Chapter 37
Finn
The engine clicked quietly when I shut it off, but I didn’t move.
My hands stayed wrapped around the steering wheel, thumbs rubbing at the worn leather like that might give me a different outcome than the one I was walking into.
Ajax sat harnessed into the passenger seat, ears up, weight braced forward in that alert-but-still pose that meant he was watching me as much as anything outside.
I stared through the windscreen at the clinic door. I hadn’t expected to feel this twitchy about coming here. I’d told myself it was the responsible thing to do. Get Ajax looked at properly, now that we were back in civilization. Give her the clean close of a follow-up. That’s all.
That wasn’t all, and I knew it.
I exhaled hard, then finally popped the door and stepped out. Came around to the other side and opened his. “Come on, lad.”
Ajax hopped down carefully, still favoring the injured flank. He moved better than he had two days ago, but I could tell it pulled. He didn’t whine—hadn’t once—but he moved like a soldier under orders. God, I loved this damn dog.
The bell over the clinic door gave a soft chime as we stepped inside, and I stood inside the threshold for a second, letting the familiar scent of antiseptic and fur settle into me. This place had been the start of something. I didn’t know if it would be the end.
Saoirse emerged from the back hallway in slate-blue scrubs, a clipboard balanced in one hand, a pen tucked behind her ear like she hadn’t noticed it was still there.
Her hair was back in one of those low, no-nonsense ties, a few loose strands curling around her temple.
She looked… tired. But steady. Whole. And of course she was here, as I’d known she would be.
She was about as capable of staying at home and resting as I was.
Her gaze landed on me first, then dropped to Ajax. And for a breath—no longer than a blink—something in her face softened. Unmistakable relief. But she shut it down quickly, flipping back to the cool, detached professionalism she’d wrapped around herself the first time I met her.
“How’s he holding up?” Her eyes scanned Ajax’s stance like she could read everything that mattered from posture alone.
“Surprisingly well. Considering.”
She nodded once. “Let’s get him up on the table.”
Her voice was crisp, her movements efficient as she turned toward the nearest exam room and pushed the door open. I followed, Ajax close at my heel, the quiet click of his nails the only sound for a few seconds.
She didn’t look back at me or ask why I’d come instead of calling. Instead, she pointed to the table and retrieved gloves. The distance in her tone wasn’t simply habit. It was armor. And I couldn’t blame her for wearing it.
Not after the way I’d left.
Saoirse worked in silence, her hands moving with that steady, no-nonsense rhythm I’d come to recognize.
More instinct than conscious effort. She peeled back the bandage gently, eyes narrowing as she checked the healing wound.
Ajax stood still beneath her touch, tail giving a slow wag as she murmured a soft, “Good boy,” under her breath.
I stayed silent as she worked.
She never looked at me. Not once. After a beat, she spoke, still focused on Ajax. “The wound’s healing clean. No signs of infection.”
“He had good treatment in the field.”
Her fingers hesitated for a fraction of a second, but she didn’t respond. Didn’t take the bait. Instead, she set to applying a clean bandage to the wound.
When she finally replied, she was all business. “Given the circumstances, it’ll scar, but it won’t cause any lasting damage. He should be back to full strength in a few weeks.”
She stepped away to dispose of the bandages, stripping off her gloves with quick snaps. I watched her back as she moved around the room, cleaning, resetting instruments that didn’t need it, like she needed something to do with her hands.
But her shoulders were tight. Her posture too straight. And I could feel the pressure building beneath her skin, as though if I even breathed wrong, the dam would break.
She didn’t move away. Didn’t retreat to the safe distance of professionalism. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and looked at me with something sharp and level in her eyes. “You, though—I’m not sure how long your recovery’s going to take.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Considering how far you’ve shoved your head up your arse.”
It hit like a slap and a laugh at once, but before I could react, the words were already tumbling out of her—fast, unfiltered, thick with everything she’d been holding back.
“I waited. I believed in you. I knew you’d come. And you did . You came for me. You dragged me out of hell. You dragged both of us out. And then you left .”
Her voice cracked faintly, and it twisted something in my chest. I opened my mouth to explain—to give her the one truth I had. “I had to go after Sandhurst?—”
“I don’t care about Sandhurst.” She cut me off with a fierceness that silenced everything else in the room. “I care about you , you idiot .”
The bare, blistering truth vibrated between us in the space she refused to step back from.
Her chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, tears bright but clinging stubbornly to those mile-long lashes. She didn’t blink them away. Didn’t back down. Her chin lifted like a dare sharpened on grief and fury and something infinitely more fragile.
“So if this was just adrenaline and proximity—if I was only a mission to you—say it. Say it now.”
The silence that followed shimmered between us like heat on pavement, charged with everything we hadn’t said. Everything we were too scared to say first.
I stared at her. And I smiled. “I am so in love with you.”
She froze. Eyes wide. Guardless in a way I hadn’t seen since the woods.
I stepped in slowly, voice low. “I think it started the first time you used that sharp tongue of yours to draw blood. Refusing to take any shite. Not from me. Not from anyone.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
“Or maybe,” I continued, “when you wouldn’t leave. When you looked at Ajax and then me and decided we were worth staying for. When every instinct in you screamed to run, but you didn’t.”
Another step. Close now.
“Or maybe it was when you looked at me like I wasn’t broken. Like I was something worth saving. Long before I ever believed that for myself.”
She blinked once, slowly, like she couldn’t quite trust what she was hearing.
“It wasn’t the danger, Saoirse.” I let her name roll off my tongue slowly, simply for the pure joy of feeling it in my mouth. “It wasn’t the mission. It wasn’t adrenaline, proximity, or circumstance.” I leaned in, my voice a whisper now. “It was you .”
I reached up, brushing her hair back from her face, the gentlest contact I could manage without falling apart.
“I’m done fighting it. I’m in love with you.” I let it hang there between us. A promise and a question in one. “What are you going to do about it?”
She surged forward, fisting both hands in the front of my shirt, and hauled me down into a kiss that punched every thought clean out of my head.
There was nothing tentative about it. No testing the waters. Just heat and teeth and the sheer, furious relief of two people who had nearly lost their chance and weren’t wasting a second more.
Her mouth was warm and fierce, tasting of salt and adrenaline and something uniquely hers that I’d never be able to forget. She kissed like she fought—unapologetic, all-in, no room for half-measures.
I groaned into it, hands coming up instinctively to anchor at her hips, to feel that she was solid and alive and, against all odds, still mine. Her fingers twisted tighter in my shirt, dragging me closer, like she couldn’t get enough, like distance itself was the enemy.
Ajax barked once, sharp and smug and deeply satisfied, his tail thudding against the floor like a gavel delivering judgment. Finally .
We broke apart only when breath demanded it, breathing hard, our foreheads tipping together. I barely had the space to form words, but they came anyway, because they were true, and she deserved to hear them.
“So,” I rasped, eyes locked on hers, “we’re dating now?”
She gave a low laugh, her hands still clutching my shirt. “I intend to do a hell of a lot more than date you, Finley Patterson.”
The words shot straight through me, bright and lethal and perfect.
I grinned like an idiot. “When do you get off work?”
She grinned back at me. “I’m not even supposed to be here right now.”
“Then I definitely have suggestions on better ways to spend the rest of the day.” I dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “All of them require significantly fewer clothes.”
Saoirse rose to her toes and gave me a fast, nipping kiss. “I’ll get my keys.”