Page 70 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

“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.”