Page 74 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

Hudson didn’t move until the front door closed behind Wyatt. He waited a few more seconds.

Sarah would tell Wyatt she was perfectly capable of looking after herself whether she actually was or not.

He shook his head and got into the car. Inside, he sat with both hands on the steering wheel, his breath fogging the windshield. He didn’t start the engine. The house was behind him in the rearview mirror, neat and square and too empty for a woman who filled every room she entered with force.

Even knowing Wyatt was inside, every instinct objected to driving away. Fragments moved through him. Sarah in the wreck, blood sliding along her temple. In the hospital bed. Taking his hand to climb out of the car without looking at him while she did it. Wrapped in his coat afterward, too pale, shaken, and still trying to be the one in charge.

His fingers tightened around the wheel as his phone rang through the car’s speakers. Owen Alcott’s name lit the dash.

Hudson let it ring twice, then answered. “Kane.”

“You sound like hell,” Owen said.

Hudson started the engine. “Good morning to you too.”

Something crashed on Owen’s end of the line, followed by a sharp bark and claws skidding across hardwood.

“Gunner, knock it off.” Owen exhaled. “Retired means retired, you furry lunatic.”

Hudson waited as the wipers dragged across the windshield and the heater began clearing the fog. “Gunner still running the place?”

“He thinks so. I let him. It keeps his ego stable.” A beat, the shift almost too small to hear. “Tell me why I’m getting leaned on before breakfast.”

Hudson’s grip hardened on the wheel.

Ah.

He pulled out of Sarah’s driveway and kept his speed low, the road shining in patches where frost had hardened into glass. “What kind of heat?”

“The kind where people who’ve never called me before suddenly know my extension.” Owen’s voice was deceptively casual. “They’re asking why you’re in Alaska. Why a local sheriff just got hit in a town nobody knew you were near.”

“Yeah.” The road narrowed between snowbanks. Hudson scanned the tree line, mirrors, the slight bend ahead.

“Yeah?” Owen repeated. “That’s what you’ve got?”

“I think Sarah⁠—”

Shit. Too late.

The pause after was way too clean. “Sarah?”

Hudson cleared his throat. “The sheriff was run off the road last night. Professional and deliberate.”

“She alive?”

“Yes.”

“Bad?”

“Concussion. Bruised ribs. Cuts. She’s already pretending she’s fine.”

Another pause. “You’re from Aurora Cove. You two got history?”

“No.” Damn. Too fast.

“Hmm. You okay?” Owen finally asked.

“Fine.”