Copyright © 2026 by Theresa Houseman

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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

August 18

Formatted with Vellum

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book contains mature language and steamy scenes. It's only suitable for readers 18+.

THE SEAL AND THE SHERIFF

Some dangers you see coming. He should have known she’d be the one he didn’t.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Hudson Kane doesn’t do attachments. A former Navy SEAL who built his career hunting the most dangerous men alive, he’s learned one brutal truth: the people who depend on him don’t always make it out.

Once, he was the man who never left anyone behind. Until the mission that cost him a teammate.

Now he lives by one rule: never give anyone a reason to depend on him. Right up until he shows up in Sarah Meyer’s town.

Sheriff Sarah Meyer runs her corner of Alaska on her own terms, with zero patience for federal agents who think a badge outranks jurisdiction. She knows exactly how to handle men like Hudson Kane.

She’s had practice. He’s her brother Wyatt’s best friend. And once, years ago almost something more. She locked that door a long time ago.

But Hudson is keeping secrets about this case. And whatever followed him to Alaska is already bleeding into Sarah’s town, her people, and her life.

Finish the mission. Or protect her.

Some dangers you see coming. He should have known she’d be the one he didn’t.

THE SHERIFF AND THE SEAL

ALASKAN GUARDIANS

BOOK 4

THERESA BEACHMAN

1

Hudson Kane spotted the tail outside Fairbanks.

A black SUV holding its distance. Three cars back in steady traffic, leaving a wider gap whenever the traffic thinned. Forty minutes confirmed it wasn’t a coincidence. His travel plans weren’t public, but someone knew he was heading to Aurora Cove anyway and had decided that was a problem worth resourcing.

Hudson filed that away and kept driving.

The Smithton intersection appeared ahead—the last crossroads before the highway narrowed and his options ran out. Left led toward town. Right took him onto an old access road through the forest.

Three hundred yards out, Hudson signaled left.

The SUV did the same.

At the last possible moment, Hudson braked hard and swung right onto the access road. The rental protested, but the SUV was already committed to the left turn toward Smithton. Brake lights flared red in the gray afternoon as the driver realized what had happened.

By the time they corrected, Hudson was under the trees, the access road closing around the car like a hand.

Half a mile in, he passed a narrow logging spur disappearing between the spruce. The access road dead-ended at an abandoned weigh station two hundred yards farther on—no other way out.

Perfect.

He turned the rental around, drove back to the spur, and reversed into it until the trees concealed the car.

From there, he could see the road without being seen. He killed the engine and waited, thumbs tapping against the steering wheel.

Four minutes later, the SUV eased down the access road at a crawl, headlights probing the tree line. It rolled past the logging spur without slowing, taillights dissolving into the gray.

He gave it ninety seconds.

Reverse lights glowed white through the trees. A moment later, headlights swept across the spruce as the driver turned around.

Hudson started the rental and pulled out of the spur without hurrying. He met them nose to nose, sixty yards out, and stopped dead in the center of the track. The SUV lurched to a stop, rocking on its springs.

For a second, nothing moved. The two vehicles sat nose to nose in the dying light, engines idling.

Hudson was out of the car before the SUV’s engine died. The cold hit his lungs, sharp and immediate. He walked toward them, hands loose at his sides, boots crunching over frozen stones.

His pursuers broke in opposite directions.

The one on the left had a head start and used it, crashing off the road into the spruce, branches whipping shut behind him. Hudson let him go. The other made it four steps.

Hudson caught a fistful of jacket, stepped across the man’s path and redirected his momentum into the nearest pine. His back hit the trunk, driving the breath from his lungs. Wide-eyed, he stared at Hudson.

Hudson leaned in until they were almost eye to eye. “Let’s talk about who sent you.”

The man’s hand flew inside his jacket. Hudson caught his wrist, drove it back against the tree, and stripped the pistol from beneath his coat before he could draw it. He dropped the magazine into his palm and ejected the chambered round.

“Looking for this?”

“What the fuck? You’re making a mistake.” The man’s words came too fast, tripping over each other. “You don’t know who you’re⁠—”

“I know exactly who I’m dealing with.” He leaned a fraction closer. “A guy whose partner ditched him the second things went wrong.”

Color came up the man’s neck, anger chasing out the fear. “Screw you. You think this is over? You think⁠—”

“I think you’re going to tell me who sent you.”

“Go to hell.”

Hudson waited. Most men filled silence if you let it breathe. The man lasted eighteen seconds.

“I don’t know what⁠—”

“Contact,” Hudson said. “A number, an app. A guy in a bar. However it came to you. Who paid you to sit on me all the way from Fairbanks?”

“I don’t—” The man recalculated. “It was a broker. Some guy online. We do repo work, skip tracing, whatever pays. Job comes in, we don’t ask who’s behind it.”

It had the ugly, unglamorous ring of truth. Cutouts. Layers designed so a conversation like this one would dead-end exactly here.

“Description.”

The man shook his head.

“Payment method? Anything?”

“Crypto. Guy never showed his face, some blocked number texted coordinates and a photo of you.” Sweat beaded his forehead despite the cold. “That’s it. That’s everything, man, I swear to God.”

Nothing shifted in the man’s expression or voice. Either it was the truth or he was a better liar than he looked. Hudson was betting on the former. It was the smart way to run an op. He straightened. Just another locked door, and Aurora Cove was still hours up the road.

Quickly, he searched the man. Wallet. Cash. A gym membership card. A driver’s license that was probably genuine—men this disposable rarely bothered with good fake IDs. Hudson photographed the license before returning the wallet. Keys. A rental fob. Nothing useful.

But inside an inner jacket pocket, he found a second phone. Cheap. Prepaid. One you bought with cash at a gas station and threw in a lake when you were done with it. Hudson powered it on. The screen opened without a passcode. Sloppy.

One conversation.

Confirm location by 1800.

No contact name or photo. Just a string of numbers that would be dead by morning. The message was unread, which meant whoever had sent it still thought Hudson Kane was somewhere out on the highway, blissfully unaware he was being followed.

An arrest would buy him a low-level contractor, hours of paperwork and an official record of his arrival. Whoever had hired them would disappear long before Hudson reached Aurora Cove.

The phone disappeared into Hudson’s pocket along with the magazine. He tossed the empty pistol on the SUV’s front seat. “Go find your partner.” He stepped aside. “And next time, send professionals.”

The man didn’t argue. He took off.

The sign for Aurora Cove appeared at the side of the road, dented and worn. The road narrowed, hemmed in by spruce and bare birch beneath a pewter sky. Snow was banked along both sides.

He could have driven this road blindfolded. He and Wyatt had driven it a hundred times before either of them knew enough to be afraid. Dirt bikes. Frozen lakes. Wind in his face. Wyatt laughing somewhere behind him, damn near falling off his bike. Bad decisions that had somehow never caught up with them. It felt like someone else’s life.

The town emerged in familiar pieces—the gas station, the hardware store, Benji’s diner with a fresh coat of paint. Everything else looked exactly the same. Hudson wasn’t sure whether that was comforting or cruel.

The folder lay untouched on the passenger seat. He knew every page by heart. Every photograph. Every reported sighting. Every dead end. A year of chasing a ghost.

He’d pulled strings to take the latest Cord lead himself. Nobody else would recognize what they were looking at—or understand what it had cost. He wasn’t leaving Alaska without Cord. Whatever it took.

Wyatt would be pissed to find out later that he’d rolled into town without a text. He’d call him. Just not yet. Not until the case was further along and he had a reason for being here that didn’t require him to explain anything he wasn’t ready to explain.

He shut the second name down before it had a chance to surface.

Enough history.

Hudson parked outside the Rusty Anchor and let the engine tick down. He smelled Aurora Cove before he was fully out of the car. Snow. Cold air so clean it almost hurt. Resin beneath it. November in Alaska smelled like the church he’d attended every Sunday as a boy. Still. Ancient. Indifferent to whatever you brought into it. He stood beside the rental and drew in a slow breath. His lungs tightened so he waited it out.

Thirty seconds was long enough for the familiar resistance to ease. There had been a time he wouldn’t have noticed the air at all. Now he measured it, adjusted to it, and kept going.

Hudson picked up the folder, locked the car, and went inside.

2

Sarah Meyer killed the engine and sat for a second with her hands on the wheel.

Home.

Outside, the night had settled in properly. The world had surrendered to November, and it wasn’t giving it back soon. Frost edged the windshield where the heater hadn’t quite reached. Her breath ghosted faintly in the cab.

Sarah closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat.

The hard part of Tuesday was over. Ten hours on shift. One domestic that had gone nowhere good. A call about a snowmachine that hadn’t come back when it should have—a kid who’d run out of fuel and pride. Paperwork still waiting on her desk that she’d deal with in the morning.

Right now she wanted five hours of sleep and maybe, if the weather held, to take Captain out this weekend. Just her, the horse, and enough open space to remember what quiet actually felt like.

Her radio erupted before she could reach for the door handle. “Sheriff.”

She picked it up without looking. “Go ahead.”

Dispatch came through. “Got a call from Marty Larsen at the Rusty Anchor. Says there’s a guy in there asking questions, and a regular took exception.”

Sarah pushed upright, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “And?”

“He says the guy put Dale Kincaid on the floor.” A pause. “Said he did it without breaking a sweat.”

Dale Kincaid was six-four, built like he’d been poured into his skin, and mean when he’d had enough whiskey.

“Anyone hurt?” she asked, reaching for the ignition.

“Negative. Says it’s under control now, but—” Dispatch hesitated. “Marty didn’t like the feel of it.”

“On my way.” She set the radio back in its cradle and started the engine.

Home would keep. It always did.

She threw the truck into gear and pulled out onto the road, tires crunching over packed snow. The town lay a few minutes out, lights scattered against the dark.

“Without breaking a sweat,” she muttered under her breath.

She should have known better than to think Tuesday was done with her.

She pulled in outside the bar and parked at an angle that gave her a clear line to the door. “Dispatch, unit one on scene.”

“Copy that.”

Walter’s cruiser rolled in behind her as she stepped out, gravel crunching under his tires. He got out of his vehicle, pulling his hat down against the cold. “Rusty Anchor,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Figured.” He slammed the car door behind him and followed her inside.

Marty was behind the bar with a dish towel in his hand, not quite drying the glass he was holding. The chalkboard behind him still listed halibut chowder as a special from three days ago. Coffee burned somewhere in the back, bitter and old. Nobody ever admitted it was bad. It was hot, and in November, that was enough.

Kincaid had retreated to the back corner, rubbing his shoulder and pretending he wasn’t. A couple at the pool table had gone still mid-shot, one hand braced on the felt, the other still holding the cue. Two more at the window, hunched over longnecks, watching without looking like they were watching.

A room holding its breath in the aftermath.

“Marty?”

He jerked his head toward the stranger at the far end of the bar. The man sat angled away from the entrance, one hand resting on a folder. The other was wrapped around a cup of coffee. Working, not drinking.

City jacket. Boots that cost more than her monthly mortgage. The line of his shoulders said military. Or something close to it.

He turned and stood.

The world stopped making sense, and the room tilted almost imperceptibly beneath her boots.

Fifteen years disappeared. Hay tickling her nose in a barn loft. Summer laughter. A nineteen-year-old boy who'd kissed her once beneath a sky full of stars.

The stolen kiss she'd spent half her life pretending hadn't mattered.

Hudson Kane.

He'd been lean at nineteen, all long bones and restless energy, not yet grown into himself.

This man dominated the room.

Broad through the chest and shoulders now, with a stillness that came from knowing exactly what his body could do and never needing to prove it.

For one unprofessional second, her brain short-circuited.

The boy was gone. She'd have known him anywhere.

Hudson—

Training took over. The sheriff closed over the girl she’d been, sealing her away before Sarah could stare or say his name aloud. Years of learning to be the still point in any room locked around her.

She shifted her weight forward, onto the balls of her feet, resting one hand against her belt. Walter was two steps behind her, oblivious, already sizing up Kincaid. The bar was watching. Nothing about this could look different from any other Tuesday.

“Sir.” Her voice came out level and carried clean across the room. “Stay where you are.”

Hudson’s knuckles whitened, then eased. Something tightened at the corner of his mouth, pain or recognition, gone too quickly to name. His eyes gave her nothing. Whatever seeing her had done to him, he had it locked down tighter than she had.

Fine. Two can play at that.

“ID.” She held out her hand.

He reached inside his jacket and handed it over. His fingers brushed hers for a fraction of a second, and her heart stumbled. She ignored the warmth that lingered.

She flipped the credentials open and read them as if she didn’t already know exactly whose name was going to be printed there.

Deputy United States Marshal. Hudson Kane.

Sarah closed the credentials and handed them back. “Deputy Marshal.”

Two words. All the space she was willing to give it.

“Sheriff.”

She turned her attention from him, letting the room breathe again under her control. Kincaid had straightened up. Walter had a hand on his arm that looked casual but wasn’t.

Over by the back window, Hal Jackson set his beer down a little too carefully. Hal had been old when Wyatt was in high school, and he never forgot a face. He recognized Hudson. She kept her expression neutral.

“Anyone injured?” she asked.

“No,” Marty said quickly. “No, nothing like that. Dale just—” He glanced at Kincaid and thought better of finishing.

Kincaid spat something under his breath that didn’t quite make words.

Sarah looked at him. “You want to press charges?”

“What? No.” He straightened, dignity reassembling itself in uneven pieces. “Guy just got lucky.”

Sarah didn’t look at Hudson.

“Mm.” She let the silence stretch. “Then you’re done here.”

Kincaid’s mouth pinched, but he nodded.

Walter waited, one hand resting lightly on Kincaid’s arm.

Sarah turned to Hudson. “Your version.”

“Kincaid didn’t like the questions I was asking.”

“What questions?”

Hudson’s gaze held hers. “About a man I’m looking for.”

“And that put Dale on the floor?”

“He took a swing.”

She glanced at Kincaid. “You hit him?”

Kincaid swore under his breath and she looked back at Hudson.

“I moved.” Hudson didn’t look away from her. “He didn’t.”

“You want to press charges?”

“No.”

God. She remembered that calm. The absolute certainty of it. She locked the thought down.

“Anyone else involved?”

“No.”

“No weapon?”

“No.”

Hudson’s answers were clean, without defensiveness or wasted detail.

It matched what she’d already seen. That didn’t make it sit any better.

“You’ll come by the station tomorrow morning,” she said. “Eight o’clock. You can make a formal statement and explain why a Deputy United States Marshal is conducting an investigation in my jurisdiction without notifying my office.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. For a second she thought he’d push back—cite federal authority, remind her that he didn’t answer to her.

“Understood.” He didn’t argue or attempt to charm his way around her.

“Good.” She stepped back, opening the space between them. “Walter.”

Her deputy moved on the name alone, guiding Kincaid toward the door. “Let’s go, Dale. I’ll give you a ride home.”

Kincaid muttered, but he went. Sarah stayed where she was.

Hudson picked up the folder from the bar. His hand stayed on it half a second longer than it needed to. He didn’t say it, whatever it was.

“Eight o’clock.” He turned and walked out.

Cold air swept through the bar before the door closed behind him. Sarah felt the absence of him immediately. What the hell?

“Marty.”

He straightened.

“What was he asking about?”

“A man.” Marty wiped the same patch of glass again. “Had a photograph. Been showing it around.”

“Anyone recognize him?”

Marty hesitated. “No.”

Sarah looked straight at him.

“Nobody said they did,” he amended.

Her gaze moved across the room—past the pool table, the window, the empty corner where Kincaid had been. One man near the wall looked away a beat too late.

She didn’t push it. “All right.”

Relief flickered across Marty’s face.

Sarah called the scene in to dispatch and headed for the door.

The station was quiet when she arrived. She hung her hat on the back of her chair, shrugged out of her jacket, and sat down.

The laptop hummed awake beneath her hands.

Hudson Kane.

The record appeared. Deputy United States Marshal. Active. Verified. No surprises there. She worked through the system.

Assignment logs. Case notifications. Interagency coordination. There was nothing tying him to Aurora Cove.

No notice that a Deputy Marshal was operating in her jurisdiction. No request for local assistance. Not even a courtesy notification.

She searched again, more carefully this time. Same result.

Hudson Kane was exactly who he said he was.

What she couldn’t find was any official reason for him to be here.

Sarah leaned back in her chair. That wasn't necessarily a problem. Federal operations didn't always come with an invitation for the local sheriff.

But Hudson had been in her town long enough to put a man on the floor of the Rusty Anchor and he hadn’t even picked up the phone.

Her gaze settled on the screen for a long moment before she closed the laptop.

Tomorrow.

Eight o’clock.

Whatever Hudson Kane had once been to her didn’t matter anymore.

She intended to keep it that way.

3

Hudson walked into the cold with his collar up, hands in his pockets, and let his lungs remind him what they were. Three counts in, four out.

The hotel was six blocks behind him, the station seven blocks ahead. And in between, Aurora Cove was mostly still asleep.

Snow had been packed down hard on the road, tires cutting grooves that had frozen overnight. His boots found the edges of them without thinking.

A woman crossed the road with a dog straining at the end of its lead. She looked at him a beat too long, then kept walking.

Hudson checked the street automatically. Habit. Nobody followed her.

He kept walking.

The smell of Benji’s hit him before the sign did. Coffee and caramelized apples, pushed out into the cold air as he strolled past. Years ago he’d come here at six in the morning after a night that had started at Wyatt’s and ended up here, and he’d eaten pie because it was the only thing ready.

He didn’t slow.

The sheriff’s station sat at the corner of Main and Second, low and square. He’d come up from the south end, which meant he’d walked the long way around to get here. He pushed through the door at seven forty-five.

The deputy behind the front desk was Black, maybe thirty, and looked up with the expectant attention of someone who’d already been told he was coming. Her name tape said R. Statton. “Deputy Marshal Kane?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“She’s ready for you.”

Nothing he hadn’t expected.

Statton walked him down a short hallway past another deputy, W. Godrevy on his name tag. His gaze moved over Hudson once, head to boots. Statton tapped once on an open door. “Sheriff.”

“Thanks, Rochelle.”

Hudson stepped in.

Sarah was behind the desk with a mug in her hand and a file open in front of her. She didn’t stand or smile.

Her office was small and functional—maps pinned to one wall, a whiteboard half-filled with notes that had been wiped and rewritten too many times, a second chair stacked with paperwork she hadn’t had time to deal with yet.

She looked at him like she had across the bar last night—like a problem that hadn't finished happening yet.

"Deputy Marshal. Sit." She pointed to the beaten chair on his side of the desk.

He took the seat.

He'd known she'd grow up but he hadn't expected Sheriff Meyer. The badge suited her. The office did too.

Damn.

He hadn't anticipated spending this meeting reminding himself to pay attention to the case instead of the woman sitting behind the desk.

The office smelled of coffee. Her coffee, not his. There was no second mug on the desk.

She added sugar from a small bowl on the corner of the desk. One. Two. Three. Stirring without looking. Three sugars. Same as always. Fifteen years vanished in a single turn of the spoon.

Fuck.

He watched her hand move, then looked away. He did not need to be noticing that. Her hair was a darker blonde than he remembered. It suited her.

“We’ll do this on the record,” she said. “Walter will type it up—start with last night. State your purpose at the Rusty Anchor.”

“I was making inquiries.”

“Regarding?”

“A fugitive.”

“Name?”

He didn’t answer.

Sarah sighed. “You’re not refusing because you can’t tell me.” She met his eyes. “You’re refusing because you don’t want to.”

“I’m protecting an active investigation.”

“You’re in my jurisdiction.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She held his gaze another second, measuring the line between cooperation and obstruction. Then she made a note in the margin. “Continue.”

He told her about the bar. The questions. Kincaid.

She wrote steadily, saying nothing. He’d known her as a girl who’d outrun every boy in Aurora Cove. The sheriff didn’t run. Problems came to her.

She finished writing and set her pen down. The professional part of the meeting, the part that had a form, was over. The silence was hers to break.

“How are your folks?” Courtesy. Her mother had raised her to ask.

His gaze dropped briefly. “Both gone,” he said. “Mom, four years ago. Dad two.”

When he looked back up, there was a tightness around her mouth and eyes—a place where something had moved and then been put away.

“I’m sorry.”

He believed her. “Thank you.”

She nodded once and looked back down at the file.

“Yours?” He waited.

“Good. Dad’s restoring a ‘92 Polaris.” She circled two fingers at her temple. A small, exasperated huff. “Nearly took his leg off last month. Mom won’t let him near it without a radio on him now.” She tapped the paperwork laid flat in front of her. “Anyway. Hudson⁠—”

She stopped, closed her eyes for the smallest fraction of a second. “Deputy Marshal.”

He didn’t react, but his heart stammered a beat.

She cleared her throat. “Deputy Marshal.” She clicked her pen. “Does Wyatt know you’re in town?”

“Sure.” Just not today.

He wasn’t here for that. He wasn’t here for anything permanent.

She adjusted the file so that it faced her more squarely. “The photograph,” she said at last. “The one you were showing around last night. I’d like to see it.”

He’d known this was coming. He hesitated anyway. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and slid it across her desk.

She studied the photograph for a long time.

It was a clean shot. A man in his late forties, half-turned, coming out of a doorway in a city that was not Aurora Cove. Hudson had looked at it often. He knew what it held—and what it didn’t.

Her face didn’t change. She understood it hadn’t been taken by a friend.

She slid the photograph back across the desk. “I ran you last night.”

“I assumed you would.”

“Your credentials are real.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“You’re an active Deputy United States Marshal.”

Her eyes flicked to his. “Chicago Field Office.” She lifted her coffee. “What I don’t have is any record of coordination with this office. No courtesy notification. Nobody called ahead.”

She sipped her coffee, giving him space.

“My supervisor knows exactly where I am.”

“Then why doesn’t mine?”

“Because the fewer people who know I’m here, the better my chances of finding the man I’m looking for.”

Her jaw did a small thing, but she didn’t push it. “If you find anything, you tell me before you act.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I mean that.”

“I know you do.”

She held his eyes a second longer than needed, then closed the file with a snap. “We’re done for now.”

He was almost at the door when he turned. “Sarah⁠—”

“Deputy Marshal.” The pen on the desk didn’t move this time.

Hudson turned back toward the door. His hand was on the handle when his phone rang. He checked the screen.

Owen Alcott.

He stepped into the hall before answering. “Tell me.”

“You’re welcome,” Owen said. “I’ve been earning my salary on your behalf all morning.”

“Owen.”

“Your guy.” A pause that meant Owen had something real. “I finally got his employment records released. False name. Jake Mercer. Seasonal work this year. May through August.”

Hudson waited.

“Morrow Bay Cannery. Out on Morrow Point. Up the coast from that cozy town you’re hanging out in right now.”

Hudson turned the information over. Loading docks. Ocean access.

“That’s your location,” Owen said. “If he’s moved anything through Aurora Cove, that’s where it went.”

“Got it.”

“Hudson.” Owen’s voice shifted, dropping a register. “My neck is only so long out here. Don’t make me regret it.”

“You won’t.” He hung up and turned.

Sarah was already pulling on her coat and not looking at him. Her hat went on next, her badge catching the fluorescent light.

She glanced up, met his eyes, and went back to her buttons. “Morrow Bay Cannery.”

He stared at her. “You heard that?”

“I didn’t hear anything.” She picked up her keys. “Walter.”

Godrevy appeared in the hallway behind Hudson. He looked at Hudson with an expression that had been calibrated to communicate an unfavorable opinion. “Boat’s fueled and ready. Is the federal guy coming?”

Sarah turned. “Mmm.”

Hudson glanced toward the window. Gray water. Low cloud. The familiar tightening touched his chest before he pushed it aside. Distance. Wind. Water temperature. His brain ran the calculations automatically. “No road?”

“Morrow Point is only accessible by plane or boat.” Her mouth set in a flat line.

Walter handed Sarah a set of keys. “No cell service worth mentioning either.”

Sarah shot Walter a look. “Helpful.”

Walter ignored her. “Just making sure the federal guy knows where he’s going.”

Hudson looked between them. “Plane?”

“Technically.” Sarah zipped her coat. “If you’ve got one.”

“You don’t?”

“Deputy Marshal,” Sarah raised her eyebrows. “This is a sheriff’s office, not the Air Force.”

She called over her shoulder. “Walter.”

“Yeah?”

“Find the Deputy Marshal a proper waterproof jacket to borrow.”

Hudson lifted his lapel. “I have one.”

“Not for Alaska.” She walked past him. “You coming, or are you going to stand there?”

Walter looked as if he’d vote for the second option.

Hudson followed them outside.

4

Sarah had known every board of Aurora Cove’s harbor since she could walk. She knew which ones turned slick first after frost and which skippers would already be halfway to the fishing grounds by this time of morning.

She came down the ramp ahead of Hudson. Early winter had gotten into the wood and the metal both. The handrail stung cold through her gloves. The police boat rocked gently in its mooring in water the color of old iron. Its aluminum hull was dulled by salt and years of hard use, the sheriff’s star faded on the cabin door.

Walter was already onboard, checking the fuel line, hunkered over the port side.

“Fuel’s topped off,” he said as she stepped aboard.

“Good.”

“Weather will hold another three hours. Maybe four.”

“Hmm.” She scanned the horizon.

Morrow Bay Cannery was seasonal. Freight in. Freight out. Barges. Fishing boats. Cold storage. If a man wanted to move something without attracting attention, it was perfect.

It was understandable why Hudson was interested. She just didn’t know why he wouldn’t tell her.

Boots sounded on the ramp behind her. She checked over her shoulder.

Hudson.

The borrowed jacket should have hidden the breadth of his shoulders. Somehow it didn’t. Sarah looked away. That wasn’t a useful observation.

Walter handed her the manifest clipboard to sign.

Hudson paused with one boot on the gunwale for a heartbeat too long.

“Second thoughts, Deputy Marshal?”

Hudson shot her a look, then stepped aboard.

She shrugged into a life jacket over her winter coat and handed him another. He pulled it on without comment, his gaze lingering on the water a fraction too long.

Seasick? A former SEAL? Hardly. She dismissed the thought with a roll of her shoulders.

Walter cast off without ceremony. The engine turned over on the first try, and the shelter of the harbor disappeared behind them.

The wind hit with teeth. The cold in Aurora Cove came off the mountains, sharp and still. Out here it rode the water, the damp finding every gap in a collar or cuff.

Hudson took the bow before anyone assigned positions. Clearly, he preferred to see trouble coming. Sarah took the stern. Walter didn’t comment.

She studied Hudson from under the brim of her hat. Jaw set, posture controlled, hands easy at his sides. He looked like a man on a job, exactly what he was supposed to look like.

That was the thing.

She’d seen people uncomfortable on water. They gripped things or sat too low, tried to keep their center of gravity down, or made themselves small against the movement. They laughed too loudly or went quiet and stared at the horizon because someone had told them once that it helped.

Hudson wasn’t doing any of that. He was just—holding. A stillness that had a shape to it. He was managing something. As though he felt her looking, he glanced back.

Sarah had already turned her attention to the shoreline. She wasn’t sure who she was trying to fool.

She remembered him at nineteen. A boy who had always looked like he was already halfway to wherever he planned to go next. Time had sharpened him. Broadened him. But the stillness was the thing she couldn’t reconcile.

Walter came alongside her, mug of his terrible thermos coffee in one hand, the other easy on the tiller. He eyed Hudson’s back, then sipped his coffee.

Icy spray came over the bow.

Sarah raised her voice over the throb of the engine. “You spend much time on boats these days?”

Hudson’s gaze swung to her. “No.”

The answer came too fast.

Walter looked between them.

Sarah tilted her head. “That’s a shame. Last I checked, SEALs were fairly boat-adjacent.”

“Last I checked, sheriffs asked fewer personal questions.” He turned to face forward again.

Walter choked on his coffee.

“Occupational hazard.” Sarah hid a smile.

The chop built as they cleared the shelter of the headland. Hudson found his balance easily, his body making the adjustments without prompting. Muscle feathered over his jaw. A tiny adjustment made by someone who hurt often enough not to mention it. She busied herself reading some gauges, before he noticed her observation.

Forty minutes out. Low cloud hung over the water now, the light bleak and directionless. The coastline to their right was rock and pine, dark against the darker water.

The headland appeared first, a shoulder of rock rising out of the mist. For a moment it was all there was. Then the cannery climbed out of the fog piece by piece. A roofline. A rusted conveyor. The skeletal outline of a loading gantry.

Hudson’s eyes were already on it. Whatever he was searching for out here, he’d stopped looking at the water.

The rest of the cannery sprawled across the shoreline and out over the water on timber pilings blackened by decades of tide and weather. It was bigger than she remembered. Much bigger. Everything sagged where the weight had finally won.

She smelled it before they reached the dock. Salt and the iron-blood smell of rust. Beneath that, something older—the ghost of a million salmon soaked into timber, walls and water.

Walter lowered his coffee.

Sarah frowned. “What?”

Walter looked toward the upper windows. “Nothing.”

He cut the engine, and the quiet of the cannery came out to meet them. For a moment, nobody said anything. The water slapped softly against the pilings. A rope of kelp moved in the current below the dock.

No gulls. Not one. The place should have been covered in them.

Walter tied off without being told. His eyes were already moving across the structure, the same sweep she was doing, the same calculation.

She stepped onto the dock. The boards shifted beneath her boots with a long, tired groan.

Behind her, Hudson and Walter followed. Ahead, the main processing building sat over the water with its dark windows staring back at them.

The hairs at the back of her neck stirred beneath her collar.

Sarah started walking.

5

Hudson followed Sarah up the dock. Wood creaked and gave under his feet, and underneath water sloshed, dark and oily.

He gritted his teeth and kept his eyes straight ahead.

The hush was broken by a wrench against a pipe, somewhere underneath the dock. A stream of invective from a man with a grievance against inanimate objects. Then a clang that echoed out across the water and a silence that suggested the pipe had won.

Sarah cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hello?”

Shuffling followed. A face appeared from below the dock boards—seventies, deeply weathered, a wool beanie pulled down over his ears. “Sarah Meyer.” He peered at her badge and gave a small nod. “Sheriff.” His grease-stained fingers touched the brim of his beanie. “You still climb where you’re not supposed to?”

“Hey, Petey.” Sarah’s hands hit her hips as she deadpanned. “Only professionally.”

“What’d I do wrong?” He grinned, showing irregular teeth.

“Nothing. We just need to take a look around.”

Petey’s gaze slipped past Walter onto Hudson.

Borrowed jacket noted, verdict delivered in the slight twist of Petey’s mouth before he looked back at Sarah. “Who’s this?”

“Hudson Kane. Deputy U.S. Marshal.”

“Ah.” Petey’s eyes narrowed at Hudson. “You here to look at my sump pump?”

Hudson shook his head. “No.”

“Whole place is mid-winterize,” Petey said. “Got three more lines to drain before the freeze.”

Sarah shot Hudson a glance. “We won’t be long.”

Petey wiped his hands on a rag that redistributed the grease without removing any. Then he folded it into his back pocket and pulled himself up onto the dock, muttering about his aging knees. “Right then. This way.”

The heavy steel door dragged across the warped floorboards when Petey shoved it open. Rust rasped against rust.

The scale of the place hit Hudson all at once as the processing hall opened ahead of them like the inside of some aging shipwreck hauled onto land. Conveyor lines stretched away into shadow, as though the machinery were only sleeping between shifts. Gutting tables in long rows. The overhead rail system for the bins, hanging empty. Everything built to handle tonnage and volume.

Light came through gaps in the board siding in long, thin lines, striping the floor and the machinery. Hudson brushed past a steel support. Dust lifted, drifting through the light in slow spirals before settling back onto his sleeve.

The air temperature felt lower than the dock—a chill that was closed-in and had been sitting in this space since August. The smell of old fish surfaced unexpectedly in colder pockets of air, as though the cannery remembered what it had once been.

“Sump pump’s on the south wall,” Petey said, to no one in particular. “Told Seattle three years running they needed to replace the housing. You know what they did?”

Sarah cleared her throat. “Petey⁠—”

“Sent a man to look at it. Man looked at it. Wrote something down. Never heard another word.” He picked his way between two conveyor belts. “Flooded the whole south quarter in 2019.” He paused. “Still got the photographs.” He thumbed the suspenders holding up his baggy work pants.

Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose. “Petey.”

“What?”

“You’ve been trying to show people those photographs for years.”

His bushy eyebrows rose as one. “Because they’re excellent photographs.”

“They’re photographs of water.”

“They tell a story.”

Hudson swallowed a laugh.

Petey pointed at him. “See? Federal guy gets it.”

“I really don’t,” Hudson said, keeping his face straight.

A man performing normalcy had tells—the laugh that came a beat late, the answer that arrived too fast. Petey’s grievances were real. The drainage opinions were genuine. He wasn’t hiding anything except possibly the photographs of the 2019 flood.

Hudson pulled out his phone and confirmed the name Owen had given him. “Did a man named Jake Mercer work the summer season?”

Petey cocked his head sideways. “Yeah, Jake worked this summer. Didn’t like him much. Kept himself to himself.”

Sarah cast a glance at Hudson. “When was he last on site?”

“Left at the end of August, same as everyone else.”

“Have you⁠—”

“No. Not seen him since.”

Sarah nodded and tucked her hands into her pockets.

The authority in this building was hers. Her badge, her jurisdiction. Hudson stayed back and watched her work. She was good at this. Better than good. He’d missed the years that made her this woman. He didn’t examine too carefully how that felt.

“North wall flashing,” Petey announced. “See that line there? That’s where the water comes in when the wind’s off the point. Two years I’ve been saying⁠—”

The floor changed under Hudson’s boots as they moved toward the far end, becoming more spongy. He was over the water again. It slopped against the pilings hidden below the floorboards.

Water always sounded louder indoors. He didn’t look down.

Sarah had moved ahead with Walter, following Petey through the packing room and along a short passage into cold storage, where large refrigerator hulks sat silent in the gloom. Beyond them, a broad doorway opened into the covered loading bay. Loading gates lined the far wall, with an exterior walkway running above the water beyond them.

As Sarah stepped into the loading bay, her foot went through.

The board exploded downward with a crack that echoed through the cannery. Sarah vanished to her thigh, her other foot skidding on rotten timber.

The rest of the floor lurched after it.

Petey shouted something.

Hudson was already moving.

His hand closed around her forearm. Momentum carried her straight into him while his other arm caught her around the waist. She hit him full force.

Dark water flashed beneath the broken boards. His grip tightened instinctively.

Not again.

His pulse hammered against his throat as he hauled her clear of the hole. One step back. She was upright. Safe.

The danger had already passed. Even though his hands hadn’t gotten the message yet.

She was warm despite the cold, her breath ghosting against his neck. For a second, neither of them moved. Walter said something. Hudson had no idea what.

“Are you hurt?” His hand still rested on the curve of her waist.

She looked down. “I don’t think so.”

Her hat had tipped sideways. One strand of hair had escaped and caught against her mouth. Sarah looked up. For a moment she looked genuinely surprised.

Not by the fall.

By him.

6

Sarah stepped back, professionalism kicking in.

Everything else—especially the memory of Hudson’s hands around her—could wait. She’d expected a comment. A joke. Or a lecture. But Hudson said nothing. She concentrated on pulling her hat straight because, for reasons she couldn’t explain, looking at him right now felt dangerous.

“Are you all right there, Sheriff?” Petey ambled back toward them, boots loud. He peered down into the gap with the mild interest of a man assessing a crack in his own driveway. “Well. That’ll need fixing. I told Seattle that floor wanted replacing.”

Walter sighed. “You mention this now?”

Petey looked affronted. “Seems like a good time to mention it.”

Hudson crouched at the edge of the hole.

There it was, his economy of movement—weight dropping straight down through his heels instead of folding forward. Time had changed almost everything else about him. Somehow, not that.

She’d seen it before. Years ago. A boy coming down off the loft ladder in a barn at two in the morning so the boards wouldn’t creak and wake his parents, ending the whole enterprise of two teenagers being somewhere they shouldn’t be.

He’d always landed like that. Like the ground owed him quiet.

Sarah sucked air through her teeth and studied the hole. Far safer.

“Rot’s deeper than the surface.” Hudson’s fingers traced the broken edge of the board. “Goes back a few feet. This whole section’s been compromised a while.” He glanced up.

Sarah’s stomach performed an uncomfortable loop. “Meaning?”

“Meaning everyone who knows this building stays away from this section.” He stood, dusting his palm against his thigh. “It leaves this waterside access out of sight and mostly unobserved. If someone wanted to bring something in without using the main dock, the rot gives them cover.”

“Huh.” Petey scratched at his chin, leaving a faint grease smear behind. “That’s a hell of a thing to notice about my drainage hazard.”

“He’s federal,” Sarah said, by way of explanation that explained nothing but satisfied Petey completely. He nodded like that accounted for several mysteries at once and wandered off toward Walter, already narrating something about belt tension.

Which left her alone with Hudson and several feet of cold air between them that did absolutely nothing to dilute the problem.

“You think someone’s been using this section.” Questions gave people room to manage their answers, and she didn’t especially want his answer managed right now.

“I think it’s worth finding out.” He looked past her towards the loading gates. Beyond them lay the exterior loading platform and, farther along, the oldest section of walkway extending over open water. “If you wanted to bring something in without putting it through the main dock where your caretaker would notice, this is exactly the access you’d want. Remote. Falling apart already. Nobody questions the falling-apart part.”

“And nobody questions a few extra footprints on rotten boards that already look unstable.”

“Right.”

She crossed her arms against the draft whistling up from beneath the broken boards.

“So. Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

His gaze stayed on the shattered section of flooring before lifting to hers. There was calculation there. Not whether to lie—that wasn’t the man he was—but how much he was prepared to say.

He scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. “The man I’ve been looking for isn’t Jake Mercer.”

She waited.

“His real name’s Cord Blake.”

The name meant nothing to her.

“He’s living under an alias.” Hudson’s eyes drifted briefly toward the gate. “I’ve got an active federal warrant for him.”

“For what?”

Tendons stood out briefly in his neck. “He’s wanted in connection with an ongoing federal investigation.”

She held his gaze. “That’s not an answer.”

For the first time since she’d known him again, the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. It was lopsided, an acknowledgment that she’d caught him trying to answer without answering.

“We have reason to believe he’s involved in moving illegal firearms.”

This whole place was freight, boats, seasonal workers. A place where people and cargo came and went without attracting much attention. “You think the cannery’s being used as a transit point.”

“I think it could have been.”

“And Jake Mercer—Cord Blake—worked here.”

“Hmm.”

She looked back at him. “Why Aurora Cove?”

“Because this is where the trail stopped.”

Matter-of-fact. It answered the question. It also somehow didn’t.

There was something about how he’d said Cord’s real name. Barely anything. Just the faintest tightening around his eyes.

“Why not tell me yesterday?”

“I didn’t know he’d been here.” His eyes drifted briefly toward the broken floor. “Now I’ve got something I can stand on.”

She couldn’t help it. She smiled and shook her head. “Poor choice of words.”

“Yeah.” His mouth twitched. “Walked into that one.”

A laugh escaped her.

Walter’s voice echoed from inside the cannery, arguing with Petey about drainage gradients.

The moment passed. Her attention returned to Hudson. “If this man’s moving illegal weapons through my town⁠—”

“He won’t be for much longer.”

There wasn’t an ounce of bravado in the sentence. Only calm certainty.

“Then let’s find some answers instead of standing here speculating.” She moved past him.

Hudson fell into step behind her. He’d been doing that all morning. Staying just off her shoulder. Close enough to reach her. Far enough away not to crowd her. On anyone else, it would’ve annoyed her.

On Hudson, it was⁠—

Stop it. Focus.

Sarah led him through the personnel door beside the nearest loading gate and onto the exterior walkway. The loading platform extended from the building on heavy pilings. Most were slick with old creosote and green with something that had been growing undisturbed since before either of them was born.

Sarah crouched at the edge where the boards met the open water, running her palm along a support post that had clearly taken a recent impact. Scuff marks. A clean gouge through the grime at the base. Something had been dragged against it. “Here.”

Hudson took a knee beside her. He ran a thumb along the same scuff mark, head tilted, reading methodically.

“Recent,” he said. “Within the last month, maybe less. The creosote’s worn through clean here, not weathered.”

“Crates could fit through that gap in the wall.” She pointed toward a section of corrugated siding that had buckled outward, wide enough for a good-sized crate if it was maneuvered carefully. “Bring it in by water, up onto this platform, through the gap, and you’re inside the building without ever crossing the main dock where Petey could see you from his office.”

“And out the other side to what?”

“There’s a track, eventually.” She’d driven it herself, years ago, checking on a poacher complaint that had turned out to be nothing. “Rough as hell and overgrown. But a truck might make it if you didn’t mind the scratches.”

“That’s a viable route. Quiet. Remote. Deniable. If people were moving anything through Aurora Cove, this is exactly the kind of place they’d use.” His expression was deliberately neutral, and she guessed it cost him something to keep it that way. “Good spot.”

“That’s my job.”

“I know.”

She eyed him. “You sound surprised.”

The ghost of a smile crossed his mouth. “I’m not.” He looked away first this time, back toward the cannery. His eyes narrowed.

Sarah followed the direction of his gaze. Something shifted inside the loading bay, between the storage racks where the daylight didn’t reach.

Hudson’s hand drifted towards his hip.

But whatever it was had gone, leaving discarded cardboard boxes disappearing into shadow and dust hanging motionless in the thin strips of light.

Still.

She flicked the catch on her holster. “Sheriff’s Department,” she called, adjusting her stance. Hudson shifted with her. The sound carried the length of the building and died there.

No answer.

Beside her, Hudson was motionless. A long second passed.

Nothing moved.

Sarah let her hand fall away from her weapon. “Probably a bird.”

Hudson didn’t look convinced. Neither was she.

