Rodrigo was unofficial. But when it came to the underground organization he was working to establish, he was on a focused assignment. The mission was Mariana, and he wished he’d had a chance to really explain who he was and why he’d shown up to help.
Hell, when he’d first walked into her shop, he’d wished that he was in her town for completely different reasons. The scents of apples and spices had surrounded him, warming the moment he locked eyes with her. All the data he’d collected from the police report and internet searches didn’t prepare him for the strength of her presence. He knew the woman had been under the pressure of intimidation for months, and still she wasn’t crushed. Her quick assessment of him revealed a sharp mind. Cautious, yes, but also ready to absorb the world around her. And there was the spark in her eyes. Heat, deeper in her glance. He wanted to know what it was that lit her brown eyes up like that. But he was in her shop for the mission, not to chase down a possibility of a connection with a woman he’d just met. Instead of finding out just how deep the light in her eyes went, he spent the evening scraping his knuckles on another man’s face and running headlong into a fire.
The police officers in the parking lot with Mariana finished their insufficient search and motioned for her to follow them around the front of the building. The angriest flickering of the fire had diminished and it seemed like the firefighters were close to putting it out. Ty tensed, watching Mariana walk away and out of sight. He unclenched his fist. That magnetic pull he felt toward her must’ve just been his professional protective instinct. The bad guys had already made two tries for her tonight. They’d definitely be back.
Now that the parking lot was empty, Ty took out his phone and thanked his diligence in getting a waterproof case. It wasn’t until he tried to key in the code for his phone that he noticed how much his fingers shook. Still cold. And the adrenaline continued to urge him into action. He calmed his fingers as much as he could to unlock his phone and dim the screen. But his thirst to fight only increased as he typed a brief text outlining what had happened this night. Those bastards had come after Mariana and if he hadn’t been there...
The text went to two people in his nascent organization. Vincent and Stephanie would distribute the information further if necessary. Helping Mariana was the number one priority. His secondary goal would have to wait until he knew just how bad things were. But there would be no quitting. He’d told himself that before showing up in Rodrigo. Seeing his ancestor in that photo on her shop wall had steeled his resolve. Standing along the ridge in the old picture were the men and women who had founded Frontier Justice over 120 years ago. They’d banded together to help the abandoned, forgotten and hated people the system ignored. Frontier