Page 1 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

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.”