“Anyway, the ventilation stacks are original to the building too.” Petey approached from behind them, entirely unaware she’d run a full threat assessment in under ten seconds. “Which is its own headache come spring thaw. Condensation buildup, you know. I’ve got photographs of that too if you’re interested⁠—”

“Petey.” Sarah secured the catch on her holster. “We’re heading out.”

His head bobbed. “Ma’am.”

“We’ll be back out this way. Might want a second look another day.”

“Suits me. Less I have to think about my own drainage hazard, the better.”

Walter went ahead and had the boat’s engine idling low by the time she got there, his breath fogging white above the collar of his jacket.

Sarah climbed down first.

The boat shifted beneath her weight, a familiar roll she’d negotiated a hundred times before. But her legs were still sore from the fall, and the deck met her a second sooner than she expected.

She wobbled.

A hand closed lightly around her elbow, gone again the instant her balance returned. By the time she’d found her footing, Hudson was already looking past her toward the water, his own hand back at his side as though it’d never left it.

Twice in one day.

She gave herself a mental shake. Keep it together, Meyer.

The cannery slid away behind them as Walter eased the throttle forward, the building shrinking until it was just a shape on the point again, indistinguishable from any other piece of derelict coastline. The water widened, the sky pressing down flat and colorless over all of it.

The wind picked up and Hudson stood where he’d stood on the trip out, hands loose at his sides, eyes on the coastline. He hadn’t looked at the water once.

“We weren’t alone in there,” he said finally.

Sarah didn’t answer. She’d already known.

What she hadn’t expected was how quickly she’d looked for him when she’d felt it.

7

Sarah pulled into the lot beside Benji's. Hudson parked behind her.

He should have kept driving to the hotel, but when Sarah climbed out and turned toward Main Street, he found himself doing the same.

She rubbed the back of her neck. Tired. Hungry too, if he had to guess.

“Lunch?”

She came to a dead halt. “Sorry?”

“You haven’t stopped moving since this morning.”

“Is that your professional assessment, Deputy Marshal?”

“It’s my hungry assessment. How about it?” He gestured toward Benji’s.

“Okay.” Her smile touched her eyes. “That would be nice.”

Sarah reached the door first, but Hudson caught it before she could. She gave him a look.

“Habit.” He flashed her a smile.

She smiled in return and headed in. A prickle ran briefly across the back of his neck. Nothing caught his attention. Which wasn’t the same thing as feeling easy. Still, he gave the street a final sweep before he followed her in.

Benji’s hit him before the door had even swung shut—warmth first, thick and immediate after the cold outside, then the smell of it, coffee and cinnamon working their way through the air. The pink neon sign in the window threw a faint wash of color across the booths nearest the glass. Vinyl squeaked somewhere as someone shifted their weight.

He hadn’t been in here in over fifteen years and the place hadn’t moved six inches.

“Sit anywhere,” a voice called from behind the counter. “Be right with⁠—”

Louisa looked up. She finished pouring and set the coffee pot down. “Well, I’ll be.”

She came around the counter, hands going to her hips, looking at him as if he was a piece of furniture that had wandered back into a room it used to live in. “Hudson. Kane. You used to come in dripping mud with those Meyer boys and eat like you’d been stranded in the wilderness.”

“Louisa.” He offered her a grin. “Hi.”

“Don’t you Louisa me like you’ve been gone a weekend.” She was already moving toward him. “Booth by the window, both of you, that one’s got the good light.”

Sarah slid in across from him without comment. She knew better than to argue with the seating arrangement. She took her hat off and laid it on the bench seat beside her. Her hair was flattened where the hat had been. She adjusted it absently, but a strand refused to stay where she put it. The urge to reach across and tuck it behind her ear surged through him.

Get a grip. He picked up the laminated menu and studied it intently.

“Heard you were back.” Louisa reached for the coffee pot on the next table over, topping off a mug that hadn’t asked for it. “Mrs. Oldman’s granddaughter saw you at the gas station, told her mother, and her sister told me before you’d even gotten your gas cap back on, probably.” She set two mugs down without asking if they wanted coffee.

Sarah reached for the mug immediately. He wasn’t sure whether that was because she wanted the coffee or because the mug gave her something to do with her hands. Either way, she wrapped both hands around it as if she’d been cold for hours.

“Sheriff.” Louisa nodded to Sarah.

“You hear a lot, Louisa.”

“It’s not worth knowing if I don’t hear it.” She said it as a fact. Then her gaze swung back to Hudson, and something in it softened into a different register entirely. “Pie’s apple today. No cinnamon rolls.”

She tilted her head, studying him. “You used to fight Wyatt over the last roll every single Sunday. Don’t think I forgot that, just because you went and grew up and got yourself a badge.” Her eyes flicked toward the federal credentials clipped to his belt. “Heard about that too.”

“Of course you did.”

“Ham and cheddar,” she said. “You always wanted yours toasted till the cheese went past melted into something Harold called a structural hazard.”

Damn. He hadn’t thought about that sandwich since he’d left for Coronado. Aurora Cove remembered him.

He tucked the menu back into its holder. “That’ll work.”

Louisa’s mouth curved, satisfied, already turning toward Sarah. “And you, I know better than to ask. Soup and the cornbread, extra butter, don’t fight me on it, you look like you haven’t eaten since Tuesday.”

“I had breakfast.”

“Mmm.” Louisa was already moving away, pot in hand.

Hudson looked at the table. At the salt and pepper shakers shaped like little lighthouses, chipped at the base, probably been sitting on this exact table since before he was born.

He didn’t look at Sarah. That didn’t stop him knowing exactly where she was.

“You used to fight Wyatt over cinnamon rolls.”

“Most Sundays.” He sipped his coffee.

“I don’t remember that.”

“We were kids. You weren’t always there.” He turned his mug on the table, watching steam curl off it. “Your mom used to make us split them so we’d stop.”

“That sounds like her.”

A silence opened up that wasn’t uncomfortable. The diner noise rolled on around them, griddle hissing, the bell over the door going off twice.

Hudson met her eyes for the first time since Louisa had walked away. “All that time. And she still remembered how I take a sandwich.”

“People remember things.” Sarah held her mug as if she needed somewhere to put her hands that wasn’t anywhere near him. “You always ordered that.” She said it so quietly he almost lost it beneath the diner noise. “The sandwich. I remember now. You’d order it and Wyatt would make some comment about you ruining good cheese and you’d just—” She stopped. Started again, smaller. “I just remember you ordering it.”

“You said you didn’t remember the cinnamon roll thing.”

“I don’t.” She finally looked up, her expression careful. “I remember the sandwich.”

Her words jolted through him. His thumb pressed into the ceramic mug hard enough to feel the heat through it.

Louisa set the plates between them and was gone again before either of them objected—the ham and cheddar sandwich, the soup steaming, cornbread with butter melting into a slick, golden pool across the top.

Sarah’s attention shifted to the window. The street outside. Anywhere that wasn’t him. Her soup sat untouched.

Hudson waited a few seconds. “Eat.”

Her eyes slid back to him. “Excuse me?”

“Louisa will take it personally.”

For a second, she looked like she might argue. She shook her head. “You haven’t changed.”

“Haven’t I?”

“No.”

She took a spoonful of soup. “Still think you can solve most problems by telling people to eat.”

His laugh caught him by surprise.

Sarah’s spoon paused halfway to her mouth. For a fraction of a second, she just looked at him, recalibrating something. She covered it quickly and returned to her soup.

He exhaled a slow breath. Only then did he take a bite of his sandwich.

Around them the diner carried on without them—plates clattering, coffee pouring, Louisa scolding somebody about pie.

Sarah remembered the sandwich.

Such a tiny thing.

Meaningless.

Right?

8

The cold hit differently after the warmth of the diner. Sarah pulled her collar up and told herself that was why her face felt warm.

She was the sheriff. She had a case, a jurisdiction, a badge that meant something, and a man beside her who was very possibly about to walk back out of her life the same way he’d walked out of it the first time. None of that was complicated. All of it should have been enough.

But somehow it wasn’t landing the way it was supposed to.

She’d laughed twice in there. Properly laughed. Walter’s terrible jokes had never pulled that sound from her. And she’d spent an embarrassing stretch of the meal trying not to be distracted by his hands. Strong, calloused, a thin scar tracking one knuckle. Hands that looked like they knew exactly what they were doing, with anything they touched.

She cleared her throat, aimed her voice at something professional, and reached for the one thing guaranteed to put both of them back where they belonged.

“So,” she said, once they’d cleared the diner’s window and the chance of Louisa reading lips through the glass. “Cord.”

He shifted gears beside her—a small change in his breathing, his shoulders dropping into something more deliberate. Good. That was the version of him she knew how to handle.

“What about him?”

“This isn’t just another fugitive to you. I got that much back at the cannery.” She kept her eyes forward, her breath fogging in front of her. “So why’s this one different?”

The quiet stretched out too long.

“Because I should’ve caught him the first time.”

Sarah glanced over. Something had slipped. She wasn’t looking at the marshal anymore. “The first time?”

For a second, she thought he might answer. Then whatever had surfaced disappeared again.

“Forget it.” His mouth firmed.

“Hudson—”

“I said forget it.”

He looked away from her, his breath clouding the air.

“Sarah!” Ryder crossed the lot toward them, Ellie’s mittened hand engulfed in his. She ran to keep pace with her dad’s longer stride, blonde pigtails escaping a hat with a wobbly pink pom-pom.

“Tantie!” Ellie broke free the second they were close enough and launched herself at Sarah’s legs with full-body commitment.

Sarah caught her and swung her up onto one hip.

“Hey, bug.” She pressed a kiss to the cold pink curve of Ellie’s cheek. “You being good for Daddy?”

Ellie wriggled one mitten free and produced a stuffed whale from inside her coat. Bright blue and visibly over-loved.

Sarah smiled. “Who’s this?”

Ellie looked horrified. “Blubbs.”

“Hello, Blubbs.” Sarah shook a flipper.

Ryder shook his head, hands on hips. “Blubbs has been introduced to everyone in town.”

Ellie hugged the whale. “Blubbs likes marsha-mallows.”

Ryder made a sound that suggested this information had been delivered to him many, many times. “Blubbs does not need marshmallows.”

Ellie hugged Blubbs tighter. “Me going for hot choc-lit. Marsha-mallows.”

“Wow. Marshmallows. Sounds delicious.”

“Tantie, marsha-mallows?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Auntie Sarah can’t today. I’m busy with work.”

Ryder’s attention swiveled to Hudson. His expression morphed into recognition.

“No way.” Ryder’s mouth pulled sideways in a grin. “Hudson Kane.”

“Ryder.”

“You got old.” Ryder closed the distance, and they shook hands, the clasp turning into a brief, wordless shoulder grip. “Last time I saw you, you were teaching Wyatt how to gut a fish wrong so Mom would do it for both of you.”

“That was one time.”

Ryder chuckled. “Worked, though.”

“And you got a kid.”

Ryder’s grin grew. He wobbled Ellie’s pom-pom. “Being a dad is the best thing ever. Whatcha doing back in Aurora Cove?”

“Work,” Hudson said.

“Right.” Ryder’s gaze moved from Hudson to Sarah. His eyebrows climbed.

Sarah sighed. “No.”

Ryder looked delighted. “I didn’t even say anything.”

“You were about to.”

Ryder’s eyes dropped to the credentials clipped at Hudson’s belt. “Deputy U.S. Marshal, huh?”

“Something like that.”

His grin skewed. “Mom’s gonna love that.”

“Daddy.” Ellie had gone rigid against Sarah’s hip, entirely consumed by a crisis of cosmic importance, mittened hand jabbing toward the diner’s pink-lit window. “Marsha-mallows. Blubbs need marsha-mallows. Lots.”

“We’ll ask Louisa.”

“Lots, Daddy.” Ellie wriggled, and Sarah set her back on her feet.

Whatever Ryder had been circling around evaporated entirely, engulfed by the gravitational pull of Ellie’s marshmallow crisis.

“Good seeing you, man.” Ryder was already turning, Ellie’s hand finding his again, the pull of the diner door and its promise of cinnamon-sugar warmth doing what it always did to anyone under the age of four. “You sticking around a while?”

“For now.”

“Good.” Ryder’s eyes found Sarah’s for just a second—a small flag planted somewhere she’d have to deal with later, probably over a beer with Caleb smirking in the background.

“Bye-bye, Tantie.” Ellie blew her a kiss from three feet away.

Hudson watched Ellie disappear through the diner door, a softness in his eyes she hadn’t witnessed before. The lot went quiet again as the diner door swung shut.

Sarah turned, suddenly aware Hudson wasn’t watching the diner anymore. He was watching her.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He looked away first, out toward the street, jaw doing that thing he did when he wasn’t going to say what he was actually thinking. “I forgot you were good with kids.”

Sarah glanced over. “Forgot?”

“A lot of things, it seems.” The corner of his mouth sloped upward. “You used to organize half the neighborhood.”

“That’s a gross exaggeration.”

“No.”

“There were, like, six kids.”

“You had sign-up sheets.”

Sarah groaned. “I was twelve.”

“And color-coded teams.” His face was way too handsome when he smiled.

Why was she even noticing that?

“Those weren’t teams.”

“Sarah.” His eyebrows rose.

“Fine.” She kicked at a patch of frozen gravel. “They were color-coded teams.”

She pulled her collar up another inch against the wind and Hudson’s widening grin.

“Right.” She started walking again, back toward the truck, because standing in a parking lot being looked at like that by Hudson Kane was not a sustainable long-term strategy for getting through this day, or this entire situation generally.

Hudson fell into step beside her and matched her stride.

They weren’t touching.

The space between them felt crowded anyway.

9

Hudson fell into step beside Sarah as they crossed the lot.

She glanced sideways. “You know, I can make it to my truck without a federal escort.”

“I know.”

She looked at him for a second, as if deciding whether to argue, then kept walking with a shake of her head.

They crossed the remainder of the lot in companionable silence, the afternoon already fading toward the blue-gray light that came before dusk.

Sarah reached her truck first.

“See?” She spread her hands. “Survived.”

“Congratulations.” Hudson turned toward his rental.

Powder compressed beneath his boots.

A stuffed whale named Blubbs surfaced unexpectedly, followed by Sarah solemnly shaking its flipper like she was meeting a visiting dignitary. He hadn’t seen that version of her coming. For reasons he had no intention of examining, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Behind him, Sarah’s radio sputtered into life.

“Got your Jake Mercer.” Walter’s voice crackled through the radio. “Leased a place on Birch Hollow Road eight months back. You want it or should I keep it for myself?”

Hudson spun around, meeting Sarah’s gaze.

“Send it.” Sarah ended the call before Walter could improve on the information.

“The day’s not done with us yet.” She eyed his rental. “That isn’t fit for these roads. We’ll take my truck.”

The drive took fifteen minutes. Sarah drove one-handed around curves that would have had most visitors backing off the accelerator. Every time she turned her head a loose strand of hair brushed her cheek before the heater blew it away again. With an effort, Hudson forced his attention to the road.

The town thinned, then disappeared. Dark spruce crowded both shoulders where the plow had cut through fresh snow.

At some point the road stopped feeling like it led somewhere and started feeling like it led to someone. This was the part he never liked.

The house was small, and a porch light burned yellow above the front door. Two pairs of rubber boots on the doormat. A coat hung on a hook visible through the window.

Someone lived here.

Someone who expected another person to come home and had left the porch light on for them.

He followed Sarah to the front door, spotting that the porch steps were glazed with fresh ice.

His hand closed around her elbow because evidently his body had stopped asking permission before making decisions where Sarah Meyer was concerned.

She looked down at his hand, then up at him. “I know.”

He released her immediately. “Right.”

Sarah rolled her shoulders and knocked.

It took a while. Finally the door opened on a chain. “Yes?”

She was younger than Hudson had pictured. Dark hair pulled back, glasses, pearl drops in her ears. Her eyes went from Sarah’s badge to Hudson and stopped there. Something shifted in her expression—a woman recognizing the arrival she’d spent days dreading.

“Nora Mercer? Ma’am, I’m Sheriff Meyer. This is Deputy U.S. Marshal Kane.” Sarah’s voice had gone into the register she used at the bar—calm, level, designed to keep a room from going anywhere bad. “We’re looking for a man named Jake Mercer. We understand he lives here.”

The chain didn’t come off. “What’s this about?”

“Is he here?”

“No.” Too fast. “He’s been gone four days. Said he had a few days at the cabin. Fishing.” Her eyes went to Hudson again, lingered. “Has something happened to him?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Sarah said, which was true and also not an answer. “Can we come in?”

The math ran behind her eyes—strangers at the door, badges, a man gone four days without contact. She landed on the side of letting them in, because the alternative was standing on her own porch not knowing.

The chain came off.

Sarah went inside first. Hudson took a last glance at the surrounding countryside and followed her in.

Nora wore a pale blue cardigan. One hand stayed wrapped around the front of it as she led them inside, holding it closed at her throat. The house was warm enough to make him loosen his collar with one finger after the dry cold outside.

A wood stove worked hard in the corner and the air smelled faintly of coffee and vanilla.

The kitchen and living room shared the same space. A pound cake cooled on a wire rack beside the stove and a knitted blanket had been abandoned across the arm of the couch. One mug sat in the sink. Another waited upside down beside the coffee maker.

Across the room, Sarah was already cataloging everything.

Photographs lined the wall above the couch. A fishing trip. A Christmas tree. Nora laughing at something outside the frame.

Nora smiling in the arms of a man. Cord.

Sarah took the chair nearest the window. Hudson waited until she was seated before taking up position by the door. From here he could see the kitchen, the hallway. Sarah. The fact that his brain included her in the same assessment annoyed him more than it should have.

Men’s work boots were paired neatly at the door. Hudson looked away. He didn’t need to see that side of Cord.

“When did you last hear from him?” Sarah asked.

“Four days ago. Before he left for the cabin.” Nora’s hands twisted in her lap. “He said two nights. Maybe three if the fish were good.”

Her mouth tried for a smile and missed. “He always says that. Then he comes home smelling like a campfire and won’t talk about how many fish he actually caught, which means none.”

Sarah’s pen didn’t move as she let the silence do its work. “Has he ever stayed longer without telling you?”

“No.” Lines around Nora’s eyes tightened. “He calls. Even when there’s no signal at the cabin, he drives up to the ridge for one bar and calls. Every single time.”

“He hasn’t called?”

Her eyes lifted, fear showing now. “No.”

The room went quiet. A log tumbled in the stove. A man who drove to a ridge for one bar of signal. Every time. Without fail. So the woman waiting at home wouldn’t have to wonder.

Hudson stared at the photograph of Cord and Nora. At the worry she’d been trying and failing to hide since they stepped through the door. The contradiction landed like a stone. Which version had come first?

“Was anything different before he left?”

Nora worried at the hem of her cardigan. “He wasn’t sleeping much.”

Sarah waited as Nora glanced toward the dark window over the sink.

“He kept checking outside.”

“Checking for what?”

Nora made a small helpless movement of her shoulders. “I don’t know.” The answer sounded honest. “Sometimes I’d wake up and he’d be standing at the window.” Her fingers picked at a loose thread. “I’d ask what he was looking at and he’d say nothing.”

Sarah exchanged a brief look with Hudson. “What else?”

“He’d started locking the door during the day. He wasn’t scared exactly.” She swallowed. “More like he was waiting for something.”

Hudson blew out a breath. Because he knew that feeling. Waiting was different from fear. Fear looked outward. Waiting looked over your shoulder.

“Can you tell us where the cabin is?”

“Sure.” Nora pushed herself upright and disappeared briefly into the kitchen.

When she came back she had a reporter’s notebook and a pen. The page tore unevenly because her hands trembled. She sketched quickly. Forest Service road. An unmarked turnoff. A creek. A cabin miles beyond where a vehicle could go.

“He loves it out there,” she said, handing the page across to Sarah. “Says it’s the only place he can hear himself think.” A brief smile touched her mouth. “I always thought that was a strange thing to want.” The smile faded. “To go somewhere that quiet when your own head is already following you around.”

Sarah studied the map, concentrating hard enough that a crease appeared between her brows.

Hudson wanted to smooth it away with a brush of his thumb, take some of the burden from her.

“Thank you.” Sarah folded the map and stood. “If he turns up or you hear anything—anything at all—you call me.” She set a card on the table. “Day or night. Doesn’t matter what time.”

“I will.”

“I mean it, Mrs. Mercer.”

“I know you do.” Nora’s hand covered the card but she didn’t pick it up. Her palm rested over it as if she needed to know it was within reach.

Nora walked them to the door. The cold came in around the edges as she opened it, but she didn’t step back. Her hand stayed flat against the frame.

“Thank you,” Sarah said. “For the directions. For talking to us.”

Nora’s eyes had already gone past them, out toward the dark and the road that led, eventually, toward the cabin. “Whatever you think he’s done, that isn’t all he is.”

Hudson held her gaze. “I believe you.”

The words followed him out to the truck, but he didn’t examine them too closely.

The engine rattled to life and warm air pushed weakly through the vents.

Sarah didn’t put the truck in gear. “You were quiet in there.”

The cab felt smaller than it had fifteen minutes ago. Maybe because the heater was finally winning. Maybe because Sarah was only six inches away.

Her eyes stayed on the windshield. Giving him room, the same way she’d given Nora room.

“She loves him.” Hudson said eventually.

“Yeah.”

Hudson dragged a hand across his face. “He’s been lying to her for years. Different name. Different history. Probably a different birthday for all I know. And she’s spent four days driving herself crazy because, for once, he hasn’t called.”

“You think she doesn’t know?”

Hudson looked at her. “Know what?”

“That he’s carrying things he doesn’t talk about.” Her eyes met his, only for a second but long enough to make it impossible to pretend the question was only about Jake Mercer. “Or maybe she doesn’t care.”

Something tightened low in his chest. Sarah had always done that. Walked straight past the words people were saying and found the thing underneath.

“Maybe.” God. His voice sounded like shit. “Or maybe she knows exactly who he is and decided it wasn’t a deal breaker.”

Sarah nodded as if she’d already considered that possibility.

For years he’d told himself there was freedom in owing nobody anything. Looking at the house with its porch light and waiting wife, he wasn’t as sure anymore.

Sarah still hadn’t put the truck in gear. One hand rested on the steering wheel. The other rubbed absently at the spot just above her temple. Long day. Too much coffee. Not enough rest. Hudson focused on the darkness outside before he told her to go home. She’d tell him exactly where to shove that suggestion.

He stared straight ahead. “We should go.”

For one strange second the silence was crowded with things neither of them were going to say.

Then Sarah shifted into drive and the moment was gone.

10

Sarah drove back to the station, trying not to think about the man sitting right beside her, and failing miserably.

“Thanks for the ride. The fishing cabin tomorrow?” Hudson paused with one hand on the door handle.

“Meet me at the stables. It’s not accessible by truck.”

His breath plumed in the early evening air. “Stables?”

“We ride in.”

He frowned. “Ride?”

“Yes.”

“On horses?”

Sarah folded her arms. “What other kind would we be riding?”

Hudson’s mouth twitched. “Fair point.” He smiled and closed the door.

He glanced back at her as Walter came out of the building. She gave him a small wave.

She gave herself thirty seconds.

Thirty seconds of silence alone with the dull throb at her temple that she was absolutely not going to mention to anyone, least of all the man currently standing twenty feet away talking to Walter.

No more. Then she had to be the sheriff again.

Her phone rang at twenty-eight. She checked the screen.

Mom.

Sarah closed her eyes briefly. Today just kept getting better.

She swiped to answer.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Sarah Elizabeth Meyer.” Sophie’s voice came down the line with the precision of a woman with highly honed instincts about when any of her children were keeping something from her. “Is it true that Hudson Kane is back in Aurora Cove?”

Sarah huffed a breath.

Ryder.

Hudson had turned slightly, angling his body toward the station as Walter pointed at something down the street. He’d given back the jacket Walter loaned him, and the one he wore was still too light for the cold. She’d noticed that twice. She didn’t know why and she sure as hell wasn’t going to examine it.

“He’s here on a case, Mom.”

“Mrs. Oldman’s granddaughter saw him at the gas station this morning.”

Of course. Aurora Cove had roughly six thousand residents and an information network that would make the CIA weep with envy, and at the center of it, quietly orchestrating everything with a wooden spoon in one hand and a casserole dish in the other, was her mom.

“He was probably filling up his rental,” Sarah said. “It’s not a presidential visit.”

“I’m making pot roast.”

Sarah recognized the non sequitur for what it was. “Mom.”

“There’s plenty.”

“He’s working. I can’t just⁠—”

“Friday. Seven o’clock.” Cheerful and immovable. “Tell him not to bring anything, I have everything I need. Although if he wants to pick up something from Benji’s for dessert, that’s completely his choice and not a requirement.”

Outside, Hudson laughed at something Walter said. A short sound. Real. It hit her somewhere she’d rather it hadn’t. She looked away from him and fixed her gaze very deliberately on the dashboard.

“Mom, it’s not appropriate. He’s a federal officer operating in my jurisdiction and I’m the sheriff and it’s a conflict of⁠—”

“Caleb brings Grace to dinner, and she’s a vet⁠—”

“That’s completely different.”

“Ryder brings⁠—”

“Also different.”

“Your father would love to see him.”

Sarah pressed two fingers against the bridge of her nose. Outside her window, the November sky sat low and indifferent. “Dad sees plenty of other people.”

“Hudson used to help him in the workshop.”

“I know he used to help him in the—” She stopped, breathed. Recalibrated. Okay, Sarah, you’ve got this. “Mom. He’s busy. He has a case. It’s not a good time.”

Silence hummed on the line.

Not an empty silence. Sophie Meyer’s silences were never empty. This one had an armchair in it and a cup of coffee and her mother sitting waiting with all the patience in the world.

“Sarah.” Just that. Her name. “Why don’t you want him to come?”

Her eyes went to Hudson. He was listening to Walter now, head slightly tilted, with the attention that made whoever he was talking to feel like the only person in the room. She remembered that about him. It had persisted in some filing cabinet of her brain that she’d thought was locked and turned out only to be stuck.

The boy she’d known had disappeared somewhere along the way. The problem was she kept catching unexpected glimpses of him inside the man.

She looked away.

“I don’t not want him to come,” she said, and heard immediately how that sounded.

More silence. Fuller this time.

“Mom.”

“Mmm.”

That sound. Her mom had been deploying it since she was tiny, and it had never once failed to extract the truth from her. Today wasn’t going to be the exception.

“It’s not—” She stopped. Started again. “It’s complicated.”

Her mom’s smile was almost audible on the line. “Most things worth anything are.”

“That’s not—” Sarah pressed her lips together. Outside, Hudson had put his hands in his jacket pockets and turned slightly, automatically taking up a position where he could see the road, the lot, and the station entrance. The memory of how he caught her at the cannery arrived uninvited. Like most of her current problems.

She looked at the dashboard again.

“Fine.” The word came out more like a surrender than she intended. “Dinner. Friday. Seven o’clock.”

“Wonderful.” The warmth of her mom’s voice made it clear she’d never had any doubt about the outcome of the conversation. “Tell him I’m making the pot roast he used to like.”

“I don’t know what pot roast he used to⁠—”

“He’ll know. Bye, sweetheart.”

Her mom hung up.

Sarah sat with the phone in her hand and stared at nothing in particular for a moment.

She was the sheriff. She had a mountain of paperwork waiting for her, a federal marshal with too many secrets standing in her station lot, and a mother who played the long game with the skills of a global spymaster.

She got out of the truck.

Hudson turned at the slam of her door.

She crossed the yard toward him, stopped at a professional distance, meeting his eyes with the expression she usually wore before writing citations. “My mom wants you at dinner Friday.”

Surprise flickered across his face before the marshal returned. “Your mom?”

She gritted her teeth. “She’s making pot roast.”

“I’d like that.” For a second he looked less like a deputy marshal and more like the boy who used to eat Sunday dinner at the Meyer house. “The one with the carrots?”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. “The fact that you know there are multiple pot roasts is exactly the problem I’m talking about. Don’t make it a thing. You can bring dessert if you want. Don’t be late. She has opinions about punctuality.”

She spun on her heel before he said anything that might make it worse.

But behind her, Hudson Kane laughed quiet enough that she could almost pretend she hadn’t heard it.

She kept walking.

Her mother was a menace. And unless Hudson suddenly developed a pathological objection to pot roast, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

11

Hudson had been staring at the same beer for twenty minutes when the stool beside him scraped back.

He was back in the Rusty Anchor.

The jukebox in the corner was playing something dated that might have been Springsteen. Marty was behind the bar, drying a glass that had been dry for the last five minutes. He caught Hudson’s eye, and Hudson held it with a smile to let the man know he wasn’t here to cause trouble twice in one week. Marty went back to the glass.

“Rumor has it you put Dale Kincaid on the floor.”

He didn’t need to look up. There was only one person in Aurora Cove who moved like that—full weight, no apology for taking up the space.

Wyatt’s voice hadn’t changed at all. Still that low, calm register. “Without breaking a sweat. That true?”

“Marty exaggerates.”

“Marty exaggerates everything except that.” Wyatt signaled Marty, two fingers, and didn’t look away from Hudson while he waited. “I believe that part.”

Hudson stood because some things you didn’t do sitting down.

Wyatt’s arms closed around him, a hand flat against his back, and for a second neither of them said anything at all. Fifteen years compressed into a grip that didn’t need translating.

“You got old,” Wyatt said into his shoulder.

“I think I heard that already today.”

Wyatt grinned. “Ryder’s all charm.” Wyatt released him, looked him over once, head to boots. “You look like hell, Kane.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it as a compliment. You used to look worse.” Wyatt sat back down, and Hudson sat with him, and Marty set two beers down.

They sat for a minute without talking. Hudson had forgotten how comfortable that could be—silence that didn’t need filling, sitting next to someone who’d once watched his back in places neither of them ever talked about.

“Heard about the rig,” Hudson said eventually. “The weapons one off the coast.”

Wyatt’s mouth did something almost like surprise. “You heard about that.”

“I keep tabs.”

“On me?”

“On the things that mattered.” Hudson worked his thumbnail at the edge of the bottle label. “Heard you pulled the chief engineer off it too. Jen.”

Something shifted across Wyatt’s face. “She pulled herself off it, mostly. I just helped with the last part.”

“She still putting up with you?”

“Somehow.”

“Good.” Hudson meant it. “You deserve that.”

Wyatt looked at him for a second too long, as if he was deciding whether to say something back in kind, and then didn’t, because that wasn’t how they did this. He swigged his beer then glanced at Hudson’s untouched bottle. “Still can’t handle carbonation?”

Hudson looked at him.

Wyatt shrugged. “You always hated it after.”

“Depends on the day.”

“Mmm.” Wyatt didn’t push it. He just nodded, closing the subject with respect rather than pity. “Funny thing.”

“What?”

“You’ve been back twenty-four hours.”

Hudson already knew where this was going.

“And somehow every story I’ve heard involves Sarah.”

“I’m here for the case. She’s the sheriff.” Hudson kept his voice even. “I’ll be gone within the week.”

Wyatt took a long drink. “Sure.” He turned his bottle in a slow circle on the bar. “Remember when Sarah saved our asses after Ryder wrapped the crab line around the prop?”

Hudson snorted. “You mean when she spent six months extorting us afterward?”

“Still the smartest one there.” Wyatt swigged his beer. “She made detective at twenty-six. The old guard hated it.” Wyatt grinned. “She made them all look stupid. Runs that office better than the last three guys combined and doesn’t ask anyone for credit.”

“I haven’t forgotten who she is, Wyatt.”

“I know you haven’t.” Wyatt set the bottle down. “She still forgets to eat when she’s working, though.”

Hudson said nothing. He’d already figured that out.

Wyatt gave him a side-long look. “Louisa mentioned you were in Benji’s.”

Christ. Hudson shook his head and smiled despite himself.

“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “Thought that might get your attention.”

“It was lunch.”

“Mmm.”

“It was.”

“Sure it was.” Wyatt arched an eyebrow. “Just making sure you remember it’s not your job to look after her. She’s been doing fine at that herself for a long time.”

The words hit a place he’d been carefully avoiding since he arrived in Aurora Cove. Wyatt was stating a fact about his sister and trusting Hudson to be smart enough to hear the quiet warning underneath it.

“Understood,” he said.

“Good.” Wyatt clapped him once on the shoulder, the subject closing as easily as it had opened. “And dinner on Friday? Mom’s excited. She already knows everything else too, so don’t bother trying to manage the narrative.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You would. And you’d be terrible at it.” Wyatt stood, dropped a bill on the bar that was too much for two beers, and didn’t wait for change. “Good to see you, Kane.”

“You too.”

They shook hands.

Wyatt held on for a second longer than required. “She’s tougher than both of us.” A beat. “Don’t make her have to prove it on your account.”

Wyatt left.

Hudson turned back to the bar. That had never been the problem.

Every conversation he’d had since landing in Aurora Cove seemed to end in the same place.

Her.

As if the whole town had decided she was the thing he ought to be paying attention to.

As if he wasn’t already.

12

The stables smelled of sweet hay, leather, and horse.

Sarah stood at the door for a second longer than she needed to, breathing it in, and made herself stop thinking about the last time that smell had meant something other than work.

Hudson was already there.

He had Captain saddled. Bridle on, girth checked, the whole job done. Captain, for his part, looked entirely unbothered by the stranger, which told her more than she wanted it to. Captain didn’t tolerate fools.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, even though she was, annoyingly, pleased.

He looked up and smiled. “Good morning.” He ran a hand over Captain’s flank. “I had time. Besides, Captain looked like he was judging me for standing around.”

Captain flicked an ear.

Traitor.

“And you were running late.”

“I was not.”

“You were two minutes from running late and your left boot isn’t fully laced.” He checked the girth one more time, an excuse not to look at her while he said it. “I split the difference.”

She glanced down. Damn, he was right.

She decided not to dignify his observation with an answer and led Captain out into the yard, where the cold hit different than it had inside—cleaner, carrying the Alaskan bite of a morning that had frozen everything overnight.

Wyatt’s horse was in the next stall, head already swinging toward the door like he knew exactly what was coming.

“Bon Jovi’s yours,” she said, and watched Hudson’s face do something complicated.

“Wyatt named his horse Bon Jovi?”

“Wyatt named his gelding Bon Jovi. Said he had the right swagger. Don’t ask him about the playlist he made for grooming. It’s extensive.”

“I’m almost afraid to.”

“You should be.” She frowned. “Where’s your jacket?”

Hudson looked down at himself. “I’m wearing one.”

Sarah stared at him. “That’s a city jacket.”

“It keeps the wind off.”

“For the walk between your rental and the diner, maybe.” She disappeared into the tack room before he could argue.

“Sarah—”

She came back carrying a heavy waxed ranch jacket with a shearling collar and tossed it at him.

He caught it one-handed.

“Wear it.”

Hudson looked from the jacket to her. “You’re serious.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Hudson, right now you’re dressed for optimism.”

For the first time that morning, he laughed. He shrugged into the jacket. The sleeves were a fraction short, but the shoulders fit just right. Sarah pretended not to notice that it suited him better than it had ever suited her brother.

“Don’t get attached,” she said, turning away before her brain wandered anywhere unhelpful. “It’s Wyatt’s.”

He saddled Bon Jovi. Fifteen years ago there would have been a little showmanship in it—a grin thrown back over his shoulder, a glance to see if she’d noticed, the easy performance of a nineteen-year-old who liked being watched. There was nothing like that now. Once Bon Jovi was ready, Hudson mounted, one clean, economical movement, weight settling into the saddle like his body had never once forgotten how.

She swung up onto Captain and gathered the reins. It was unfair, honestly. A man wasn’t supposed to leave for fifteen years and come back better at the one thing she’d always beaten him at.

“You’re better than you used to be.”

“At riding?”

“At everything you used to be flashy about.” She nudged Captain forward, toward the gate. “It’s annoying.”

“Noted.” He beamed and didn’t sound sorry at all.

They rode out into a morning that looked like it had been carved. Snow lay clean and unbroken across the ground, catching the early light, making the whole world look deceptively gentle. The only sounds were small ones—the jingle of bits, the soft percussive crunch of hooves breaking snow crust, their breath fogging out and disappearing.

“Forest Service road’s about forty minutes out,” Sarah said, mostly to fill the quiet, mostly because it was easier to talk about the route than anything else. “Then it’s horseback or nothing the last mile. Nora’s directions said the turn isn’t marked.”

“I’ll watch for it.”

“You don’t know what you’re watching for.”

“I’ll watch for the place where the road looks like it isn’t a road.” He said it without inflection, eyes on the trail ahead. “Worked for me in places with worse roads than this one.”

He glanced over his shoulder, a smile in his eyes.

The trail began to climb. The horses worked harder into it, breath coming heavier, the cold biting at any exposed skin with real intent. Sarah leaned forward, weight following Captain’s effort up the grade.

“Take the inside line,” Hudson said.

“Why?”

“Because that patch ahead is glazed.”

“You can see that from here?”

“No.” He grinned. “Captain can.”

She huffed a breath, but he waited until she moved before following.

They rode on and Hudson cleared his throat once.

She glanced over. Nothing in his face. He was watching the trail the same as before, hands easy on the reins, posture unbothered. But his breathing had gone careful. An easy ride shouldn't have changed it. She tucked it away as a mental note. The sheriff in her insisted that was all she was doing. It didn’t have to mean anything.

“Wyatt swears Bon Jovi’s the smartest horse he’s ever owned,” she said, once the grade leveled and talking didn’t cost either of them as much.

“Wyatt thinks that about everyone who agrees with him.”

That got an actual laugh out of her—short, surprised, gone almost as fast as it arrived. “That’s disturbingly accurate.”

“I’ve had years to think about Wyatt’s personality from a distance. Gives you clarity.”

“Did you think about it a lot? From a distance?”

“More than I expected to.”

She didn’t push on that, even though some part of her wanted to. “Tell me something about him I don’t know. Something from when you two were off being idiots and I wasn’t there to supervise.”

Hudson was quiet for a second, as if he was deciding how much of the file to declassify.

“BUD/S,” he said finally. “Second week. We’re both half-dead from the cold, sleep-deprived, the instructors doing everything they can think of to make us quit.” A small breath that might have been the start of a laugh. “And somehow Wyatt decides the appropriate response to total physical collapse is to start singing.”

“No.”

“Livin’ on a Prayer. Full volume. While we’re doing flutter kicks in surf that wanted to kill us.”

“He did not.”

“He absolutely did. Got the whole class doing it, eventually. Even the instructors couldn’t yell over it properly, they were too busy looking confused.” Hudson shook his head slightly, eyes on the trail, the corner of his mouth doing something that wasn’t quite a smile but close. “Funny, the things you remember. Grown men, hypothermic, half-convinced they’re going to die, screaming Bon Jovi into the Pacific because Wyatt Meyer refused to suffer quietly.”

Sarah laughed, loud enough that Captain’s ears flicked back at her.

“That’s the most Wyatt thing I’ve ever heard, and I grew up with him.”

“I’m guessing that’s how the horse got his name.”

“Obviously.” She didn’t even have to think about it. “Mom banned Bon Jovi from family road trips in 2008.”

They rode another stretch in something that had gone easy between them without her quite tracking when it had happened—Hudson telling another piece of some story she’d never have gotten otherwise, her laughing again, smaller this time but real. The cold, the case, and everything waiting at the end of this trail somehow wasn’t as loud as it had been an hour ago.

She’d been relaxed around him for twenty minutes straight.

This was comfortable. And comfortable was so much more dangerous than wanting, because wanting she knew how to survive. She’d done it for fifteen years on a diet of nothing.

Captain’s hoof skidded briefly on hidden ice. Hudson’s head came around before the horse had fully recovered. “You okay?”

“I’m on a horse, not falling off a cliff.”

His gaze stayed on her for another second. “Sure.”

She straightened in the saddle. Pulled her voice back into something more level. “How much further to the turn?”

Hudson glanced at her, and whatever he saw in her face, he let it go without comment.

“Quarter mile, if Nora’s directions hold.”

“Good.”

The fishing cabin finally came into view through a break in the spruce—small, weathered, smokeless, a structure that looked like it had been built to be forgotten about for most of the year. The lake was frozen and smooth, visible beyond it.

Hudson slowed, scanning the approach. The man she’d spent the last hour laughing with disappeared somewhere behind his eyes.

“Did you ever think you’d come back here?” she asked. “Aurora Cove. Any of it.”

Hudson looked ahead for a second too long, avoiding eye contact. “No.”

Just that. No elaboration or softening, nothing that invited a follow-up question. But there was something underneath the word that didn’t sit flush with it—a gap between what he’d said and what she suspected was actually true.

She let it go. For now.

They rode the last stretch toward the cabin in silence, and the morning’s ease folded itself away somewhere behind them, replaced by the more familiar weight of the job.

Which was probably for the best.

Sarah wasn’t entirely sure she would’ve remembered to keep her distance if it had remained.

13

Hudson swung down from the saddle and stood for a second, letting his gaze travel along the ridgeline. Nothing moved, but a feeling lingered anyway.

“Hudson?”

He turned. Sarah was waiting for him at the cabin door, her cheeks pink from the cold.

Aside from their own tracks, the snow around the cabin was undisturbed. No vehicle was concealed behind the woodshed. Nothing moved. His body relaxed exactly one percent.

He joined her and ducked inside. The cabin was one room. Compact kitchenette. A jar of coffee and powdered creamer on the counter. Single bed. An armchair angled toward the lake.

Someone had pinned photographs above the kitchen counter. Fish. More fish. One of Nora holding up a trout nearly as long as her arm, laughing so hard the photograph had caught her with her eyes closed.

Hudson touched the edge of the photograph. She looked happy.

He opened the stove door and pressed two fingers to the ashes. Cold. He exhaled and turned, facing the bunk neatly made with green wool blankets. No blood or signs of struggle. No sign Cord had left in a hurry or unwillingly.

Just gone. Same as everywhere else.

