Page 28 of Too Broken to Love

“Maybe I’ll salute you just once for living up to your superhero on the fridge status.”

He raised an eyebrow. “The superhero on the what?”

“The picture of you on Sam’s fridge in your dress uniform.” She raised up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Sparks raced down his neck and into his torso. The pain in his body dimmed as her lips moved against his skin. Time stilled, like it did for a heartbeat after the explosion. Hudson had that second to decide if he was going to stay still.

Fuck it.

He turned his head. Lips grazing hers, he banded an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him. A soft sound rasped from her throat as his roughened fingertips skimmed the warm skin at her waistband. “It’s my job to play the hero. I can’t turn it off when I’m not in uniform, nor can I abandon my duty.”

Her breath hitched. “I thought I was your inherited responsibility. Now I’m your duty?”

“Yes.” The pretty little thief with secrets and trauma added fuel to his nightmares. But even more disturbing was the adrenaline rush that shot endorphins with so much intensity his ribs barely hurt. Despite his broken mind, he still craved action.

Coveted the high of saving a life.

Anticipated hearing the details about Project V.

The adrenaline those scenarios incited didn’t fade. It settled into steadier focus, like she was the one who could anchor him when his mind threatened to spin out of control.

“You’re my duty in more ways than one, little thief, and in some you might not like if you don’t listen to me.” He tapped his finger against her lips. “Or maybe you will.”

Tessa closed the door of her office at Bay County Memorial behind her. Leaning against it, she put her hand over her mouth and screamed into her palm. “Dammit, Frank. You couldn’t stay away, could you? You had to come back and screw things up again.”

She covered her head with the towel she’d swiped from the ER staff locker room and wrung out the excess water from her hair. The list of things Frank had wrecked since yesterday read like a to-do list from Satan. Why in heaven’s name did the one thing that paled in comparison to the others piss her off?

Hudson had been about to kiss her, but Russ and his announcement that the ambulances were leaving with Lia and Malcolm interrupted the moment. Instead of distracting Lia on the way to the hospital with a replay, she’d ranted about the missed opportunity.

She didn’t have much experience with men, but she’d paid attention to the ones who’d shown interest—from the teenage boy on the beach in Jacksonville she’d stupidly trusted with her body and her secrets to Shawn, who was terrible at hiding his crush. She knew when a guy was intrigued.

Everything, from the deep rumble in Hudson’s voice to the attention on her lips, indicated an imminent kiss she’d silently begged to get lost in.

She needed a distraction to get lost in now.

She tossed the damp towel across the room. A place to live would be great too. Since she’d been evaluated in the emergency room, fear about who turned her life into a crime drama had swelled into anger. The patients and staff didn’t need to witness her epic meltdown. It was bad enough that she might have to live in her office. Between her mountain of student loans and the cost of buying new clothes and furnishing an apartment, she couldn’t afford a hotel until her renters insurance came through.

She couldn’t stay with Lia and her mom. They’d take her in without hesitation, but her mom was battling cancer and that family had done so much for her already. And while it was sweet of Shawn to offer his spare bedroom, that wasn’t happening either.

She tugged on the hem of the scrub top she’d borrowed from the stockpile in the locker room after she’d showered and tossed her smoke-drenched clothes in the garbage. Everything else she owned was garbage too. According to a report Lia obtained from her contacts at the fire department, Sam’s side had only sustained smoke damage. Her side, her bedroom in particular, was toast.

Thank God she had a fireproof lockbox where she kept her birth certificate, her passport in case she ever needed to put an ocean between her and Frank, and photos of her mom. But everything else was fried.

A sob expanded in her chest with such force it hurt. Tears fell down her cheeks as she grabbed the glass vase on her desk filled with seashells and threw it at the wall.

Her door burst open. Hudson’s broad frame consumed the doorway. Droplets of water flew from his hair as he scanned the room. He crossed the carpet holding an energy drink like a weapon and stopped in front of her. “Are you okay?”

The only threat in here was herself, if she didn’t get her anger under control. “Get out. Please.”

God, and these four walls she whispered to when her past and fears demanded a voice, were the only audience she needed. Hudson was not. She’d never even been one-hundred-percent honest with Sam about her past. Would he have understood and told her it wasn’t her fault? Yes, she had no doubt. But it wouldn’t have erased her shame.

Telling Hudson was too much of a risk. He trusted her because Sam had, but if he knew her secrets, he’d flip his “pretty little thief” nickname to an ugly label as quickly as the boy from the beach had done when she’d been sixteen.

Hudson touched his ID badge. “I’ve been part of this hospital far longer than you have. Nobody tells me to get out.” He smirked. “They actually beg me to stay.”

“I bet they do.”

He probably had his own corner office waiting for him when he came home and graced the hospital with his time and wisdom. She thought he’d been treated like royalty at the police station. When they’d walked into the emergency room he’d been treated like a movie star.