Chapter Three
The antiseptic sting hit first, then the tight pull of the final stitch.
Deacon gritted his teeth and forced himself not to flinch as the nurse at the small county hospital snipped the thread and smoothed a bandage over the fresh line of sutures.
The cut along his side burned like fire, but it was nothing compared to the pounding behind his ribs.
“Try not to move too much,” the nurse, Selma Lambert, instructed. “Those stitches will hold, but only if you give them a chance.”
He nodded, even though he knew damn well moving was exactly what he’d end up doing. Selma gave him a look that said she knew it too, then stepped to a small table to start filling out some paperwork.
Deacon let out a hard breath and leaned back against the exam table, careful of the fresh bandage.
Pain radiated through his ribs, deep and rhythmic like a heartbeat out of place.
He could handle pain. He’d taken bullets before.
He’d been slammed into the ground during rodeo days, thrown from horses, punched in bars, hit by more than one whiskey bottle. Pain was familiar. Predictable.
But tonight hadn’t been.
Tonight had been something else.
A sniper in the trees. A scope glinting in the dark. A bullet carving the air just inches from his head. And Jessa— Damn it. Jessa.
He pressed a hand to his eyes, but the memories surged anyway: her hauling him through the cold, her breath ragged, her body pressed tight to his as bullets tore through the clearing around them.
The fear in her whisper. The stubborn set to her jaw.
The way she’d put herself between him and the rifle again and again.
The way he’d nearly gotten her killed.
His stomach twisted hard.
Wynn, or whoever the hell it had been, probably hadn’t missed by accident. That first shot had been meant to wound, not kill. To send him off the road. To bring Jessa running.
No doubt to draw her out.
He felt the fury rise slow and hot, heating his blood until it had a pulse all its own.
Being a target came with the badge. He accepted that. Hell, he’d been threatened, punched, and shot at over the course of his career. Occupational hazard. Comes with the hat and the badge and the long nights.
But this? This was different.
They weren’t just trying to kill him. Someone had hunted them. Stalked them. Played them. And they’d come damn close to putting Jessa in the ground.
His jaw clenched until the muscles popped. A low, rough growl curled in his chest, because the only thing stronger than the pain slicing through his ribs was the promise forming in the back of his mind.
Whoever had fired those shots was going to regret it.
Deacon swung his legs off the table, ignoring the flare of pain, and he braced himself upright. Yeah, the nurse had been right. He shouldn’t move. But he wasn’t going to sit in this room while some armed coward slipped off into the night.
He wanted answers. He wanted the truth. And God help the shooter when Deacon found him, because he damn sure intended to make him pay.
“Instructions for the stitches,” Selma said, handing him several sheets of paper.
“Keep the area clean and dry for forty-eight hours. No heavy lifting for at least a week, and no twisting or sudden movements. That includes wrestling suspects, riding horses, or trying to play hero before you’re cleared. ”
Deacon grunted. “Define heavy lifting.”
Selma gave him a flat look. “Anything heavier than a coffee cup.”
He snorted. “So… nothing fun.”
“Exactly.” Her tone softened. “You’re lucky, you know. That wound could’ve been a lot worse.”
He didn’t feel lucky. He felt pissed. But he managed a nod. “I appreciate you patching me up.”
“That’s my job,” she said with a faint smile. “Doing yours is going to tear those stitches. So be smart, Sheriff.”
Deacon tugged on the clean clothes that one of the deputies had brought over from his locker at the station, and he had to bite back a tight hiss as the movement pulled at the sutured skin.
Once he was dressed, he grabbed his hat and the coat that’d been delivered with the other items. The nurse held the door open for him, and they stepped into the ER waiting room together.
Even before he cleared the doorway, he saw them.
Deputy Jack Carver stood near the nurses’ station, his eyes scanning the ER as if he expected a gunman to come charging through the walls. Tough kid. Good instincts. Loyal as hell. Deacon had brought him on two years ago and never regretted it.
Jessa and Corbin were also in the waiting area.
She paced with her phone to her ear, one hand pressed to her forehead, stress in every line of her body. She moved as if she was holding herself together by sheer force, sharp steps, tight jaw, eyes flicking constantly toward the hallway.
Corbin, meanwhile, lounged out like this was nothing more than a midnight coffee break. One leg kicked out, an arm draped over the back of a plastic chair, body loose, gaze unreadable. Too casual. Too relaxed.
