Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LETTY
They loaded Wyatt into the back of a Salt & Steel vehicle. Letty climbed in without asking. She touched Wyatt, and Cal watched her from the door with a hard, steady gaze.
“You good?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But I will be.”
Cal nodded once. “That’s the only acceptable answer.” He closed the door with a loud thud. The vehicle jolted forward as Letty pressed fresh gauze to Wyatt’s side, hands shaking only a little now.
Wyatt’s eyes fluttered as he tried to speak.
She leaned close, mouth near his ear. “I’m here. Don’t think about leaving me.”
His fingers tightened weakly around hers. A ghost of his earlier intensity flashed in his eyes. “Stay,” he rasped.
It wasn’t a command. She smiled. He was confirming that he was going to live, and he wanted her there. Letty swallowed hard, blinking back something that burned behind her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. Not Dallas, not anywhere, not without you, not until you are ready to go home with me.”
Wyatt’s eyes closed briefly, as if the words allowed him to release a fraction of tension.
Outside, the glow of the burning warehouse lit the night sky.
Her stomach rolled watching the sick orange glow cover the view.
Letty squeezed Wyatt’s hand. Will had wanted fire to be the ending.
But for Letty, it felt like a beginning.
She chewed her lip. Love isn’t the soft thing I once thought it was.
Love is dragging a bleeding man out of an inferno, keeping him conscious with my hands, my mouth, and my voice… She willed Wyatt to be strong.
Channel 16 crackled faintly from the seat beside her. Rhea’s voice came through, tight with triumph. “Cops just pulled Driscoll off the service road. He’s bleeding. He’ll talk.”
Cal’s reply was calm as stone. “Good.”
Letty pressed her forehead to Wyatt’s temple. “Hold the line,” she whispered.
Wyatt’s lips moved against her hair, barely there, but she felt it, and it felt like a promise.
LETTY
The official report didn’t feel triumphant. Letty fanned the pages and stacked them in her hands against the desk. She sat at the long table in the glassed-in Bridge at Salt & Steel while Deputy Fire Marshal Holloway reviewed the final summary on the big screen behind them.
Rhea stood near the console, arms folded, expression cool and precise.
“Thomas leveraged marina access to facilitate cargo transfers,” Cal said, voice clipped and professional. “The Palmetto Royale fire was designed to eliminate irregular documentation and intimidate anyone who might push for deeper investigation.”
Holloway cleared his throat. “And to collect the money from insurance. He would have been successful…”
Letty didn’t flinch. “He needed the fire to look accidental. If the burn pattern held as a simple mechanical fault, the boat would be cleared faster. No audit. No cross-agency review.”
“And when you didn’t back off…” Cal’s tone resonated in the room. “He escalated.”
Letty’s heart rate spiked. Her mind spun with images: the warehouse, the knife, and smoke. Her stomach flipped as she remembered the smell of copper in the smoke as Wyatt bled on the concrete. She steeled her voice. “He miscalculated how many people would stand between him and what he wanted.”
Cal’s gaze flicked briefly toward Wyatt, who leaned against the railing behind her, stitched and watchful.
The Deputy Fire Marshal nodded. “Driscoll’s cooperating.
Will Thomas is being charged with arson, attempted murder, conspiracy, and federal smuggling violations.
” He gave Letty a measured look. “Your documentation helped tie the marina staging to the warehouse accelerant.” He took a breath and blew it out.
“I apologize for my earlier behavior about your findings.”
Letty met his eyes. “Patterns matter.”
This time, he didn’t argue.
The case closed the way disasters often did… with signatures and sealed evidence bags.
When Holloway left, silence settled over The Bridge, and Letty tapped her pen. “Did anyone figure out how Councilman Pike knew to send me a text?”
Rhea chuckled. “He found your grant application with your phone number. He didn’t want Will to be successful either.”
Letty smirked. “He couldn’t have called the cops?”
Rhea let out a breath. “Pike has issues.”
Letty rolled her eyes. “He just should have done his job before he issued the permit.”
Rhea offered a thumbs up as she typed on her computer.
Cal cleared his throat. “Will thought he was smarter than everyone.”
“He thought she’d fold,” Wyatt said.