“Anything?” Sarah asked, breath fogging in the cold that had followed them in.

“Notebook. A photograph.” He held up the small leather-bound thing he’d found tucked under the mattress, the photograph slipped inside its back cover like a man hiding something precious in the one place he thought no one would look. Nora again, smiling at the camera, captured in a moment that had nothing to do with lies or false names. “He’s been here recently.” He slipped the photograph carefully back into the notebook.

“But he’s not here now.” Sarah paced the cabin, her flashlight beam glancing off the walls and exposed rafters.

“No.” He turned the notebook over and flicked through it.

Wednesday 0540

Thursday 0330

Friday 2210

“What is it?”

Hudson blew out a breath. “Lists. Times. Distances. Somebody keeping track of something?”

He closed it. “Without context, it could mean anything.”

All this way. And at the end of it, a cabin that held nothing except proof a man had once been happy before his old life caught up with him.

A waste of time.

Except.

He glanced back at Sarah, already turning for the door, hat pulled low against the wind. The sound of her laughing, loud enough that Captain’s ears had flicked back at her. Somewhere between Bon Jovi and Wyatt singing in the Pacific, he’d stopped thinking about the case.

There had only been Sarah.

He pocketed the notebook and joined Sarah outside. The lake lay white and wind-scoured beneath the mountains, the surface unbroken except for long shadows thrown by blue-black spruce.

The ridge rose above it all, dark against the winter sky.

Light slanted off the frozen lake. Walking behind her toward the horses, he let himself have one full second of it. Sarah. The morning. Whatever it had been.

Something flashed high on the ridge. A hard glint where there shouldn’t have been one.

Hudson moved.

The fraction of a second between recognition and consequence.

His shoulder drove into Sarah’s waist and took them both into the snow. A round punched into the snow where she’d been standing. A beat later, the report cracked across the lake, its echo reverberating back off the mountains, deafening and strange in the cold air. He rolled them behind a frozen rise.

Sarah went taut under him, twisting and reaching for her gun.

“Stay down. Don’t look up.” His voice dropped to a register not quite his own—the old one, the one that belonged to rooms he didn’t talk about. He had her covered, his weight over her, already checking the tree line below the ridge for a second muzzle flash.

Wind left to right. No follow-up movement. The shooter hadn’t relocated.

“I’m not going anywhere, but I can shoot from down here as well as you can.” Her voice was muffled, and her heartbeat hammered against his forearm.

The second shot struck closer. Snow kicked up four feet to their left.

The horses screamed. Captain reared, jerking his lead rope taut, and Bon Jovi went sideways in a panic. The ties gave, and both animals broke for the tree line at a dead run, stirrups flapping.

“Hudson—”

“I see it.” He couldn’t move off her until he understood the angle, the distance, and what kind of shooter could put two rounds that close without hitting either of them.

“Talk to me, Hudson.”

“North ridge.”

“One shooter?”

“I think so.”

She wriggled under him. “You think or you know?”

His gaze swept the tree line again. “One firing point doesn’t mean one shooter.” His eyes kept moving, searching for the spotter he hoped wasn’t there. One rifle and one glint didn’t mean only one set of eyes.

“Okay. What’s the angle?”

“Long shot. Six hundred yards plus.”

“Which means?”

“Which means if he’s that far out and still landing rounds this close, he’s good.”

Trained. No lucky bastard or local yokel with a hunting rifle.

The horses were gone. Sarah’s gaze flicked toward where they’d disappeared.

“East of here, there’s an old avalanche gully,” she said. “No cover getting there, but the bank will break his line of sight once we’re inside it.”

Hudson followed her line of sight. “I see it.”

“It’s sixty yards. Maybe less. Can we reach it before he reacquires us?”

“If he already has our range? No. But that’s good.”

Sarah turned her head. “Good, Hudson?”

“If he wanted us dead, we’d probably already be dead.”

Even though snow had worked its way into her collar, her gun was ready in her hand, her eyes entirely unafraid. It should have reassured him. Instead, he wanted to move her somewhere bullets couldn’t reach.

“We need to move.”

“Okay.” She tensed underneath him.

Assessment burned through his brain. The shooter. Distance. No horses. Limited cover. Cold.

Sarah.

Whatever happened next, it wasn’t reaching her without going through him first.

14

Snow had worked its way down the back of Sarah’s collar.

She barely noticed.

Hudson was on top of her.

Every inch of him was controlled as he braced on his arms to keep his weight off her while still covering her. His breath brushed warm against her cheek in the freezing air, too close to ignore, while his heartbeat thudded steadily through the layers between them. Her brain cataloged every point of contact with the same ruthless precision it should have been applying to the ridge.

She wished it hadn’t.

His shoulder blocked her view, his head already turning past hers, searching for the threat.

For a fraction of a second, their eyes met. His smoky blue. Dark at the edges. She blinked, as if that might reset the distance.

“You okay?”

“Fine.” She shrugged against his body, firming her grip on her handgun, then twisted out from under him. She rolled and came up on her elbows, sightline clear, gun up. “He’s not shooting.”

Hudson’s eyes never left the tree line. “No.”

“He’s waiting for us to break cover.” She’d spent a career reading exactly this. “No third shot. He wants us to run somewhere he can see.”

“Or he’s already moving.” Hudson’s gaze swept the ridge once, twice. “Repositioning while we’re pinned down arguing about it.”

“We’re not arguing.”

“We’re about to.”

He wasn’t wrong. But an animal certainty had taken hold: the longer they stayed flat in the snow, the more ground whoever was up there gained. She started to push up onto her feet.

His hand closed around her sleeve. “Thirty seconds.”

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

“I hate it when men say that.”

“He’s watching for movement. Give him thirty seconds of nothing and he starts to wonder if he hit something he didn’t mean to.”

“I’m not lying here while he gets away.”

“I know.” Something showed in his face that wasn’t quite a smile, even now. “Give me thirty seconds. Then fight me.”

She held his eyes for one full breath, weighing it, and then she stayed down.

The wait stretched.

She counted his breathing without meaning to, the measured rise and fall of his chest a foot from her own. Her body matched it because it was the only steady thing in a world tilted sideways. She deliberately changed her count, putting an inch of distance between whatever that had been and whatever came next.

Her hands shook with adrenaline that had nowhere left to go now that the immediate danger had gone still. She pressed her palm flatter against the grip of her gun and willed the shaking to stop.

“Time,” he said.

His eyes swept the ridge one last time. The drifted snow below the crest. As if he expected the mountain to give something away.

Then he nodded. “Now.”

His hand fisted in the heavy fabric between her shoulder blades and hauled her into a crouch. By the time she found her footing, he’d already shifted himself between her and the ridge. His hand dropped away immediately.

The mouth of the avalanche gully was sixty yards away. They reached it in tandem, the terrain rising around them until the ridge disappeared from view.

Hudson never looked at her while they ran. His attention remained locked on the ridge above, scanning it with the same intensity as a tracker reading fresh snow.

Whatever he was looking for, she couldn’t see it.

Finally out of sight, Sarah’s legs burned, cold air dragging sharp into her lungs. They didn’t speak again until the gully bent north and the ridge disappeared entirely behind a shoulder of rock.

“We’re not running,” Sarah said, catching her breath against the stone. “We’re going up.”

Hudson looked at her. “You want to find where he was.”

“I want to know who he was.” She straightened, pointed with her chin at the higher ground, the long spine of rock that ran up toward where the muzzle flash had come from. “That’s the only position with a clean line to the cabin door. I’d put money on it.”

Hudson glanced toward the ridge, then back to her. “You already worked the angle.”

“Yeah.”

He gestured toward the climb. “Lead on.”

He fell in behind her without another word.

Sarah picked her way up the rock, using the scrub spruce for balance where the snow had iced over the stone. Behind her, Hudson drew measured breaths. There it was again. The careful breathing she’d noticed on the boat. Whatever it was, he was hiding it well, just not all the time.

The climb steepened for the last twenty yards. Sarah planted a gloved hand against the rock and pulled herself over the lip of the ridge.

Nothing.

Just wind, scattered saplings and snow stretched white across the shelf beyond.

“Wait.” His hand clamped her shoulder. He wasn’t looking at the ridge anymore. He was studying the snow.

“What’s wrong?”

He pointed to a stretch of snow a few feet ahead. At first, she saw nothing. Just wind-packed drifts and exposed rock.

Then it clicked. One section lay flatter than the rest. Compressed.

Hudson crouched without disturbing it. “He backed out over his own footprints.”

Sarah stepped around behind him, careful now, seeing what he’d seen. The disturbed snow ran in a long, narrow rectangle tucked behind the shelter of the rocks, protected from the worst of the wind.

Someone had lain here.

Hudson pointed to the uphill end. “Prone here.”

He slowly turned his head back toward where they’d come from, following the shooter’s view. Sarah lifted her head and followed the sightline.

He wasn’t just investigating the scene. He was standing inside someone else’s plan. The cabin sat below them across the frozen lake, insignificant against the white. From here the front door wasn’t just visible.

It was perfect.

“Snow’s compressed in two evenly spaced spots.” Sarah crouched beside the marks, her fingers hovering over them.

“Bipod.” Hudson’s eyes narrowed. “Legs set, weapon stable. He wasn’t improvising a rest off a rock. He brought the right gear and knew exactly how to use it.”

“And he arrived before we did.” Sarah studied the depth of the body impression, the faint crust where his warmth had melted the snow and allowed it to refreeze. “He was here for a while. This wasn’t someone who got lucky finding us. The position was prepared in advance.”

She rocked back on her heels and let the thought land. What the hell was going on here?

“He knew exactly where we’d stop.” Hudson’s eyes tracked down to the cabin below. “This was never chance.”

Cold cinched around Sarah’s ribs as she pushed to standing and scanned the ledge.

Casings.

She found them three feet to the right of the prone position, ejected clean and left without ceremony. She photographed them where they lay, then picked one up by the rim with her gloved fingers.

“Not what most hunters around here carry for moose,” she said. “And nobody lies up on a ridge watching a fishing cabin for deer.”

Hudson took it and held it up to the light as if he was fitting one piece of a larger picture into place. “Six-five Creedmoor.”

“Creedmoor?”

“Flat-shooting. Good ballistic performance at a distance. Popular with precision shooters.” He rotated it, examining the headstamp. “The casing alone doesn’t prove anything. The firing position, the bipod, and two rounds landing that close from this distance do.”

He handed it back to her. “This wasn’t some amateur throwing rounds near us to make noise. Whoever fired could have ended it and chose not to.”

A message, then. A warning delivered by a man patient and skilled enough to ensure either of them would be dead if that had been his intention.

Sarah looked back down the slope at the cabin, small and pale against the white.

The ride in. The search. Hudson making her laugh. The two of them walking out of the cabin together. All of it watched through a scope and then the shooter had opened fire.

Sarah closed her hand around the casing until the brass bit through her glove.

Whoever this was hadn’t just been watching Cord.

He’d been waiting for them.

15

The evidence bag containing the casings rode heavy in Hudson’s jacket pocket as they descended the ridge.

His mind kept reconstructing the engagement as he picked his way down through tangled bushes, snow sliding loose at the side of his boots.

Two rounds.

One measured correction, then nothing. No follow-up and no attempt to exploit their movement. A shooter at that distance with that level of skill didn’t miss twice by accident. Whoever had lain on that ridge hadn’t been guarding Cord’s hiding place. The shots hadn’t said stay away from the cabin.

They’d said stop looking beyond it.

It was good tradecraft. Hudson almost respected it. Whoever had planned this understood investigations. Give law enforcement one obvious answer and they’d spend hours proving it wrong before asking what had disappeared while they were busy.

“You good?” Sarah threw the question over her shoulder as she navigated a steep section.

“Fine.”

She hadn’t guessed, she’d seen the firing lane before he had. He didn’t examine that too closely. Didn’t trust himself to, not yet, not with the adrenaline still singing in his blood.

He spotted Captain first—a dark shape against the white birch trunks, head high, blowing hard enough that the breath came off him in short, furious clouds. The horse’s hooves had churned the snow into a ragged circle, the lead trailing loose and chewed-looking where it had caught on a low branch.

Bon Jovi was worse. He’d wedged himself sideways against the same stand of birch, eyes white-rimmed, dancing left and right as if the ground itself might still be the enemy. His lead had nearly slipped free of the branch it had snagged on. One more good pull and he’d be gone entirely.

Hudson reached for Captain’s lead.

“Don’t.” Sarah touched his elbow.

When he stopped, she didn’t grab for the lead. Hands loose at her sides, voice low and even, she waited.

Captain’s ears swiveled toward her. The stamping slowed. After a long moment, the horse took one step, then another, until his nose was pressed into her open palm and his breathing had dropped back to something steady.

This was how she worked. No grabbing or forcing. Just patience and the quiet certainty that whatever she was waiting for would come to her on its own terms, if she gave it enough room. He looked away before the thought found somewhere else to go.

Working with Sarah felt unfamiliar. He wasn’t carrying her. He was thinking with her.

Neither of them said much on the ride back. Hudson let Bon Jovi choose the trail. His attention remained elsewhere. The timber to the west. The open ground behind them. The ridge they’d just left, shrinking between the trees. Old habits. Some things would never leave him.

The cold sank deeper into his jacket now that the adrenaline had finally burned through and left nothing behind but tired muscles and the dull ache where his lungs had worked harder than he wanted to admit.

He didn’t need to fill the quiet. There wasn’t much left to say, and Sarah seemed to feel the same, riding a horse length ahead of him with her hat pulled low, her shoulders finally loose.

Bon Jovi edged closer to Captain until the two horses walked almost shoulder to shoulder. Sarah glanced over at him and gave him a tired smile. He let Bon Jovi walk where he was.

The stable was dim when they got back, the last of the light coming gold and low through the open door. Sarah dismounted and led Captain inside. Hudson swung down and followed with Bon Jovi, hooves loud on the wooden boards, the day finally catching up with both of them.

Sarah went straight to Captain’s side, already reaching for the girth as though her hands needed something to do.

Hudson caught the girth before she loosened it. “Give him a minute.”

She looked up at him.

“He’s still keyed up,” Hudson said. “Give him a minute before you ask anything else of him.”

Captain stamped once, as if in agreement.

Sarah straightened, considering the horse and him. She didn’t argue. They waited together until Captain calmed and his ears stopped flicking at every small sound. Only then did Hudson reach past her and loosen the girth himself with the same patience she’d used on the trail.

“You’re good with him,” she said.

“I had a good teacher.” He didn’t look up from the buckle. “Bossy, though.”

That got the smallest huff of something almost like a laugh out of her. They worked in comfortable quiet after that—blankets, brushes, the soft, ordinary business of putting two animals away for the night.

But his attention kept sliding to Sarah, and he brushed the same patch of Bon Jovi’s shoulder three times before he noticed. The line of her shoulders had eased, snow still melting in pale tracks through her hair where her hat had slipped. He hadn’t seen her this relaxed all day.

He’d stopped thinking of Sarah Meyer as Wyatt’s little sister.

It wasn’t a revelation. It was an admission.

He’d stopped comparing her to the girl she’d been. The woman in front of him required no comparison at all.

She bent to brush the last of the snow from Bon Jovi’s flank and muttered something dry about the playlist needing an update after a day like this.

Hudson laughed, and she looked up at the sound.

Bon Jovi shifted his weight. Leather creaked softly somewhere behind him. Dust whirled gold in the last of the light.

She stepped around Bon Jovi’s shoulder at the same moment Hudson did. One moment there had been comfortable space between them. The next it had narrowed to a breath.

Sarah’s eyes lifted to his, and his heart leaped.

He had the absurd certainty that if either of them spoke, the moment would break.

A lock of hair lay against her cheek, damp with melted snow.

His hand lifted to brush it away.

Stopped.

He wanted her too much to make the touch casual.

He let his hand fall.

Sarah’s breath hitched, and she stepped back. She looked down at the brush still in her hand as though she’d forgotten why she’d picked it up in the first place. She gave a small shake of her head, almost to herself. “Good night, Hudson.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She set the brush on the rail, gathered her jacket tighter around herself, and walked out into the dark toward her truck and didn’t look back.

Everything in him wanted to follow. But he stayed where he was and let her go. Fifteen years ago he’d walked away because he’d believed leaving was the kindest thing he could do. Rushing her now would only prove he hadn’t learned a damn thing.

Maybe she’d stepped away because she wanted to. Maybe because she needed to.

Either way, Sarah got to choose what happened next.

Bon Jovi shoved him hard enough to make him stumble. Hudson caught himself against the stall rail. Bon Jovi nosed him and exhaled a long, gusty sigh into his palm.

Hudson looked toward the empty stable door. “That obvious, huh?”

16

Early the next morning, Sarah frowned at the second mug.

She lived alone.

She stared at it for a second longer than made sense before sliding it back into the cupboard. “Ridiculous.”

She hadn't slept well, that was all. After yesterday, Walter had insisted on regular patrol sweeps past her house. Every time a cruiser rolled by she'd woken, listened until the sound faded, then eventually drifted back to sleep.

I’m just tired.

She poured the coffee, spooned sugar, and sat down at the kitchen table. She wrapped both hands around it more out of habit than any need for the warmth. Her thumb moved along the rim absently. The heat pulled her somewhere she didn’t want to go.

His breath against her cheek in the freezing air. The solid weight of his body on hers.

Her face went hot.

No.

She set the mug down and reached for the reports stacked at the corner of the table. She flipped the top report open with more force than a dog-complaint file strictly required.

Sheriff first.

She read the same line three times without absorbing a word of it.

His hand had almost touched her.

Jesus.

She made herself read the line a fourth time. Got two words further before her brain slid sideways again. The difficult part hadn’t been stepping back. It had been wanting to stay.

She closed the report and picked up the next one.

Fence dispute. The ordinary machinery of other people’s lives. None of the words would stay still long enough to mean anything. She rubbed the skin between her eyes. Concentrate.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang. She picked it up with relief. Walter’s name flashed on the screen.

“Walter?”

“Sheriff.” His voice had none of its usual dry edge. “You need to get to the hospital.”

Her hand tightened as she glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even seven yet. “Who’s hurt?”

Walter gave a shaky exhale. “Petey.”

Petey, who’d known her since she was twelve years old chasing minnows off his dock and who’d never once forgotten to wave when she saw him in town. Petey, who’d told them without knowing it mattered that Jake Mercer had worked there.

“How bad?” She was already moving, reaching for her jacket with the phone wedged against her ear.

“Bad enough. Conscious. Talking, last I heard.” Walter exhaled hard down the line. “Fishermen found him around five.”

She drove faster than the road allowed and didn’t care, the sleety morning streaking past the windows, her mind running the same loop over and over.

They’d gone to the cannery. They’d asked questions. Petey had answered them, and now he was in a hospital bed because of it.

We stirred something up.

Somewhere around the turn onto Main, her mind reached for the last uncomplicated moment she’d had.

Hudson laughing. The sweet scent of hay. Bon Jovi trying to eat his sleeve.

“Seriously?” she muttered to herself.

The hospital came up on her right, lit harsh against the gray morning, and she swung into the lot too fast, parked at an angle that wasn’t quite straight and didn’t bother fixing it. Her boots hit the sidewalk already moving. The cold bit at her face for the four seconds it took to reach the doors, dragging her back into the version of herself this morning required.

By the time the doors slid closed behind her, she’d left the stables behind her in the parking lot, where it belonged.

Sterile air wrapped around her, carrying the dry heat of overworked radiators and the faint smell of disinfectant. A monitor chimed somewhere beyond the treatment corridor. Sarah barely registered it. Waiting room. Two nurses chatting. Walter was easy to spot at the reception desk.

She headed toward him automatically.

Halfway there, she realized she was still searching the room.

Hudson.

Of course he was here. The certainty of the thought caught her off guard.

He was leaning against the far wall, arms folded, talking to one of the nurses. When he saw her, he broke away immediately. His expression changed the instant he saw her.

Some small, clenched part of her released. It lasted less than a second, but it annoyed her that the morning felt fractionally less impossible.

“You’re up early,” she said, instead of what she was really thinking.

His dark hair looked as though he’d pushed a hand through it more than once that morning. “So are you. Owen called. I came straight over. Word travels fast through federal channels when something happens near an active case. How is he?”

“About to find out.”

Hudson nodded. “All right.”

Nothing more. No promise that Petey would be fine. He fell into step beside her as though there had never been any question.

17

Hudson was behind Sarah when they reached Petey’s room.

She slowed and turned to Walter. “Give us five minutes.”

He nodded and positioned himself next to the door. “I’ll be right here.”

Before she went in, she stilled for the smallest fraction of a second. A transition, the visible work of a woman putting something down. The woman from the stables slipping away behind the badge.

Hudson didn’t say anything about it, but he respected the hell out of watching her do it.

He opened the door, sweeping the room before Sarah crossed the threshold. Nurse. Window latched. Bathroom door open. No blind corners.

He stepped aside. “Clear.”

She raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t remark on it as she walked in.

Petey was propped up against a stack of pillows that didn’t suit him at all, one eye swollen dark purple and nearly shut. His right arm was in a cast from wrist to elbow, the hospital gown doing nothing to disguise how much smaller he looked than he had on the cannery dock. His feet stuck out from the bottom of the sheet, wearing disposable hospital socks that looked ridiculous on a man who wore steel-toed boots. A nurse was adjusting his IV line.

“There they are.” Petey’s voice came out rough but unmistakably his own. “Took you long enough.”

“Petey.” Sarah crossed to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a truck that turned out to be a person.” He shifted, winced and tried to sit up further.

The nurse put a hand on his good shoulder without even looking up from the line she was checking. “I told you to stay flat.”

He frowned at her. “I’ve been flat for two hours. I’ve got pipes that need draining before the freeze sets in proper, and I’m lying here like a⁠—”

“Petey,” Sarah said again, gentler this time, “the pipes can wait.”

“That’s what Seattle said about the sump pump, and look how that turned out.”

The nurse clicked her tongue but smiled at Sarah. “Five minutes only. He needs to rest.” The thin hospital curtain whispered along its track behind her as she left.

Hudson stepped aside to let her past, then remained by the door, giving Sarah space.

“Did anyone check the cannery doors?” Petey said. “East entrance sticks if you don’t lock it right. Anybody could walk through there tonight and I wouldn’t know it from in here.”

Hudson’s stomach tightened. Petey thought he was talking about pipes. But this sounded like a man worrying that he’d left his home undefended.

“Walter’s got someone out there now,” Sarah said. “Tell me what happened.”

Petey’s good hand found the edge of the blanket and gripped it. “Working the south line,” he said. “Late. Past dark, probably should’ve called it a day, but the freeze doesn’t wait for anybody’s schedule.” His jaw worked. “Heard something behind me. Figured it was just the building complaining.” He shook his head and cradled his cast against his chest. “Wasn’t the building.”

“Did you see him?”

“No.” Petey’s voice dropped, frustration bleeding through the pain. “Hit me before I turned around proper. Floor came up at me different than I expected, and that’s the last thing I remember clear.”

“Anything,” Sarah said. “Size, voice, anything at all.”

Petey was quiet for a second. “He smelled funny.”

Sarah looked up from her pad, where she’d been scribbling notes. “Funny how?”

Hudson’s head came up. “Describe it.”

“Like machine oil. Not the stuff I use on the lines.”

“Could’ve been gun oil.”

Both of them looked at Hudson.

“Oil used to clean and lubricate firearms. Some have a distinctive smell if you’ve spent enough time around them.” Hudson kept his voice level, even though something in his chest had gone cold and certain the second the word left Petey’s mouth.

“Hmm.” Petey squinted at him with his one good eye. “Yeah, now that you say that. My friend Dan Tate runs the range out at Spruce Hollow. Same smell.” He looked between Hudson and Sarah, something working behind the bruising. “You two always work each other’s interviews like this?”

“No.” Sarah’s eyes flicked to Hudson’s and then away again.

“No.” Hudson shook his head a little too quickly.

“Mm.” Petey’s mouth did something that might have been the start of a smile if his face had been willing to cooperate with it.

“Did he say anything?” Hudson asked. “Anything at all, before or after?”

“Nothing I caught.” Petey shifted against the pillows, wincing. “Maybe a breath. Maybe nothing.”

“How tall would you guess?” Sarah asked. “Relative to you, even roughly.”

“Taller. Not by much. Hard to say lying on the floor facedown.”

Hudson had more questions. None that belonged in a hospital room. He crossed to the window. Petey’s room overlooked the parking lot. Hudson let his gaze drift from the ambulance bay to the fire escape, then across the scattered cars. Too many places for someone patient to wait. Would they come after Petey again?

Sarah didn’t comment. She stood with one hand tucked into the pocket of her jacket, pen forgotten in the other, waiting Petey out with patience that looked effortless. Hudson wasn’t sure when he’d started finding that distracting.

“Petey,” she said finally. “We’re going to find whoever did this.”

“I know you are.” Petey’s good hand patted the blanket once, decisive. “Now if you two are done interviewing me, somebody needs to check the east platform before the pipes freeze solid. I mean it.”

“Petey—”

“Priorities, Sheriff. Nobody in this place understands drainage.”

She gave him a look that had no real heat behind it, and Petey gave it right back, undiminished by the cast or the black eye. The old man would be fine. He was ornery enough, stubborn and too busy worrying about pipes to spend much time being afraid. That didn’t make any of it easier.

“Get some rest,” Sarah said, softer now. “We’ll come back.”

“Don’t hurry on my account.”

She squeezed his good hand, and then she stepped out into the corridor. Hudson stayed a beat longer, his gaze sweeping the room one last time before he followed her out.

“Walter.”

Her deputy straightened at Sarah’s voice.

“I want a deputy outside this room twenty-four hours a day. Nobody gets in without clearing it through me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Walter pulled out his phone.

Petey’s room door swung shut. The hallway outside felt too bright after the dim of the room, the fluorescent light flat and unforgiving.

“This isn’t on you.” Sarah faced Hudson.

“It is.”

“No, it isn’t, Hudson⁠—”

“Petey didn’t know Cord existed until I walked into town.” He kept his voice even, because the alternative wasn’t something he could afford right now. “He’s lying in there with a broken arm because I needed information and he was generous enough to give it to me.”

Sarah didn’t argue that one.

She didn’t pretend the logic was wrong, just let it exist between them, ugly and true.

Hudson turned it over again. This had a different shape. A different intent. “This isn’t what they were doing before.”

“How so?” Sarah waited.

Hudson looked back at the closed door.

Two warning shots. Then Petey. Different target. Different objective.

“Before, it was containment. Hide Cord, fire two rounds at a long enough distance that nobody dies, but everybody understands the message.” He stared past her down the corridor. “This is somebody walking up behind an old man in the dark and breaking his bones.”

“You think it’s the same people?”

“They hit Petey after we talked to him. Not before.”

Sarah tucked her pen away.

Hudson kept going. “Which means they weren’t cleaning up witnesses.” He met her eyes. “They were watching us. They’ve stopped trying to keep us from looking. Now they’re trying to make sure nobody talks to us again.”

“Steering us?”

He pressed his lips into a line. “Perhaps.”

Sarah’s jaw tightened. Whatever softness she’d carried into Petey’s room disappeared behind the badge again.

“It’s escalating, Sarah. We should go.”

“Back to the cannery?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t ask him to explain. She’d already reached the same conclusion, matching his pace down the corridor. Working beside her shouldn’t have felt this easy, but it was.

They were halfway to the truck before Hudson realized they’d left the hospital without saying goodbye to anyone.

Sarah was already reaching for her keys. He was thinking three moves ahead. Neither of them had asked who was taking the lead.

18

The wind came straight off the water, throwing cold spray over the bow until Sarah tasted salt every time she licked her lips. The crossing was rougher than the last time. She kept one hand light on the wheel and let the boat rise and fall with the chop. Fighting usually ended with the ocean winning.

Hudson stood on the forward deck, one hand resting on the rail. He barely seemed to move with the boat, his balance adjusting so naturally to the swell that he looked less like a passenger than someone the ocean had failed to throw off.

His gaze moved constantly—shoreline, water, headland, back again—as if he’d decided there wasn’t a stretch of open water worth trusting.

You two always finish each other’s interviews? Petey’s bruised face surfaced in her mind with irritating clarity. No. The two of them had answered so quickly they’d sounded rehearsed. She stared at the water ahead. What exactly had they been denying?

Another wave slapped hard against the hull, spraying them both.

“You okay?” she called.

Hudson glanced back. “Fine.”

Morrow Point emerged slowly, revealing itself piece by piece. The dark shoulder of rock, and finally the cannery itself, balanced on its forest of pilings, too stubborn to admit it should have fallen into the water years ago.

The tide had dropped since their last visit, exposing another few feet of weed-darkened timber beneath the building. Gulls picked methodically through the shallows.

Before the hull nudged against the dock, Hudson was scanning the cannery. Not just the building, but everything around it. The loading platform. The gaps beneath. The tree line beyond the shoreline. The upper windows. The roof.

By the time Sarah looped the line around the cleat, he’d looked everywhere except at her.

She finished the knot and straightened. “You’re doing the thing.”

His attention remained on the weathered buildings. “What thing?”

“The one where you stop seeing a place and start cataloging threats.”

A corner of his mouth moved. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”

“Not likely.”

He looked at her then, any humor gone. “Until I tell you otherwise, assume we’re walking into someone’s plan.”

She studied him. Four days ago she’d probably have argued. Today she just nodded. Together they climbed onto the dock.

The cannery enveloped them as completely as it had the first time.

Inside the main processing hall, the wind disappeared, leaving only the slow drip of water somewhere beneath the boards and the hollow echo of their boots on decades-old timber.

Salt. Rust. Old fish. The smell lived so deep in the wood the building would remember it long after the sea reclaimed everything else.

Hudson studied the floor.

“You expecting to find something?” she asked.

“I’d be disappointed if we didn’t.”

She glanced sideways at him. “That’s an optimistic way of looking at attempted murder.”

“It means they made mistakes.”

“And if they didn’t?”

His eyes swept the maze of machinery. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Even professionals?”

“Especially professionals.” His mouth was a taut line.

At first glance, nothing had changed. The conveyors stood silent. The belts hung slack. Thin bands of daylight cut between the wallboards exactly as they had before.

Hudson stopped so abruptly she almost walked into him. He dropped to his knees, his hand hovering over prints pressed into the grime beside a steel support. “Boot prints.”

Sarah joined him. “I see only one.”

“Because you’re only looking at the heel.” He pointed. “There’s another over it.”

One larger, one narrower, overlapping.

“Two men.” He looked past the prints. Then behind her, then toward the loading bay. “At least.”

A clatter sounded beyond the conveyor line. Sarah spun. A man stepped out carrying a box in one gloved hand.

For one suspended second, all three of them stared at one another.

Sarah moved first. “Sheriff’s Department!” Her voice broke the silence. “Stop!”

The man’s eyes flicked from her to Hudson. Then he bolted.

She took off after him. Hudson’s boots hammered the boards just behind her, so close she didn’t have to look.

She cut left through a gap between two silent conveyor lines, ducked beneath a sagging beam and burst into the next aisle. The runner disappeared through the doorway ahead into the packing room.

Hudson peeled away to her right as if he’d read her mind. Cut him off.

She ducked through the maintenance cut she’d been sneaking through since she was a kid. It brought her out behind the silent freezer units and into the covered loading bay. Hudson burst through the main doorway from cold storage on the opposite side a second later. For one stupid, glorious second, she thought they’d trapped him.

The man reached the far end of the loading bay and glanced back at her. He smiled, then vanished through the personnel door onto the exterior walkway, the door swinging shut behind him.

A sharp whistle shrieked through the cannery.

What?

To her right, every trace of ease disappeared from Hudson’s posture.

“Loading bay!” a man shouted.

Another voice answered from the mezzanine above the loading gates. “I’ve got movement.” Boots struck the narrow catwalk. Several pairs. Voices shouted from opposite directions, bouncing around the empty building until she couldn’t tell where anyone actually was.

“Sarah.” Hudson’s hand closed on her wrist. “They baited us.”

A door slammed somewhere behind them.

“Too many.” He tugged her back, retreating into cold storage. “Here.” A narrow maintenance void behind the old refrigeration units. Little more than a slit between the steel housing and the timber wall, lost in shadow.

He was guiding her toward it when his hand shot out and caught the metal waist buckle swinging from her jacket, a second from striking the steel housing beside them.

By the time she registered the danger, Hudson had trapped it in his fist. He angled his body into the gap first, checking the space and nudging a loose scrap of metal out of their path before drawing her in after him.

There wasn’t room to turn around.

Her back hit freezing metal. Hudson’s chest was against hers. His arm braced around her, pinning both of them into the only space the cannery had left to offer. Every breath he took moved through the solid press of his chest against her. Every breath she released came back warm between them. Even wedged into this impossible space, he made room for her to breathe, even if she suspected the control cost him.

She was absurdly aware of him. The solidity of his frame. The steady expansion of his chest beneath her cheek. He was the only solid thing in a building full of moving shadows and converging voices, his presence keeping the urgency in her chest from becoming something louder.

Outside, the building had dissolved into voices and footsteps. Inside the gap, there was only Hudson and his unwavering presence.

A voice, gruff and terse, passed within feet of where they stood—close enough that every cell in her body screamed to move, to do something, anything other than stand here and wait to be discovered.

Hudson’s hand gave a gentle squeeze around her wrist. I’m here.

The footsteps stopped. Sarah held her breath. Somewhere above her an old beam creaked. Dust drifted lazily through the strip of light beyond their hiding place.

Then the footsteps started again, moving on, fading toward the far end of the floor, and Sarah released the breath.

Hudson didn’t relax. His head dipped until his mouth was almost against her ear. “When I move, you stay on me.”

She didn’t argue.

Following him felt like the safest thing she’d done all day.

19

Hudson tried to count the seconds instead of breathing her in.

It wasn’t going well.

She smelled of fresh air and clean soap. He was uselessly aware of exactly how well they fit into a space built for one person standing sideways.

Focus.

Except her hair had come loose and was brushing his jaw every time she breathed.

Christ.

He shifted his weight a half-inch back, the only retreat the gap allowed. When the footsteps finally faded for good, he counted another twenty seconds before he trusted his own judgment again.

Hudson eased out of the gap first, listening.

Nothing.

A gust of air whispered through the refrigeration vents behind him. Somewhere deeper in the cannery an old beam settled with a creak. A soft noise made him turn.

Sarah was stepping out after him, weapon raised, her grip white-knuckled.

“You hurt?”

“Seriously?” She stared at him.

“That’s not an answer.”

She made an exaggerated show of patting herself down. Arms. Torso. Legs. “No unexpected holes.”

“Good.”

She huffed a breath, but didn’t say anything else.

He surveyed the room again. Thirty seconds pressed against her hadn’t persuaded the protective part of him to stand down. His shoulder brushed hers as they turned in a slow circle together, checking every angle.

For now, they were alone. The cold storage room was exactly as it had been ten minutes ago. The voices that had filled it were gone.

“I hate hiding,” Sarah muttered.

“I noticed. Count to thirty.”

Thirty wasn’t magic. It was just long enough for impatient men to believe they’d won. Patient men were harder. Professional men were harder still. He hoped these weren’t professional men pretending to be impatient.

They counted in silence, weapons still raised. No footsteps or voices. No second whistle. He was about to say they could move when the boom of an engine revving broke the silence.

It came from somewhere on the building’s north side, opposite the dock. He held perfectly still and let the sound tell him what his eyes couldn’t. Throttle opening, fast and confident. The hull slapping hard against chop a beat later—small craft, low in the water, moving at speed. The engine note shifted as it came about, swinging wide, heading away from the point.

“There’s a shelf on the north side past the old fuel dock,” Sarah said. “You could scramble a small craft up against it if you didn’t care about the hull.”

The engine note faded, consumed by distance and wind, until there was nothing left but the ordinary sound of water against pilings.

One boat. If there was a second, it was silent and he hated silent variables.

Hudson lowered his weapon a fraction, still not fully convinced. “One more sweep.”

“Agreed.”

They moved together out of cold storage, through the short passage and packing room, then back into the main processing hall, checking every corner. No second wave of footsteps, no voices, just the cannery. Every meaningless creak and murmur still made his pulse spike.

Hudson stopped so suddenly Sarah swore under her breath.

She followed his gaze. “What?”

He listened another second. Then shook his head. “Echo.” He kept walking.

Sarah followed him, sweeping her gun. “We should’ve had him.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it was loaded with frustration. He got that.

“We should’ve walked into six rifles?”

“You don’t know there were six.”

“I heard multiple voices coming from at least six positions.” He drew in a slow breath. His lungs wanted more air than he was willing to give them.

She drew level with him. “Six doesn’t automatically beat two.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Her eyebrows arched.

“Best case? We take them down.”

She threw a look in his direction. “Worst case?”

“We clear the cannery, still don’t find Cord, and one of us doesn’t walk back out.”

“It’s not right.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. She picked her way around a fallen pallet with careful steps. “You think they got what they came for?”

“I think they came to check whether we’d found anything important and we disturbed them.”

“They’re in my jurisdiction.”

Hudson remained silent. She wasn’t really talking to him. She was talking to the helplessness. He understood that language better than he wished he did.

“They beat up Petey, and his only crime was worrying about his damn sump pump. And now they’re just gone.”

“Yes.”

She stopped and turned to face him. “You don’t have anything else to say?”

“Plenty.”

Her eyes widened.

He shook his head. “None of it changes the facts.” He sighed. “Winning the gunfight isn’t the same as winning the mission.”

Her chin lifted. “I still don’t have to like it.”

“No.” He tilted his head in agreement.

“I’d still have gone.”

“I know.”

“Would you have stopped me?”

“Yes.”

She looked at him askance, the corner of her mouth threatening to betray her.

They reached the entrance door and stepped out into the afternoon light, the cold sharper out here than inside, a fresh breeze cleansing the stink of fish from his nostrils. Their boat was still tied to the dock exactly where they’d left it.

Shit.

The angle was off, the stern riding lower in the water than it should.

Sarah hurried past him along the dock and dropped to her knees beside the transom before he’d fully processed what he was seeing. He let her go. Boats were her territory, ambushes were his.

While she checked the damage, he turned his attention outward to the shoreline, pilings, and then up to the roof. A sabotaged boat was exactly the type of problem designed to make people stop looking for the next one.

Satisfied there was no immediate threat, he rejoined Sarah. She was running her fingers along the hull below the waterline. She leaned over and peered through the open hatch toward the bilge. Her jaw tightened.

“Drain plug’s gone.” She straightened, already moving to check the fuel line. “And this.” She held up a length of severed rubber tubing, the cut clean and deliberate. “Fuel line’s cut.” She reached for the marine radio. A glance beneath the console confirmed it. “They cut the radio cable too. They didn’t want us limping anywhere or calling for help.”

Hands on knees, she pushed back up to standing. She shoved her hat back and dragged a hand through her hair, breath whistling out of her with force. “I hate losing.”

“Me too.”

Especially when someone else paid the bill. Petey. The ridge. Now this. Every step closer to Cord seemed to have a cost.

“How far back to anywhere?” he asked.

“The track meets an old logging road six miles inland.” Her eyes narrowed as she assessed the already fading light. “We’ll make it before full dark if we walk fast. From there it’s another two miles before we’ll get a signal worth trusting.”

Six miles with the temperature dropping. Another two before they could call for help. His lungs objected before the rest of him did. None of that changed his answer. “Then we keep moving.”

Sarah looked at him as if she’d expected a debate about waiting for rescue or trying the radio one more time.

But there wasn’t one to have.

They moved fast through what was left of the afternoon light, packing only essentials—water, the first aid kit from the boat’s dry box, her radio even though it didn’t work out here, his weapon checked and ready. He took the pack from her and hefted it over his shoulder.

As they left, Hudson looked back at the cannery, at the shadows beneath the windows. That’s where he’d have hidden. But the shadows were motionless, revealing nothing.

He fell into step beside her as they climbed into the trees, keeping himself on the exposed side of the track. His left shoulder toward the forest. His right toward Sarah.

Habit.

If someone opened fire, he’d rather they found him first.

The path climbed away from the point through stands of black spruce, the light going early and blue, the cold deepening with every step. Six miles. Uphill. Cold that would strip heat out of a body, one careful breath at a time.

His lungs would complain long before Sarah knew they had reason to.

He intended to keep it that way.

20

Hudson had spent the last hour pretending the silence didn’t matter.

He counted steps and measured the rhythm of his breathing. The wilderness unwound through the spruce ahead of them, while the cold burrowed deeper into his lungs with every mile.

It worked until it didn’t.

The quiet had been easy for the first hour. Tired. Silence earned by two people surviving something together. Then Sarah stopped talking entirely, and the quiet felt like something she was deciding whether to break.

She walked a stride ahead of him, hands deep in her jacket pockets, breath fogging steady and even. He counted the minutes without meaning to, hands and brain needing somewhere to put themselves when the rest of him wanted to be doing something else.

The faint path had narrowed until there was nowhere left to look except ahead.

Or at her.

“Back at the diner.” She didn’t turn around. “You said you should have caught him the first time.”

He didn’t speak.

“Then you told me to forget it.”

His stomach dropped, but there was nowhere to grab onto. “I remember.”

She tramped on a few steps, snow compressing beneath her boots.

For three strides neither of them said anything else, and he thought, with relief, that maybe that would suffice.

“Why did you kiss me, Hudson?” She still didn’t turn. “If you were just going to disappear the next morning.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He’d rehearsed this conversation a thousand times, and every version ended before this question.

“It was a long time ago,” he finally said.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Sarah—”

“I’ve waited fifteen years to ask it properly.” Now she turned, walking backward a few steps so she faced him, her expression unreadable in the dark. “You don’t get to say it was a long time ago.”

He came to a halt.

She stopped too, a few feet ahead, watching him with the patience of someone who had genuinely waited fifteen years and decided she’d wait a little longer if that’s what it took.