Deacon didn’t trust him. Not his laid-back act. Not his timing. Not the way he looked at Jessa as if he had some right to her. And he sure as hell didn’t trust the way Corbin had shown up tonight out of the dark without warning.
As soon as Jessa saw Deacon, she stopped pacing. She murmured something into the phone—quick, clipped—then ended the call.
Corbin didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just watched.
“Sheriff,” Jack said, stepping forward. “You good?”
Deacon nodded, straightening despite the burn in his side. “Good enough.”
But his eyes weren’t on Jack. They were on Jessa and then sliding to Corbin. Because whatever tonight had turned into—a hunt, a trap, a damn near execution—Deacon was certain of one thing.
The danger wasn’t over.
Jessa slipped her phone into her pocket and closed the distance between them fast. Too fast for someone who usually moved like a controlled blade. For a heartbeat, she looked as if she might forget everything between them. The years. The silence. The hurt.
She slowed only a step away from him, her breath catching, her hands half-lifted as if she wanted to touch him, steady him. Then, she seemed to remember exactly who they were now.
Who they weren’t.
Her fingers curled into fists at her sides instead. “You’re… up,” she said, voice low and tight.
Deacon forced a grin. “Apparently I’m a super-fast healer.”
The nurse beside him snorted. “I didn’t say that. He’s probably in a lot of pain. Don’t wait for him to admit it.”
Jessa huffed under her breath. “I know.”
Just two words. Soft. Familiar. And they hit Deacon like a punch to the ribs that had nothing to do with the stitches.
Because he remembered.
He remembered the way she used to say it after he’d stubbornly limp through a door post-shootout, pretending nothing was wrong. He remembered her kneeling in front of him, cleaning blood off his knuckles, murmuring that same little I know as if he wasn’t fooling her for a second.
He remembered her in his arms. Her laugh. Her weight against him after long nights. The heat of her breath when she whispered his name.
And he remembered the day it all shattered.
The day he’d put cuffs on Lauren. The devastation in Jessa’s eyes. The words she’d thrown at him like knives. The way she’d walked out of his office, out of his life, without looking back.
The jolt of those memories slammed into him so hard he had to lock his knees to stay upright.
Jessa seemed to feel it too. The old gravity between them. Because she took a small step back, like distance might protect them from the past clawing up between them.
It didn’t.
Nothing would.
Jessa’s quiet I know lingered in the air, stirring up memories he’d tried like hell to bury. Memories that didn’t stay buried long.
A year ago. That damn murder case.
He usually tried hard to keep the memories of it at bay, but now it came roaring back like a brand-new wound tearing open.
The wealthy, corrupt rancher, Clayton Hargrove, who’d been murdered.
The rancher’s estranged wife had killed him in what had been set up as a botched robbery, and clues scattered like breadcrumbs straight toward Jessa’s family.
Toward Roman. Toward Lauren.
Deacon hadn’t wanted to believe it. Not for a second. But the evidence had been the evidence—video glitches, phone pings, a boot print that matched Roman’s brand of work boots, a strand of hair found in the rancher’s truck that the lab initially said could belong to Lauren.
Not enough to condemn them. But enough to justify an arrest.
Deacon had hated every step of it. Every question. Every inch of procedure that shoved him closer to the people he cared about. But he was the sheriff. He followed the truth, even when it punched holes straight through his chest.
When he’d put the cuffs on Lauren, Jessa had shattered right in front of him. God, he could still see it. The disbelief. The fury. The heartbreak. As if he’d driven a knife straight into her.
Jessa had begged him to slow down. Told him they just needed time.
Time for her mother to explain, time for Roman to get a lawyer, time for the truth to shake loose.
But Deacon couldn’t show bias. Not with the entire damn county breathing down his neck.
Not with reporters circling like vultures and the mayor demanding answers.
He wouldn’t back down. Not for politics. Not for pressure.
Not even for Jessa.
What he didn’t know, what no one told him, was that Lauren had been diagnosed with cancer days before. That Jessa had been raw, terrified, already standing on a cliff she couldn’t see the bottom of.
And he pushed her right off it.
Arresting Lauren during those first brutal days…
it was a betrayal Jessa couldn’t breathe through, much less forgive.
In the end, the truth surfaced like oil on water.
The real killer was convicted—the rancher’s estranged wife who’d planted the so-called evidence. Lauren was cleared. Roman was cleared.
But Jessa? She didn’t come back from it.