Letty turned at that. He hadn’t moved from his spot, but his presence still filled the room. He looked tired, and still too pale under his collar.
Cal clapped Wyatt lightly on the shoulder. “Doc kept you breathing.”
Letty rolled her eyes. “He kept himself breathing. I just yelled at him.”
Wyatt’s mouth curved into a grin. “You did more than yell.”
WYATT
Two weeks later, the marsh looked like it always had.
Wind skated low across the water. Egrets moved in the reeds.
The world hadn’t changed, but he had. Wyatt stood on his cottage dock.
His side itched. Salt & Steel’s doctor had removed the stitches from the knife wound, but the scar along his ribs was angrier now.
He stretched, feeling the pull, but it would settle.
He rolled the silver dollar across his knuckles without any thought as the waves lapped along the shore.
Letty stepped out of the two-bedroom cottage barefoot, whiskey glasses in hand, hair pulled into a loose knot at the back of her neck. “Tell me you’re not overdoing it.”
“I’m fine.” He scoffed. “I’m simply standing here.”
“You’re stubborn.”
He didn’t argue as she handed him a glass and leaned beside him, shoulder brushing his.
“I got a call from the mayor.”
“Oh?” He took a sip of whiskey.
“I submitted the final revision of my training report this morning.”
His eyes slid to her. “And?”
“I’m expanding the study. Tidehaven’s disaster response needs funding: training updates, infrastructure reinforcement. The mayor wants to discuss what the community needs and how to fund it.”
Something steady settled in his chest. “I’m just glad you’re staying.”
She glanced at him. “Of course I’m staying.” She paused. “This is my coastline. My research belongs where it matters.”
His jaw eased. “I’m not built for anywhere else either.”
Her lips twitched. “I know.”
He looked at her then, really looked. “We can go visit your sisters.”
Letty nudged him. “So glad you mentioned that. I’d like to.”
Wyatt stopped the coin mid-roll and held it out to her as she frowned.
“That’s yours.”
Her forehead furrowed. “What?”
“You kept me alive, Doc,” he whispered. “Guess that makes you my luck now.”
Her eyes softened. “I don’t believe in luck.”
“Neither do I.”
She stepped into him, setting her whiskey down on the dock railing. Her fingers slid into his shirt, careful of the scar. “You stayed conscious because you’re impossible.”
“And because you didn’t let me go.” He let his forehead rest against hers.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
The marsh wind moved around them, soft and endless.
She finally took the silver dollar, turning it between her fingers. “You’re sure?”
He nodded once. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Her gaze lifted. “Why?”
He brushed his thumb along her jaw. “Because I’m not walking into anything alone now.”
That landed between them, warm and certain. She leaned up and kissed him, then dropped her hands and took a breath. “We shouldn’t.”
He laughed as he grabbed her. “We are. It’s been two weeks. The doctor cleared me for light duty.”
He felt it all the way down to the marrow. When she pulled back, her smile was softer than the first sunlight after a storm.
“I’m building something here…” She pressed her hand to his chest. “Research center. Community training. Coastal response modeling.”
“Salt & Steel will back it.”
“I know.” Her hand slid around his waist carefully, mindful of his healing side. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Something inside him, something that had been braced his entire life finally loosened as he pulled her closer. The kiss deepened, slow and reverent. His hand settled at the small of her back, grounding himself in the feel of her.
She laughed softly against his mouth.
“What?”
“You’re smiling.”
He hadn’t realized. “Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late.”
Inside the cottage, Channel 16 dinged loudly: once, twice, and then a third time.
Wyatt groaned as Letty laughed outright.
He reached inside and grabbed the comm unit from the counter, pressing the speaker.
“Roper, out.” He turned off the radio as he brushed his lips over hers again, slower this time, tasting whiskey and salt and something that seemed dangerously close to peace.
“What about an emergency?”
Wyatt’s hands roamed Letty’s torso as he deepened the kiss. Moaning, Letty lifted her shirt, dropping it onto a chair. She ran her hands under his shirt, protecting his injury. “It’d be faster if you got naked.”
He smiled, removing his shirt.
She scrutinized the wound as he laughed. “Here!” He pointed to his lips as he pressed them to hers.
Moments later, lying next to each other on Wyatt’s bed, he forgot about any injury and just focused on his future.
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