He looked past her, into the black between the trees, as if the answer might be easier to find out there than inside his own heart. “I told myself I was protecting you.”

“From what?”

He looked away. “From me.” He kicked snow with his boot, unable to meet her eyes. “You weren’t just Wyatt’s little sister anymore.” He swallowed against the thickness in his throat. “You weren’t just the kid hanging around the docks.” His laugh was almost painful.

“I don’t know exactly when. I just knew that night I looked at you and you weren’t her anymore. You were just⁠—”

Sarah waited, breath fogging, eyes locked on him so it was impossible to look anywhere else.

“You were just Sarah,” he said. “I’d been trying not to kiss you for months.”

He looked at the snow. “I stopped standing too close. Stopped touching you. Started leaving whenever you walked into a room.” He blew out a noisy breath. “None of it helped. And then I kissed you before I let myself think about whether I had any right to.”

She didn’t say anything yet, so he carried on.

“I lay awake all night trying to convince myself it couldn’t happen again.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “I was leaving for BUD/S. After that—teams. Deployments. Months I couldn’t explain. Places I couldn’t talk about.” He looked away. “I knew what that life did to people waiting at home. And I knew I might come back different. If I came back.”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“I wasn’t going to ask an eighteen-year-old to build her life around that, especially after I saw you cry.”

Sarah blinked. “You saw me crying?”

“After I kissed you.” His voice almost disappeared. “I sat in my truck halfway down the road. I couldn’t drive.”

Sarah’s hands had come out of her pockets. She wasn’t doing anything with them. Just holding them slightly away from her body, as if she needed somewhere for the tension to go.

“So you just—” She stopped. Tried again. “You decided that. For both of us. And then you left, and you never told me any of it, and you let me think—” She sniffed, her eyes bright. “I thought you regretted kissing me. You let me think I wasn’t enough.” Her voice had gone tight and controlled.

Fifteen years. All this time he’d thought he’d taken the hurt with him. He hadn’t. He’d just handed her a different burden to carry.

His body moved before his brain did.

One step.

He stopped himself. She didn’t need comforting from the man who’d caused it.

“Fifteen years, Hudson. I built an entire version of myself around not being enough for you. And the whole time you were what—protecting me from yourself?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know what the worst part is?”

He couldn’t answer. His throat ached too much.

“I might have waited. Maybe not fifteen years.” She gave a sad laugh. “But you never even let me choose.”

She turned away from him, just for a second, looking off into the trees the same way he had a minute ago, as if there might be an answer out there she could borrow.

“I thought I drove you off,” she said, quieter now, mostly to the dark. “I thought I did something wrong, or wasn’t—I don’t know. Pretty enough. Worth staying for. Something.” A breath. “And the whole time you were thinking you were doing me a favor.”

“I thought I was.” He stared at the snow clinging to his boots. “I was wrong. I’m sorry, Sarah. If I’d known what it was going to cost you...” He shook his head. “I thought if one of us had to hurt, it should be me.” His voice was rough. “Turns out I just made sure we both did.”

She turned back to face him fully. “You just decided without me. Same as you’re probably still doing right now, somewhere in that head of yours, about whatever happens next.”

That landed harder than anything else she’d said. There wasn’t a defense for that. She was right.

Sarah studied him for a long moment, the anger in her shoulders not gone exactly, but sinking into something heavier. “You’re an idiot.” Her voice wasn’t loud or angry anymore. Just flat and certain, worn down to the plainest version of the truth.

He let out a breath. “Yeah.”

“Fifteen years,” she said again, as if she was still trying to make the math work. “Fifteen years, and we were both getting it wrong in completely different directions.”

“I know.”

She said nothing for a moment. Just looked at him, breath misting, the hurt laid bare now in the freezing dark.

Then she turned and started walking again.

He followed her. His lungs burned from the cold, the pace, and the pain that had finally found its way out into the open air.

Neither of them spoke. The weight in his chest hadn’t eased.

But it wasn’t his alone anymore.

For the first time in fifteen years, it existed in the space between them.

21

Busy people didn’t brood.

She’d decided that somewhere around five this morning, staring at the cracks in her bedroom ceiling. So she’d left the house before she changed her mind.

Coffee from Benji’s and out working before Walter finished his first cup.

Henderson's fence dispute. Mrs. Denver’s welfare check. If Sarah kept moving, maybe her brain would eventually get tired and leave her alone.

Anything that stopped her thinking about yesterday. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel. Fence first. Hudson later.

You’d stopped being Wyatt’s little sister.

For God’s sake.

She gave herself a mental shake and turned into the Hendersons’ driveway. She parked beside two pickups already positioned like declarations of war and climbed out. Walter pulled in a minute later, exactly as he’d promised he would. She didn’t need backup for a fence dispute, but nobody in the department was pretending the last few days hadn’t happened.

Daryl Henderson met her before she’d reached the gate. “I’m telling you, Sheriff, he moved the line six feet overnight.”

“Nonsense,” called his neighbor from the other side of the fence.

“See?” Daryl threw his hands up in disgust.

Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose. “One at a time.”

Daryl launched into a detailed history of survey pegs, boundary markers, and a fence post that had apparently offended three generations of Hendersons.

She listened. Or at least she looked as if she was listening.

I’d been trying not to kiss you for months.

The sentence arrived whole.

Sarah blinked.

“... and that’s why the survey’s wrong.” Daryl looked at her expectantly.

Her stupid brain was blank. “I’m sorry?”

Daryl’s heavy brows knotted. “I asked if you wanted to see the photographs.”

She blew out a breath. “Daryl, just show me where the original marker was.”

He glanced at Walter and then back to her before pointing. “I just did.”

Heat crept up her neck. “Right.”

She studied the boundary marker as though it might rescue her. It didn’t. By the time she got back in the truck, her hands weren’t entirely steady on the wheel.

I saw you cry.

That one stopped her completely, parked outside the Hendersons’ gate with the engine running and her forehead almost resting against the wheel before she caught herself and sat up straight. The sheriff of Aurora Cove didn’t sit in her truck falling apart over something that happened when she was eighteen.

Except, she did. Right now, today, fifteen years late.

She’d spent so long believing she’d done something wrong. That she’d somehow not been enough. It had hurt, but at least it had been an explanation. She’d carried that story so long it had stopped feeling like a memory. It had become load-bearing, part of who she thought she was.

And the whole time the truth had been a boy sitting in a truck two hundred yards down the road, unable to make himself drive away from what he’d just done.

It didn’t fix it. She refused to let herself pretend it did.

He’d still left. He’d still stood alone in the dark and decided what both their lives should look like. Knowing why didn’t give her those fifteen years back. It didn’t change the fact that he’d made the decision for both of them. Some stubborn part of her was still furious about that, and she wasn’t ready to let it go.

But both things were true. So she carried one truth in each hand for the rest of the morning, turning them over like smooth river stones.

One made her ache for him. The other refused to let him off the hook.

Mrs. Denver answered the door, very much alive and deeply offended that anyone had suggested otherwise. She slammed it before Sarah had finished explaining the welfare check.

Sarah gritted her teeth and headed back to her truck.

Yesterday.

It replayed differently now. The buckle caught before it struck steel.

Thirty seconds. Then fight me.

The shoelace she’d never noticed until he pointed at it.

She’d thought it was training. A man who noticed everything because missing things got people killed. She hadn’t been wrong, but she hadn’t realized she was one of the things he was noticing.

The memories rearranged themselves.

Quietly. Almost gently. As if somebody had handed her the missing page of a story she’d been reading wrong for fifteen years. None of it had been because he was flirting. It was because he’d been trying not to.

The distance he’d kept at the bar. The easy deflections at Benji’s. The hand that had lifted in the stables, then stopped before it reached her. It hadn’t been hesitation. It had been restraint. He’d been holding back since he was nineteen and had just gotten very good at it.

Which meant every careful step backward she’d spent three days resenting had probably cost him too. The corner of her mouth twitched. She tried to flatten it and failed. Honestly. He really was an idiot.

She drove back to the station, barely aware of anything but the road. Yesterday hadn’t changed the case. Cord was still missing. Time was still running out. There were still men out there willing to beat old fishermen to protect whatever they were hiding.

None of that had changed.

Hudson had. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe she’d just finally been allowed to see him properly.

He’d told her the truth. What she did with it now—that was hers.

22

Hudson was standing by the water cooler, cup in hand, barely listening to Statton talk about something that wasn’t landing. He couldn’t have repeated a word of it if she’d asked.

The station door opened.

Sarah.

Sunglasses pushed up into her hair, badge catching the pale afternoon light. Hudson was vaguely aware of his pulse refusing to treat this as a woman walking across a room in a department-issue jacket.

She spoke to Walter, something Hudson couldn’t track because all his attention had narrowed down to the fact that she was there. Walter peeled off to brief two other deputies.

Sarah smiled at Statton on her way past. She didn’t so much as glance in Hudson’s direction. Her office door closed behind her.

Hudson stood there a second too long, cup still in his hand, watching a door that had nothing more to show him.

He’d spent years measuring success by exactly one thing. Finish the mission. Go home. Now, some part of him wanted this one to last a little longer.

Because finding Cord meant finishing it. And finishing it meant there’d be nothing left tying him to Aurora Cove.

And that meant leaving Sarah.

The thought blindsided him, and he had no idea what to do with it.

He went back to the desk she’d cleared for him in the corner of the bullpen and made himself work. There wasn’t much choice in it. The search grid waited—logging roads still unchecked, properties within a day’s walk of the cabin nobody had visited yet, the patient, unglamorous work of narrowing a search one square mile at a time. He pulled the map toward him and forced his focus onto it, pencil in hand, marking off what they’d covered and what remained.

The station emptied out slowly as evening drew in. Statton left with a wave. Walter stayed somewhere in the back—after the shooting, nobody left the station alone after dark. Sarah’s office door stayed shut the whole time.

Hudson couldn’t stop looking at it, regardless.

It was a stupid thing—as if some part of his attention had gotten permanently tuned to the sound of her moving around in the next room. The soft scrape of her chair. The rhythm of her footsteps when she crossed to the filing cabinet. He wanted to keep hearing it.

He’d worked in dozens of empty offices in dozens of empty towns and never once registered the quiet as anything other than quiet. Tonight it felt like something was missing. Finally, he shook his head and gathered the maps.

What the hell, Kane?

He squared his notebook. Tomorrow he’d check the last two locations suggested by Cord’s known patterns, then move on to the logging roads they hadn’t covered.

Work. That was the job. That was always supposed to be enough.

He stood, shrugged his jacket back on, and let himself out into the early dark. The parking lot held the blue hush of an Alaskan evening, the last of the daylight slipping behind the mountains while the first stars fought their way into the sky. Frost had already started silvering the edges of the cruisers, and every breath hung briefly in the air before disappearing. He crossed to his rental, dug his keys out of his pocket, and took a slow breath.

Footsteps behind him.

He turned.

Sarah headed toward him, hands in her jacket pockets. She stopped a few feet away, close enough her face was clear in the dying light, far enough that nothing about her stance suggested she’d come to do anything more than talk.

She met his gaze. “Yesterday doesn’t change the job.”

“No.”

“Good.” As if she’d needed to say it as much as she’d needed him to hear it. “I needed you to know that.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

She held his gaze for another heartbeat, as though checking he’d understood. Then she turned toward the station.

Hudson released a breath.

That was it.

She’d said what she’d come to say.

Tomorrow would be work.

Whatever this thing between them was, it would stay unnamed.

His shoulders sagged, bracing for the disappointment of watching her leave.

She made it three paces, then stopped. Loose hair at her temple stirred in the breeze. With her back still to him, her shoulders rose on a slow breath. She stood there for so long Hudson almost spoke. Then she turned, her hands coming out of her pockets.

She looked at him for the longest second, then closed the distance between them, her hand coming up to cup his jaw. There was no danger here, no excuse. Nothing but her choosing this deliberately, her eyes never leaving his.

She kissed him.

Her mouth warm.

Gentle.

For one impossible second the world shrank to the pressure of her mouth against his, the cold air tangled in her hair, laced with the clean scent of citrus.

Fifteen years of distance collapsed.

She stepped back before he could do anything at all. Before his hands, hanging useless and stunned at his sides, even thought about reaching for her.

He stared at her. He had absolutely nothing. No words, no plan, no careful response prepared, the entire architecture of his self-control gone.

Sarah’s mouth curved, the small smile reaching her blue eyes. “That one was my decision.”

She turned and walked back toward the station, her boots crunching on the ice, and didn’t look back once.

Hudson stood exactly where she’d left him.

The station door closed behind her. The sound was impossibly ordinary. As though the world hadn’t just shifted beneath his feet.

The freezing night pressed in around him, and somewhere distant a truck engine idled, then pulled away. He drew in a breath. His lungs protested, and he couldn’t tell whether it was the cold or her.

He stood there long enough that his hands were numb before some functioning part of his brain reminded him he was still holding his keys.

He’d forgotten they were there. Hudson unlocked the rental and opened the driver’s door.

He stalled.

Fifteen years ago he’d sat in a truck because he’d kissed Sarah Meyer.

Tonight she’d kissed him.

Both versions had left him incapable of driving.

23

The porch light was on when Sarah pulled up, gold and warm against the dark, smoke curling from the chimney. She sat in the truck for a second longer than she needed to, letting the day fall away. Walter’s radio chatter. The Henderson fence dispute had required a follow-up visit. Search grids until the lines blurred together.

Headlights had followed her at a careful distance the whole way out from town—Walter. He’d peeled off once she’d turned safely into her parents’ driveway.

She hadn’t seen Hudson since last night.

He’d been out checking logging roads with Walter since dawn, while she’d been buried under everything else the day had decided to throw at her. Whenever she’d caught herself thinking about him, she’d found something else to think about. There had always been another call. Another report. Another decision waiting for her.

She climbed out of the truck, the smell of woodsmoke and roasting meat drawing her up the porch steps. She let herself in through the mudroom. Warmth hit her first. Then the smell—pot roast, rosemary, her mom’s buttery rolls. She kicked off her boots, shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on the hook.

“Sarah.” Her dad appeared in the kitchen doorway, dish towel slung over one shoulder, and pulled her into a hug. “Hey, baby girl.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“Rough one?”

“Long one.” She buried her face in his flannel shirt and breathed him in.

He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Food fixes most things. Your mother made enough pot roast to solve international disputes.”

“I’ve never heard you complain about portion sizes,” her mom called from the kitchen.

Ty grinned and wandered over to Sophie, sliding an arm around her waist. He kissed her temple.

Her mom nudged him backwards with her hip without missing a beat as she stirred the gravy. “Ty. I’m cooking.”

“I noticed.”

“Then stop distracting me.”

“I’m moral support.”

She snorted. “You’re in the way.”

He kissed her again anyway, before finally retreating.

Sarah smiled to herself. Some things in this house never changed.

Caleb waved from where he leaned against the counter, stealing carrots off the cutting board. Sophie swatted his hand away with the wooden spoon without even looking.

Through the open kitchen door, Sarah spotted Josie shrieking with laughter somewhere near the living room floor, where Grace chased her on hands and knees. Wyatt was sitting on the couch, Jen beside him, her feet tucked up under her.

“No Ryder and Ivy?”

“Ryder was called out this afternoon—boat took on water off the point,” her mom replied. “Ivy’s got Ellie down for the count at their place. She’s having an early night.”

Sophie turned and smiled at Sarah. “Wash up, honey. We’re eating soon.”

“Smells incredible.” Sarah leaned in and kissed her mom’s cheek.

“It always smells incredible. Ty, we’re out of logs.”

“We are?” Her dad craned his neck toward the wood stove in the dining room.

Her mom’s hands landed on her hips. “We are. We have a guest tonight.”

Ty smiled. “I’m married to the only woman who can run out of firewood before dinner.”

“Yet somehow you’ve stayed all these years.”

“Food’s good.”

Sophie pointed toward the back door with the wooden spoon. “Logs.”

Still smiling, her dad grabbed his jacket and hat. “Yes, ma’am.”

As he headed for the back door, Sophie’s expression softened. “I heard about Petey, sweetheart.”

Sarah nodded. “He’s shaken up, but he’ll be okay.”

“Poor boy.”

“Louisa and Harold have taken him in until he gets used to managing with the cast. He’ll probably put on ten pounds before they let him leave. Louisa is convinced pie is a recognized medical treatment.”

Caleb snorted. “She’s not wrong.”

Sophie smiled. “He’s in good hands.”

Sarah crossed to the sink, bumped shoulders with Caleb, stole one of his stolen carrots, and felt the tightness in her chest loosen another notch.

She hadn’t realized how much she needed this. Especially with Hudson joining them for dinner, which she refused to examine.

She didn’t look at the clock. She washed and dried her hands, then leaned against the counter with a glass of water, just to have something to hold while she let herself sink into the familiar noise of Meyer life.

Grace scooped Josie up to put her in the high chair, then pulled a face. “Oh, wow, that’s—okay. That’s a big one.”

Her mom wiped her hands on her apron. “You can change her upstairs.”

“I’ll grab wipes,” Jen said, unfolding herself from the couch.

Sarah headed for the dining room, the same reflex that had her moving toward any crisis, large or small. “I can⁠—”

“You’re fine.” Wyatt followed her into the room, beer in hand. “Sit down, Sarah.”

Her mom, Jen, and Grace disappeared up the stairs, Josie’s protests fading behind them, and the dining room became unnervingly quiet.

Sarah pulled out a chair and took a seat.

Caleb poured a beer, the bottleneck clinking against his glass.

Wyatt took a slow drink.

She recognized this setup. Clear the room. Isolate the target. Let the silence do the work. Nobody seemed in any hurry to fill it. Sarah almost admired the restraint.

“Saw Hudson this afternoon,” Caleb said, far too casually, examining his fork as if it had suddenly become fascinating.

Her fingers tightened on her glass. “Did you?”

“Mm.” Caleb turned the fork over thoughtfully. “Little bit... discombobulated.”

Wyatt shook his head. “That’s what we’re calling it?”

“He’s working a case, Caleb.”

“That’s probably it.” The smile Caleb had been suppressing made it halfway onto his face before he wrestled it back under control.

Sarah sipped water so she didn’t have to talk.

“He didn’t even wave.” Caleb wasn’t done. “Man’s normally sharp as a tack. Didn’t even see me.”

Both of them looked at Sarah. She met their scrutiny with the flattest expression she owned, the one she used on drunks and men who thought badges were negotiable. “I have absolutely no idea what either of you⁠—”

“Course you don’t,” Caleb said.

“None at all.”

“I’ve genuinely never seen that man distracted.” Caleb eyed the ceiling.

“Me neither,” Wyatt said.

Caleb cleared his throat. “Guy’s like a Swiss watch. Today he looked like somebody unplugged him.”

Two pairs of eyes landed on her.

Sarah picked up her water glass again and drank from it very deliberately, refusing to give either of them the satisfaction of a reaction, even as heat crept up the back of her neck with treacherous speed.

Wyatt let the silence sit a beat longer, and then his voice shifted—the teasing replaced by something quieter. “You okay?”

She met Wyatt’s gaze. Fifteen years ago he’d found her crying in this house. He’d never mentioned it again.

Sarah gave him a small smile. “I’m okay.”

Wyatt held her eyes a second longer, and something in his face eased, as if that had been the whole answer he needed.

“Good,” Caleb said. “Because you’re exhausting when you’re brooding.”

Sarah grabbed the nearest napkin and threw it at his head.

He caught it, laughing, and tucked it into his collar like a bib. “See? Impossible.”

“I hate both of you.”

“No, you don’t,” Wyatt said.

She didn’t. That was the trouble with brothers.

The back door banged shut, and her dad came in with an armful of split logs. He stopped in the dining room doorway. “Everything all right?”

“Yep,” all three of them said at once.

Her dad studied them over the top of the logs.

Sarah knew that look. He’d raised four Meyer children. It was the expression he wore whenever one of them was lying badly enough that correcting them wasn’t worth the effort.

“Right,” he said at last.

Wyatt got up. “Let me help you with those, Dad.”

Interrogation unsuccessful.

But Caleb was still grinning into his beer as her mom came back downstairs with a squealing Josie.

Home was exactly what it had always been—warm, noisy, familiar.

Tires crunched over the stones outside.

Sarah looked toward the front door.

Hudson.

24

Three enormous trucks were parked in front of the house, along with a polished Volvo. Hudson’s rental looked faintly apologetic beside them.

He parked at the end of the row, cut the engine, and sat for a moment in the quiet while the heater ticked down. He’d driven over eighty miles of logging roads with Walter today. They’d found nothing. He exhaled a slow breath.

One of the trucks was Sarah’s department vehicle.

Sarah’s already here.

Twenty-four hours ago this had been dinner. Now he didn’t know what waited inside—or whether he had any right to hope for it.

The porch light was on, throwing a warm arc across the front steps. The wraparound porch, with its cushions and folded blankets, was as it had always been, as if the years between then and now had happened somewhere else entirely.

He got out of the car.

Sophie opened the door before he reached the porch steps. She was exactly as he remembered, radiating the kind of warmth that felt like stepping out of the cold into a lit room. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and gave him the widest smile as if no time had passed at all.

She hurried down the steps and took his face in both hands. “Still too thin.” She cupped his cheek. “I was so sorry to hear about your parents.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Meyer.”

“Oh, I think we’re past that now, Hudson.” Her eyes crinkled in a smile. “Sophie, please.”

He held out the white bakery box he’d brought from Benji’s, a little self-conscious about it now that he was standing here. “I brought dessert. Apple pie.”

“Oh, how lovely. Thank you, Hudson.” She glanced at the label, then toward the house. “Apple pie. Sarah’s favorite.”

Heat crept up the back of his neck. He rubbed at it, avoiding Sophie’s eyes. “Thought everyone liked apple pie.”

Sophie laughed and patted his cheek, before turning toward the door. “You always did know how to make an entrance, Hudson. Come in. It’s freezing.”

He followed her into the hall, and the rich smell of pot roast hit him. He stood in the hallway for a second, breathed it in, and told himself to get it together.

Ty appeared from the direction of the kitchen. Over six feet and granite-edged. The familiar scars on his hands caught the hall light when he reached out. Hudson shook one of them and felt approximately sixteen years old.

“Good to see you, Hudson. It’s been too long.”

“Likewise, sir.”

“Sophie’s been cooking all day.” Ty gestured for him to follow, the words somehow containing both a warning and a welcome.

Sophie fussed and took his jacket. “Ryder and Ivy send their apologies. Ryder’s on a call and Ellie needed an early night.” She guided him deeper into the warmth and noise of the house.

Sarah.

She was in the kitchen doorway, a glass of water in one hand, saying something to Caleb that cut off the moment he walked in. She was still in her uniform and must have come straight from work.

She smiled. The room narrowed, the noise dropping out, the distance between them collapsing to something entirely too small for the amount of history sitting in it.

Caleb saved him—stepping away from Sarah to hug him and introduce him to his wife, Grace, and their toddler, Josie.

Josie wobbled around the corner of the coffee table with the enthusiasm of someone who had recently discovered how amazing legs were. She bumped against his shin, grabbed a fistful of his cargo pants before looking up at him with dark eyes. He bent down to say hello, but she let go of his leg and buried her face between her mom’s legs.

Grace scooped Josie up and offered him her hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve heard stories about you from Caleb.”

“All perfectly legal.” Caleb waggled his eyebrows. “How long are you planning on staying?”

Casual. Perfectly pitched.

“As long as the case needs.”

Caleb nodded slowly, as if he’d expected that answer and wasn’t entirely convinced by it. “Right. The case.”

Wyatt came out of the kitchen with two beers and stopped when he saw Hudson. He crossed the room and handed him a bottle. “Good to see you again, brother.”

“Likewise.”

“This is Jen,” Wyatt said, turning toward the dark-haired woman who had followed him out of the kitchen. He put his arm around her, and she leaned into him a little, her head against his shoulder.

“Hi.” She offered him her hand. “Good to finally meet you.” She looked at him with frank appraisal. “I’ve heard lots about you.”

Oh. He glanced between Wyatt and Sarah. Good or bad?

Sophie rescued him, shooing them toward the dining room. “Dinner’s ready, everyone come sit.”

Everyone crowded around the table. Sophie sat at one end, Ty at the other, with Caleb and Grace on one side and Wyatt and Jen on the other. Josie occupied the high chair between her parents. Sarah had somehow ended up directly across from him.

It made eating surprisingly difficult.

The conversation moved on—overlapping and loud, threads picked up, dropped and resumed halfway through another story.

Josie dropped peas on the floor one by one. Caleb stole a roasted potato from Wyatt. Sophie handed around a plate stacked with buttery rolls. For a few dangerous seconds it felt less like visiting and more like slipping back into a life he’d once known by heart.

“How’s the investigation going? Any progress?” Caleb asked in a lull.

Grace paused to cut something on Josie’s plate, and Wyatt leaned back in his chair, eyes alert.

Hudson set his fork down. “We’ve made some progress.”

“What sort of case is it?” Grace asked.

Hudson picked his fork back up. “Missing person.”

“That doesn’t sound like Alaska,” Caleb chuckled. “Most people here who go missing want to be missing.”

“Caleb,” Sophie said mildly, though there was a smile in it.

“I’m just saying.” Caleb shrugged. “People don’t usually wander off by accident up here. Not for long.”

“That’s consistent with what I’m seeing,” Hudson said.

Sarah looked across at him. “And what are you seeing?”

Hudson met her gaze for a second, then looked back down at his plate. “Nothing definitive.”

Wyatt let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh. “That’s another way of saying not much.”

Hudson shrugged one shoulder. “It’s accurate.”

“Mmm,” Wyatt said.

Ty cut in before the silence stretched. “Weather’s been turning. Ice’ll come in early this year if it keeps like this.”

Caleb picked it up immediately, talking about the marina and how they’d lost power for two days the previous winter. The table shifted with it, conversation sliding sideways into safer ground.

Sarah met his gaze and didn’t look away. He’d spent fifteen years believing he’d made the hard choice for both of them. After last night, he could no longer pretend the future was his decision to make.

Caleb said something, and she turned back into the conversation.

Hudson picked up his fork and ate another bite of pot roast he couldn’t taste.

Across the table, Sarah laughed. His glass stopped halfway to his mouth. Her head tipped back a fraction, cheeks flushed, eyes bright in the soft lamplight.

She’d always laughed like that. How had he ever forgotten?

He set his beer on the table before he dropped it.

Sophie was asking who wanted seconds. The conversation rolled on around him, easy and loud and alive. For the first time in a very long time, going back to the hotel sounded like the worst part of his day.

Because Sarah wasn’t there.

The kiss hadn’t changed the investigation or the fact that he might still have to leave.

It had only made him understand exactly what leaving would cost.

25

Sarah stood in the doorway, shrugged into her jacket, and let herself have it—the warmth, the dwindling noise, the safety of a house that had never once let her down.

Her mom had packed three separate containers of leftovers before anyone had properly stood up from the table, stacking them by the door. No one ever left her mom’s house hungry.

Josie had gone boneless against Grace’s shoulder somewhere around the second slice of pie, her breathing slow and even, one small fist curled loosely against her mother’s collar. Jen gathered glasses, stacking them by the sink.

The cold outside hit like a wall, brittle after the kitchen’s close heat, everyone’s breath hanging pale as they drifted onto the porch in a loose cluster. Hudson crossed to his rental, keys already out. He got in, but the car remained dark and silent.

Caleb knocked on the window glass. “That thing finally admitted defeat? Pretty sure it’s legally a lawn ornament now.”

“Need jumper cables?” Her dad retrieved them from his truck, then popped the hood on Hudson’s rental and connected the batteries. Hudson tried the ignition. The engine turned over sluggishly, coughed, and died.

“Definitely dead.” Hudson’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

Wyatt didn’t hesitate. “I’ll run you back. We can get Mitch to look at it tomorrow.”

“I’ll take him.” The words arrived and left Sarah’s mouth before the cautious part of her brain objected.

Wyatt looked between the two of them.

She shrugged. “It’s twenty minutes.”

Wyatt didn’t argue.

Hudson collected his file from the rental’s front seat before Sophie pulled him into a hug. “Come back,” she said, “before another fifteen years.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ty shook his hand. “Drive safely.”

Caleb caught Sarah’s arm on the way past, low enough only she could hear. “Discombobulated.”

She fixed him with a look that promised retribution before unlocking her truck and heading toward the driver’s side. By the time she reached it, Hudson already had the door open.

“Thanks.”

He frowned, one hand resting on the handle, as if it hadn’t occurred to him he’d done anything unusual. He stepped back. “Sure.”

She waited until he climbed into the passenger seat, then put the truck in gear and pulled out of the driveway. Hudson set the file on the floor between his boots. His eyes swept the mirrors and the road ahead before he finally relaxed into the seat.

In her rearview mirror, Wyatt waited on the porch, hands in his pockets, watching her taillights. He stayed there until the bend took him out of sight. Her big brother never changed. She smiled despite herself and turned back to the road.

Silence sat between them.

Hudson rested an elbow on the door, but his gaze kept drifting. Mirrors. Intersections. Road.

She found something bluesy on the radio and turned it up.

It didn’t help. Her brain, apparently done taking orders for the night, offered her specific details.

The way he’d gone still when he’d realized he was sitting opposite her. The line of his shoulders beneath his jacket, set differently now, as though years of carrying too much had become part of his posture. The touch of silver at his temples. The tanned backs of his hands.

Her body knew those hands. Even after all this time. It wasn’t anything she could describe out loud, but⁠—

Hudson cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She let that be enough. “Your rental’s awful.”

“It was the cheapest one.”

The corner of her mouth moved despite herself.

She tapped her fingers in time with the radio on the steering wheel. “Is Walter still convinced Cord is gone and living in Mexico under an assumed name?”

“I think he maybe watches too many movies.” He laughed softly. “Man’s convinced of it no matter what the evidence says.”

She glanced sideways at him—the dashboard lights catching the strong line of his jaw, the loose set of his hands on his thighs.

After fifteen years.

Hudson Kane was sitting in her truck.

Her heart did a tiny flip.

She didn’t mention the kiss, only adjusted her grip on the wheel. The road narrowed as it climbed, trees closing in densely on either side, nothing but her headlights carving a tunnel through the dark. The heater blew warm air as she steered around the bend.

Hazard lights blinked amber against the dark trees. A pickup sat angled awkwardly on the shoulder, nose canted toward the ditch, a man beside it with one hand raised.

Sarah eased her foot off the accelerator. Beside her, Hudson stilled. His gaze locked straight ahead.

Her side mirrors.

The pickup.

The road behind it.

The man.

“Fuck.” The word was soft as the warmth left his face. “Sarah.”

She looked again. Only then did she see it. The pickup sat too neatly against the shoulder. No churned gravel. No gouges where the tires had slid onto the shoulder. No broken branches near the ditch. The driver wasn’t waving anymore. He was watching them, one hand hanging a fraction too close to his hip.

Hudson’s eyes never left the road. “Don’t stop.”

26

Hudson planted one hand against the dash as the truck surged forward. The man at the side of the road dropped his raised hand, his weight shifting toward them.

Fuck. An ambush.

The man’s hand swept back toward his hip.

Hudson leaned forward. “Go, go, go⁠—”

The truck jolted violently as it hit an ice ridge, the back end kicking out. Sarah’s hands tightened on the wheel. She steered into the slide instead of fighting it, feathered the throttle, waited for the tires to bite, then eased the truck smoothly back into line.

Fucker.

A second shape peeled out from behind the pickup, another man, moving toward the road.

Sarah didn’t touch the brake. She yanked the truck hard right, off the packed snow and onto the shoulder, tires catching rough ground and throwing them both against their belts. She fought the wheel, curving them around the pickup’s nose with two feet of clearance, the whole cab shuddering over ruts and frozen brush before she hauled it back toward the road surface and found traction again.

Headlights filled his side mirror. A second vehicle burst from the tree line, a large SUV, closing fast.

“Incoming.”

Sarah’s eyes were locked straight ahead, both hands firm on the wheel. “Yep.”

The impact came from behind, hard and sudden—a real hit, metal on metal, the truck’s rear end kicking sideways. The tires bit back into the road. The engine howled as she buried the pedal.

Trees blurred past too close on the right.

Ice under the wheels.

The rear tires lost the road. The truck slewed sideways, dropped off the shoulder, and struck the snowbank hard. The impact tipped the cab, filling the windshield with snow and darkness as metal shrieked somewhere near the front end. Hudson’s arm came across Sarah on pure reflex.

The world roared and came undone. His seat belt bit into his shoulder. Loose pens on the dash became shrapnel. Then everything rushed back all at once. Hot coolant hissed somewhere beneath the buckled hood. Airbags whistled as they deflated. The wreck settled with a final groan of tortured metal.

Silence.

His ears rang, his vision fractured, his body still convinced it was moving. Hudson blinked, the world swimming. His lungs refused to work. He dragged in a breath that tasted of burned propellant, his chest rising in agony against the seat belt’s restraint.

No stink of fuel.

He gritted his teeth and blinked again. Reality slammed back into focus.

Sarah.

The truck had come to rest on the driver’s side. Hudson hung above her, suspended by his belt. Sarah was below him, her head slumped against the airbag. Nothing looked obviously broken, but she wasn’t moving.

Everything inside him stopped.

He twisted and reached for her, his heart a violent hammer against his ribs. Airway. Breathing. Consciousness. Training shoved panic into a corner and took over.

Her chest rose.

Thank fuck. “Sarah. Sarah.” He grabbed her shoulder, dug his fingers in.

She gasped awake, her eyelids flickering for a moment before fully opening. “Hudson?”

A thin line of blood tracked from a cut above her eyebrow down the side of her face. Her eyes met his, unfocused for a second. A breath wheezed out of him, and everything narrowed back to something survivable.

She’s alive.

“Look at me. Can you breathe okay?” He slid a hand under her chin and tilted her head toward him.

“I’m fine.” She fumbled toward the seat belt release and missed it twice. “Ringing. Just ringing.”

Car doors slammed. Shouts.

He jerked around, twisting to see out the window. Snow spiraled through the headlights, each gust briefly erasing the men before revealing them again. Two dark figures advanced, one hanging back to cover, while the other closed the distance.

Hudson thumbed the seat belt release. Nothing. He hit it again, harder. Still locked.

Shit. Damn thing’s stuck.

Hudson kicked his door. It was jammed, buckled from the impact. Airbag powder and sweat stung his eyes every time he blinked. He abandoned the door. No time. His hand closed around his Glock.

“Deputy U.S. Marshal!” His voice cracked out flat and hard across the snow. “Show me your hands!”

He kept the sights on the nearer man’s chest, aware of the weight of the pistol in his hand, the spare magazine still riding on his belt. At least two shooters, no cover, and Sarah hurt beneath him.

Bad odds.

One of the men raised his free hand, his weapon held loosely at his hip. “The file, Marshal.”

The nearer man kept walking⁠—

“I said fucking stop.” Hudson kept his sights centered on the man’s sternum.

Both men froze, and the nearer one gestured.

A fucking signal.

The soft scrape of nylon on nylon from the rear of the truck.

Hudson cut his eyes toward the sound. Beyond the shattered rear window, another man advanced in a slow crouch, his gun aimed at Sarah. She was reaching for the radio, her fingers sliding off the button.

The man to the rear held out the palm of his hand. “Throw it out.”

Hudson reached down between his feet. The file was there. He grabbed it and tossed it through the shattered window, then brought his gun back to bear on the men out front. “Take it.”

The man scooped it up and rifled through it for a second before giving a grunt of satisfaction.

“Time to call it, Marshal.” The man pivoted on his heel and returned to the SUV.

The two men out front backed toward the pickup, keeping their weapons trained on him.

Tires spun on the ice, caught, and the SUV fishtailed before straightening. Its taillights vanished around the dark curve of the road. Seconds later, the pickup that had staged the breakdown pulled away from the shoulder and followed.

Hudson held position for another five seconds, scanning the dark, waiting for movement.

Nothing.

Only then did the adrenaline drain, leaving his arms strangely heavy. He lowered the gun and released a shaky breath. Sarah was fumbling with the truck’s radio, static crackling out of it in broken bursts, her hand too shaky to key the mic properly.

“—unit requesting—” Her voice was hoarse. “Two vehicles. Wait. One vehicle. I need⁠—”

“I’ve got it.” Hudson closed his hand over hers.

She tightened her grip on the mic. “I need to⁠—”

Hudson gently pried her fingers loose. “Sarah. I’ve got it. You’re okay. I’m right here.”

He ran his eyes over her shoulders, her face, looking for anything he’d missed. Once wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough until he’d looked a hundred more times.

A frown crossed her face. “Hudson.” Her voice came out sideways. “You threw away your case file.”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you⁠—”

“I don’t care.” Hudson keyed the mic. “Aurora Cove Dispatch, this is Deputy U.S. Marshal Hudson Kane. We were ambushed and forced off the road. Three armed suspects fleeing westbound in two vehicles. Sheriff injured. Request EMS and immediate law-enforcement response. Priority.”

He reached for her hand. His was shaking.

Her fingers closed around his.

27

The ambulance smelled of antiseptic and blood.

None of it explained the fear beneath Hudson’s ribs.

There was a cut along Sarah’s hairline, swelling rising along her cheekbone. But she was awake. Talking, breathing, her pupils reactive.

He knew because he’d asked. Twice. The medic had stopped answering him and started giving him the look reserved for men one question away from being told to sit down and shut up.

“Did she lose consciousness at the scene?” the medic asked.

“Briefly,” Hudson said.

Sarah’s eyes moved toward him, slow and unfocused. “I can answer.”

“Then answer.”

She frowned at him, and for a second, she looked so much like the girl who used to glare at him across Sophie’s kitchen table.

“No,” she said carefully. “I did not lose consciousness.”

The medic glanced at Hudson.

“Briefly,” Hudson repeated.

“I was fine.”

“You were arguing with the radio.”

“I was using the radio.”

“You asked dispatch why the buttons were moving.”

Sarah blinked once. “That sounds unlikely.”

“It happened.”

Her mouth compressed as if she was trying to decide whether to arrest him from a stretcher.

Good.

Irritated meant awake and still Sarah.

Hudson kept his hand loose on his knee and made himself stop watching the monitor. Heart rate elevated but steady. Blood pressure acceptable. Oxygen good. He’d tracked worse numbers in worse places, but none of that was relevant because this was Sarah, strapped to a gurney with a cervical collar she’d already tried to argue her way out of.

Training said to trust the data but said nothing about what to do when the patient was her.

The medic adjusted the IV line. Sarah’s fingers twitched. A small involuntary flex and a wince she hid before it made it to her face.

His hand started toward hers before he caught himself. He curled it back against his knee.

The ambulance slowed, then turned under the bright wash of the hospital lights. Doors opened. Cold rushed in, and the world became movement—boots, voices, wheels clattering over rubber matting, the sharp slide from darkness into the emergency department’s hard glare.

Hudson stepped out and kept pace beside the stretcher until one medic eased a step sideways, reminding him he wasn’t part of the team.

“Rollover MVC,” the medic reported as they pushed through the ER doors. “Restrained driver. Vehicle intentionally struck. Alert and oriented with intermittent confusion⁠—”

“I’m not confused,” Sarah said as the staff transferred her onto the hospital bed.

“Intermittent,” Hudson said.

Sarah frowned at him. “You're still here?”

The doctor apologized for the jacket before cutting away one sleeve. The fabric ripped. Purple bruising was already blooming along the edge of her vest’s shoulder strap. Sarah made a noise that suggested she’d rather face another ambush than another minute of being fussed over.

“Sheriff,” the nurse said. “You need to stay still.”

“I am perfectly still.”

“You are absolutely not.”

Hudson moved to the foot of the bed, giving the staff room to work. Heat caught in his lungs and the dry hospital air abraded every breath. He set it to one side. Not now. Sarah came first.

The nurse asked if they should call anyone.

Sarah opened her eyes. “No.”

The lie hung there before she exhaled through her nose. “My mom,” she said. “My brother Wyatt. But not like—” Her eyes drifted toward Hudson, accusing and tired. “Dramatic.”

“Of course not.” The nurse gave her hand a squeeze.

Sophie Meyer arrived coat half-buttoned, eyes fixed on Sarah with a terror she was trying to turn into efficiency. Wyatt came in behind her, quieter, his face stripped down to something impassive and focused.

Hudson had seen that look before. In places where men searched for exit routes, blood trails, and the person responsible.

Sophie went straight to the bed. “Oh, baby.”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

“You are not fine. You’re in the hospital.”

“It’s mostly precautionary.”

“You rolled your truck.”

“Technically, someone rolled it for me.”

Sophie made a small sound and reached for her hand.

That did something to Hudson he wasn’t prepared for, the quiet surrender of her fingers into her mother’s. He’d spent so long remembering the girl she’d been that he’d forgotten there were people who still got to protect the woman she’d become.

He looked away. Blood, he understood.

“Hudson.” Sophie looked him over for the first time. “Have you been checked over?”

“Yes, ma’am. Ambulance crew checked me before we left the scene.”

She studied him for another second anyway, as though deciding whether she believed him, then turned her attention back to her daughter.

Wyatt stopped at the end of the bed. His gaze skimmed over Sarah, then shifted to Hudson.

Sarah glared at her brother. “Don’t start.”

“I haven’t said anything.” Wyatt folded his arms.

“You have a face.”

Wyatt’s jaw flexed.

Sophie leaned closer. “Do you know who did this?”

“No.” Sarah gave a tiny shake of her head.

“Was it connected to Hudson?” Sophie asked, then looked as if she wished she hadn’t.

Sarah’s eyes slid toward him. Hudson held her gaze.

For a second, nobody spoke.

Sarah gave a tired, crooked little breath that might have been a laugh if it had more strength behind it. “Deputy Marshal Kane.” Her eyes were half closed now, her voice softened by exhaustion and whatever filter the crash had shaken loose. “Threw away his case file.”

Hudson closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.

