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He hadn’t moved an inch.
She stepped around in front of him, planting herself in his line of sight. Snow fell silently between them, catching in his dark lashes and melting on the broad shoulders of his trench coat. He was still staring at the blood-smeared brick, at the crumpled man at the base of the wall.
She looked down at his right hand. Knuckles split and bleeding, blood already freezing in the cold.
Slowly — the way she’d approach a wounded wolf — Sage reached out and slid her smaller hand into his.
He flinched hard, like her touch burned.
She held on anyway, lacing their fingers together, letting his warm blood smear across her palm. She didn’t speak. She just stood there in the falling snow, holding the hand of the man who had just become a weapon for a stranger, and waited.
After a long, aching moment, his head turned.
His steel-gray eyes found her face.
Then he looked away.
Turned back to the wall. To the blood. To the man who hadn’t gotten up.
Sage’s stomach plummeted. Not from the violence. Not from the broken body on the ground. But because Cal Meridian had just looked away from her.
He had not looked away from her in six weeks.
He had not flinched from her touch in six weeks.
She squeezed his bloody hand tighter, throat tight, desperate to say something she didn’t have words for yet.
The sirens rose low and distant, a mournful howl cutting through the falling snow.
Sheriff Tate’s truck slid in first, tires crunching over fresh powder. The old lawman stepped out—short, weathered, white mustache dusted with flakes—moving with the unhurried calm of a man who’d seen every kind of hell Blackthorn Ridge could offer. Two deputies followed close behind.
The ambulance arrived two minutes later, red and blue lights stuttering across brick storefronts. Snowflakes swirled in the beams like sparks from a dying fire.
Rowan, who had followed Sage across the street with her medical bag, was already on her knees beside her patient, coat flapping open, stethoscope swinging. Her voice stayed steady, professional, but her hands were gentle. “Easy, sweetheart. Let me see that face. Can you follow my finger?” She worked fast—checking pupils, stabilizing the woman’s neck, pressing gauze to the split lip—while paramedics unloaded their gear. Only when the women was stable and wrapped in a blanket did Rowan rise, jaw tight, and move reluctantly toward the man on the ground like she was approaching a rabid animal she’d rather put down.
“He’s alive,” one paramedic called. “Concussion confirmed. Pupils unequal. Possible C-spine injury.”
A deputy crouched beside the stranger on the sidewalk. “You okay, ma’am? Can you tell me what happened? Is this your son?”
Her name was Maddie. She was crying again, tears falling silent down her bruised face.
Sheriff Tate walked over to Cal.
“Bear.”
Cal didn’t answer.
The sheriff glanced at Sage and tipped his hat slightly. “Miss.” She nodded but didn’t let go of Cal’s hand.
“Bear. Son. Look at me.”
Cal’s head turned—slow. His gray eyes were flat, but Sage caught the flicker behind them, something trying to surface and failing.
Sheriff Tate didn’t flinch. He’d known Cal Meridian his whole adult life.
“You need to step back, son. Let the paramedics work. Let me handle this. You hear me?”
Cal didn’t move.
