Chapter 13 Harper
HARPER
The next two weeks fell into a rhythm I hadn’t expected. Knox showed up every morning, and every morning, I told myself I wasn’t looking for him.
I was lying.
It started small. A nod when he arrived. A “good morning” that became routine. But somewhere along the way, small became something else.
I noticed things. The way he always positioned himself between me and whatever door was closest. The way his voice dropped half a register when he spoke to me, softer than the tone he used with anyone else.
I noticed, and I pretended I didn’t.
Days blurred together. Knox mopping floors I’d already seen him mop. Knox restocking shelves that didn’t need restocking. Knox finding reasons to be wherever I was.
And me finding reasons to let him.
We developed our own language. A raised eyebrow from him meant, That patient’s lying about how he got hurt.
A slight tilt of my head meant, I know, but I have to document what he says anyway.
A ghost of a smile from him when I rolled my eyes at paperwork.
A flutter in my chest when I caught him watching me from across the room.
I told myself it was nothing. Professional rapport. The natural camaraderie of two people sharing a workspace.
I was lying about that too.
Meanwhile, Knox Blackwood behaved like the model inmate every warden dreams of.
He showed up to his shifts on time. He completed every task Dr. Mercer or I assigned without being asked twice. And he didn’t just do the work—he did it well. Like he was gunning for Employee of the Month in a place that didn’t give out awards.
I thought his constant presence might frustrate me. Him always there, always nearby, those silver-blue eyes tracking my movements across the infirmary like I was the only interesting thing in a room full of medical equipment.
But if anything, I found myself relaxing.
Not completely. Not all the way. But enough that I noticed.
The prison was chronically understaffed. COs stretched thin across too many wings, too many inmates, too many potential disasters waiting to happen. But having Knox nearby felt like an extra layer of security I hadn’t known I needed.
Somehow, I just knew, if something got out of line, Knox would intervene.
My goal was to never let it get to that point.
But near the end of Knox’s second week as the orderly, something small did happen when I was treating a patient named Stan.
“You need to hold still.” I said it for the millionth time, but Stan wasn’t listening.
The inmate’s cheeks were hollowed out, one front tooth missing. The way he kept looking at me, as if I were the cure for his boredom, made my skin crawl.
Sitting still would make this whole experience end too quickly for him. And Stan clearly wanted to drag it out.
“Make me, darlin’.”
“Don’t call me that.” I kept my voice flat. “And hold still.”
Through the open doorway, I caught a flash of movement. Knox stood in the hallway, mop in hand, but his eyes weren’t on the floor.
They were locked on me.
Even from here, I could see the tension in his shoulders. The way his grip had tightened on the mop handle.
Stan tried to shift his shackled arm toward my face, but the metal cuff caught him short. He frowned at the restraint like it had personally offended him.
“Sure are pretty,” he drawled.
“Thank you. Now please, this cut is deep, and it needs sutures. I can’t stitch you up if you keep moving.”
“That’s what everybody says.” His grin revealed the gap where his tooth should have been. “That you’re pretty.”
In my peripheral vision, Knox’s fingers stretched. Once. Twice.
I bit back a sigh and tried a different tactic to get him to hold the hell still. “How did you get this cut, Stan?”
When he exhaled, the stench of his breath—stale cigarettes and something rotten—nearly knocked me backward.
“Slipped in the cafeteria.”
I had no idea if that was true. I also didn’t care.
“Okay. This might sting.” I positioned the curved suture needle, angling it toward the wound. The moment the tip pierced his skin, Stan jerked his arm violently to the side.
The needle went flying.
I gasped and stumbled backward, my hip catching the metal stool and sending it clattering to the floor. The sound echoed through the exam room like a gunshot.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I stared at the needle on the floor, calculating how close it had come to puncturing my own skin. Based on the track marks laddering up Stan’s forearm, he’d been an intravenous drug user before coming to prison.
One accidental stick. That’s all it would take.
“I told you to hold still! That needle almost jabbed me!”
Stan laughed. Actually laughed, like my fear was the funniest thing he’d seen all week.
That’s when Knox stepped into the room.
“She said hold still.” His voice was low. Lethal. A bass rumble that vibrated through my chest. “So, hold the fuck still.”
Stan’s smile evaporated. His entire body went rigid, arm extended perfectly motionless for the first time since he’d sat down. Whatever bravado he’d been clinging to crumbled under the weight of Knox’s stare.
I suppose I could have called a CO for help, but something told me that Stan wouldn’t have complied. Him hearing an order from Knox, on the other hand? Well, Stan sure as shit stayed still after that.
Stan didn’t move again.
Not once.
My pulse was still racing as I retrieved a fresh needle from the supply tray, my hands trembling slightly as I prepared to restart the sutures.
A tangle of emotions knotted in my chest—frustration at myself for not handling it better, embarrassment that I’d needed backup, and something else. Something warmer.
Gratitude.
Knox had stepped in without hesitation. Without being asked. Without making it a scene that would require incident reports.
He’d simply … handled it.
When I glanced toward the doorway, I found him watching me. Those husky eyes soft now, the danger from moments ago completely banked. The transformation was startling—how quickly he could shift from lethal to gentle. From predator to protector.
He mouthed two words. You okay?
My throat tightened. I swallowed past the sudden lump and mouthed back, Thank you.
His eyes stayed soft. Stayed on me. Like making sure I was okay was the only thing that mattered, and as they did, my chest ached with something I couldn’t afford to feel.
Then he looked at Stan—one final warning glance that made the inmate shrink into himself—and returned to the hallway. The soft scrape of the mop against linoleum resumed, steady and unhurried, like nothing had happened at all.
But something had happened.
As I finished Stan’s sutures in blessed, cooperative silence, I couldn’t stop replaying the moment Knox had appeared in that doorway. The way the air had shifted. The way my racing heart had slowed the instant I realized he was there.
The way I’d felt for those few seconds, completely and utterly safe.
Safe.
When was the last time I’d felt that? Truly felt it, not just told myself I should?
Not with Silas. Not in the years before him, growing up with parents who couldn’t stay sober long enough to remember to lock the doors at night. Not in any of the jobs I’d worked, the apartments I’d rented, the careful distance I’d kept from everyone.
But here, in a prison infirmary, surrounded by convicted criminals, with a murderer mopping floors ten feet away?
Here, I felt safe.
Because Knox Blackwood made me feel safe.
I was in dangerous territory.
And I was about to find out a secret about Knox that would change everything …