Wyatt looked from Sarah to Hudson. “You threw away your case file?”

“They had a gun on Sarah.”

Wyatt studied his sister. She was pale beneath the bruising, exhaustion pulling at her features, one hand still wrapped in Sophie’s. When he looked at Hudson again, something in his expression had shifted.

“Yeah,” Hudson said.

Wyatt held his gaze another beat. “We’ll talk.”

Sarah cracked one eye open. “He’s not in trouble.”

Wyatt never looked away from Hudson. “Didn’t say he was.”

The nurse stepped in with excellent timing. “Let’s give her a little quiet. Immediate family can stay for a few minutes, but we need to keep stimulation low.”

Hudson was already backing toward the door. “I’ll step out.”

Sarah looked as if she might say something, but the nurse was already securing the blood pressure cuff around her arm. He let the door close behind him.

The hospital had the same dry heat everywhere, but the temperature dropped inside his body. He walked until he found a vending machine that charged too much for something nobody could honestly call coffee.

He fed the machine money and watched dark liquid spit into a paper cup. When he lifted it, the cup burned his fingers. He held it anyway, letting the heat bite into his skin until the sensation gave him something simple to track.

A few seconds later, footsteps stopped beside him.

Wyatt.

28

Hudson stared into the paper cup as if it might become coffee if he looked at it long enough.

Beside him, the vending machine spluttered into silence. Wyatt sipped and bared his teeth. “Jesus.” He shook his head. “Coffee’s shit.”

Hudson lifted his own cup. “Can confirm.”

Somewhere down the hall, a nurse laughed, tired and human, but the sound went nowhere near either of them.

“The file. You backed it up?”

“Yes.” Hudson stared at the black liquid in his cup. “They would’ve known that. But there was a notebook. I think that’s what they wanted.”

Wyatt studied him for a long moment. “You have feelings for her?”

Hudson held the cup between both hands. The coffee had stopped burning. He wished it hadn’t. His thumb tightened until the paper cup buckled.

Wyatt huffed a quiet breath. “Fifteen years is a long time.”

“I was young and stupid.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt didn’t look away. “She stopped riding for weeks.”

Hudson didn’t move.

“Wouldn’t even come near the stables.”

That was the blade. Hudson stared at a hand hygiene poster without seeing a word of it.

He’d never let himself picture the aftermath. Wyatt knowing. Sophie wondering why her daughter had stopped riding. He’d always stopped the memory at the point where he drove away.

“We were kids.”

“You knew you were leaving,” Wyatt said. “She didn’t.”

Hudson could have defended himself. But nothing would change how he’d left her to deal with the aftermath alone.

Hudson took another sip and let it punish him on the way down.

Wyatt shifted beside him, shoulder against the wall now, arms folded. “You saved her life tonight.”

Hudson closed his eyes for a second. “I was the one who put her in their path.”

“Maybe. Still saved her.” Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t mean I’m not pissed at you.”

A rough breath left Hudson. “Fair.”

“I’m not trying to be fair.”

“No.”

Wyatt looked back toward Sarah’s room. “Whatever this is, it’s already touching her.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Hudson turned his head.

Wyatt’s face had gone still. Hudson remembered that look from operations, when everything depended on the next ten seconds and the wrong answer got people killed.

This wasn’t war. It felt more dangerous.

“Yes,” Hudson said. “I’ll find them before they get another chance.”

“Good.” One word. Hard enough to level ground.

Hudson looked away first.

Fuck.

Wyatt pushed off the wall. “Doctor says they’re keeping her overnight for observation. Mom’s going to argue with that like it’s negotiable, then go home because Sarah will be annoyed if she doesn’t. I’ll take her.”

“Sure.”

Wyatt took two steps, then stopped. “Don’t let her wake up alone.”

Hudson didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, “I won’t.”

Wyatt held his gaze for a beat, then left.

Hudson stood alone by the coffee machine with a paper cup cooling in his hand and an old wound opening back up inside him. He hadn’t wanted anyone to see what it had taken out of him. Wyatt had seen anyway.

By the time he returned, Sophie was standing near the bed with her coat clutched in one hand, her other palm resting on Sarah’s blanket-covered leg.

Sarah was asleep.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t know if he meant tonight, fifteen years ago, or all of it.

Sophie’s hand smoothed once over Sarah’s blanket before she looked back at him. “Thank you for staying.”

He nodded. Fuck.

Wyatt appeared at the door. “Walter’s arranging a deputy for her door.”

Sophie kissed her daughter’s forehead and whispered something Hudson didn’t hear. Sarah didn’t wake, but her fingers moved against the blanket.

Wyatt paused beside the bed. His hand came down lightly on Sarah’s shoulder. “Sleep,” he said. “That’s an order.”

Sarah made a faint sound that could have been defiance if she had more energy.

Wyatt’s mouth tilted. Then he looked at Hudson.

Expectation.

Wyatt handed him a set of keys. “My car for tomorrow. I’ll drive Mom home in her truck.”

Hudson gave a single nod.

Wyatt and Sophie left. Hudson dragged a chair closer to the bed.

Sarah’s hair was loose, darker where it fell against the pillow, a few strands caught near the tape at her temple. The cut looked smaller now it had been cleaned, but the bruising had gathered color along her cheekbone. One hand lay outside the blanket, fingers curled, her nails short and clean, a faint scrape along one knuckle.

He stared at that scrape longer than he should have. It was easier than looking at her face.

If he looked at her face, he saw the truck on its side. The blood sliding across her skin. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped hard enough that his forearms ached.

This case had found her.

No.

That was too easy. He exhaled a shaky breath. He had brought it to her door.

Sarah stirred. Her breath hitched, shallow and uneven, and her brows drew together in sleep. She murmured something unintelligible.

Hudson straightened, one hand hovering over her shoulder. Waking her might make the headache worse. Besides, she deserved sleep more than she deserved another conversation with him.

He brushed a strand of hair away from the tape above her temple, his thumb lingering before he made himself pull away.

He’d walked back into her life. Six days later, someone had tried to kill her because of him.

He’d finish this before it touched her again.

29

The beeping dragged Sarah up first.

The thin, steady sound of a monitor doing its job somewhere too close to her head, each pulse needling through the soft gray space behind her eyes until sleep released her. Her mouth was dry and tasted metallic. Her head felt too large for her skull, pressure blooming behind her temples every time she tried to think too hard. As she breathed in, her ribs announced themselves with a deep, ugly ache.

Hospital.

The smell gave it away. Antiseptic. Warm plastic. Laundered sheets. Coffee that had been burned, then abandoned to its fate.

Sarah opened her eyes.

Wan morning light filtered through the blinds. She waited until the room stopped moving, then turned her head.

Hudson was asleep beside her bed, folded badly into a chair designed by someone with a deep hostility toward human spines. His head was tipped to one side, arms crossed over his chest, boots planted wide on the floor as if even unconscious he didn’t trust the room to stay where he’d left it. His shirt was creased, and stubble shadowed his jaw. The hard lines of his face had eased in sleep, loosened enough that the boy was visible beneath them for one dangerous breath.

He’d stayed.

The thought arrived quietly before she could brace against it.

All night.

She let it sink into her and refused to examine why. Then memory came back.

“Deputy Marshal Kane. Threw away his case file.”

Sarah pressed her head into the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

Her pulse tapped hard in her throat.

This was fine. It was so not fine.

The chair creaked.

Sarah closed her eyes, gathering herself. When she opened them again, Hudson was awake.

His eyes were on her, alert and clear, his body already moving before the last traces of sleep had left his face. He stood too fast, the stiffness catching in his shoulders and back for a second before he smoothed it away. He’d slept upright beside her bed all night and still looked like he was assessing her for damage.

“You stayed,” she said.

His gaze moved over her face, not lingering anywhere too long. “Yeah.” As if there’d never been another option.

She pushed up to sitting and immediately regretted it as the room pulsed in and out of focus. She took a breath. Her clothes were folded neatly on the spare chair next to her bed. Her jacket was missing. They’d cut it off her last night. She remembered that.

“I need to get home.” She tugged the sheets off her legs.

“I can drive you.”

“Thanks.” She met his eyes. “I can drive myself.”

“No.”

Something hot and immediate moved through her, irritation finding all the places pain had left exposed. “You realize I’m the sheriff.”

“I remember.”

“And you’re not in charge of me.”

“No.”

The answer was so even it took her a second to realize it was agreement, not surrender.

“I’m calling my mom,” she said.

He handed her phone over before she had to ask.

Sarah took it and tried not to notice the brief brush of his fingers against hers, or how heat moved up her arm from that tiny, stupid contact. Her nervous system had no loyalty whatsoever. She swiped the screen and called her mom.

Her mom answered on the first ring. “Sarah?”

“Hey, Mom.”

“How are you?”

“Fine. I’m heading home. I’ll rest.”

“You’ll actually rest?”

“Yes.”

“Is Hudson taking you?”

Sarah opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Hudson watching her. Then he left the room.

“Sure. Hudson’s taking me.”

“All right, good,” her mom said. “Call me when you’re home.”

“I will.”

“And Sarah?”

“What?”

“Let him help.”

Sarah looked through the glass wall toward the nurses’ station.

Hudson stood there with paperwork in one hand, speaking to a nurse. The nurse smiled up at him with the unmistakable expression of a woman temporarily deprived of good judgment.

Hudson either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Before the nurse had even finished speaking, his attention had returned to Sarah, as if some internal line still connected him to her room no matter where he stood. She’d seen deputies stand watch over crime scenes with less attention.

She’d spent years looking after everyone else. She wasn’t entirely sure what to do with someone looking after her. “I have to go, Mom.”

Her mom’s voice softened. “I love you.”

Sarah’s throat closed up without warning. “Love you too.”

She ended the call before the words could turn into anything else.

Hudson came back into the room with the paperwork, a small white bag from the nurse, and a look that suggested he’d read every instruction and found most of them insufficient. “Ready?”

30

Sarah kept her eyes on the road because looking anywhere else made her head ache.

The ride home was worse than the hospital.

The hospital had beeping things, nurses and bright lights. Wyatt’s Volvo had heat, silence, and Hudson behind the wheel with both hands steady at ten and two, jaw fit to carve stone.

Sarah sat in the passenger seat with his coat zipped to her chin, since hers had been snipped to shreds in the emergency department. She tried not to breathe in his scent and failed miserably. The seat belt lay across her chest, and for the first mile she had to force herself not to grip it, not to remember the violent snap of restraint, the truck going sideways, the world turning over.

Hudson said nothing.

His knuckles were pale, his mouth set. The leather on the steering wheel creaked beneath his grip while his eyes kept moving from road to the mirrors and back to the road.

He was furious. She knew anger, and she was good at it. Anger on behalf of other people was useful and familiar. Nobody had ever been quiet and furious on her behalf. Not like this.

She shifted against the seat, uncomfortable in ways that had nothing to do with pain. “You’re going to grind your teeth flat.”

His eyes flicked to her, then back to the road.

“Hudson.”

“Hmm?”

Regiments of trees slid past the window. “Thank you.”

He looked across briefly. “For what?”

“You know what.”

He looked back at the road. “I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you.”

Her throat tightened. “I know.”

His mouth moved, not quite a smile. The tension didn’t leave him. “This has to be the safest car in Alaska.”

Sarah smiled despite the tender bruise on her cheek. “Wyatt’s a safety man. You should see him when Ryder’s driving.”

He turned into her driveway without needing directions. Her house sat back from the road, neat and square under a dusting of morning frost.

“You knew my address.”

“Wyatt told me.” Hudson parked, came around before she had her door open, and stood there waiting.

“I can walk.”

He exhaled and offered his hand. “I know.”

She looked at it for a long second.

I know.

No let me help you, or you’re injured. Just I know. Two words that understood her completely and offered anyway and didn’t make it a thing.

She took his hand. His grip closed around hers, warm and steady, and he didn’t pull. He braced, letting her use him as leverage as she climbed out.

She unlocked the front door and motioned for him to follow her. Inside, her house looked exactly as it always did. And totally different because he was in it. Smaller somehow. Less temporary.

The entryway was tidy. Coat hooks. Sheriff’s hat on its peg. Boots lined up. Keys in the dish. No mess, no clutter, no evidence anyone ever arrived here without purpose. The living room held a couch, a coffee table, a bookshelf that had more case binders than novels, and three framed photos on the far wall: her parents at a summer barbecue; Ellie and Josie; Wyatt, Ryder and Caleb as kids, their arms slung around each other.

She’d always liked it this way. Functional. Clear. Easy to leave. Not like her mother’s house, where every room seemed built to hold people in place.

Now, with Hudson standing in the middle of it, it felt different. It looked like a place someone passed through. She’d never noticed that before.

“I’m fine from here,” she said, in her best bright voice.

Hudson closed the door behind him. “No.”

“Is that your only word now?”

“It’s the one doing the most work.”

She turned toward the couch before her mouth betrayed her again. The first step was fine. The second was less so. By the time she reached it, her body was sending strongly worded complaints from several departments, and she sank down harder than intended. She inhaled through her nose and kept her face neutral through sheer pride.

Hudson had already moved past her.

“Where are you going?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Kitchen.”

“Why?”

Cabinet doors banged and utensils rattled. Then there was silence. Judgment silence.

“Jesus Christ, Sarah.”

She sighed and covered her face with her hands.

“What is this?”

“What’s what?”

“This.” His voice rose.

She got up and hobbled into the kitchen.

Hudson stood back from the open fridge door. “This isn’t a kitchen. This is where food comes to die.” His phone was in his hand, thumb moving across the screen as if he was building an operational plan from the wreckage of her dairy shelf.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a list.”

“For my refrigerator?”

“For the crime scene inside your refrigerator.”

The open fridge offered its evidence without shame: two beers, mustard, a takeout container, half a tub of yogurt that had surrendered sometime last week, an apple with a soft spot.

Hudson looked at her.

She looked at the fridge. “It’s been a busy week.”

“That yogurt is older than my case file.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m willing to testify.”

She wanted to laugh but felt too tired to hold herself upright.

His gaze moved over her face, then lower, to where her hands were trembling. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m cold.”

“No, you’re crashing.”

“I’m standing in front of an open refrigerator in November.”

He shut the door and turned fully toward her. “Warm bath. Shallow water. Door stays unlocked.”

“Is that an order?”

“Recommendation.”

“Sounds like an order.”

“Professional recommendation.”

“I am not⁠—”

“Sarah.”

Marshal voice met Sheriff voice. His won.

“Fine,” she said. “But only because you’re annoying.”

“I’ll take it.” He moved ahead of her and picked up the blanket from the back of the couch and draped it around her shoulders, careful not to jar her.

His hands stayed there a second, light at the edges of the fleece. Sarah didn’t move. She allowed herself those two quiet seconds.

Hudson stepped back without a word.

“Where are you going?” she asked, because her voice still worked and she trusted it more than the rest of herself.

“Locating the bathroom.” He found it on the second try. A moment later, the rush of water followed.

The scent of bergamot drifted from the bathroom. He’d found the bath oil under the sink without asking. She headed back to the couch and sat down. God, that felt good.

Headlights swept across the front window.

“That’s Wyatt.” Hudson set the hospital pain meds and a glass of water on the table beside her. “Sit on the edge of the bath first. If you’re dizzy, call him.”

“You called my brother?”

“He’s worried, and you need someone here while I’m gone.”

“I’m not twelve.”

“No. You’re concussed.”

“Are you leaving?”

“I’m going to the store.”

She blinked. “Why?”

His eyes moved briefly toward the kitchen, then back to her. “I’m going to cook you some real food because whatever the hell was in your fridge wasn’t food.”

She tightened the blanket around her shoulders. “Buy coffee,” she said. “Please.”

Hudson’s mouth softened by a fraction. “Yes, ma’am.” He headed for the front door.

“Hudson.”

His hand paused on the handle as he looked back.

The words stuck somewhere in her throat. There were a dozen things she should probably say. Sorry. Be careful. Don’t blame yourself.

She picked the one closest to her heart. “Thank you.”

His gaze held hers for a long second. “Always.”

31

Hudson stepped out of Sarah's house and crossed the yard toward Wyatt’s Volvo.

Wyatt climbed out of his dad's blue pickup with a coffee balanced in one hand and a glass dish covered with foil tucked under the other arm.

Hudson eyed the foil-covered dish. “Casserole?”

The corner of Wyatt’s mouth tilted. “Mom. She was up cooking at six this morning.”

“Sarah needs groceries, and I’m going to swing by Mitch’s garage to see about the rental.”

Wyatt gave him a nod. “I’ve got her. She asleep?”

A corner of Hudson’s mouth moved. “Nope. Pretending she’s not concussed.”

Wyatt snorted. “Sounds about right.”

They stood for another beat before Wyatt jerked his head toward the Volvo. “Go.”

Hudson didn’t move until the front door closed behind Wyatt. He waited a few more seconds.

Sarah would tell Wyatt she was perfectly capable of looking after herself whether she actually was or not.

He shook his head and got into the car. Inside, he sat with both hands on the steering wheel, his breath fogging the windshield. He didn’t start the engine. The house was behind him in the rearview mirror, neat and square and too empty for a woman who filled every room she entered with force.

Even knowing Wyatt was inside, every instinct objected to driving away. Fragments moved through him. Sarah in the wreck, blood sliding along her temple. In the hospital bed. Taking his hand to climb out of the car without looking at him while she did it. Wrapped in his coat afterward, too pale, shaken, and still trying to be the one in charge.

His fingers tightened around the wheel as his phone rang through the car’s speakers. Owen Alcott’s name lit the dash.

Hudson let it ring twice, then answered. “Kane.”

“You sound like hell,” Owen said.

Hudson started the engine. “Good morning to you too.”

Something crashed on Owen’s end of the line, followed by a sharp bark and claws skidding across hardwood.

“Gunner, knock it off.” Owen exhaled. “Retired means retired, you furry lunatic.”

Hudson waited as the wipers dragged across the windshield and the heater began clearing the fog. “Gunner still running the place?”

“He thinks so. I let him. It keeps his ego stable.” A beat, the shift almost too small to hear. “Tell me why I’m getting leaned on before breakfast.”

Hudson’s grip hardened on the wheel.

Ah.

He pulled out of Sarah’s driveway and kept his speed low, the road shining in patches where frost had hardened into glass. “What kind of heat?”

“The kind where people who’ve never called me before suddenly know my extension.” Owen’s voice was deceptively casual. “They’re asking why you’re in Alaska. Why a local sheriff just got hit in a town nobody knew you were near.”

“Yeah.” The road narrowed between snowbanks. Hudson scanned the tree line, mirrors, the slight bend ahead.

“Yeah?” Owen repeated. “That’s what you’ve got?”

“I think Sarah⁠—”

Shit. Too late.

The pause after was way too clean. “Sarah?”

Hudson cleared his throat. “The sheriff was run off the road last night. Professional and deliberate.”

“She alive?”

“Yes.”

“Bad?”

“Concussion. Bruised ribs. Cuts. She’s already pretending she’s fine.”

Another pause. “You’re from Aurora Cove. You two got history?”

“No.” Damn. Too fast.

“Hmm. You okay?” Owen finally asked.

“Fine.”

Silence.

“Bullshit.”

Hudson turned into the grocery store lot and parked facing the road. Nothing in the lot moved except a woman loading bags into the back of an SUV and a raven hopping along the snowbank.

“Owen—”

“No, don’t Owen me. You sound off.”

Hudson rubbed a tender spot between his eyes. “I said I’m fine. I need time.”

“Brother, whatever you’ve kicked over by chasing Cord, somebody felt it. They’re asking why. Other people are asking why they’re asking.” Owen’s voice lowered. “That’s not normal.”

“No.”

“Then bring it in officially.”

“I can’t.”

“Then walk away.”

Hudson looked at the grocery store entrance, at the automatic doors opening for an old man with a bag of dog food tucked under one arm. At the ordinary morning happening around him, as if someone hadn’t tried to kill Sarah barely twelve hours ago.

He could walk away from the file. The politics. The career damage. All of it.

He couldn’t walk away from Sarah.

There it was. Not after last night. Not while someone out there still thought she was a way to get to him.

Owen heard whatever he didn’t say. “Jesus, Kane.”

“I’ll get control of it.”

“Yeah,” Owen said. “You'd better decide what it is first.”

Hudson ended the call and sat in the car a moment longer, his fingers curled hard enough that the tendons stood out. Then he got out, locked the Volvo, and went into the store.

He headed straight to the soup aisle. Sarah needed food that required minimal effort. Hydration. Protein. Something warm and easy.

Tactical mistake. He stared at four kinds of chicken noodle. Christ. Four? He picked one up, checked the ingredients, put it back. He tried another brand, frowned at the sodium, put that one in the cart, and added the first one anyway.

By the time he left the aisle, he had twelve soups and no dignity.

Coffee was worse.

Sarah drank it so sweet it was practically dessert. He had no idea what brand she drank.

He ran a hand through his hair as he stared at twelve different dark roasts, as if one of them might confess. Fuck. Then he chucked six different brands into the cart. Just to be safe. Then cinnamon coffee too, because part of him remembered that she liked cinnamon in winter and had spent fifteen years waiting for the memory to become useful.

He added fresh fruit because the bowl in her kitchen had dust in it. Bread because the house had smelled of nothing except work when he opened the door. He added enough groceries to cook actual meals—eggs, pasta, tomatoes, garlic, butter, chicken, steak. Peanut butter—crunchy, because he’d heard her once tell Ryder smooth peanut butter was for weirdos, and Hudson had no idea why that memory was still in his head when he’d forgotten entire names from former missions.

By the pharmacy section, he slowed.

The hospital had given her instructions and medication, but he’d rather carry home things she’d never use than have her need something she didn’t have. He added heating pads, a cold pack, and extra pain meds she might not need, but she might, and that was enough for his brain now. He looked down into the cart. He had enough food to stock a small family. Regardless, he added chocolate.

He frowned, then reached for fresh flowers. Flowers weren’t practical. He put them in the cart anyway.

At checkout, he unloaded the cart onto the conveyor belt. Enough groceries to survive a moderate weather event.

The cashier scanned everything in silence for a while, then glanced up at him. “Your wife sick?”

Hudson blinked. “No.”

The cashier looked at the pile again. “Uh-huh.”

Christ.

He handed over his credit card, bagged the groceries himself, and escaped before the cashier could ask anything else about his wife.

32

The smell woke Sarah before anything else.

Garlic. Tomatoes. Coffee.

Why did her house smell like someone actually lived here?

Hudson.

The noise of a cupboard door shutting, a knife against the cutting board, the quiet clink of a spoon against a saucepan. Was Hudson cooking in her kitchen? She couldn’t remember the last time another person had done that. Her mouth watered.

She lay listening. Her house had changed around the smell, as if it wasn’t used to holding warmth this ordinary.

The kettle boiling. Drawers opening and closing. Everyday sounds. She’d spent years building a life that asked nothing of anyone. Today Hudson had been quietly taking care of her while she slept.

Finally, she pulled on her oversized green hoodie and padded into the kitchen.

“Hudson? What are you doing?”

“Cooking.” He glanced at her, one of her dish towels on his shoulder.

“I gathered that. Wyatt left?”

“After I got back. He’s on call.”

“Okay.” There were apples in her fruit bowl. She pulled open the fridge. Enough food to feed a small army. She closed the fridge, spotted flowers in a tall glass.

Flowers.

Nobody bought her flowers. She reached out and touched one petal. Her house no longer felt like somewhere she recovered between shifts. It felt looked after.

She swallowed against a rise in her throat.

His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his forearms. How had she forgotten those? Awareness moved through her, low and immediate, drawing her body tight and stealing the next clean breath from her.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“No.”

“You’ll eat anyway.”

“You always this bossy?”

“Only when your refrigerator requires an incident report.”

She made a sound that wasn’t a laugh, but it was closer than anything she’d managed since the hospital.

He shooed her back to the living room, then served pasta in two bowls. He carried hers to the couch and set it on the coffee table with a fork, water, and the hospital meds she was pretending not to look at. She stared at the bowl.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“That’s not nothing.”

“It smells delicious. I didn’t know you could cook.”

Hudson’s head dipped before she saw too much on his face. “Eat.”

He took the chair opposite. Enough distance that she wouldn’t feel crowded, but she wished he’d chosen the couch beside her.

They ate in silence with the coffee table between them and the case sitting in every space where conversation should have been. Sarah lasted three bites before hunger arrived all at once.

He’d been right.

Again.

She ate everything, then wiped her bowl with a wedge of the crusty bread he’d bought.

Afterward, he made coffee. She closed her eyes when she sipped. “Sugar. You remembered.”

“Some things.”

Her gaze lifted to his. For a second, everything in the room held still.

“I bought six different coffees.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what brand you drink.”

Sarah took another sip, lifted one shoulder. “This one works.”

Today Hudson had filled her fridge, cooked for her, bought her flowers and somehow managed to make none of it feel like pity. She wasn’t sure what to do with that.

She wrapped both hands around the mug, letting the warmth seep into fingers that still hadn’t quite decided whether they belonged to her again. “Tell me what you haven’t told me.”

Hudson looked up from his coffee. “You should be resting.”

“I am resting.” She relaxed further into the couch. “I’m sitting down.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It is today.” Something in her voice must have reached him because he didn’t argue again.

Someone had tried to kill her. Her truck had been towed to the garage and was waiting for the insurance company. She was done pretending this wasn’t her case.

“Someone ran me off the road,” she said. “So stop protecting me with half-truths.”

Outside, the wind rattled lightly through the trees.

Hudson stared into his mug for so long she wondered if he’d answer at all. “I served with Cord.”

She waited.

“We were running an op in the South China Sea. We had solid intel on a weapons network moving military-grade hardware through the islands. Missiles. Explosives. Enough firepower to make a lot of people nervous.” He turned his mug on the table, not drinking from it. “Cord was on my team. Good operator. One of the best I’d worked with.”

“Was.”

“Was.” He blinked. “We were tracing the supply chain and locating the weapons cache.”

“And Cord?”

“Our comms lead. He knew the op schedule. Knew where we’d be and when we’d be gone.”

Sarah didn’t speak, giving him room to think.

“He’d buried himself in gambling debts. Started selling information to the same network we were there to take apart to pay off the debts. Routes. Patrol windows. Information he believed was safe to sell.” His mouth hardened. “At least, that’s what he told himself.”

“What did he give them?”

“Our location.”

Sarah went still.

“A temporary position. We were scheduled to clear it at zero-two-hundred. Cord knew that.” Hudson looked toward the window. “We took fire on the way out. Local militia pinned us down. Cost us forty-three minutes. The arms dealers moved faster than Cord expected. He thought we’d be long gone.”

Sarah was quiet for a moment. “So when they arrived⁠—”

“We were still there. They knew our extraction route. There was one channel out to open water. Narrow. Rock walls on both sides.” He paused. “They’d rigged the channel with demolition charges.”

His breath left him unevenly. “They hit us before we reached it. Firefight was short. Maybe ninety seconds. Felt longer. We lost Ben Taggart. Our lead swimmer. He was twenty-three. Could hold his breath for almost five minutes, which was a full minute longer than any of the rest of us, and he never let us forget it.” A sound escaped him that wasn’t quite a laugh. “He died in four feet of water because he never saw the round that hit him.”

The words landed flat. As if they’d been carried so long the sharp edges had worn smooth. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Cord got caught eventually. Gave up the arms dealers he’d been working with in exchange for a deal. A new name, a new life, the whole machine that exists to disappear people who cooperate.” His mouth twisted, something bitter in it. “I hated it. Hated that he got to walk away and build something while—” He stopped himself.

“While Ben didn’t come home?”

“Yeah.” Something in his face gave way for the space of a heartbeat.

“And now you think Cord’s active again?”

“I know he is. Fresh evidence started surfacing about a year ago. Small inconsistencies. Missing files. Weapons turning up in places that didn’t fit the established routes.” His hands closed into loose fists on his knees. “I think Cord’s moving hardware again, using quiet coastal access points where cargo can come ashore unseen. But I haven’t proved it. And someone with real access has been cleaning up behind him.”

His eyes had gone somewhere else, seeing files she couldn’t, dead ends piling one on top of another.

“Every time I got close to something solid, it went cold. Witnesses stopped talking. I still don’t know who’s protecting him.”

“That’s why you came here quietly.”

“Yes. He got away with it once, Sarah. Walked away from what he did to my team and built himself a second life out of it.”

“And you’re not going to let him do it twice.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Do you trust me?”

His head came up immediately. “Sarah, that’s the one thing this isn’t.” He held her gaze. “It’s me trying to keep you out of something I don’t fully understand yet.”

A tired laugh escaped her. “Little late for that.”

His eyes closed briefly. “I know.”

“No.” She shook her head carefully. “I don’t think you do.”

She touched the bruise beneath her collarbone without thinking. “Someone decided I was useful because of you.”

His face tightened with something that looked almost like pain.

She shook her head. “Let me decide what I can handle.”

Silence stretched between them.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter. “I’ll tell you everything I can confirm.”

“And when you can’t?”

“I’ll tell you that too.”

She studied him for another long moment. It wasn’t everything. But it wasn’t nothing either. It was probably the most he’d trusted anyone in years.

“Thank you,” she said.

He frowned. “For what?”

“The pasta. And for telling me.”

His eyes searched hers as though waiting for the verdict.

She didn’t have one. She only knew she understood him a little better than she had an hour ago. And for the first time since he’d walked back into Aurora Cove, she wasn’t trying to work out whether Hudson Kane was hiding something from her. She was trying to understand how long he’d been carrying it alone.

The silence had grown too heavy to leave untouched. Her gaze drifted past him to the photographs. “Do you remember that day?”

Hudson turned to look.

The framed photo had yellowed at the edges. Wyatt, Ryder, and Caleb in a row, all elbows and grins.

“Ryder got stuck up the tree, and Caleb went up after him.”

“And fell out.” Her mouth curved.

He looked back at her. “You climbed up eventually.”

“Someone had to. Ryder was only eight.” She closed her eyes, the mug still held between both hands, her body finally giving up the fight now that there was no immediate threat trying to kill her.

“Sarah.”

“Mm.”

“You’re done.”

“I’m listening.”

“You’re asleep.”

“I’m resting my eyes.”

“Right.” He took the mug from her grip, and his fingers brushed hers. Heat moved through her in a clean, disproportionate line.

When she opened her eyes, he was kneeling in front of her. “Bed.”

She narrowed her gaze. “Bossy. I can walk.”

“I know.”

She should have insisted on walking, but fatigue had stripped her clean. “If you drop me, I’m arresting you.”

His arm slipped behind her shoulders, the other beneath her knees. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then the floor disappeared. She didn’t stop him. Her hand landed against his shoulder, fingers curling into his shirt. It should have made her uncomfortable, but it felt like safety.

She’d spent fifteen years proving she didn’t need anyone. Tonight, she let him carry her.

He took her down the hall carefully, keeping his steps even, her head supported where it rested near his chest. His heartbeat was steady beneath her cheek.

She hadn’t meant to rest her head against him. But she’d done it anyway and didn’t move it away. In her bedroom, he lowered her onto the mattress and drew the quilt over her with care.

She shifted, eyes barely opening. “Hudson?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re still here?”

Her eyes closed again. Once, a long time ago, he’d left without looking back, and some frightened part of her still expected him to.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m still here.”

She believed him.

And for tonight, that was enough.

33

Sarah woke to the sound of running water.

For one disorienting second, she thought a pipe had burst. Memory flooded back.

Hudson.

She stayed where she was for another minute, listening to the shower through the wall, the domestic noise strangely comforting. Her head still ached, though less than yesterday, and the bruising across her ribs complained as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

The house smelled of fresh coffee.

She padded down the hall. The kitchen stopped her in the doorway. Everything was clean and stacked away. The counters were wiped down. The flowers he’d bought sat in the middle of the table, catching the morning light.

It looked lived-in. Hudson had filled it with his presence.

The bathroom door opened behind her. She turned as Hudson stepped into the hallway, rubbing a towel over his damp hair.

He’d pulled on jeans, but his chest was bare. Water tracked slowly over the hard planes of his chest before disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans.

Oh.

Good God.

She suddenly understood the nurse at the hospital.

His eyes widened fractionally when he spotted her. “Sorry.” He scrubbed the towel over his hair. “Thought you were still asleep.”

There was a pale scar beneath his collarbone. Another disappeared around the side of his rib cage. Fifteen years had happened to him too.

She cleared her throat, which was suddenly less cooperative than usual.

“It’s fine.” She managed a shrug that tugged unpleasantly at her rib cage. “Least I could do after everything you’ve done is let you use the shower.”

The arm holding the towel dropped from his head to his side. “Thanks.”

The silence that followed felt too aware. Sarah turned back into the kitchen before her brain embarrassed her any further. She opened the cupboard for a mug. The stretch pulled sharply across her side and she hissed a breath of pain.

A hand appeared beside hers. “I’ve got it.”

Hudson reached past her, his arms brushing hers as he lifted the mug from the shelf.

“I could have reached that.”

“I know.” A smile tugged at his mouth, reaching his eyes.

He set the mug on the counter between them.

She turned to tell him she wasn’t made of glass, but the words never arrived.

He was standing so close that the bergamot soap he’d borrowed from her shower teased her nose. When she met his eyes, she glimpsed his tiredness after a night spent on her couch.

His gaze landed on the fading bruise along her cheek. His hand lifted, his thumb skimming beneath the bruise, careful on her tender skin. “How’s your head?”

She should have said better. Or it still hurts. But instead, she leaned into his hand. Only a fraction. It wasn’t even a decision.

His breath stalled—the smallest sound, and his thumb stilled against her skin.

For one suspended heartbeat, neither of them moved. He started to draw his hand away.

No.

She caught his wrist, and his eyes lifted to hers, a question in them. Her heart stumbled. Fifteen years of convincing herself she’d stopped missing him. Maybe she never had.

She closed the last inch between them.

His free hand settled carefully at her waist, avoiding the bruising as though he’d memorized where she hurt. The first brush of his mouth against hers was feather-light, the warmth of him lingering just long enough to steal her breath. Nothing like the desperate teenagers they’d once been in the stables.

His hand slid gently to the side of her neck, and his thumb stroked the sensitive skin beneath her ear. A shiver chased down her spine.

When he kissed her back, it was achingly tender. The kitchen disappeared. There was only Hudson.

She’d kissed men. None of them had ever felt like this. She smiled against his mouth, and his lips curved in return, his forehead bumping hers.

She drew back to look at him. Whatever they’d been before, this wasn’t pretending anymore.

Her phone rang, loud from the counter close by. Then rang again.

She exhaled. “I should...”

“You should,” he murmured, though he made no move to step away.

The phone rang a third time.

Neither of them moved.

Hudson pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Persistent.”

She laughed softly, still close enough that their noses brushed. “Sometimes I hate being the sheriff.” She rested her forehead against his for an extra stolen second.

His mouth curved against hers. “No, you don’t.”

“No.”

“That’s going to be Walter.”

She picked up her phone, the ghost of his hand against her cheek making her skin tingle.

She swiped to answer.

No caller ID.

“Sheriff Meyer.”

A man’s voice answered, and every trace of warmth left her body.

Her eyes met Hudson’s. “It’s Cord.”

34

Hudson kept his eyes on the road and failed spectacularly to keep his mind off the kiss.

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years of convincing himself that what they’d almost been was over. That wanting her would eventually stop.

Then she’d leaned into his hand.

Kissed him.

And the careful life he’d built around never expecting to see Sarah again had collapsed. Part of him was scared shitless. Another part kept glancing at her, unable to believe he’d somehow been handed the possibility of a second chance.

She was looking out the passenger window. The silence between them was warm and strange, full of the thing that had happened but neither of them had figured out how to talk about yet.

He drove into town with Cord’s phone call sitting beneath everything. Whatever had changed between him and Sarah would have to wait. He parked in the station lot and was out of the Volvo and around to her side before she’d unclipped her seat belt.

This time there was no look, no lecture about how she was the sheriff and perfectly capable of opening her own doors.

“Thanks.” She gathered herself to climb out without looking at him.

He reached across, pressed the release on the seat belt and guided the webbing clear before it could snap back across her ribs. Then he stepped back and offered her his hand.

She glanced at it for the briefest moment, then slipped her fingers into his. “Okay,” she said softly.

They crossed the lot together. On the station steps his hand was light at her elbow, and she let it stay. But once they were inside, he let go. Some things still felt too new to test in daylight.

Walter was standing inside the entrance.

His eyes went to Sarah first, and his whole face tightened with the furious protectiveness of a man who’d spent years watching her back and hadn’t been there the one night it counted. Then his gaze dropped to the space between them. The space where Hudson’s hand had been a moment ago.

His eyes came up and met Hudson’s. The same low disapproval had been banked there since Hudson’s first day in town. But beneath it was a man revising a private conclusion.

Hudson held his gaze.

Walter tipped his head toward the interview rooms. “He’s in interview room one. Walked in an hour ago. Alone. Asked for you by name. Says he’s Cord Blake.”

The name went through Hudson’s chest like a round finding its mark. All these years, and now Cord had walked through the front door, sat down, and asked for Sarah.

“Did he say why he’s here?” Sarah crossed the bullpen, shrugging off her jacket with a wince Hudson didn’t miss.

“He won’t say. Said the only person he would speak to is the Sheriff.”

“Asked for me?” Sarah’s surprised glance flicked to Hudson.

“Yup.” Walter folded his arms.

“Okay.” She motioned to Hudson. “This way.”

Hudson followed her. He’d waited so long for this moment. He had a shape for Cord in his head. A traitor, the man who’d traded their location for money and walked out the other side into a new name and a clean life. All while a better man went into the ground. Hudson had needed that shape. A monster was easier to hunt than a man.

He put his hand on the door.

Sarah’s hand landed briefly on his forearm. “I’ve got the room. You watch.”

With a nod, he let her go in first.

Cord was sitting, hands knotted on the table. He looked up with haunted eyes as Sarah and Hudson entered. This wasn’t the composed operator Hudson remembered, the man who’d been better than anyone at going still and unreadable when it counted. This was someone who hadn’t slept in days.

Cord’s sleeves were shoved past his elbows. His nails were bitten raw. Underneath the table, his foot never stopped moving. This was the man Hudson had once trusted with his life, stripped of every trace of the operator he’d been.

Hudson hated that pity arrived before rage.

Cord’s eyes landed on Hudson’s face. Emotion passed and then was gone again. “Kane.”

Hudson didn’t answer. He didn’t trust what would come out.

Sarah pulled out the chair across from Cord and sat, her badge catching the fluorescent light. Hudson took the wall by the door where he could see all of it and let her run it.

She didn’t hurry. Hudson folded his arms and waited.

“Mr. Blake. I’m Sheriff Meyer. You asked for me.”

“My wife Nora is missing. I can’t find her on my own. I need help.”

Hudson had seen seasoned investigators mistake speed for control. Sarah didn’t.

“Nora’s missing?” Her voice remained even. “Start with the last time you knew she was safe.”

“Two days ago. I watched her leave work and get home safely. Yesterday she wasn’t at the house.” Cord dragged a hand down his face. “Her car was there. Her coat was there.” His hands closed into fists on the table. “She never hurt anyone. She’ll be terrified. It’s eighteen degrees out and she has no coat.”

“Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“Because until this morning I thought she’d left to visit her mom. Then I found out they had her.”

“We searched your fishing cabin five days ago,” Sarah said. “You weren’t there.”

Cord nodded. “I knew you would.”

“So where were you?”

“Moving.” His mouth twisted. “If I stayed somewhere too long, they’d find me. Cabins. Boats. Hunting shacks. Anywhere I thought I’d bought another day.” He looked down at his hands, pushing his wedding ring around his finger with his thumb. “Turns out I wasn’t the one they were watching.”

Hudson clenched his teeth. Pieces tried to connect in his head. The man who was responsible for Ben Taggart’s death. The man falling apart over a missing woman. They shouldn’t have fit inside the same body, but here they were, three feet away, both of them true at once.

Sarah frowned. “If you knew you were in danger, why come here now?”

Cord hissed out a breath. “Because—” His thumb skimmed his wedding ring. “This wasn’t supposed to touch her. I gave them everything fifteen years ago. Took the deal, disappeared and built a clean life with Nora. Then they found me. They knew my name. My history. Where Nora worked. What time she came home.”

Sarah’s expression sharpened. “They threatened her?”

“They didn’t need to say it twice.” Cord shook his head. “The first job was supposed to buy our freedom. Then there was another. And another. Every time I did what they wanted, I told myself I’d bought her one more safe day.” His laugh held no humor. “Turns out there was always going to be one more.”

Cord looked at Sarah. “They took her because they think it’ll keep me quiet.” His gaze swiveled to Hudson. “They’re wrong. I’m done. Find Nora. After that, I’m yours.”

Hudson had imagined this moment so many times. None of those versions had ended with Cord surrendering himself to save the woman he loved.

“Who knew where she’d be?” Sarah asked. “Who knew her routine, the house, her schedule?”

“That’s not—” Cord shook his head, leaning forward, urgent now. “You’re asking the wrong questions, Sheriff. You don’t have time.”

Sarah’s face was impassive. “How do you know that?”

“Because I know who’s got her.” Cord’s eyes came up, and for the first time they were steady. “And I know what he does with leverage once it stops being useful.”

Hudson pushed off the wall as Cord’s gaze cut to him.

“The men who ran the sheriff off the road and the shooter at the cabin? Contractors. They do the work, but someone else gives the orders.” Cord leaned back in his chair.

“Who?” Sarah asked.

“The man who found me. The one who’s been cleaning up behind me. He decides whose name goes on the list.”

“Who is he?” Sarah’s voice was level.

“I don’t know his name.” Cord’s gaze bounced from Hudson to Sarah, and the last of whatever he’d been holding onto gave way. “Right now they have Nora, and the man paying them has no reason to keep her alive one hour longer than she’s useful.”

“Where?” Hudson asked.

