Page 61 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

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.”

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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.