Chapter 59
Tessa the inside of his forearm still stained from surgery prep.“I think I do.”
Tessa nodded, wiping at her eyes. Then, quieter:
“Scout, I read things in that room. Things Sara wrote in her journal when she was held there. I thought—”
His head snapped up. “Tess. Stop.”
But she kept going—the words trembling out, raw but steady like the agent she was.
“She wrote about you. How she loved you. How she wished you felt the same. And he—” Her voice faltered. “He said you loved her. That I was nothing but a complication—that you’d always go back to her.”
Her fingers twisted in the blanket, knuckles white.
“And sitting in that room, with nothing but his voice and those pages…” She swallowed. “I had a lot of time to think about every choice I’d made. About you. About her. And when I thought you were dead on that roof, I—” A tear slipped.“I thought I’d wrecked everything you had with her.”
Scout’s whole body went still.
He closed his eyes for a second.
When he opened them again, something raw had slipped through the cracks.
“Do you really think,” he said quietly, voice rough in a way it hadn’t been all day, “that I would bleed out in Sinclair’s yard for confusion?”
“Tessa,” he said, firmly. “Sara is family to me. She always has been. I trained her. Protected her. I’m proud of her. And I will always care about her.”
Tessa looked down.
He leaned in—slowly—until she met his eyes again.
“But I love you, Tess.” His voice dropped. “I was halfway gone on that lawn, and the only thing I could think was I hadn’t told you yet.”
Tessa’s composure broke.
“I came for you,” he said quietly. “Not because I’m a deputy. Because it’s you. It was always going to be you.”
She swallowed, tears slipping silently now.
He lifted his good hand—the one without the IV—and brushed one tear from her cheek with his thumb. The monitor behind her quickened for a beat, then steadied.
“He tried to break you,” Scout murmured. “He failed.”
Tessa leaned into his touch, shaking her head. “You could’ve died.”
“I knew the risk, I just wasn’t leaving you there.”
“I know,” she whispered back.
She lifted the sheet, patted the mattress beside her, and said softly, “Get in—before a nurse murders you.”
He grimaced but carefully eased himself onto the edge of her hospital bed. The mattress dipped; his IV line tugged; his shoulder protested with a hot throb—and her hand instantly settled over his.
His lips brushed hers—soft, careful of every injury in the room, but full of everything they hadn’t said until now.
A real kiss. Earned. Quiet.
Outside the door, Burke’s voice floated faintly down the hall:
“Wilson, don’t make me come in there.”
Tessa bit back a laugh, eyes flicking to Scout. “You’re in trouble,” she murmured. He grinned, just a little. “Worth it.”
Tessa smiled, leaned her head on Scout’s good shoulder—mindful of the taped line—and whispered, “We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “We are.”
And this time, she believed him.