Cord’s Adam’s apple wrenched up then down. “There’s a hunting cabin north of Black Ridge. Old logging road off Mile Marker Forty-Seven.”

Sarah didn’t move. “How do you know?”

“I’ve been there. It’s where they took me when they found me again.” His voice shook. “That’s where she’ll be. I’ll take you. You have a better chance of getting her out alive than I do.”

Sarah pushed back her chair and stood.

Less than forty-eight hours after a concussion. A rolled truck. Now she was about to lead a rescue into the wilderness after armed contractors. Every protective instinct Hudson had screamed no. But experience told him she would go anyway. His job was to make sure she came back. Which didn’t stop him from wanting to lock the station door and tell the rest of Alaska to deal with its own damn problems.

Sarah caught his eye. Don’t. The corner of her mouth lifted.

He’d watched her take control of an interview with the man he’d spent a year hunting. She was exactly where she belonged. God, he wished that wasn’t true.

She opened the interrogation room door. “Walter.”

The deputy appeared almost instantly.

Sarah jerked her head in Cord’s direction. “Cuff him. Then call Search and Rescue. Get EMS rolling. Notify State Troopers we’re responding. Pull maps and property records for Mile Forty-Seven. I want approach routes before we leave.”

She looked back at Cord. “We’re bringing Nora home.”

Her hand gripped the doorframe. “Marshal?”

Hudson looked up.

She raised an eyebrow. “You coming?”

35

Sarah came back into the bullpen.

Hudson got there first. He lifted her jacket from its hook.

“You don’t have to keep doing that.”

He halted right beside her. “Doing what?”

“Looking after me.”

“I know.” He held the jacket open.

She sighed softly. “You’re impossible.”

He gave a rumbling chuckle that went straight to her belly. “So I’ve been told.”

She turned her back to him so he could help her with the jacket.

Instead of trying to force her injured arm through the sleeve, he eased it onto that side first before guiding the fabric across her back. He settled the jacket across her shoulders, then smoothed the sleeves as though making sure nothing pulled against her bruises.

Then he lifted the ballistic vest and settled it over her jacket, fastening the straps. He checked the fit at her sides, making sure it sat snug without pressing against her bruised ribs.

His hands lingered for the briefest second at her elbows. Those hands had carried her to bed yesterday and held her face this morning as though she was something precious enough to protect and strong enough to choose.

Her lips still remembered the kiss.

She turned and flattened the collar of his shirt where it had folded beneath his jacket.

Her fingers brushed warm skin at the base of his throat. His eyes lifted to hers. Neither of them moved.

“There,” she said.

For a second he looked surprised she’d touched him at all. Then the corners of his eyes softened.

She dropped her hand before she could think too hard about why she’d done it. She handed him the cruiser keys. “You ready?”

“No.”

She shook her head, smiling. “Me neither.”

Walter’s voice carried from outside. “Search and Rescue’s here.”

Reality came back all at once. Sarah drew a slow breath, planted her hat on her head and opened the door.

Hudson waited for her to go first, then followed her out.

Sarah sat in the passenger seat while Hudson pulled the cruiser onto the snow-covered road. Cord sat handcuffed in the rear, staring through the side window as though he could somehow will the miles to disappear. Walter drove behind with Statton and Miller.

The cruiser sluiced through puddles of snowmelt that would refreeze by nightfall. The spruce drew closer as the road narrowed into little more than twin tracks winding through the forest. The deeper they drove, the more the world seemed to muffle itself.

Sarah studied the map spread across her knee. Cord had given them a location. Now she prayed they weren’t too late.

Walter’s voice crackled through the radio. “Alaska State Troopers are en route. A couple of hours out.”

Sarah lifted the handset. “If Nora’s alive, she doesn’t have two hours.”

Walter didn’t argue. “Search and Rescue is staging with EMS a mile back.”

“Good.”

Hudson glanced sideways.

“I’m fine, Hudson.”

He reached across and squeezed her knee, never looking away from the road. His touch was brief, but warmth lingered where his hand had been.

The rest of the drive passed in silence.

Hudson’s hands rested lightly on the wheel, shoulders loose, breathing slow, his expression giving nothing away. But she sensed the change. His focus. The man who’d smiled against her mouth had stepped aside for the operator beneath.

Cord leaned forward from the back seat. “Here. Slow.”

Hudson eased off the accelerator.

Sarah looked across at him. “You trust Cord?”

“I trust useful information.”

Ignoring them, Cord pointed through the windshield. “The cabin’s over the rise.”

It came into view between the trees, the clearing unnaturally still. No woodsmoke curled from the chimney. No ravens scattered at their approach. Just the cabin sitting in the silence.

Cord’s face was rigid, his cuffed hands fisted in his lap. “If she’s in there...” His voice caught. “Just bring her home.”

Sarah met his eyes. “We’ll do everything we can.”

Hudson brought the car to a stop a hundred yards short, the cruiser concealed by the curve of the track. The instant the engine died, something shifted in him.

He was examining the ground around the cabin before his boots hit the snow. Every movement was economical, every glance deliberate.

He wasn’t looking at the cabin. He was taking it apart.

Sarah had known Hudson was dangerous. Until now she’d thought it was because he carried a gun. But standing beside him in the snow, the gun was the least dangerous thing about him.

The wind cut through her jacket as she got out, finding every gap at her collar and cuffs. The air smelled of spruce and the icy bite of clean snow.

Walter pulled in behind them, his cruiser crunching to a halt. Walter and the two deputies climbed out, rifles already slung, breath steaming.

Sarah moved to Hudson’s side. “Assessment?”

Hudson didn’t look away from the cabin. “Somebody’s been here recently.”

Walter and Statton joined them. Hudson took a knee, his fingers skimming across the snow. She followed the direction of his gaze.

Broken pine needles. Someone had pushed through low branches without bothering to hide it. Hudson’s gaze kept moving, searching for details her eyes hadn’t reached yet.

Walter broke the hush, looking between them. “How do you want us moving?”

Sarah looked at Hudson. “Talk to me.”

“One approach in. Trees are too dense on either side to move quietly, so if anyone’s watching, they’ll have this road covered.” Hudson scanned the cabin's roofline. “No smoke. Windows are curtained from the inside.”

Sarah raised her binoculars, studying the cabin for a moment. “Padlock’s been forced.”

Walter looked across. “Recently?”

“Yeah. Bright metal. Whoever broke it didn’t do it months ago.”

Hudson touched the churned snow. “Two people went in. Only one came back out.”

“Can you tell how recently?” Sarah asked.

“Hard to tell. Wind’s started filling them.” He studied them for another second.

Sarah frowned. “Nora?”

“Mmm.” He looked toward the cabin. “Maybe.”

Walter shifted his rifle. “So we split?”

Hudson shook his head. “No. If there’s a shooter inside, splitting gives him angles.” His attention flicked to the trees, then back to the cabin. “We stay together. Clear the structure. Get Nora out.”

Sarah followed his logic. “And if the cabin’s empty?”

“Then whoever took her already knows we’re looking.”

She blew out a slow breath. “Okay.” She looked at Walter. “You, me, and Hudson clear the cabin. Miller, cover the rear exit. Nobody comes out behind us. Statton stays with Cord. If anyone approaches from the road, you call it in.”

The deputies moved without hesitation.

Hudson caught her hand before she could step away. “You should stay with Statton.”

She looked down at his hand, then back at him. “You promised.”

His mouth flattened. “I know what I promised.”

“So keep it.”

A long beat passed between them, and everything else fell away.

“I need you to trust me, Hudson.”

His eyes searched hers. For a second she thought he might throw her over his shoulder and carry her back to the cruiser.

He dragged a hand across his mouth. “Fine, but you stay behind me.” The line of his shoulders was set. “And Walter.”

He was trying. That was all she’d asked.

She turned her hand beneath his until their fingers met for the briefest second. “Deal.”

He let go. “I’m serious.”

“I know.” She held his gaze. “I’m coming home with you.”

The hard line of his mouth softened. “See that you do.”

36

Hudson moved first.

The snow was knee-deep between the tree line and the cabin, muffling any sound. Sarah was exactly where she’d agreed to be, behind him and Walter. He made himself wait before checking on her, but if he didn’t look back soon, he’d lose his damn mind. He needed to know she wasn’t pushing past what her body could do.

When he looked, she was pale beneath the bruising, moving with the careful economy of a woman who knew exactly how much her body had left to give and was rationing it. She caught him looking and gave him a flat stare that said everything it needed to.

Fifty yards became thirty. Twenty.

Somewhere deeper in the trees, a branch cracked.

Hudson froze.

His gun came up, sights snapping toward the sound. Walter dropped to a crouch, rifle covering the trees. To Hudson’s left, snow sifted loose from a high branch and drifted through the pines.

Nothing moved.

Hudson waited another three seconds, then he lowered the muzzle by a fraction.

“Wind,” Walter murmured.

“Maybe.” Hudson started forward again.

The structure resolved itself into detail as they closed—a hunting cabin, built low against the weather. Log walls blackened from decades of storms. A single window on the near side, curtained from inside with something dark.

The porch came into focus one detail at a time. The padlock Sarah had spotted through the binoculars hung from the hasp, forced open, the torn metal bright against the aged wood. Scuffed snow at the base of the steps. Overlapping boot prints. A smear of mud on the bottom rail where someone had braced a foot. No blood. No drag marks outside.

The door was shut.

Hudson didn’t touch it yet. He crouched beside the bottom step and studied the threshold. The smell of rotting wood hung in the air, and beneath it, kerosene.

Nothing disturbed the narrow gap beneath the door. No wires. No fresh marks around the frame.

He rose and put his hand on the door.

Unlocked.

He signaled Miller to cover the rear and Miller eased away soundlessly, rifle up.

The hinges gave with a low groan that was deafening in the wintry hush. Hudson went in fast and low, gun raised, clearing the threshold in one stride, sweeping left to right before his second boot had crossed the frame.

Living room. Small. A wood stove, unlit. Newspapers piled on the floor, recent enough that the print hadn’t yellowed. An empty water bottle on its side near the wall. A kerosene lamp on a rickety table. A cupboard door hung open. A chair lay on its side. Someone had left in a hurry.

Clear.

Kitchen. Narrow galley. A box of crackers open on the counter. The window above the sink looked out onto the rear toward the white wilderness.

“Bedroom’s clear,” Walter called.

Hudson followed him in. The room was tiny. One cot. Blankets bunched at the foot. A bucket in the corner stinking of disinfectant. Sliced zip ties on the floor beside the cot. Bile soured his mouth. Someone had been held here.

But the room was empty.

He checked the closet. A single shelf, bare. Nothing behind the door. Only dust and cold floorboards beneath the cot.

He came back out into the living room where Sarah was standing near the wood stove, her expression careful and controlled. “She’s not here.”

Miller’s voice came through the radio. “Rear’s clear.”

The words settled over the cabin like another layer of snow. But Cord had been certain. Hudson swept the room again. Every sign said someone had been here recently. Every room said they were too late.

Sarah moved slowly across the room, her boots quiet on the worn floorboards. She paused beside the stove, her fingertips brushing the rough log wall.

“Sarah?”

She shifted her weight. The floorboard creaked beneath her boot. She frowned and took another careful step. This time the sound was different.

Hudson crossed to her as Sarah knelt, one hand braced around her ribs as she laid the other flat against the timber floor. Wind whispered from the open door.

The faintest scrape came from beneath them. So indistinct Hudson might have dismissed it as the house settling. Sarah rapped lightly on the floorboards, head tilted as she listened. Her gaze traveled slowly across the room, taking in the position of the stove, the table, and the rug bunched beneath it.

“These old hunting cabins. A lot of them were built over root cellars. They kept vegetables down there through the winter.” She looked at the stove. “The hatch would’ve been somewhere near the heat.”

Walter shoved the table aside, pulling the rug back from the center of the floor. Hudson ran his hands across the boards, feeling for the seam, the cut edge, anything that would mark a hatch against the grain of the original floor.

His fingertips found it—a rectangular cut in the boards, almost invisible under the rug’s weight, with a recessed iron ring pull caked with grime.

He curled his fingers through the ring. “Stay back.”

Sarah scooted backward, giving him space with her gun up, covering him, exactly where he would have put her if she’d asked.

Hudson pulled.

The hatch came up reluctantly, stiff on rusty hinges. Cold air breathed out of the darkness, carrying damp earth, mold, and iron. He swung his legs through the opening and lowered himself into the darkness, dropping the final few inches to the dirt floor. He swept his flashlight left. Empty shelving. Right. Stone wall. Behind. Nothing.

He angled the beam at the low ceiling, searching for fishing line, pressure switches, anything waiting to punish the first man through the hatch.

Clear.

His flashlight landed on a figure curled against the far wall beneath a filthy blanket. A woman.

He checked the space around her. No weapon within reach. No one concealed behind the shelving. No second exit.

Her hands were bound in front of her with zip ties. Her shoulders shook, hair obscuring her face in tangled strands. Her lips were blue with cold, her skin waxy beneath the grime. Her bare feet were tucked under her as if she’d been trying to make herself smaller to survive.

Fuck. Nora.

Her eyes caught the light and flew wide with terror. Hudson dipped the beam immediately, keeping it on the floor between them as he holstered his gun.

He held up his empty hands, making sure she saw them before he took a single step closer. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

Her eyes stayed locked on his face, wide and unseeing, her breath coming in short, ragged bursts that fogged the cold air between them.

“Sarah,” Hudson called up. “She’s here. She’s alive.”

Sarah’s boots moved on the floor above him, and then she was at the hatch. “I’m coming down.”

“Sarah—”

Her legs swung over the edge.

Arguing now would waste seconds Nora didn’t have. He caught Sarah by the hips, gently lowering her to the floor.

“Thanks.” She moved past him to crouch in the dirt beside Nora.

“Nora.” Her voice came out low and warm. “Remember me? I’m the sheriff. Sarah Meyer. It’s over.”

Nora kept her gaze locked on Sarah, tears welling in her eyes.

“Hudson, your knife.” Sarah held out her hand without taking her eyes off Nora.

He placed it in her palm. Sarah leaned in slowly, letting Nora see every movement as she sliced carefully through the zip ties around her wrists. The plastic fell away, leaving angry red welts around skin so cold it looked almost translucent.

“There we go,” Sarah murmured. “You’re doing so well.”

A small sob escaped Nora, her fingers clawed with cold. Sarah peeled off her own gloves and eased them over Nora’s hands, careful of her raw wrists.

“We’re going to get you out of here,” she said. “Deputy Marshal Kane’s going to help. Is that all right?”

Nora looked uncertainly toward Hudson, then back to Sarah. When Sarah smiled, she gave the smallest nod.

Hudson crouched beside her. “Can you stand up for me?”

Nora planted one gloved hand against the dirt floor and tried. Her arms trembled violently. She barely made it halfway before her legs gave way beneath her, and she slumped back against the wall with a frustrated, broken sound.

“It’s all right,” Sarah said. “Don’t fight it.”

Hudson kept his voice low. “I’m going to carry you.”

Sarah didn’t hesitate. She gathered the filthy blanket from around Nora’s shoulders, tucking the loose edge beneath Nora’s arms so it wouldn’t slip once Hudson lifted her. Then she rested one steady hand on Nora’s shoulder.

“Hudson has you. I’ve got you too.”

Nora’s breathing eased by the smallest fraction. Only then did Hudson slide one arm behind her shoulders and the other beneath her knees. Sarah supported Nora’s head and kept the blanket tucked around her until Nora’s weight was secure against Hudson’s chest. The weight pulled across his ribs, but he locked down his breathing and rose.

Walter was already kneeling at the opening above. “Ready.”

Hudson raised Nora carefully toward the hatch. Walter lay flat beside the opening and reached down, securing an arm around her shoulders while Hudson supported her from below. Together, they eased her onto the cabin floor.

Once Nora was safely above, Sarah came to stand in front of him.

Hudson stripped off his gloves. “Hands.”

She blinked at him, then held them out. He slid the gloves over her bare fingers, tugging each cuff snug.

“Hudson. You need these.”

“So do you.” He met her eyes. “I’m not the one recovering from a concussion.”

She looked at him for a long second, her cheeks flushed from the cold.

“You found her, Sarah.”

The smallest smile touched her mouth. “We found her.”

He laced his fingers into a stirrup. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

He boosted her up. She caught the edge of the opening, swung a knee onto the floor above, and pulled herself through.

Only then did Hudson haul himself out after her, a grunt escaping him as pain stabbed through his lungs.

The cabin looked exactly as it had five minutes ago. Except it wasn’t a prison anymore. Sarah was beside Nora, wrapping another blanket around her shoulders and resting a steady hand between her shoulder blades as she spoke in the same calm voice. “That’s it. Stay with me. You’re safe now. EMS is en route.”

Walter had his radio in his hand.

“Bring EMS in,” he said. “We’ve got her. Alive. Severe exposure.”

Static crackled. Then the answer came back. “Copy that. Moving now.”

Nora was small in a huddle of blankets on the floor. Hudson scooped her up again and carried her out. Sarah walked beside him, one hand resting lightly against Nora’s shoulder the entire way.

Cord’s face was pressed to the window glass before Hudson had covered half the distance. The muffled sounds of his shouts marked the last steps to the cruiser.

Sarah opened the cruiser’s rear door.

For a second, Cord couldn’t speak. His mouth opened and closed. His eyes filled, and he turned his face away as if that hid anything from anyone.

Hudson had imagined putting Cord on his knees a hundred times. None of those imaginings had looked like this. Hatred had been so much easier before Cord became a man again.

Statton took Cord by the arm and helped him out of the cruiser. Everything in Cord’s face came apart at once. He sagged. “Nora. Thank God.”

“Jake?” Nora reached for Cord from Hudson’s arms despite his cuffs.

Cord bent awkwardly around the cuffs and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Sarah stepped away and gave them the few seconds they had before the EMTs came up the track. They wrapped Nora in heated blankets, transferred her carefully onto a stretcher and carried her toward the ambulance staged down the road. Cord turned as if every part of him wanted to follow.

The ambulance doors closed behind her.

Cord lowered his head as Statton eased him back into the cruiser. Before the door closed, he leaned forward. “Kane.” He motioned to Hudson. “My word is good. I’ll tell you everything, like I said. No more running.”

Hudson had imagined those words for a year. He’d imagined victory. Vindication. The moment the hunt finally ended. Standing there in the snow, he felt nothing like he’d expected. He shifted his gaze to Sarah. She was talking to Walter, one hand absently rubbing her bruised side.

He’d come to Aurora Cove hunting one ghost. Instead, he’d found the woman he’d spent fifteen years convinced he’d lost. He couldn’t even say when it had happened, but Sarah Meyer was the reason he wanted to stay.

She was the future he’d stopped believing he could have.

37

Sarah closed the front door behind her and leaned against it, eyes closed.

No radio. No dispatch. No Walter asking whether she’d signed the transfer paperwork for Cord.

Cord was in federal custody now, being held at the station until two deputy marshals arrived from Anchorage to collect him tomorrow. Nora was stable at the hospital, wrapped in warming blankets with warmed IV fluids running. A doctor had told Sarah another few hours in that cellar would have been a different conversation entirely.

Now she was home. The house was quiet. She unlaced her boots, toed them off and padded into the kitchen.

The flowers Hudson had bought were fully open, catching the last of the afternoon light on the kitchen table, petals wider than they’d been this morning.

The fridge was still absurdly full—enough food for a week, maybe two, bought by a man who apparently believed the correct response to an empty refrigerator was to declare war on it.

She closed the refrigerator but didn’t move away immediately. Yesterday this house had felt like somewhere she slept between shifts. Today it felt like somewhere she wanted someone to come home to.

Her phone buzzed on the counter. She reached for it, expecting Walter. Or dispatch. Or her mother, who had called three times today already.

Hudson.

Dinner?

Hotel bar.

Seven?

If you’re up to it.

She stared at the screen. Four lines. No pressure or assumptions. The question mark after seven made her smile. Even now, he was leaving her room to say no.

Her stomach flipped. It hadn’t done that since she was eighteen.

Seven.

She hit send.

Oh God. I just agreed to a date.

She put the phone face down on the counter and walked toward her bedroom before she changed her mind. She showered quickly, then stood in front of her closet with nearly two hours to figure out who the hell she was supposed to be when she got there.

Mostly she owned practical things. Work shirts. Thermal layers. Jeans in varying shades of sensible. Clothes bought to do a job in, not to be noticed in. Her uniform hung at the far left. Sheriff Sarah. The version of herself she put on without thinking because the job decided for her. Tonight it didn’t.

She touched the sleeve of her work shirt and moved on.

She reached for her good jeans. Practical. She held them up, then put them back.

A blue and white summer dress. Except it was November and below freezing. Absolutely not.

Her hand stopped on something she’d forgotten she owned—a navy wool dress, fitted and soft. She’d bought it for an anniversary party two years ago and worn it exactly once before it disappeared into the back of the closet behind her work jackets.

She pulled it out. It was just a dress. Warm enough for November, simple enough that she wouldn’t spend the whole evening wondering if she’d overdressed.

She took it off the hanger and pulled it on. When she stretched behind her for the zipper, the bruises across her ribs objected immediately. It fit differently than denim ever did, soft against curves her usual clothes mostly ignored. She smoothed a hand down the wool almost self-consciously before sitting on the bed to zip her knee-high boots.

She pulled the elastic from her ponytail. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, and she ran her fingers through it, shaking it out. She opened her jewelry box and added tiny silver hoops to her ears, then applied mascara and a slick of lip gloss.

She barely recognized herself in the navy dress, hair down, about to go to dinner with a man she’d kissed that morning. She exhaled a shaky breath. She wasn’t entirely sure who this version of her was yet.

A knock sounded at the front door.

She opened the door, and Wyatt walked right in. He was still in his flight suit, orange against the blue dark behind him, clearly straight from a shift.

“Just checking on you. Heard about Nora—” He turned to face her.

“Make yourself at home, Wyatt.” Sarah closed the door.

His eyes moved from her face to the dress, then back up to her face. “Well.”

She pressed her lips together.

“Are you going out?”

“Yes.” She arched a brow at him.

“Anyone I know?”

“Wyatt.” She folded her arms. “Last time I checked, I wasn’t twelve and didn’t need my big brother’s approval.”

“Still my little sister.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Never said you couldn’t.” He leaned against the kitchen doorframe, arms crossed. “You look great. Does he know how lucky he is?”

Her throat tightened. “I think he does.”

Seconds ticked between them.

Wyatt stepped forward and kissed her forehead. She leaned into it. A few seconds, no more, but she let herself have it—the steadiness of her brother, his smell of jet fuel and cold air.

“You look happy,” Wyatt said, stepping back. He headed for the door, then paused with his hand on the frame. He looked back at her. “Does Mom know?”

Sarah groaned. “Don’t tell her.”

“Not a chance.” He grinned, pulled the door shut behind him, and was gone.

The house was quiet again as she headed to the bathroom and took a photo in the mirror. She sent it to Jen with a question mark.

The reply came back in approximately three seconds.

A second message followed immediately:

About damn time. Don’t wear your sheriff face.

Sarah snorted. “I’m not.”

She put the phone down.

She glanced at herself in the mirror again.

There was no sheriff looking back at her tonight. Just a woman who looked a little nervous and, God help her, hopeful.

Sarah reached for the perfume on the shelf above the sink. She sprayed her wrists and throat, releasing citrus, sea salt, and soft white musk. She’d bought it years ago because it smelled like the coast after rain. Now it was almost unfamiliar on her skin.

“Okay, Sarah. Let’s do this.”

She grabbed her station key and cruiser fob, the set she could find blindfolded at three in the morning. She almost laughed when she realized she’d grabbed the wrong set. She shook her head and swapped them for Wyatt’s Volvo keys.

She looked around the quiet house one last time. Flowers on the table. Fruit in the bowl. A life she’d built one careful day at a time.

Tonight she wasn’t driving to a call.

She was driving toward Hudson.

38

Hudson headed to the hotel bar twenty minutes early. He told himself it was because he liked being early. It had nothing to do with the fact he hadn’t been on a date in years.

The hotel bar sat just off the lobby, its walls paneled in polished wood, an open fire crackling at the far end. Beyond the broad windows, snow drifted lazily across Aurora Cove, the town muffled beneath a fresh layer of white.

He chose the table nearest the fire and sat down.

Thirty seconds later, he realized his back was to the entrance. He got up again and moved to a table closer to the window.

A small tealight flickered on the table in a glass holder. He straightened the candle. Moved the napkin holder half an inch. Squared the sugar bowl with the edge of the table while the waitress brought his drink. She set his bourbon on a white paper napkin. He thanked her and held the glass between his hands without drinking.

He’d been in firefights with a calmer pulse than this.

He checked his watch.

6:56.

He ran a finger inside his collar, undid a button, and checked his watch again.

6:58.

He put his phone away and adjusted his glass of bourbon. The exterior entrance to the bar opened at seven precisely. A swirl of cold air swept through the room, carrying a scatter of snowflakes.

Sarah.

She unwound her scarf as she looked around, cheeks flushed from the cold.

Her gaze met his. A smile tugged at her mouth, and she gave him a little wave. Hudson stood up, his mouth dry.

She crossed the room to him, unbuttoning her coat, a nervous laugh escaping her. “This feels weird.”

“A little bit,” he agreed. Years of imagining this, and somehow he’d never once imagined the nerves.

He came around to help her with her coat. Tiny silver hoops caught the firelight when she tucked her hair behind one ear, and he had to consciously remember what his hands were for.

When he returned from hanging the coat, she was smoothing her dress over her thighs, and he lost his train of thought entirely.

Christ. She was beautiful.

For the first time since he’d arrived in Aurora Cove, there was no badge or uniform between them. Just Sarah. Hair loose. Eyes impossibly blue against the navy of her dress. She’d lived in jeans when they were teenagers. Somewhere in the years between, she’d become a woman, and he’d missed all of it.

“You’re staring,” she said, but she didn’t sound as if she minded.

“Yeah.” He didn’t try to deny it. “Give me a second. I had a whole plan for this evening, and you just walked in and deleted it.”

That got a laugh out of her, quick and surprised, as if she hadn’t expected him to admit it.

“What was the plan?”

“Something about being casual.” He pulled her chair out for her, and when she sat, he caught the scent of her, citrus and soft musk, and lost another few seconds deciding whether she’d chosen it for tonight or if it was just her. “Doesn’t seem to be working.”

“No,” she agreed, settling into the chair. “It really doesn’t.”

He nodded, trying to shove his brain back into gear. “Can I get you a drink?”

“I’d like that.” She lifted his glass and took a cautious sniff. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

He motioned to the waitress and ordered her drink.

Sarah glanced around. “I’ve never actually been here when I wasn’t arresting someone.”

Hudson laughed. “You arrest people in hotel bars often?”

“Small town.”

His face was solemn. “Occupational hazard.”

The earrings. The dress. Her hair. Sarah Meyer hadn’t done any of that by accident. She’d dressed for dinner. With him. Tonight she’d wanted him to see her.

Fuck.

For years he’d told himself he’d imagined what they’d once been. The thought sank deep and refused to move.

The waitress set Sarah’s bourbon on a coaster between them. “For you.”

“Thanks.” Sarah took a careful sip and immediately fought to keep her face straight.

Hudson didn’t bother hiding his smile.

“Don’t,” she warned.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it very loudly.”

He turned his glass, watching her recover. “You’ve genuinely never had bourbon before?”

“No.” Her smile was crooked. “I don’t know why I ordered it.”

She frowned at the glass as if it had betrayed her, then tried another sip. His attention followed the swallow before common sense dragged it back to her face.

The fire flickered light across her face as she placed her glass back on the coaster.

Silence stretched between them. He’d spent too many years rehearsing what he’d say if he ever got the chance. Now that he had it, he didn’t want to fill the quiet with words. He wanted to watch her not-drink her bourbon in the firelight and commit it to memory in case this was the only night he got.

Sarah traced a fingertip around the rim of her glass. “I spoke to Nora before I went off duty. She’s going to be okay.”

The tension in his chest released a little. One person brought home. One, this time.

“Good,” he said, and meant it more than the word carried.

Sarah eyed him as if she was setting something down. “I’m banning us from talking about work tonight.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You can do that?”

“I’m the sheriff.”

“Pretty sure that’s an abuse of office.”

“Not tonight, it isn’t.”

She said it lightly, but there was something underneath it he recognized, because he’d been doing the same thing all evening—building a wall around these few hours, keeping Cord and everything else out of it. Just for one night, pretending they were only two people at a table. Nothing chasing either of them.

He lifted his glass, a small toast to the idea of it. “Sounds reasonable.”

Sarah huffed a laugh. Her shoulders dropped, and her smile finally reached her eyes. He’d carried that laugh in his memory for too long. It was better than he remembered.

The waitress arrived with a basket of warm bread and took their order before disappearing again.

Sarah picked up a roll, broke it cleanly in half, and passed him a piece, the same way she’d once tossed him the better apple and kept the bruised one for herself. She’d always organized everyone around her without seeming to notice she was doing it.

He doubted she even remembered. He remembered everything.

He buttered the bread slowly, more for something to do with his hands than any real hunger. He was excruciatingly aware of her across the table. Usually, he was aware of exits, of movement at the edge of a room. This was old instinct, pointed somewhere new.

When he set the knife down, Sarah reached across the table. Her fingertips found the pale scar on the back of his hand and stopped there, tracing it slowly, like she was reading Braille.

She studied it, a small dent between her brows.

Usually people looked at his hands to judge whether they could still do the job. Nobody had ever looked at them like this. “Working dog,” he said. “She was injured, and she didn’t appreciate my first-aid technique.”

That earned him a laugh, and she didn’t lift her hand.

“There’s a place outside Chicago,” he went on. “Retired military and police dogs. I go out when they’re short-handed. Turns out I’m reasonably useful with a shovel and they don’t seem to mind me.”

She was quiet for a moment, her hand still resting over his. He had the strange sensation of being read rather than questioned.

“You like it,” she said.

“Some of the dogs don’t know what to do with the quiet.” Her fingers were slender, the graze on her knuckle almost healed. “Years of every sound mattering. Every stranger being a threat. Then somebody tells them they’re finished, and nobody explains what comes after.”

A log snapped and spat in the fire. Snow melted against the window behind her. Sarah didn’t say anything for long enough that he finally looked up.

“You understand them,” she said.

He turned his hand over slowly, until her fingers rested in his palm. Her fingertips were warm, the pads of them roughened just enough by reins and range days to catch lightly on his skin. It was barely a touch. His body reacted as if she’d put her hands somewhere far less innocent. “Maybe.”

Her thumb rubbed absently across his palm, as if she wasn’t aware she was doing it. “I think they understand you too.”

When their food arrived, Sarah slowly drew her hand from his. Neither of them reached for their silverware for a moment.

Sarah finally picked up her knife and fork and cut into her steak. She took one bite, closed her eyes for a second, then pointed her fork toward him. “Well. This was a good decision.”

Hudson grinned and cut his. “Can I ask you something?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“Did you ever think about leaving? Aurora Cove, I mean.”

She went still for a beat, fork halfway to her mouth, then set it down. “Once.”

He waited.

“About three years ago. Anchorage PD wanted me for a supervisory position. Better money. Real backup on shift. Not just Walter and a radio that cuts out past the ridge.” She studied the firelight moving through the bourbon. “I drove to Anchorage to look at apartments.”

“What happened?”

“I got as far as standing in one. Nice view. Dishwasher.” A small, private smile touched her mouth. “And I kept thinking about my dad’s shutters. How they need repainting every spring or the salt eats them. Ellie had just been born. In Anchorage, I’d have been the aunt who visited instead of the one who was there.” She rubbed her thumb along the handle of her fork.

“It wasn’t the job. The job would’ve been fine. I just…” She frowned, searching for it. “I don’t know. I think I was scared that if I left, I’d stop being someone this town needed.”

Hudson didn’t speak.

Her thumb stilled. “And I’d become someone who used to be needed here.” She looked up at him. “There’s a difference.”

Hudson turned that over slowly.

“That’s not a small thing to walk away from,” he said. “A promotion like that.”

“No.” She picked up her fork again, her gaze distant. After a moment, she looked directly at him. “I’ve never told anyone that. Not really. My dad thinks I turned it down for the horses.”

She’d chosen him for that truth.

“You didn’t tell Wyatt?”

“Wyatt would’ve called me sentimental.” Her mouth curved. “He’d have been right, probably. Doesn’t make it less true.”

Hudson thought about the file on Cord he’d built for years in a city he’d never once called home. About the rule he’d made for himself at nineteen. Don’t stay. Don’t give anyone a reason to depend on you. He’d pulled it out every time the wanting got dangerous.

“I don’t think that’s sentimental,” he said.

Her face softened. He hadn’t seen that look since the stables. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”

He’d spent years believing strength looked like leaving first. Sarah had built an entirely different definition. Stay. Show up. Keep choosing the same people. Somehow that looked braver.

Hudson looked at her across the candlelight. He’d walked away because he’d believed loving her meant setting her free. Sitting here now, he finally understood what he’d been too young to see.

She’d never needed him to choose her future for her. She’d built something extraordinary.

This time, if she made room for him, he wasn’t sure he could leave her again.

39

Sarah had stopped watching the clock.

She always knew the time. It was the first thing she checked when she woke and the last thing she tracked before sleep. In between, her days ran on fifteen-minute increments. Dispatch. Patrols. Shift changes.

Tonight she hadn’t looked at her watch once.

Across the table, Hudson was telling her about one of the retired dogs stealing a bag of tennis balls from the sanctuary gift shop. She’d missed half the story because she’d been watching him.

The quiet precision never really left him, even when he was relaxed. His strong hands, scarred across the knuckles, sketched the story for him and she’d stopped hearing the words somewhere around the second gesture. It turned out competence was distracting enough. Competence wearing a rolled-up shirt and smiling at his own story was downright unfair.

She smiled.

Hudson stopped mid-sentence. “What?”

“I think I was supposed to be listening.”

“You weren’t?”

She laughed softly. “I got distracted.”

His eyebrows rose. “By what?”

She met his eyes across the candlelight and, for once in her life, didn’t reach for a joke or a way out. “You.”

Almost imperceptibly, his mouth lifted. His gaze dropped to his bourbon before finding hers again. The tips of his ears turned pink.

Sarah bit the inside of her cheek. A Navy SEAL. Deputy U.S. Marshal. And she’d just made him blush. She picked up her glass and hid her smile behind it.

He cleared his throat and met her gaze. “You look different tonight.”

She glanced down at herself. “I’m not wearing my uniform.”

His mouth twitched. “I noticed.”

She waited for the compliment about the dress. The earrings. Her hair. Something easy to laugh off. Instead, he studied her for a quiet moment, his gaze resting on her face with the same careful attention he’d given everything else this evening.

“You look lighter,” he said at last.

She frowned. “Lighter?”

“You’ve smiled more tonight than I’ve seen you smile since I got here. You’ve laughed more, too.”

Heat flushed up the back of her neck, and she looked down, pretending to inspect the bourbon.

“I think...” She shook her head, gathering her words. “I think that might be the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a very long time.”

“Then people haven’t been paying attention.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. A log in the fire popped somewhere in the background, the murmur of other conversations cocooning them.

Sarah looked across the table at the man she’d once thought she’d never see again. She smoothed the wool over her thigh, needing something to do.

He took another sip of bourbon, as though buying himself a second. “So,” he said, a little too casually. “Do you ever go down to the river anymore?”

She smiled. “The falls?”

“Yeah. The spot with the flat rocks. Do you remember Wyatt’s fish?”

“Wyatt’s enormous fish that he absolutely caught and definitely didn’t lose.” She shook her head with a snort.

“He talked about that fish for years.”

“He still talks about that fish.”

“That day stuck with me.” Hudson smiled into his glass, his expression turning thoughtful. “Do you remember we went behind the waterfall?”

His gaze drifted toward the snow beyond the window. “The light came through the water and threw rainbows across the rock, and Caleb was yelling himself hoarse for you to come swimming, and you never even heard him. You were watching the light.”

The memory came back with startling clarity. The cold spray on her skin, the thunder of the water so loud it became a version of silence, the colors shifting across the wet stone. She’d been twelve years old and completely mesmerized. “You remember that?”

He shook his head. “You stuck out your tongue because you said you wanted to taste the rainbow.” His eyes met hers. “I remember, Sarah.”

Something caught painfully in her chest. For years she’d believed she’d been the only one carrying memories.

She reached across the table and stole one of his fries.

He blinked. “Hey.”

“You weren’t eating it.” If she didn’t say something ordinary, her voice was going to betray her entirely.

“That’s theft.”

“I’ll write myself a warning.” She ate the fry. “Consider it a tax.”

“A tax?”

“For making me emotional.”

He stared at her for a second. Then a laugh rumbled out of him, and relief loosened her muscles.

The conversation wandered after that, finding easier ground. The food was good, the fries dangerously so, and at some point Hudson surrendered half of them without ever admitting she’d won.

She couldn’t remember the last time two hours had disappeared so quickly. Or the last time she’d sat across from someone and felt her breathing slow. She kept catching herself watching things that had nothing to do with the conversation—the glimpse of skin where his collar fell open at his throat, or how candlelight found the hollow at the base of it when he leaned back in his chair. She looked away before he noticed, then looked back sooner than she should have.

Hudson wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I’ve been watching you this week.”

“That sounds slightly alarming.”

“It probably does.” He wasn’t smiling now. He was choosing his words. “People relax when you walk into a room,” he said. “At the station. With Petey.” A small shrug. “Even Walter.”

She laughed. “Walter never relaxes.”

“The closest Walter gets.”

That earned another smile, but she sensed the current beneath the words.

Hudson examined his glass for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “People breathe easier when you’re there, Sarah. You walk in and something changes. I’ve seen it happen a dozen times over the last few days.”

She’d been called capable. Reliable. Tough. Difficult, more than once. Nobody had ever told her people breathed easier because she was there.

She swallowed against the swelling in her throat. “Thank you.”

He nodded as though he’d confirmed something she’d somehow missed about herself, and let the silence carry it.

The waitress appeared beside the table with her notebook, and the small interruption felt almost kind, a chance to breathe and come back to the surface.

“Dessert?”

Sarah didn’t hesitate. “The chocolate torte.”

Hudson glanced at the menu for barely a second. “Peach cobbler. And coffee for two.”

The waitress scribbled their order and disappeared. Sarah folded her menu closed and studied him across the table.

“You like chocolate,” she said.

“I do.”

“So you ordered peach cobbler.” She narrowed her eyes.

He held her gaze with an expression that was trying to be innocent and failing.

“You were hoping we’d share.”

His mouth curved. “The thought crossed my mind.”

She shook her head slowly, but the smile pulled at her mouth, impossible to stop.

Five minutes later, the waitress brought the desserts. Before she’d reached the table, Hudson had already moved his water glass, folded his menu, and cleared a space. The waitress smiled her thanks as she set the plates down. He slid the cobbler into the space between them. Sarah pushed the chocolate torte to meet it and reached for her spoon at exactly the same moment he reached for his.

Their spoons bumped.

She laughed. “So much for the plan.”

His eyes creased. “The plan was flawless. Your timing was the problem.”

“My timing is impeccable.”

“Your timing,” he said, stealing a corner of the torte, “is why I ordered a decoy dessert.”

They finished their desserts and soon her coffee cup was empty.

The bar had grown quieter around them. Someone had dimmed the overheads behind the bar. A couple near the fire paid their check and left, and the room seemed to contract around their table.

Snow still fell beyond the glass, thicker now, the flakes fat and lazy. The town had disappeared beneath it.

She looked across the table at Hudson, his face half in candlelight and half in shadow. The evening was ending.

She wasn’t ready. For years she’d wanted one more conversation with him. Tonight she’d reached the end of one and discovered she wanted another.

And another after that.

“Can I get you anything else?”

Hudson looked at Sarah before he answered the waitress. She recognized the question in his eyes because she’d been asking herself the same thing for the last twenty minutes. Neither of them wanted the evening to end.

“Just the check,” he said.

Low light caught the strong lines of his face, his sleeves pushed back over his forearms, the scar she’d traced an hour ago pale against his skin.

She wrenched her gaze away.

The wanting had been there all evening. Quiet and persistent, running beneath the laughter, the shared dessert, and every accidental brush of their hands. It frightened her. Not because she doubted him, but because she knew exactly what losing him had felt like once already.

She’d survived Hudson Kane leaving once.

She wasn’t sure she had another one in her.

The words rose in her. “I spent years imagining what I’d say if you ever came back.”

Hudson stilled as he tucked his wallet inside his jacket.

She gave a small shrug. “I don’t seem to have any of those speeches anymore.”

“And?”

She’d spent too many nights talking to imagined versions of Hudson Kane. Not one of them had been as good as the man sitting across from her.

“I think I missed this more than I knew,” she said. “With you.”

He didn’t answer, just turned his hand over on the table, palm up.

She placed her hand in his. His fingers closed around hers, warm and sure, and neither of them said another word. His thumb brushed slowly across her knuckles. For the first time in longer than she cared to count, she let herself believe there could be a next.

The bartender appeared beside their table with a gentle clearing of his throat. “I’m sorry, we’re closing up.”

Sarah looked around. The chairs were stacked on the far tables. The fire was ashes. She hadn’t noticed any of it.

“Of course,” Hudson said, already on his feet. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

He helped her into her coat. His fingers skimmed the nape of her neck as he lifted her hair free of the collar, careful not to catch a single strand. The touch was brief, but it traveled the full length of her spine.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.

After hours of firelight, the night air had bite, the snow falling thick and muffling everything beyond the reach of the hotel’s porch light. Every hard edge was softened, every sound muted.

He offered his arm, and she took it as they walked slowly across the parking lot without speaking. Their boots compacted the fresh snow. His arm was solid and warm against hers. She didn’t want the quiet miracle of this evening to end.

Not yet.

