Wyatt saw the joke forming in his brother’s eyes the way you see weather coming across the valley.
Ryder shook his head. A wry smile tugged at his mouth. “You know, most people just call the cops.”
Wyatt had no words. Caleb joined them, silent. Ryder on one side, Caleb on the other. Shoulder to shoulder. Three brothers in the cold again, breath fogging, saying nothing.
More vehicles arrived. More lights. Sarah’s cruiser slid to a stop, and she was out before the engine died, badge on her belt, command in her voice. She took one look at Wyatt and for half asecond she’d never admit—the sheriff disappeared and his baby sister was standing there, her face stripped bare.
Then she locked it down and started giving orders, deputies splitting across his property to secure the area.
Caleb crossed to Akilov. Checked his pulse. “He’ll live.” Caleb looked at Wyatt. “Unfortunately.”
The sirens wound down, but the lights kept flashing, painting the snow red and blue. Sarah was on the radio, her voice clipped and professional, the crisis contained.
Wyatt stood in the cold with his brothers beside him, Jen in his arms.
The night was finally quiet. Her weight was warm against his chest.
He wasn’t a weapon anymore.
He was hers—and he chose it.
46
After the night air,the snow and the moonlight, the emergency room hit Jen hard—harsh lights, shoes squeaking on linoleum, phones ringing. Someone had wrapped a hospital blanket around her shoulders, the weight of it a soft comfort.
A nurse shone a penlight into her eyes. “Follow my finger.”
Jen followed. Left. Right. Up. Her left eye barely tracked, the eye swollen to a slit.
Her fingers were thawing, and the pain was extraordinary—a deep, prickling burn that started in her nail beds and radiated outward. Beneath the temporary dressings, her torn nails pulsed. Her cheek burned where Akilov had hit her, every nerve protesting.
The antiseptic smell turned her stomach. Or maybe that was the adrenaline crash. Her body was doing strange things—shivering when she wasn’t cold, going still when she should have been shaking—hollowed out and overfull at the same time.
Since the ambulance, Wyatt had refused to leave her. He sat beside her bed now, still and watchful. His broken hand rested on his thigh, blotched purple, the knuckles distorted in a way that made her wince every time she looked at it. A nurse hadtried to assess it twice. He’d waved her off without ever taking his eyes off Jen.
“Everything seems okay. Just cuts and bruises. You’re going to look awful for two weeks and feel sore for longer. Your face will heal just fine.”
The nurse cleaned the split skin on her cheek before applying butterfly strips. The relief was absurd—she’d been dragged by her hair, shot at, backhanded across the face, and thrown into the snow, and some vain part of her was relieved she wouldn’t have a scar.
Wyatt watched everything as the nurse worked. His good hand rested on her knee, heavy through the hospital blanket.
“Wyatt. Your hand.”
“After.”
Jen blew out a breath. “It’sbroken.”
He looked at her now. “It’ll still be broken in ten minutes.”
The nurse caught her eye from the other side of the bed. Her eyes widened, a smile lifting one corner.
Her Wyatt.
The words came without permission—and didn’t leave.
Stubborn, battered, immovable.
But something settled into place inside her—into a space she hadn’t known was empty until him. This was how he loved. Not in words, but in the stubborn, immovable certainty of putting her first. Even when the cost showed in the swelling of his hand.
