Page 108 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

“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?”