Wyatt’s car was ahead, snow piled on the windshield, the interior dark. She stopped walking and Hudson stopped beside her. His expression held nothing back and asked for nothing in return.

“Hudson. I don’t want to go home yet.”

“My room’s upstairs,” he said. Then, softer: “You don’t have to.”

She turned to face him. “My choice.”

His gaze held hers. “I know.”

40

Hudson was good under pressure.

This was entirely different. Sarah walked beside him without rushing. Her thumb moved across his knuckles, and the contact traveled through him like a current finding bare wire.

He stopped outside his hotel room door. The key card took him two attempts because his hands had forgotten how to perform basic motor functions. At last the lock clicked green. He pushed the door open and stepped back to let Sarah go in first.

The room was lamp-lit and warm, with white sheets and pale walls. Snow drifted against the window in fat flakes, the glass dark beyond them.

Hudson closed the door and took off his jacket.

Sarah shrugged out of her coat and draped it over a chair. She walked a few paces toward the window, then turned to face him, the snow falling silently behind her. “You’re staring.”

He shook his head, a small laugh escaping him, hands useless at his sides. “Can you blame me?”

She smiled as she held his gaze and reached down.

The sound of her boot zipper was loud in the privacy of his room. She drew it down, stepped out of the boot, then reached for the other, her eyes never leaving his.

Hudson didn’t move. He couldn’t have said what was happening to his pulse. Something well beyond its operational parameters.

She walked toward him, then turned her back to him, the zipper of the navy dress running from her nape to the small of her back.

His fingers located the zipper at the top of her spine, and he drew it down slowly, the teeth parting in a soft metallic rasp that sounded louder than it had any right to in the stillness.

Skin appeared beneath the fabric—the smooth ridge of her spine, the warm expanse of her back opening to him inch by inch. For several seconds he blanked. No clever thought. No comparison. Just the overwhelming certainty that she trusted him.

She shivered as he pushed the dress off her shoulders. Sarah stepped forward, out of his reach. The dress pooled at her feet, leaving her in navy lace, the color deep as twilight against her skin. Lamplight traced the graceful line of her spine.

She was really here.

She reached up and removed one silver hoop. Then the other. She set them on the nightstand.

The earrings she’d put on for him.

Fuck.

Sarah turned.

She looked at him, her gaze steady, barefoot in the lamplight. Purple and yellow spread beneath her ribs, fading toward her hip—the marks left by the seat belt still visible across her chest. Hudson’s jaw locked.

Her expression softened, but she didn’t cover herself. For a second, looking at her hurt. This wasn’t memory.

Sarah. Present tense. Choosing him.

She closed the space between them and stopped, near enough that the narrow space between them held the warmth of her body, even though they weren’t touching yet.

She looked up at him. “What?”

“I just—” He shook his head. “I spent a long time convinced this would never happen.”

“Mmm.” Her eyes were dark in the soft light. “We’re here now.”

He lifted his hand and cupped her face. She leaned into his palm, her skin impossibly soft. He traced the line of her jaw, and her eyes closed for a fraction of a second.

Her eyes opened and found his. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then her palm curved around his neck, and she rose to kiss him.

Slowly at first. A soft press of her mouth, chocolate and coffee, the warmth of her breath mingling with his. Hudson followed the pressure of her lips, every small shift, letting her show him exactly where she wanted this to go.

She drew back barely an inch, her gaze finding his again before she kissed him deeper.

He skimmed her waist. Bare skin, warm and alive under his palms, and the sensation of finally touching her—properly, without gloves, without an excuse, without a crisis to justify the contact—obliterated every coherent thought he’d had in the last thirty seconds.

Her fingers went to his collar. The buttons of his shirt. She unfastened the first without breaking the kiss, then the second, her knuckles grazing his chest as each one opened. Third. Fourth. Her hands spread flat against his skin and pushed the shirt off his shoulders. It dropped to the floor as her palms slid down his chest, and he had to lock his knees to stay upright.

Hudson kicked off his shoes and socks.

She studied him without hurry. Her fingers found the scar below his collarbone. She didn’t ask or give him the careful look people used when they wanted the story behind damaged skin.

She touched it gently and moved on.

Her hands landed on his belt. The buckle opened with a sound that seemed to fill the room. She held his gaze while she unfastened his pants and let them drop. He took a breath and stepped out of them.

They stood in the lamplight, equally bare and exposed. He wanted to memorize this part, savor every second—remember everything. There had been enough urgency in both their lives. This they could take slowly.

Sarah put her hand flat on his chest, over his heart. He was sure she would feel how fast it beat. Then she took hold of his hand and stepped backward, drawing him with her until the backs of her knees hit the bed. She sat, pulled him down, and he followed because that was the only direction left—toward her, always toward her.

The bed took their weight. He braced above her on his forearms, her hair spread dark gold across the white sheets, her face tilted up to his.

She pulled him closer, her arms around his neck, her body arching into his. The full contact—skin to skin, the length of her pressed against him—fractured something in his breathing he’d fought to hold steady for years.

He kissed her throat. The hollow at the base of it where her pulse beat fast and visible against her skin. The line of her collarbone, one side, then the other. Her shoulder, where the strap of her bra rested against skin he’d been thinking about since she’d turned around and offered him the zipper.

He reached behind her. The clasp of her bra opened under his fingers, and she exhaled—a shaky, real sound that sliced through him. He drew the straps down her arms slowly, his mouth following the path his hands made, tasting every inch of her.

Her breath caught when his lips found the slope of her breast. Caught again, harder, when his thumb traced beneath the curve and then across, and the sound she made when he reached her nipple ripped through him.

He stayed there. Learned what made her hands tighten in his hair. What made her hips shift beneath him, testing every remaining thread of his self-control.

Then he kissed her mouth again, deep and slow, and let his hand travel lower.

Around the bruising at her ribs, careful even now. Across the plane of her stomach, where her muscles tensed and released under his palm. The dip of her navel. The line of her underwear, where his fingers traced the edge and her whole body tensed in anticipation.

His cock had been hard for so long it bordered on painful, every slow inch of his hand across her skin eroding the last of his restraint.

Still, he paused.

His forehead rested against hers, their breaths mingling in the narrow space between them. He gave her room to move. To stop him. Or pull him closer.

She lifted her hips against his hand. “Hudson.”

He slid his hand beneath the lace, to where she was warm and slick. The discovery of how much she wanted him pulled a low, unsteady groan from his throat, a sound he’d been holding for far too long. His fingers found her rhythm. Slow at first. She exhaled sharply and her head pressed back into the pillow, a flush spreading down her throat and across her breasts.

He’d been wrong earlier when he’d thought no one had ever looked more beautiful to him.

Sarah right now. This was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

He kissed her as his hand moved. Her mouth, her jaw, the place below her ear where her pulse hammered against his lips. She kissed him back in fragments, kisses that broke apart when his fingers discovered the angle that made her breath stall, then found it again, until she stopped trying to kiss him at all because she couldn’t hold on to both.

A whimper caught low in her throat. So small it was barely there.

Every muscle in his body locked against the instinct to take more, push harder, hear it again.

Hudson lifted his head. Sarah looked right at him, hiding nothing.

For a long moment she held his gaze and let him see everything, her lips parted, color high across her cheeks. The intimacy of it almost destroyed him.

Her hand gripped his forearm. Her nails bit into the muscle and he didn’t care. He’d have let her draw blood if that was what she needed. Because she was still looking at him.

“Hudson—”

She tensed beneath him, her thighs closing around his hand, her fingers digging harder into his arm.

He pressed his forehead to her damp temple. “Sarah.”

Her body drew tight and then let go, the release starting deep and rolling through her in waves. He felt each one against his hand and his chest, his mouth pressed to her temple. Slowly, he gentled his touch without pulling away.

Her breathing returned in stages. Hudson stayed where he was. He would stay here forever if she’d let him.

Her fingers found his cheek and drew him back until he was looking at her. She kept reaching for him. And every time she did, the old certainty that he’d lost her forever loosened its grip a little more.

He turned his face into her palm and closed his eyes. He breathed in, and the breath was easy. He hadn’t had to fight for it.

Peace had always felt temporary.

With Sarah, for the first time, he wanted to stay and trust it.

41

Sarah lay still, her body slowly returning to her in pieces—the pulse still thudding between her thighs, the heat of his hand where it rested on her, the damp sheen of sweat cooling across her stomach.

His forehead rested against her temple.

She ran her tongue over her dry lower lip. “I’m thirsty.”

Hudson was out of the bed before she said anything more, the soft pad of his bare feet crossing the carpet. Water ran briefly in the bathroom. The quiet clink of glass.

Sarah rolled onto her side.

Hudson walked back carrying a glass of water, wearing nothing but his boxers and the low lamplight.

She drank him in. The broad line of his shoulders. The lean planes of his stomach, muscle shifting beneath skin. A scar zigzagged low along his left side, pale and neat as a signature.

His hair was wrecked, but his mouth was relaxed. She’d never seen him look like this. And the sight of him sent a slow pull of need through her all over again.

She took a long drink and handed it back. He set it on the nightstand and caught her staring. “What?”

Sarah pulled the sheet an inch higher, as though that might disguise the fact she’d been appreciating him.

“Nothing. Just appreciating the room service.”

His mouth curved as he climbed back into bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and Sarah let herself move into the warmth of him.

Gravity, she told herself. The lie lasted less than a second.

She turned to him, her palm finding his chest. Warm skin. The steady percussion of his heart beneath her hand, still too fast, not quite recovered from what he’d just done to her.

She let her fingers wander.

Across the solid breadth of his chest. Through the rough hair that tapered to a fine line down the center of his stomach where muscle tightened at the lightest pass of her fingertips.

Mmm.

She looked up. Hudson was watching her. His expression gave nothing away, but the muscles beneath her palm had gone taut.

She ran gentle fingertips across the scar below his collarbone—the pale ridge she’d found earlier. Her fingertips moved to the one along his ribs, a neat zigzag beneath her touch.

A body built to survive. And the evidence of how often it had been asked to.

She traced the zigzag, and his breath hitched. So quietly she might have missed it. She rose and pulled his mouth back to hers.

The kiss was slow. Deep. His hand lingered at her waist, moved over her ribs to the curve of her hip. She kissed him deeper and ran her hands down his chest again. She kissed the corner of his mouth, his throat, her lips pressing into the hollow where his pulse beat wild and graceless beneath his skin. She lingered there, loving the kick of it against her tongue.

His hand came to the back of her head, fingers threading into her hair, and the small, involuntary pressure of his grip sent heat curling through her.

Lower.

His collarbone. The sharp ridge of it beneath her lips. The scar below, the one she’d already learned with her fingertips. She found it again with her mouth and pressed a kiss to its center.

Hudson stilled beneath her, every muscle held tight with the effort of not moving.

Sarah lifted her head. She wanted more. The tiny betrayals of a body that had spent years following orders and, under her hands, was beginning to forget how.

Her mouth traced the line of his ribs as her hand moved lower. Across the ridged hardness of his stomach, muscle contracting beneath her palm, down to where his boxers sat low on his hips.

She trailed one fingertip along his waistband, a graze, barely there, then slid her fingers under to where his muscles quivered under her touch.

His groan was low and rough, pulled from somewhere so deep inside him it rumbled against her lips. His hips lifted into her hand, his hands fisting in the sheets.

She kept her hand where it was, loving the hardness of him.

God.

Hudson’s eyes met hers.

His lips parted.

Oh.

There he was.

The fierce warmth spreading through her wasn’t only desire. He was letting her see what nobody else did.

He caught hold of her wrist and pressed his thumb to her pulse point as though he needed to feel the beat of her beneath his skin. Then he released her, pushed his boxers down and kicked them free.

He reached across her toward the nightstand, his weight shifting over her. The quiet rasp of a zipper and a rustle from inside his bag, the small foil square caught between his fingers as he settled back.

He held it between them, his eyes on hers.

Sarah took the packet from his fingers without looking away and tore the foil. She rolled the condom down the length of him. His sharp inhale. The flex of his stomach. His eyes closed for one brief second before finding hers again.

His hand gripped her hip, five points of heat against her skin.

She planted a kiss on his throat. “Come here.”

He hooked his fingers inside the waist of her underwear, his knuckles brushing her hip as he drew the navy lace down her legs and tossed it aside. Cool air touched her skin for barely a second before his warmth replaced it.

Sarah caught his shoulders and drew him to her.

Hudson came willingly. He braced over her, and for a suspended second she forgot how to breathe.

So close.

His skin was warm against hers. He kept part of his weight braced away from her bruised ribs. Even now, some part of him kept an inventory of where she hurt.

She arched into him, wrapping her arms around his back and pulling him closer. More. She wanted more of his weight. More of his warmth. Every solid inch of him.

Hudson’s breath shuddered against her neck. His arms tightened around her, and his mouth came to rest against her shoulder, breathing her in. The warm, impossible reality of Hudson Kane wrapped around her was the opposite of leaving.

She reached between them. Found the thickness of his cock and guided him to her.

The first full press of him drove a gasp from her.

Hudson stopped. His forehead dropped to hers, his arms braced on either side of her. “Okay?”

Sarah smiled against his lips. “Very.” She waited a second, her body adjusting around him, every nerve suddenly awake, the intimacy of it almost overwhelming.

She hooked her leg around his and drew him closer. “Don’t stop.”

He began to move. A careful retreat followed by a deep return. A measured roll of his hips that found exactly where she needed him, and Sarah gripped the back of his neck.

Again.

God.

The same devastating patience. The same slow depth. Her body answered him without hesitation, finding his rhythm as if they’d done this before. She held his gaze and let him see her. The pleasure she couldn’t hide. The vulnerability she wasn’t trying to.

“Sarah.” His thumb traced her lower lip.

Then he moved again and thought became impossible.

There was only sensation. Only Hudson.

His eyes on hers, always paying attention.

But he was still holding back.

Giving her exactly what he thought she could take, and not one degree more.

Sarah locked her legs around him. One heel pressed into the back of his thigh, and she pulled him deeper, past the careful boundary he’d set.

She put her mouth to his ear and caught his earlobe gently between her teeth. “I won’t break.”

Hudson went still. Something in those three words reached him. It was there in the sudden silence of his body before his arms hardened around her. One hand slid beneath her and gripped her hip, changing the angle. He drove his hips forward with an urgency that shocked her.

The air punched from her lungs as his body met hers, his thrusts deeper now. He buried his face in her neck. His hand gripped her thigh, hitching her higher, and the new depth of him reached something inside her that made her cry out, a jolt of pleasure blurring her vision at the edges.

“Hudson—” His name broke apart in her mouth. There was no distance left between them now.

She dragged her hands down his back, nails biting into the muscle along his spine. Hudson groaned into her mouth, and she devoured the sound, wanting another.

The kiss had lost all its earlier grace. Their mouths met. Missed. Found each other again. Salt, heat and need.

Hudson shuddered. “Sarah.” Her name was rough against the damp curve of her neck.

His mouth.

At her jaw. Her throat. The place below her ear. The corner of her lips. As though this still wasn’t close enough. As if he needed every part of her he could reach.

His teeth grazed her collarbone. Sarah lifted her hips toward him.

Oh God.

She was close again.

“Hudson—”

His forehead found hers, his eyes open, dark and unfocused. His rhythm faltered, a tremble rocking through his arms. Sarah slid her hand to the side of his face.

Her body locked around him as his name left her again.

Hudson followed.

He drove deep and held. A rough sound escaped him, and his arms finally bent, bringing his chest down against hers.

Sarah caught him.

Her hands went into his hair. Her face pressed into his neck as the last tremors moved through them both.

Then nothing.

Just breath.

Weight.

The hard thud of his heart against hers.

Hudson’s face stayed buried against her neck. Sarah threaded her fingers through his damp hair. After a moment, he started to shift his weight off her.

Sarah tightened her arms. “Stay.”

She didn’t explain or soften it with for now or tonight.

She just held him. And this time, Hudson stayed.

42

Hudson woke to the sound of running water. For one disorienting second, he didn’t know where he was.

A navy dress was folded over the back of the chair. Memory returned all at once.

Sarah.

He lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t want to leave this room and turn any of it into memory. He’d done that once. He wouldn’t do it again.

He threw back the sheets and pulled on his boxers.

The room had a small machine on the counter by the window—one of those single-serve things with foil pods and a tray that didn’t quite sit level. He switched it on and watched the snow fall while the machine hissed and spat its way through two cups of something that was almost coffee.

He added three sugars to hers.

The bathroom door opened, and he forgot about coffee entirely.

Sarah stood barefoot wearing his shirt. The hem reached halfway down her thighs, the collar loose around her shoulders. She’d pushed the sleeves up to her elbows, and her hair was damp, darker at the ends where it touched her skin.

The bruises were still there, visible where his shirt was unbuttoned. So was his shirt. Somehow his brain couldn’t reconcile the two—the evidence of how close he’d come to losing her and the impossible fact that she was here.

He set his cup down.

Sarah smiled. “Morning.”

He crossed the room and kissed her. One hand found her jaw, the other sliding into her damp hair. She tasted of mint this morning, and the rest of him woke up fast.

Sarah smiled against his mouth, her hand sliding lower. “Well, good morning.”

“Coffee,” he said.

She kissed him back. “Probably wise. We have Cord to deal with today.”

He stayed there for another reluctant second, his mouth close to hers. With a sigh, he handed her the cup, their fingers brushing.

They sat against the headboard with their coffee, Sarah’s bare knee resting against his thigh beneath the sheet. Outside, snow had erased the edges of Aurora Cove.

Sarah took a sip and closed her eyes. “You remembered the sugar.”

“Yes.”

“Mm.” She looked at him over the rim of the cup. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Your breathing.”

His eyes snapped to hers.

“Sometimes it sounds like it’s harder than it should be.”

“That obvious?”

One shoulder lifted in a tiny shrug. “I’m a details girl.”

He thought he’d hidden it. Sarah had heard it regardless.

Fuck.

“That’s why I’m not in the Teams anymore,” he said at last.

Sarah waited.

Hudson stared into his coffee. “The operation where we lost Ben Taggart.” He exhaled a slow breath. “The charges went off during extraction. The blast wave collapsed part of the channel wall. I went under with half a ton of rock and silt.”

For an instant, the words dragged him back. The pressure. The absolute dark. Silt packed behind his teeth. His lungs screaming for air when there was none. And then the moment his body stopped listening to him and tried to breathe anyway.

He sipped his coffee, needing something to do.

“I aspirated enough water to do permanent damage. It left me with scarring on my lungs. Reduced capacity. Cold sensitivity.” He rubbed his knuckles against his chest. The clinical language came easily. He’d had years to learn that part. “Most days you’d never know. But if I push too hard or the temperature changes too fast, they remind me.”

Sarah was very still.

“That’s what ended it. It wasn’t the firefight or Cord.” His throat worked around a sandy swallow. “It was my lungs. Medical discharge.”

“And you’ve been dealing with that ever since?”

“Yeah.”

Her expression softened. She set her cup on the nightstand. Then she took his from his hands and placed it beside hers.

She climbed onto his lap. Her knees settled on either side of his thighs, and her arms came around his shoulders. She didn’t tell him she was sorry. She just held him.

Hudson closed his eyes.

He’d told the story to exactly three people in his life. His commanding officer. A military psychiatrist. Owen.

And now Sarah.

For a long moment his hands stayed useless at his sides. Then one found the middle of her back. The other followed, and he stopped waiting for the moment she’d let go.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. Neither of them moved. It buzzed again.

Sarah lifted her head from his shoulder. For one selfish second, Hudson wanted her to ignore it. The thought caught him off guard. He’d never been a man who asked anyone to choose him over the job. He’d spent most of his adult life making sure nobody had to.

Sarah slid off his lap. Her hand lingered against his chest before she reached for the phone. She looked at the screen and the softness of the last twelve hours bled away. Her spine straightened.

She lifted the phone to her ear. “Speak to me, Walter.”

Hudson was already out of bed.

Sarah listened, one hand pushing damp hair back from her face, while he pulled on his cargo pants. “When?” A pause. “Okay. Keep me updated. We’re on our way.”

She ended the call but stared at the screen for a moment, a faint line appearing between her brows. “Cord had a cardiac event overnight. He’s stable, but the hospital can’t manage the level of care he needs. They’re transferring him to Providence.”

Hudson’s mind shifted gears. “By air?”

“Ground. The weather’s ruled out an air transfer.”

He reached for a clean shirt. “Who’s riding with him?”

Sarah shot him a sideways look. “I’m guessing you have dibs.”

He nodded. “The Anchorage office can take custody at Providence.”

“Assuming cardiology gives him back.” Her mouth flattened into a tense line.

“How soon?”

“I don’t know yet.” She set the phone down and shrugged out of his shirt. She pulled on her underwear and bra, then reached for the navy dress. She stepped into it, drew it up, then turned her back to him.

The zipper waited at the base of her spine.

Hudson crossed the room. Last night he’d drawn it down with shaking hands. This morning he pulled it up and tried not to think about goodbye. His fingers paused at the nape of her neck where damp wisps curled against her skin.

Sarah pulled on her boots then turned and cupped his face. “I need to go home and change. I can’t walk into the hospital wearing last night’s clothes.”

Hudson glanced down at the dress. “You look fine.”

Her eyebrows rose. “I’m wearing last night’s clothes.”

“I noticed.”

Her mouth twitched and her smile hit him somewhere dangerously soft.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

Hudson covered one of her hands with his. “Okay.”

She kissed him, then reached for the door, her coat over her arm.

“Hudson?”

He looked up.

“Hospital.”

“I heard.”

She smiled. “Just making sure.”

Then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.

Hudson stood in the sudden quiet. His shirt lay on the bed where Sarah had left it. Her coffee sat half-finished on the nightstand. For one night, he’d had nothing to fix.

He’d only had Sarah.

And that had been everything.

He laced his boots and reached for his holster, the familiar weight settling against his body. His phone was already in his hand when he opened the door.

43

Sarah pulled into the hospital parking lot with her badge on her chest and Hudson Kane still everywhere beneath it.

She’d gone home and changed into her uniform.

It hadn’t helped.

She could still feel the weight of his hands on her hips, taste the salt of his skin. Last night, he’d looked at her as though there was nothing else in the room worth seeing.

She’d had lovers. She knew what belonged to a morning after. This wasn’t soreness or a lack of sleep. Something in her had already made room for the fact that Hudson was real again.

Sarah put the cruiser in park and cut the engine.

For a moment she sat in the sudden quiet, her breath fogging the windshield. Beyond the glass, the hospital’s gray facade rose behind rutted ice and piles of dirty slush.

Cord was inside. The case was waiting. And apparently her brain intended to spend the morning replaying what Hudson looked like when he stopped holding himself apart from her.

She tugged on her hat and climbed out. Hudson was standing at the top of the hospital steps.

He was with another man, an enormous dog sitting at their feet. Hudson had put the marshal back on. Dark jacket. Holster. His face was set in the focused lines she’d come to know over the last week.

He looked up and their eyes met across the parking lot. Memory arrived without permission. His face above hers—the loss of control he’d trusted her to see.

Heat flushed her throat. Seriously. Her body needed better situational awareness.

She rolled her shoulders and climbed the steps. The man beside him was broad-shouldered and somewhere in his early forties, his jacket creased, dark stubble shadowing his jaw. He had the tired, slightly battered look of someone who’d traveled a long way in a hurry.

The dog was easier to read.

Belgian Malinois. Big for the breed. Gray-frosted muzzle. Amber eyes fixed steadily on her as she approached.

“Sarah.” Hudson’s hand brushed the base of her spine. A small touch. Gone almost immediately. Her body noticed anyway.

“This is Owen Alcott. Deputy U.S. Marshal. Chicago. He’s been helping me on Cord’s case. I called him in after we brought Cord in.”

Owen extended a hand. “Sheriff Meyer.” They shook, his grip firm and brief. “Hudson told me about you.”

Sarah glanced at Hudson. “Has he?”

Hudson’s mouth tightened at one corner.

Owen’s gaze moved between them, and a smile ticked the corner of his mouth. “All good, I assure you.”

The Malinois rose and gave himself a shake.

“And this is Gunner,” Owen said. “Recently retired. My old partner.”

Gunner sniffed her hand. His amber eyes lifted to hers and stayed there long enough that Sarah had the odd sense of being interviewed. Then he leaned his considerable weight against her leg.

Owen stared at him. “Seriously?”

Sarah laughed and rubbed one pointed ear. “I think he likes me.”

“Six years I’ve spent teaching him not to trust strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger,” Sarah said. “Hudson told you about me.”

“Okay. Well. Apparently everybody’s been briefed,” Owen said.

Despite herself, Sarah smiled.

Then Hudson’s expression changed. “Cord’s stable. Nora’s with him.”

And just like that, the hospital came back into focus. Sarah dropped her hand from Gunner’s ear.

Hudson held the hospital door open. “Come on. I’ll take you to Cord.”

Owen tapped his thigh once, and Gunner moved instantly to his side. “Give me a minute. I need to get him settled. Gunner has a date with his heated travel mat.” Owen jogged down the steps and opened the rear of a large SUV. Gunner jumped in.

The hospital was overheated after the cold outside, the dry air catching at the back of her throat as she followed Hudson down the corridor. Cord’s room was at the end of the hall. Hudson opened the door as Owen caught up with them and stopped outside.

Cord lay propped against thin hospital pillows, an oxygen cannula looped behind his ears. A green line traveled steadily across the monitor beside him. Nora sat beside the bed in a wheelchair, one hand wrapped around Cord’s. She looked up as they entered. Sarah had seen versions of that expression in hospital rooms, beside wrecked cars, and once on a dock at three in the morning. The exhausted vigilance of someone afraid to look away.

Sarah’s gaze moved to Cord.

Four feet of water. Ben Taggart. And Hudson beneath rock and silt. Cord had set all of it in motion. Sarah looked at the diminished man in the bed. She hated what he’d done to Hudson and pitied what remained.

Hudson stopped beside her. His arm brushed hers.

Sarah didn’t move away. “Cord. How are you feeling?”

Cord licked chapped lips. “Like I’ve been better, Sheriff.”

“The doctors say you need a higher level of care than we can provide here. Providence has accepted the transfer.”

Cord’s gaze moved past her to Hudson and stayed there. “Okay.”

The door opened behind them, and a nurse stepped into the room, a tablet tucked against her hip. “Transport’s forty minutes out.”

Hudson turned. “Ground?”

“Critical-care unit. Two-person medical crew.”

“Thanks.”

The nurse nodded and left.

Sarah looked at Cord again. Nora’s hand was still wrapped around his, her thumb moving slowly across his knuckles.

“We’ll let you rest,” Sarah said.

Hudson opened the door, and Sarah stepped back into the corridor where Owen waited.

“He looks worse than I expected,” Owen said, peering through the window in the door.

Sarah kept her hand on the door handle for a moment. “I spoke to his doctor on the drive here. The cardiac event was significant.”

Owen’s attention shifted to Hudson. “I’ve got a name.”

Light reflected from the snow outside painted the linoleum between them. The corridor felt very quiet. Down the hall, an elevator opened and closed.

The creases around Hudson’s eyes deepened. “Go on.”

“Twelve hours ago, someone in Prisoner Operations flagged a request for Cord’s custody status and scheduled movement.” Owen lowered his voice. “Daniel Hale.”

Hudson swore under his breath.

Sarah looked between them. “I’m guessing I should know who that is?”

“Career CIA,” Hudson said. “Senior operations officer.”

A nurse passed by with a chart. Hudson waited until she’d rounded the corner. “Hale’s office supported weapons interdiction in the South China Sea. Adjacent to our operation.”

The connection landed for Sarah. “Cord’s operation?”

“Yeah.”

Sarah glanced through the narrow window in Cord’s door. The foot of his bed was visible. The IV pole. A sliver of Nora’s hand. “How did Hale know Cord was being moved?”

“It wasn’t common knowledge,” Hudson said. “The arrest is official, but I limited knowledge of his location and cooperation to the case team.”

“Because you thought the case was compromised.”

“I didn’t know.” His eyes met hers. “I wasn’t taking the chance.”

Sarah studied him. His stillness. Everything underneath moving fast. “And now Hale knows Cord is moving.”

Hudson nodded.

She pressed her fingers to her forehead for a moment. “Could Hale be the reason Cord ran?”

“Maybe,” Hudson said.

“That’s not much.”

Hudson pressed two fingers to his temple. “It’s more than we had yesterday.”

“Then we assume the transfer’s compromised.”

“Exactly,” Owen said.

Her stomach tightened. “Okay. What are the custody arrangements?”

“Us,” Owen said. “Hudson rides with Cord and Mercer. I’ll follow.”

Hudson with Cord. The back of her neck prickled. She ignored it. “Mercer?”

“Deputy U.S. Marshal. Anchorage office. He’s downstairs grabbing coffee.”

Marginally better. But not a lot. Sarah jerked her head toward the corridor. “Walk with me.”

Hudson fell into step beside her. “Routes?”

“North is closed,” Sarah said. “Washout two weeks ago and the repairs aren’t finished. The coast road closed yesterday. I checked with Walter en route here.”

Approval flickered in Hudson’s eyes.

Owen cursed softly. “So one road. Not ideal.”

Sarah almost smiled. Understatement appeared to be a shared marshal trait.

“State Troopers?” Hudson asked.

“I can request a unit on the highway,” she said.

“Don’t tell them why.”

Her gaze snapped to Hudson.

“We don’t know how far this reaches.” He shrugged.

She hated that he was right. “I’ll get road conditions directly from dispatch. No names. No destination.” She looked at Hudson. “And I want check-ins every fifteen minutes.”

“We could lose signal past Bowhill Ridge.”

“Then call before you hit it and the second you’re clear.”

“Sarah—”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.”

The corner of Hudson’s mouth lifted. “Understood, Sheriff.”

Her body remembered exactly what that mouth had done to her last night. Jesus Christ. She folded her arms tighter across her chest.

“I’ll bring the vehicle around.” Owen headed outside, leaving them alone.

Hudson’s fingers closed lightly around her elbow. A discreet touch. To anyone watching, nothing.

But Sarah felt it everywhere. “Be careful.”

“Always.”

She looked straight at him. “Hudson.”

The humor left his face.

Sarah put her hand flat against his chest. “Come back.”

His hand covered hers. “I will.”

44

Hudson had spent the first ten minutes learning the cadence of the vehicle. The next ten assessing the road conditions. The last twenty cataloging everything that might become a problem.

Forty minutes on the road. Archie, one of the two critical-care medics, was at the wheel. His partner, Julie, rode in the back with Cord and Marshal Mercer. Owen followed with Gunner in the SUV.

Hudson flexed his fingers. Nothing unusual. So far. The tree line slid past, and the radio crackled.

“Check-in. Status?”

Sarah.

Professional. Calm. As though an hour earlier she hadn’t whispered come back with her hand flat against his chest.

He picked up the handset. “All clear. Making good time. Road’s empty.”

“Copy. Fifteen minutes.”

Three words. He set the handset back into its cradle.

A minute later, the radio clicked over to the convoy channel and another voice broke across the speaker. “How are things up front?”

Owen.

Hudson contemplated the road ahead. “Quiet.”

Static. The ambulance tires hummed over compacted snow.

“So.”

Hudson frowned at the radio. “So what?”

“The sheriff.”

Hudson’s fingers curled against his thigh. “Owen.”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“Good.”

“I’ve never seen you stop scanning a parking lot because a sheriff walked across it.”

Hudson kept his eyes on the road. Snow. Trees. Another sweeping bend disappearing into white.

“How long have you two⁠—”

“It’s not a discussion, Owen.” Hudson checked the side mirrors.

“It’s barely a question.”

Archie shot him a curious glance. Hudson met it just long enough for Archie to decide he didn’t actually want to know.

The silence stretched.

Owen’s voice came back, stripped of the teasing. “Do you know what’s next?”

Sarah barefoot in his shirt, looking at him over the rim of her coffee cup.

“No,” Hudson admitted. “I don’t.”

“Good.” Owen laughed, warm and genuine. “That’s the right answer.” The radio clicked as he signed off. Hudson switched back to Sarah’s channel.

Outside, the road curved and began to climb. But for the first time in years, the destination was less important than the return. The spruce closed overhead until branches brushed the roof of the ambulance with a dry hiss, shedding powder snow across the windshield.

Hudson reached for the handset. “Sarah, we’re approaching the ridge. Signal’s about to drop. Back in fifteen.”

Her reply came through a wash of static. “Copy. Fifteen minutes, Hudson.”

Then the radio was quiet. He tried the channel once more. Nothing. Sarah would be watching the clock.

Hudson set the handset back in its cradle. The road curved left. Then right. Snow blurred the edges of the asphalt until the forest seemed to lean inward, engulfing everything beyond the headlights.

No traffic.

Another bend slid past. Even with the coast road closed there should have been traffic. A logging truck. A maintenance pickup. A local in an old Ford who thought four-wheel drive made him immortal.

Nothing.

Archie shifted his grip on the steering wheel. Hudson’s hand covered his pistol. Through the partition, Mercer looked up from the rear compartment. Their eyes met in the mirror. Mercer tipped his chin.

You feel it too?

Hudson answered with the smallest nod.

Julie’s pen scratched across Cord’s chart while the cardiac monitor kept its steady rhythm. The heater rattled beneath the dashboard. Ordinary sounds. The ones you noticed when everything else went too quiet. The road straightened. Three hundred yards ahead, something interrupted the clean white line of the highway.

A dark shape across both lanes. Too square to be a snowdrift. A vehicle positioned perpendicular to the road. No hazard lights. No driver standing outside waving traffic down.

Shit. “Stop the vehicle.”

Archie glanced at him. “What⁠—”

“Brake!”

Archie stamped on the brakes. The ABS hammered through the floor and the ambulance slewed sideways.

The seat belts locked as the ambulance pitched forward. Behind the partition, equipment crashed against cabinet doors, and Julie caught herself against the bulkhead with a sharp gasp.

Cord’s monitor shrieked.

Hudson keyed the radio. “Owen.”

Static.

In the side mirror there was nothing behind them but falling snow. Hudson leaned toward the side window, searching the tree line. More fucking trees. A ditch edged by scraggly bushes.

Nothing moved but swirling snow.

“Owen, we’ve got a roadblock. Vehicle across both lanes, approximately three hundred yards south of⁠—”

A deep diesel engine bellowed behind them. Hudson twisted in his seat.

A logging truck burst from a snow-covered logging road, its tires throwing slush as it swung broadside across the highway until both lanes to the rear were blocked by steel and timber.

The radio burst into life. “Hud⁠—”

A heavy impact boomed through the radio. Metal crashed into metal. Beneath the static and the grind of metal came one sharp, explosive bark. Gunner. The radio went dead.

Roadblock ahead. Logging truck behind. Trees and ditches on either side. Owen cut off. No exit.

Fucking kill zone.

Sitting still made them a target. Fifty yards ahead, the ditch shallowed where an overgrown road cut through the trees. The road was narrow and snowed over, but the ambulance would fit.

He jabbed a finger toward it. “Forward. Move!”

Archie floored the accelerator⁠—

A dark SUV exploded out of the tree line, its suspension bottoming out as it cleared the ditch and accelerated into the ambulance’s rear quarter.

The impact threw Hudson sideways. His seat belt locked across his chest. His shoulder hit the door. His head cracked against the side window. The ambulance spun.

Snow. Sky. Road. Trees. Everything rotated in a blur of white and steel.

Archie’s body snapped against his belt, his forearm sweeping across the switch panel. Red and white lights burst to life across the windshield.

From the rear, equipment tore free from its restraints. Julie cried out. Cord’s cardiac monitor became one continuous alarm.

The tires hit a ditch with a bone-jarring impact. The ambulance lurched before coming to rest at a drunken angle, hood buried in snow, the engine sputtering into silence.

Crimson and white strobes pulsed through the storm, washing the snow in slow, rhythmic flashes.

Hudson squeezed his eyes shut, ears ringing.

Sarah.

45

Blood-red light pulsed through Hudson’s eyelids.

His cheek was pressed against the dashboard. Blood ran from his temple, pooling in the hollow of his eye socket. His collarbone was a fiery point of vicious agony. Somewhere behind his left ear, a high-pitched tone sang.

Sound arrived in pieces. The muted tick of an engine cooling. The hiss of a ruptured hose beneath the hood. Julie crying behind the partition. Boots on compacted snow. Outside. Coming closer.

Hudson kept his eyes closed, waiting.

The rear doors shrieked open. Clipped professional orders. A language Hudson had spoken himself for years. No shouting. A team, not hired guns. The passenger door handle clicked, and the door swung open. Cold air poured into the cab, making his diaphragm clench. He held the spasm in. Let his head rock slightly with the movement of the door. Dead weight.

The operator leaned in. Gun oil, cold sweat, and the synthetic bite of tactical fabric.

The gun barrel touched his temple. The operator’s free hand reached across Hudson’s chest, heading for his holster.

Hudson let him commit. Let the man’s weight shift forward, his balance extending past the point of recovery, his attention split between the weapon he was reaching for and the unconscious man he’d already dismissed.

Hudson’s hand closed around the barrel. The other hooked into the man’s vest. He yanked the operator into the cab.

The confined space stole the man’s room to maneuver. Hudson drove the heel of his palm upward beneath his jaw. The man’s knees buckled. Hudson shoved him backward through the open passenger door, followed him out, hooked a boot behind his ankle and dumped him hard onto the packed snow.

Before the man recovered, Hudson drove a knee into his ribs and ripped the weapon from his hand. The operator curled around the impact. Hudson reversed the pistol in his grip and brought the butt down hard against the side of his attacker’s head. The man went limp.

Hudson tossed the pistol beneath the ambulance then shoved himself upright. The road tilted hard to his left. He caught the ambulance door before his knees followed it.

The cold wrapped around him like a closing fist. His lungs constricted, registering the temperature drop with vicious, intimate precision.

Air shifted. Hudson pivoted.

A second operator brought his pistol up. Hudson caught the barrel with his left hand and ripped it offline. The weapon discharged, the muzzle flash blooming white. Heat seared across his palm.

He seized the man by the back of his vest and drove his face into the ambulance’s side mirror. Bone crunched, blood smearing the glass dark. The pistol dropped into the snow.

The man staggered back, then came at him again.

Hudson stepped onto the running board, and his left leg gave. He hit the ambulance hard with one shoulder, barely staying upright as the operator swung. The punch skimmed past him.

Hudson didn’t try to recover his balance. He stayed low, then drove his good boot into the man’s knee and hauled on his vest as the leg collapsed, using the man’s momentum to slam him into the side panel. The man slid down, leaving a bloody streak.

Hudson sucked in a breath. Too shallow.

The man didn’t get up.

Hudson leaned through the open passenger door and pressed two fingers to Archie’s carotid. Alive.

The ambulance rocked. Hudson was already moving. His hand went for his gun and missed by an inch. His depth perception corrected a beat late.

Concussion.

He got his gun on the second attempt. He flowed along the side of the ambulance, staying low, one shoulder brushing the panel. Red and white lights painted the snow in rhythmic pulses, turning the world into a series of frozen frames.

Movement at the rear corner.

Hudson dropped.

Too late.

The ringing in his left ear had concealed the man’s approach. The round hammered into the ballistic plate beneath Hudson’s jacket, driving him onto his back. His Glock flew from his hand and stars burst across his vision.

Boots crunched closer. “Fucker.”

Hudson rolled as the man closed, got one boot beneath him and came up inside the rifle’s useful range. His left hand trapped the rifle, wrenching the muzzle aside as he planted a boot hard into the man’s pelvis.

The operator staggered back a step. Hudson tore the rifle sideways, ripped it free and slammed the man into the rear corner of the ambulance. The man’s head struck steel with a sickening crack. His knees folded, and he dropped to the snow with a groan. Hudson let the rifle fall.

Fuck.

The man wasn’t out. Hudson snatched up his Glock and kept moving. Cord came first.

His hands shook from adrenaline, and his lungs screamed for a full breath. There wasn’t time. He swung around the open rear doors, his Glock raised.

Two operators inside, shouting instructions. One covering Mercer and Julie. One disconnecting Cord from the monitor, working fast to prepare the gurney for extraction.

Medical equipment littered the floor. Julie was pressed against the far wall, hands clamped over her mouth. Mercer was on his feet, bleeding from a cut above his eye, his weapon on the floor, kicked out of reach.

Neither looked at him, but they’d heard him.

The cover man’s rifle started toward him. Hudson’s sight picture blurred. He blinked hard, forced it back into focus, and fired. The operator dropped where he stood, his rifle clattering onto the ambulance floor.

Julie flinched, her eyes squeezed shut as she smothered a scream. The gunshot snapped the extraction operator’s head around. He dropped Cord’s restraint straps and reached for his rifle.

Mercer hit him before Hudson could call it. A full-body tackle that drove them both into the medical cabinets with a crash that shook the suspension. The operator twisted in Mercer’s grip. A knife appeared, pulled from a vest sheath. The blade flashed bright as it came around.

Mercer got his forearm up. The slash opened a line across his sleeve that bloomed red immediately. He grunted and held on. The operator stabbed again, and the point caught Mercer below his vest on the left side.

Mercer gave a startled grunt. He slid down the cabinets, hands flying to his side as blood welled between his fingers.

Hudson holstered his Glock, vaulted up into the vehicle and caught the man from behind, his forearm locking beneath the man’s chin as his other hand cinched the choke tight.

The man thrashed, driving them both backward. Hudson’s spine struck the sharp edge of a cabinet, pain flaring along his back, but he didn’t loosen the choke. The knife plunged back toward his ribs. Hudson twisted, and the blade scraped across his vest.

It came again—higher this time. He caught the man’s wrist for a fraction of a second.

Not enough. The point drove into the meat of Hudson’s upper arm. White-hot pain skewered through him. Hudson tightened the choke and held. The man’s movements turned frantic, then weaker. Hudson held until the weight against him changed, then another beat before he released.

The man slumped to the floor.

Hudson dropped to Mercer. The stab wound was below the vest on Mercer’s left side and bleeding profusely.

Bad. Pressure first. Everything else later.

Julie stared at Hudson from behind trembling hands, her eyes wide and unfocused.

“Julie. Look at me.”

Her gaze connected with his.

“Mercer needs pressure on this wound. Can you do that?”

For a heartbeat she stared, then the medic surfaced. She dropped to her knees beside Mercer, reaching for the trauma kit. Her hands fumbled once before finding what she needed. Hudson squeezed her shoulder.

She drew one steadying breath, tore open a trauma dressing and pressed it against the wound. “Go,” she said, her voice shaky but certain. “I’ve got this.”

Mercer’s face was gray. His eyes found Hudson’s. “Go.”

Cord.

Still on the gurney. Still alive. His lips were blue and his hands trembled, making the metal gurney rattle. A man who’d survived a cardiac event only to discover the universe had a far worse day planned.

“Stay here.”

Cord stared at him. “There’s nowhere to fucking go.”

Hudson dropped out of the rear doors. Icy air hit him. His lungs seized. A full spasm this time, locking down before he could drag in enough air. He blinked. Steadied himself against the ambulance’s bumper. Snow fell around him in throbbing light.

An operator rounded the corner at a run. Hudson shoved the open rear door into his path. The man hit it shoulder-first and spun sideways. Hudson caught his vest, used the momentum already there, and sent him hard into the road.

Another operator was right behind him.

Hudson drew his Glock. His injured arm shook, his fingers sliding on the blood-slicked grip. Oxygen debt hollowed him out as every breath came up short, his muscles burning through fuel his lungs couldn’t replace.

His vision narrowed to a tunnel. The muzzle drifted right. He couldn’t hold the sightline. The operator’s hand snapped up. Yellow housing registered a heartbeat too late. Taser. The probes hit, and the world detonated.

Every muscle seized. Hudson’s fingers opened and his Glock dropped. His legs vanished beneath him. He hit the snow face-first, rigid, every nerve ending ablaze.

Current ripped through him in violent waves. When it stopped, awareness returned in fragments. Cold. Pain. A breath that wouldn’t fill. He couldn’t move. He lay in the snow as they took Cord.

Boots on packed snow. The rattle of the gurney. Cord shouting something he couldn’t make out. A vehicle door slamming. The throaty diesel engine revving hard.

Hudson clawed at the snow and got one shoulder off the ground. His arms shook under the weight of his own body. His lungs dragged in shallow, inadequate breaths and gave back even less.

Tires bit into the snow. A second SUV swung around the wrecked ambulance, plowing through roadside scrub, branches screeching along the side as it lurched toward a narrow logging road.

The taillights dwindled between the pines.

The ambulance lights kept pulsing.

Flash.

Darkness.

Flash.

Darkness.

Hudson forced himself onto one knee.

Too late.

The forest swallowed them whole.

46

Sarah had left Miller with Nora.

She’d driven the ten minutes back through town with the radio turned up. Now she stood in the station break room making coffee she didn’t want. The spoon clinked against the mug. She added sugar. Stirred. Set the spoon down, then put it in the sink because holding it was giving her hands ideas about shaking, and she wasn’t having that.

The clock on the wall read 11:23.

Eleven minutes since Hudson’s last check-in. Four minutes until the next one.

Hudson knew how to survive impossible days. She’d trusted his competence before she knew what the cold did to his lungs. But now she couldn’t unknow it.

God.

She wrapped both hands around the mug. The second hand swept forward. Three minutes. She took a sip.

Walter appeared in the doorway. One look at his face was enough. “Hudson’s on the radio.”

Sarah set the mug down, coffee slopping over the rim.

The dispatch room was twelve steps down the corridor. She covered them in six and snatched up the handset. His breathing reached her before his voice.

Ice slid down her spine. “Hudson. Report.”

“Cord’s gone.” His voice was stripped raw, each word dragged through damaged lungs. “Ambush. Mercer stabbed… past Bowhill Ridge.”

Static tore across the transmission.

“They took Cord. Logging road… southwest⁠—”

She thumbed the handset. “Hudson?” Nothing. Only the hiss of white noise and the faint ghost of a carrier signal.

“Hudson, say again.”

More static. Shit. Sarah pressed the handset against her forehead. Behind closed eyes she saw him as he’d been that morning—holding a mug of coffee, hair still sleep-mussed, smiling at her.

The memory lasted less than a heartbeat. She opened her eyes. “Walter. Map.”

Walter followed her through to dispatch. The wall map was crowded with highways, logging roads and years of dry-erase notes. Sarah tracked the route the ambulance would have taken. Bowhill Ridge. The last confirmed check-in. The most likely location where Hudson’s transmission had died.

Walter dragged over a chair and climbed onto it, one finger landing on the main arterial south of the ridge. “Ambush happened somewhere here.”

Sarah nodded. “He said logging road. Southwest.”

Walter’s finger slid down the map. “Three logging roads cut southwest between the ridge and Dawson Junction.”

“The first?”

“Loops back to the highway after four miles.” He traced the route.

She shook her head. “Too exposed.”

“The second ends at the old quarry.”

“Nope.”

His finger tapped the third. It peeled away from the highway and disappeared into dense forest, twisting along the contours of the hills before narrowing into little more than a line on the map. No winter maintenance. No plowing. A road that only existed if you already knew it was there.

Sarah stepped closer.

Walter stepped down from the chair. “It’s a dead end.”

She didn’t answer. The road ended, but a few miles north, a narrow finger of land reached into the bay.

Morrow Point. The cannery.

“It’s not a dead end.”

Walter followed her gaze. “Morrow Point?”

“Yes. They’re not escaping by road.” The pieces locked together. “They’re driving to an extraction point.”

Walter swore under his breath. “The water.”

“It’s closer than the airfield. Quieter. No checkpoints. And once they’re on the water, we’ve got miles of coastline to search.” Her finger followed the road toward the point. “Right now they’re trapped on one road. Once they hit the water, the search area explodes. They don’t have to outrun us. They just have to reach the boat.”

“If we’re wrong?”

Sarah looked back at the map. “If I’m wrong, we’ll redeploy. If I’m right and we wait, we lose them.”

Walter held her gaze for a second. “I’ll bring the truck around. Long guns and plates?”

She nodded. “Give me five minutes.”

He was already moving before she’d finished speaking.

Five minutes later, Sarah carefully shrugged her body armor over her winter coat. She headed outside, where Walter was already behind the wheel of a department truck.

“I called the Coast Guard,” she said as she eased in, careful of her sore ribs. “Nobody gets in or out by sea.”

“Wyatt?”

She secured her seat belt. “I called dispatch first. Then Wyatt. Doesn’t hurt to go direct.”

The truck pushed through the snow, the wipers fighting a losing battle against flakes plastering themselves across the windshield.

“State Troopers are responding to the ambush. EMS is en route. Statton’s securing the scene until they arrive.”

Walter kept his eyes on the road. “And Nora?”

“Miller’s with her.”

That was everyone. Everyone except Hudson. She stared out at the white blur beyond the glass. Hudson was alive. That was a fact. She wasn’t going to turn it into a fear. And if he could move, he would head for the cannery.

Walter glanced across. “You think we’ll beat them there?”

“If Hudson’s still in the fight, they’re already behind schedule.” Her gaze returned to the dark road unspooling ahead. “We’ll get there first.”

Walter grunted. “I never liked that building.”

“No.” Neither had she.

The sheriff’s patrol boat was freshly repaired, fueled, and waiting at the municipal dock. They changed vehicles without words. After they pulled on life jackets, Walter stowed the long-gun case and Sarah cast off the lines.

The diesel caught on the second turn.

She pushed the throttle forward, and the boat surged away from the dock. Within seconds, Aurora Cove disappeared behind a curtain of snow. The bow slammed through the chop, rising and dropping, spray exploding across the windshield. The impact jarred through every bruised inch of her body. She locked her elbow against the console until the pain receded, then pushed the boat faster. Beside her, Walter braced against the console, one hand gripping the rail. Snow drove sideways across gunmetal water.

The channel south of Morrow Point was the only deep-water route out. Once the Coast Guard were in position, Hale’s path to open water was gone.

And if Hudson arrived first?

The engine protested, but she didn’t care. Her face was numb with cold when Morrow Point emerged through the blowing snow.

The cannery stood on its stilts above the water exactly as it had three days ago. The processing hall. The packing room. The cold storage beyond. The covered dock where Petey had spent ten minutes complaining about the drainage.

Her radio crackled. ““Coast Guard response boat to Aurora Sheriff.”

Wyatt.

Sarah lifted the receiver. “Coast Guard, this is Aurora Sheriff, copy. Go ahead.”

“We’re established south of Morrow Point. Suspect vessel moored. No visual compromise.”

Sarah watched the dock through the blowing snow. “Maintain a covert position. Hold unless they break for open water.”

“Copy.” A beat. “You got enough people?”

Waiting for backup meant giving them time to put Cord aboard. She looked at Walter. He lifted one unimpressed eyebrow.

“Enough for now.”

Seconds passed.

“Sarah...”

She knew exactly what Wyatt meant. “We’ll bring everyone home.”

“Roger that. Coast Guard holding.”

Sarah throttled back a hundred yards from the cannery. The engine dropped to a low growl as she angled toward the lee of the dock, using the pilings and the abandoned loading structure to hide their approach from the warehouse windows. She eased the patrol boat into the shadow of the loading structure and killed the engine.

A light crossed an upper window, vanished, then reappeared in the next window farther along. Someone moving through the cannery.

Okay.

Sarah shrugged out of her life jacket, drew her rifle from the case and checked the chamber before slinging it across her chest. Her sidearm stayed holstered.

If Hudson was mobile, he’d keep coming and find a way to reach Cord. This time, he wasn’t doing it alone.

Sarah scanned the warehouse doors and the dark line of windows facing the bay. “On me, Walter. We clear together.”

Walter took his rifle, caught one of the dock pilings and pulled them alongside.

Sarah stepped onto the ice-slicked dock. “Let’s go.”

47

Something wet and cold nudged Hudson’s hand.

Gunner.

“Hey, buddy.” Hudson scratched behind the dog’s ears.

Gunner nosed his ribs, then the blood congealing on the sleeve around his injured arm. A low sound gathered in the dog’s chest.

“I’m fine.”

Gunner sneezed. Blood matted the white around his muzzle, though none of it appeared to be his.

Hudson’s hand stilled against the thick fur of his neck. “Yeah,” he murmured. “You too.”

Gunner pressed harder into Hudson’s hand, ears pricked, weight forward. Retired didn’t mean finished.

Owen limped toward him from behind the logging truck, split lip, bloody knuckles, his jacket torn at one shoulder. No one followed him. “Cord?”

“Gone.” Hudson caught the ambulance bumper before his knees gave way. He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and pointed toward the logging road. “They took him that way.”

Owen surveyed the wrecked ambulance, the bodies scattered around it. The SUV that had rammed the rear quarter. “Hang on.”

He disappeared around the vehicle. Thirty seconds later he reappeared, keys spinning around one finger and the corner of his mouth lifting. “They left us a courtesy vehicle.”

Hudson snorted, which proved to be a mistake.

Owen flicked an eyebrow but said nothing. He jerked his head. “Come on.”

Hudson pushed away from the ambulance and followed. Every step jarred through him. His injured arm had stiffened in the cold, each movement sending a hot pull through his shoulder.

The SUV hadn’t escaped much better than the ambulance. The front bumper was folded in on itself, one headlight gone, a spiderweb crack running across the windshield.

Owen slid behind the wheel and turned the key.

The engine gave several reluctant coughs and then caught. Black smoke blasted from the exhaust before the engine settled into an unhappy idle.

Owen grinned. “She’ll do.”

He waited while Hudson lowered himself into the passenger seat with deliberate care. Gunner launched into the back seat. Owen dropped the SUV into reverse, and metal shrieked as they tore free of the ambulance.

Owen swung them out of the ditch, straightened onto the highway, then turned onto the logging road.

It was barely a road. Ruts frozen into the earth, snow over mud and gravel, the trees pressing so close on either side that branches scraped along both doors. The SUV lurched and pitched through potholes. Every jolt found something new to hurt. Hudson braced his good hand against the dashboard.

Owen glanced sideways. “You want me to slow down?”

Hudson met the side-eye. “No.”

“You sure?”

“No.”

Owen hit another rut. “Fair enough.” He wiped a sleeve across the fogged glass while the wipers juddered outside. “How’s the arm?”

“Functional.”

“Uh-huh.” Owen glanced at him. “And the ribs?”

“Also functional.”

“And the part where you can barely breathe?”

Hudson watched the trees slide past. “I’m breathing.”

“You’re rationing.” Owen kept his eyes on the road. “I’ve seen you do it before.”

“Then you know I can manage.”

“Until you don’t.” Owen steered around a fallen branch. “And when that happens, I’m the bastard carrying you. Again.”

Hudson eyed him. “You complained the whole way last time.”

Owen huffed a laugh. “You were fucking heavy.”

The SUV dropped into another rut. Pain exploded through Hudson’s ribs. The world blinked out and back.

Owen shot him a glance. “Whatever you’ve got left, don’t waste it.”

“Hmm.” Hudson shifted in his seat.

Gunner snuffled in the back seat, his collar clinking. Tire tracks cut deep into fresh snow. Spruce gave way to wind-bent cedars. Beneath the blood and burned coolant, Hudson caught the first faint trace of salt. Light appeared through the canopy as the forest fell away.

The coastline opened up below them. The bay stretched gray to the south, whitecaps marking the wind. A narrow spit of land jutted into the water.

Morrow Point. The cannery stood on its stilts at the end of it, dark against the snow.

Of course. Rough ground on the approach. Open water out. A clean handover to a waiting boat. No witnesses for miles.

Hale couldn’t have chosen better.

“There.” Owen pointed as Gunner stuck his head between both seats, his nose testing the air.

A patrol boat eased toward the dock. Aluminum hull. Sheriff’s star. Aurora Cove Sheriff’s Department.

Sarah was coming in from the water.

Hale’s men would see her too. And men watching an extraction collapse got desperate.

Hudson’s eyes locked on the boat.

Fuck.

Sarah.

48

Sarah went first.

The entrance to the main processing hall was the same one she’d used days earlier—the heavy steel door at dock level, its hinges crusted with salt, a gap beneath it where the floorboards had warped.

She pulled it open now with her rifle raised, weapon light cutting into the darkness, the weight of her body armor pressing against her bruised ribs. Corroded pipes, puddles glinting from overhead leaks. The air was thick with the must of damp timber.

“Slow,” she whispered.

Walter fell in behind her, barely audible except for the quiet rasp of his rifle against his jacket and the deliberate placement of each boot. The wind gusted a loose sheet of metal somewhere deep inside the cannery.

Boom.

The sound rolled through the building like distant thunder. Sarah’s finger tightened against the trigger guard before discipline eased it again.

Jesus.

Something cold struck the back of her neck. She pivoted, weapon light sweeping the ceiling. Water dripped through gaps in the roof, falling from beam to beam before finding her collar. She wiped the back of her neck and moved on.

The floor gave slightly beneath her feet, flexing on its pilings as the tide surged. She took careful steps, testing the wood. Water slapped against the timber, the sound traveling up through the boards, into her boots before burrowing into the base of her spine.

She breathed out long and slow. They’d brought this into her town. She was going to find every last one of them.

Steel hooks swung lazily from overhead, nudged by the draft. Somewhere beyond, lengths of chain clinked together.

She held her breath, ears straining.

Nothing—

She motioned Walter forward. Rows of rusting machinery disappeared into shadow. Gutting tables. Conveyor belts. Hanging plastic strip curtains swayed gently in the draft, turning every beam of light into shifting silhouettes. Her boots splashed through standing water. Walter peeled right while Sarah took the left. Her weapon light skimmed across machinery black with age. Too many places for one man to pin two people down.

A shadow shifted among the machinery. Human height. Gone again.

“Sheriff’s Department!” she called. “Show me your hands!”

A rifle cracked from her two o’clock, muzzle flaring blue-white in the gloom. The round exploded splinters from a post inches from her head.

Walter caught the back of her vest and yanked hard. She hit the floor behind a rusted conveyor, her shoulder hitting wood with a bright burst of pain. She rolled and returned two controlled rounds toward the muzzle flash. Plastic burst apart, and metal rang. She held her fire and steadied her breathing.

Boots pounded.

“He’s moving!” Walter snapped.

Sarah was already on her feet. “Left!”

Walter shifted with her, covering the lanes between the machinery while she drove forward, low and fast, keeping the rusted conveyor between herself and the shooter’s last position.

The double swing doors at the far end slammed shut. He wasn’t standing his ground. He was falling back. Or drawing them forward.

Sarah reached the doors and paused. She turned to Walter and met his eyes. Ready?

He gave the smallest nod.

She shouldered through. The doors opened into the packing room. A broad space divided by pallets and collapsed fish crates.

Straight ahead, on the far side, the door to cold storage swung an inch. She exhaled a slow breath, ignoring the ache that came with it, and followed the gunman through the door. On the other side, the short passage opened into the cannery’s cold storage.

Movement.

“Contact!”

The man broke from behind an industrial refrigerator, bolting toward the doorway that led to the covered loading bay.

Sarah fired.

The round punched into the wall as he ducked and vanished through the door. Damn it.

Behind her, Walter barked, “Sarah!”

She turned. Too late.

A second man exploded out from behind the storage racks and drove Walter sideways before he could bring his rifle around.

They slammed into the storage racks, dislodging a rain of cardboard and rust flakes. The man’s rifle came around between them. Walter trapped the barrel against his chest and drove an elbow into his throat. Once. Twice. The second strike broke his balance.

Sarah swung her rifle toward them and stopped. No clean shot. Walter hooked a leg behind the gunman’s knee and took him down hard.

Sarah covered while Walter stripped away the rifle, checked him for a sidearm, and secured zip ties around his wrists.

“One secure.” Walter wiped blood from his mouth, catching his breath.

“Good.” Sarah looked toward the doorway where the first gunman had vanished. “He bought him time.”

Walter gave a nod. “Which means we’re going the right way.”

Sarah eased into the covered loading bay, Walter’s shoulder bumping hers.

The loading gates that opened onto the exterior dock extended across the far wall, all closed. Loose cardboard littered the floor beneath rows of empty storage racks. She checked upward. Above the gates, the supervisor’s office overlooked the room from a narrow mezzanine. Water dripped somewhere in the rafters, loud in the open space.

Walter whispered as they moved in a slow circle. “Where’d he go?”

Sarah kept to where the shadows were deepest along the wall. No sway in the hanging plastic. He hadn’t crossed the open floor.

Between two towering stacks of old fish crates, a narrow service passage also led to the exterior dock. The door was ajar. Fine. She knew where it came out.

“I hate splitting, but together we lose the dock and he disappears.”

Walter jerked his head. “Agreed.”

She motioned with her rifle. “Take the service passage. I’ll go through the personnel door. We cut him off outside.”

“On it.” Walter moved off, rifle raised.

The personnel door was set into the wall close to the nearest loading-bay gate. Sarah eased it open, and for once the hinges cooperated and made no sound. She stepped onto the exterior walkway and hurried around the side of the building.

The service passage Walter had taken ended twenty yards ahead. The door flew open, and the man dodged out into the freezing air.

She snugged her weapon against her shoulder. “Sheriff. Stop there.”

His boots skidded on the greasy wood. He turned, eyes wide with genuine surprise, and swung his rifle toward her.

Sarah already had him covered.

“Don’t.” Walter appeared behind him.

The man’s eyes flicked between them. Icy water all around. Walter blocking the passage. Sarah’s muzzle centered on his chest. The calculation died. His shoulders lowered a fraction, and his rifle touched the floor.

“It’s over,” she said. “Down. Now.”

She cuffed his wrists behind him, then secured him to a supporting upright with a zip tie. Walter gave him a quick pat-down for radios and additional weapons.

Two in custody.

“Here.” Walter held up two radio handsets, pocketed them, then followed her back along the walkway. They re-entered the cannery through the personnel door.

A narrow wooden staircase climbed the side wall to the supervisor’s office on the mezzanine above. Sarah climbed the stairs along their outer edges, where the wood looked strongest and least likely to complain.

The office sat at the end of a short landing, its door closed. Wraparound windows gave away nothing in the gloom. She crouch-ran to the nearest and risked a look through the dirty glass.

Shit.

Cord. He was strapped to the gurney, face pale. One man stood guard, sweat gleaming on his forehead. They hadn’t made the transfer yet.

Sarah turned to Walter and held up one finger. One suspect.

Walter pointed toward the narrow catwalk that wrapped around the outside of the office, barely wide enough for a man to sidestep along. She nodded in reply. They’d done this enough.

He bent low and disappeared into the darkness without a sound. Sarah counted as she kept an eye on the guard pacing inside the office.

Three seconds.

Five.

Seven.

Long enough for doubt to suggest itself, but she was no longer taking suggestions. A faint scrape from Walter came from beyond the exterior wall. The guard’s head turned away from her, toward the sound.

Sarah drove through the door, rifle shouldered. “Sheriff’s Department! Drop it!”

The guard spun faster than she’d expected. His rifle snapped toward her. Too close for her own rifle. Sarah drove his muzzle aside with her forearm and crashed into him.

His rifle discharged, and the blast tore into the ceiling. Filthy plaster exploded in a choking cloud. The man jerked under her, and the muzzle swung toward her chest. Sarah jammed the barrel into the wall. Another deafening crack that hammered her ears as the round discharged into wood paneling.

“Bitch.”

Pain exploded through her chest as he drove her backward. He was so much stronger. For one terrifying second she lost her grip⁠—

Walter collided with them both.

The impact threw the man sideways, and his rifle went flying to the far side of the room. Sarah staggered to her feet as Walter drove him face-first onto the floorboards, his knee between the shoulder blades.

“Sheriff, you hit?” Walter looked over his shoulder, panting.

She made the man’s rifle safe. “I’m fine. You?”

Walter’s mouth was a thin slash. “I’m good.”

Sarah leaned against the wall for a second, catching her breath. Walter was upright. Cord was alive. This was a win.

For five full seconds she let herself feel it. The ache in her ribs. Sweat cooling beneath her vest. Dust hanging in the yellow light where the gunfire had torn through the ceiling.

Walter secured the man’s wrists, then hauled him upright against the wall. His eyes never left the prisoner as Sarah keyed her radio. “Wyatt, the asset is secure. Three in custody.”

“Copy. Coast Guard moving.”

Her thumb left the radio. Movement caught the corner of her vision. Something flashed in the glass. Outside. A beam of white light blinked in a grimy window before vanishing again.

There and gone.

Her eyes snapped to Walter. He’d seen it too. Another flashlight. Another gunman. Downstairs. Heading for the far end of the building.

Walter’s face hardened. “You’re not clearing alone.”

“Cord is priority one.” She pointed at the gurney.

She didn’t like splitting again, but she liked leaving Cord exposed even less.

Walter’s expression said everything. “Sarah⁠—”

“That’s an order, Walter. Cord stays covered until Wyatt gets people inside.”

Walter exhaled noisily. “And you?”

“I keep our last gunman moving away from this room.” Sarah left the office, crossed the mezzanine landing, and killed her flashlight before reaching the stairs.

She descended quickly, testing each tread with the toe of her boot before trusting it. At the bottom she waited, slowing her breathing so the thud of her heart wouldn’t interfere with her hearing.

A breeze. Water restless beneath the floor. Snowlight washing the space milky and ethereal.

Nothing that belonged to a frightened man trying to escape. She moved forward slowly, searching for solid sections of floor and placing each step carefully. A sound. Ahead and to her right. Wood complained under weight.

The soft metallic click of a door latch being tested.

She followed the sound beyond the storage racks, toward the service passage. At its far end, the exterior door opened onto the section of walkway beyond the loading dock, supported by the cannery’s oldest pilings.

Sarah stepped through the doorway with her weapon raised. Outside, she cleared right. Twenty feet away, the prisoner was still secured to the upright, head bowed. Lengths of wire and old electrical cable hung in snarls along the walkway’s broken edge.

Then she cleared left.

The final gunman stood at the far end, silhouetted against the silver water, his back to her. The wood changed underfoot, the boards flexing far more than she liked, but there was no time to choose a different approach.

He turned.

“Sheriff’s Department.” Her voice was steady. “Drop your weapon and get on your knees.”

His face was young, eyes wild.

“It’s done,” she said. “Your team’s in custody. The Coast Guard has the water. There’s nowhere left to go.”

His hand shifted on his weapon, but his eyes remained on her.

“Don’t—”

He fired.

Sarah fired with him.

Her round caught him and spun him sideways into the rail. At the same instant, his round struck her chest with the force of a sledgehammer. Sarah staggered backward. Her boot punched through pulpy timber.

Then the floor was gone.

The boards vanished beneath her. For one suspended beat, there was only freezing air. Then she hit the water.

Black closed over her head.

The cold hit like a physical blow. Her chest seized. Reflex ripped a gasp from her, gritty salt water flooding her mouth.

It was impossible to tell which way was up.

She lashed out, searching for something to hold on to, but the water churned with the wreckage of her fall. Something bit her ankle. She reached down with clumsy fingers. It was wire, looped and tightening with every kick as she fought toward the surface.

The wire sliced her palm.

The cut barely registered. Her need for air had become everything.

A pale glimmer wavered somewhere above her. Her legs moved in slow, heavy strokes that gave her less with every kick as the cold stole strength faster than she could replace it. Her body armor dragged. Her arms were leaden.

The light faded.

Her lungs convulsed, her mouth opening on reflex⁠—

49

Hudson burst onto the covered walkway just as muzzle flash split the gloom.

Sarah jerked backward as the round slammed into her vest.

One step.

Two.

Her boot punched through rotten timber.

NO.

The walkway gave way beneath her. Wood exploded downward. Nails screamed free. Black water took her whole.

“Sarah!”

Gunner blasted past in a blur of black and tan, cleared the gap, and hit Sarah’s attacker full force. Owen’s shouts were muffled by the roar of blood in Hudson’s ears.

He tore off his jacket, holster and plate carrier, leaving them scattered across the boards as he ran. Six feet across. The water churned with splintered timber and shattered decking.

“Hudson, NO!”

He dove.

The cold hit him like an explosion.

His chest locked and his muscles convulsed so violently he almost lost the dive before it had begun.

Black water slammed over his head. No sky. Only freezing darkness crushing in from every side. His body knew this place long before his mind did. The cold. The pressure. Silt thick between his teeth. For one savage heartbeat, he was back beneath another black sea. His scarred lungs clenched in remembered terror, every instinct screaming to fight for the surface.

Training took over before panic could.

Orient.

Search.

He kicked deeper.

His good hand searched ahead while his injured arm lagged a fraction behind, heavy and burning. Barnacles rasped across his fingers, tearing his skin. A piling. Something solid. He pulled himself along it. Broken wood swirled, striking his shoulders, scraping across his forearms, snagging at his clothes.

Ignore them.

Find Sarah.

His lungs blazed now, every heartbeat driving needles through old scar tissue. The pressure to breathe was alive inside him, clawing at his lungs, demanding air.

His fingers closed on fabric. Canvas. Her jacket.

Sarah.

He followed the sleeve to her shoulder, then her neck. His hand slid into her hair until his palm finally found her face. She drifted toward him without resistance.

Boneless.

Her head rolled against his palm, and when he drew her face near, her eyes were closed.

No.

The word ignited somewhere deep inside him. His blood was icy sludge. His vision narrowed to a thin tunnel.

Not yet.

Airway.

Entanglement.

Surface.

She was caught on something. He reached for her leg with his good arm, ran his hand down it until he reached her ankle.

Corroded wire. It had cinched tight around her boot, every kick drawing it tighter.

He forced feeling back into fingers that barely belonged to him. The cold drained them one nerve at a time, turning precision into clumsy instinct.

Come on.

He wedged two fingers beneath the wire and twisted until rusted strands bit through his skin. The wire held. He twisted it against itself until one rusted strand snapped, then another. Her leg drifted toward him.

Move.

He pulled her against his chest, locking his wounded arm across the front of her body armor. Pain ripped through his arm from the knife wound, but the arm only had one job now. Hold her.

Protect the airway.

Surface.

His legs drove downward, but it wasn’t enough. He kicked again, desperation scorching his veins.

The piling brushed his shoulder.

Thank fuck.

His good hand closed around barnacle-crusted timber as he used it to haul them upward. His lungs convulsed. Old scar tissue stabbed like broken glass inside his chest as black crowded the edges of his vision.

Not yet.

He dragged her higher, skin ripping on his palms with every pull.

Again.

Light knifed through the water. Floodlights. White beams turning the black water silver. The deep blast of a horn vibrated through the pilings. A Coast Guard response boat.

Close.

Shattered wood bobbed at the surface, only three feet above him.

He risked a glance at her face resting against his shoulder. Her lips were blue, her hair floating around them like pale silk.

His body was finished, but his grip refused to surrender the woman in his arms. He pulled and kicked again, stars exploding against his vision.

At last, he broke the surface in the glare of brilliant white light. He thrust Sarah upward first, every scrap of strength going into keeping her face above the water.

Air.

His first breath tore into him like fire. He coughed, seawater searing the back of his throat, but his arm didn’t loosen around Sarah.

“Sarah!”

No response.

He lifted her higher, fighting to keep her face above the water as the swell rolled around them. A powerful rescue light swept over his head.

Voices shouted. “Man in the water!”

“Two in the water!”

A splash nearby.

Caleb surfaced beside him. “Hudson. I’ve got her.”

Her brother reached for her, but Hudson’s arm wouldn’t open. “Hudson, let go.”

“I—” It wasn’t a decision. His body had locked around her. His legs were no longer responding. His hand slipped from the piling. Every breath came in ragged, useless gasps that barely reached his lungs.

“Hudson,” Caleb’s voice was calm. “I’ve got her, brother.”

Hudson looked at him. The man who spent his life pulling people out of cold water.

“Let me take her.” Caleb’s gloved hands closed gently over Hudson’s wrist. “I’ve got her.”

Something inside Hudson finally gave. His fingers opened, and Sarah slipped from his arms into Caleb’s.

The loss hit him like another plunge beneath the surface. But Caleb already had her. One arm beneath her shoulders, the other securing the rescue sling. He made a sharp signal toward the boat, and the recovery line came tight.

The crew hauled Sarah toward the boat, limp in the sling, her hair streaming through the floodlit water. Hands reached over the low recovery rail and lifted her onto the deck. Caleb followed, hauling himself over the rail.

Hudson couldn’t take his eyes off her.

The cold pulled at him. His legs were impossibly heavy. His head dipped as the cold relentlessly drained what little strength he had left.

Water rose over his mouth, his nose⁠—

Hands caught the back of his shirt and hauled him upright.

“Hudson.” Wyatt. “Stay with me.”

Wyatt slipped a second rescue sling beneath Hudson’s arms, secured it across his chest and gave the recovery line two sharp tugs. “Ready!”

The line tightened. Hudson barely felt it. His eyes remained fixed on Sarah as the crew hauled him toward the boat.

Don’t stop breathing.

Hands caught his shirt and the rescue sling, hauling him over the recovery rail. He hit the deck on his knees, water streaming from his clothes, his lungs fighting for air that refused to come easily.

The floodlights were blinding. Voices crashed together—radio calls, shouted orders, boots pounding.

Where’s Sarah?

He forced himself upright, wobbling on his feet.

Ten feet away.

Sarah lay motionless on the sleet-slick deck, her skin pale beneath the floodlights, lips tinged blue.

Ryder was beside her, two fingers pressed against her neck. He bent close to her mouth. “Pulse. She’s not breathing.”

Everything else fell away. The engines, the radios, the wind, the slap of the sea against the hull.

Gone.

Still dripping water, Caleb was already at her head, sealing a bag-valve mask over her face. “Ventilating.” Caleb squeezed the bag, forcing the first breath into her. Then another.

Hudson couldn’t drag air past the knot in his throat.

Sarah’s body jerked. A wet cough tore through her.

“She’s breathing.” Ryder rolled her onto her side as she coughed again, seawater spilling from her mouth. “Breathe, Sarah.” His voice cracked and his head dipped. “I’ve got you, sis.”

She coughed again. A ragged, desperate breath followed.

Hudson’s knees hit the deck.

She’s breathing.

His hands covered his face.

She’s breathing.

His next breath shuddered through him.

“For fuck’s sake, Sarah.” Ryder’s laugh was shaky as he wrapped warm blankets around her shoulders. “Do not ever do that again.”

Hudson’s legs were no longer taking orders. He crawled across the deck. “Sarah.” His voice was little more than a whisper.

Sarah turned her head. Her eyelids fluttered. It took her two tries to find him.

“Hudson.” His name emerged faintly beneath the mask. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Sarah.” He reached her, and her fingers gripped the front of his soaking shirt, twisting into the fabric with surprising determination. His arms shook as they closed around her. She leaned against him, burying her face against his shoulder. Ryder swore softly and wrapped another blanket around them both.

Hudson kissed the top of her head and held her.

He wasn’t ever letting go.

50

Two weeks later

Sarah opened the cupboard. Seven bags of coffee stared back at her.

Seven.

She stood barefoot on the kitchen tiles and counted them. Dark roast. Medium roast. A bag of whole beans he had no way of grinding because she didn’t own a grinder. Two bags of the cheaper stuff she actually drank shoved to the back like afterthoughts.

The man had a problem.

She reached for the cheap stuff, smiling, and filled the machine. While it brewed, she leaned against the counter.

The bruises were fading. Her ribs only complained when she twisted too fast. The cut across her palm from the wire had closed into a thin pink line that pulled when she made a fist. Two weeks of healing. Two weeks of Hudson somehow becoming part of the landscape of her house—cooking meals she hadn’t asked for, filling the fridge, making himself useful wherever he found something that needed doing.

The evidence of him was everywhere.

His boots by the door beside hers. One of his hoodies draped over the back of the kitchen chair—the one she’d been stealing to sleep in and pretending she hadn’t. Two mugs drying on the rack beside the sink. His toothbrush in her bathroom, his book lying face-down on the arm of the couch.

Tiny things. The small, ordinary debris of a life being shared.

Her phone buzzed on the counter.

Walter.

She opened the message.

A photograph filled the screen. Walter’s desk at the station, buried beneath a mountain of paperwork.

This is all yours when you get back. No rush.

Walter

She chuckled to herself and slipped the phone back onto the counter.

Her coffee had finished brewing. She added three sugars, took a sip, and looked out through the kitchen window.

Hudson and Wyatt were splitting firewood outside.

The late afternoon light slanted low across the snow as Wyatt swung the axe. Hudson stacked the split logs, building them into a neat row against the side of the house.

His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows despite the cold.

Mmm. She approved.

He said something to Wyatt, inaudible through the glass. Wyatt’s head tipped back in laughter. Hudson grinned—the real one she’d been collecting since the hotel bar—and shoved Wyatt’s shoulder.

Wyatt shoved him back.

Hudson stumbled into the woodpile, sending a carefully stacked row tumbling across his boots. Wyatt laughed harder. Hudson answered by lobbing a chunk of split wood at Wyatt’s boots. Wyatt dodged it with a snort. They moved around each other the same as they had as boys—easy and physical.

Hudson straightened, stretching the stiffness from his back. He tipped his face toward the winter sky and let out a slow breath, easy and unmeasured. Something inside her eased at the sight.

The back door banged open, sending a rush of cold air through the kitchen.

“It’s official.” Wyatt stamped snow from his boots. “You have enough firewood to last three winters.” He peeled off his gloves and tossed them onto the counter. “I would’ve stopped sooner, but someone didn’t want to.” He lifted an eyebrow toward Hudson, coming in behind him.

Hudson was carrying an armful of split logs, which he deposited beside the wood-burning stove before returning to the kitchen. He shook melting flakes from his hair and hung his jacket on the hook by the door. The jacket was new. A proper Alaskan one. The city coat he’d arrived in had disappeared somewhere over the last two weeks.

He crossed the kitchen and his hand slid to her hip. His other relieved her of the coffee mug and set it on the counter.

Then he drew her against him. His nose was cold against her cheek. He kissed her slowly, without the slightest trace of self-consciousness, right there in her kitchen, in front of her big brother.

Sawdust still clung to his hair.

She smiled into the kiss. Her hand rose to cup his face—cold skin, rough jaw, the muscle beneath her palm completely relaxed.

“Get a room,” Wyatt muttered.

Hudson didn’t let go of her waist. “We have one.” He glanced over Sarah’s shoulder. “You’re standing in it.”

Wyatt snorted. “I need a beer.”

He yanked open the fridge, stared for a second, then looked back at them. “You two stocking up for the apocalypse?”

Sarah smiled against Hudson’s mouth. “Something like that.”

An engine rumbled outside. Sarah glanced out the window.

Her mom.

Sophie let herself in without knocking, a lasagna in a large cream dish preceding her through the door. “I brought dinner.”

Wyatt cocked an eyebrow in the direction of the fridge. “Mom, they have⁠—”

“You have lasagna now, too.” Sophie set the dish on the counter with a smile.

She walked over and hugged Hudson. “Good to see you, Hudson.”

Hudson hugged her back. “Hey, Sophie.”

She pulled back and gave him a once-over. “You look better.” Her head tilted. “Still not enough meat on those bones.”

“I’ve been eating.”

“Not enough.” She patted his cheek. “We feed people properly in this family, Hudson. I’ll heat this up.”

“Sophie, I can⁠—”

Her mom switched on the oven and slid the dish inside. “How’s the case?”

Hudson’s arm curved around Sarah’s waist. She didn’t move away.

“Moving. Cord’s cooperating. If he’s lucky, he’ll receive a reduced sentence. Hale’s clearance has been revoked and the investigation’s widening.” Hudson’s thumb moved against her side. “Everyone who came after Sarah is in federal custody.”

Sophie’s mouth firmed. “Good. What about that poor marshal that got hurt?”

“Mercer? He’s recovering.” Hudson gave a wry grin. “Already complaining about being stuck behind a desk.”

“Owen says the weapons trail goes back years,” Wyatt said.

Hudson nodded. “We pulled a thread. Turns out it was attached to something bigger.”

The old flatness was gone. It was work now, not penance.

Her mom looked up. “How is Owen?”

“He’s still in town, tying up loose ends. Maybe more.”

“And Ben Taggart’s family?”

Hudson’s expression shifted into something private and tender. “The investigation’s been reopened. His death will be reclassified.” He cleared his throat. “I wrote to them to let them know.”

Sarah let the brief silence that followed belong to Ben.

“Wyatt, can you help me with the salad while Sarah and Hudson go sit down?”

Sarah caught her mom’s eye. Her mom looked entirely innocent.

Wyatt pushed off the counter. “Mom⁠—”

“Thank you, Wyatt.” She pulled a bag of baby greens from the fridge and thrust it at him. “Salad bowl’s in the cupboard.”

Wyatt put his beer down and accepted the salad while firing Sarah the sibling side-eye as she led Hudson through to the living room, trying not to smirk.

“Right, let’s get this fire lit.” Hudson crouched beside the stove, stacked the kindling, then coaxed the first flames to life beneath the logs.

She smiled. She’d never imagined life with Hudson would feel this ordinary. Or this right.

Woodsmoke scented the room as the fire crackled and built. From the kitchen came the clink of bowls and the low murmur of Sophie and Wyatt’s voices, softened by laughter.

Once the fire was lit, Hudson stood and took hold of her hands.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He smiled. “Just looking.” He gave her hands a squeeze. “I talked to my boss.”

“And?”

“There’s an option with the Anchorage office. A remote liaison position I can do from here.” His thumb brushed across the back of her hand. “Something we could make work.”

Sarah’s breath hitched.

He’d already spoken to his boss. Already started rearranging the pieces of his life to fit beside hers. He reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Even now, that tiny touch left her breathless.

“So...” A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “Guess you’re not leaving.”

His answer came without hesitation. “Not this time.”

She searched his face for the old distance. The part of him that had always seemed to be ready to leave. It wasn’t there anymore.

She kissed him, and Hudson gathered her close.

From the kitchen came Wyatt’s voice. “Mom, it’s just grated cheese.”

“Wyatt. You’ve already eaten half of it.”

“I was quality testing.”

Sarah laughed.

Hudson joined her, the sound warm and rough, his eyes creasing at the corners. She loved how often she heard it now.

He tilted his head toward the kitchen. “Do you think we should go rescue him?”

She threaded her fingers through his. “I think he’s beyond saving.”

Hudson smiled, his hand closing around hers as they went back to the noise and warmth of the kitchen.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

If you're the kind of reader who loves high-stakes romance grounded in real-world research—with damaged military heroes, complex plots, and women who won't be rescued—hello.

You're my people.

I write intense, tightly plotted protector romance with covert ops, real-world threats, and hard-won love. My heroes have protection in their bones and loyalty in their hearts. My heroines are smart, self-reliant, and ready to fight—for others, for justice, for love.

Still mad Ripley never got with Hicks? Me too. So I fix that—with heat and redemption.

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ALSO BY THERESA BEACHMAN

GUARDSMEN SECURITY

Close Protector

First Contact

The Operative

The Bodyguard

The Fox

The Engineer

The Knight

The Gentleman

ALASKAN GUARDIANS

The SEAL’s Runaway

The SEAL’s Duchess

The SEAL’s Rebel

The SEAL and the Sheriff

The SEAL’s Witness

ROGUE EXTRACTION

The Tracker

The Breacher

OCEAN WOLVES

Ocean Wolves

Harbinger

Pressure

Rupture

EARTH RESISTANCE

Garrick

Sawyer

Darr

Hardy

Mabe

Foster

Luke: An Earth Resistance novella—coming soon

Violet & Darr subscriber short story 5.5

Sweet and steamy short story featuring Violet and Darr, that takes place between books 5 and 6—subscriber bonus!

Earth Resistance Omnibus Books 1-3

PREDATOR PLANET SERIES

Hunted