Chapter 27
The ambulance smelled of antiseptic and blood.
None of it explained the fear beneath Hudson’s ribs.
There was a cut along Sarah’s hairline, swelling rising along her cheekbone. But she was awake. Talking, breathing, her pupils reactive.
He knew because he’d asked. Twice. The medic had stopped answering him and started giving him the look reserved for men one question away from being told to sit down and shut up.
“Did she lose consciousness at the scene?” the medic asked.
“Briefly,” Hudson said.
Sarah’s eyes moved toward him, slow and unfocused. “I can answer.”
“Then answer.”
She frowned at him, and for a second, she looked so much like the girl who used to glare at him across Sophie’s kitchen table.
“No,” she said carefully. “I did not lose consciousness.”
The medic glanced at Hudson.
“Briefly,” Hudson repeated.
“I was fine.”
“You were arguing with the radio.”
“I was using the radio.”
“You asked dispatch why the buttons were moving.”
Sarah blinked once. “That sounds unlikely.”
“It happened.”
Her mouth compressed as if she was trying to decide whether to arrest him from a stretcher.
Good.
Irritated meant awake and still Sarah.
Hudson kept his hand loose on his knee and made himself stop watching the monitor.
Heart rate elevated but steady. Blood pressure acceptable.
Oxygen good. He’d tracked worse numbers in worse places, but none of that was relevant because this was Sarah, strapped to a gurney with a cervical collar she’d already tried to argue her way out of.
Training said to trust the data but said nothing about what to do when the patient was her.
The medic adjusted the IV line. Sarah’s fingers twitched. A small involuntary flex and a wince she hid before it made it to her face.
His hand started toward hers before he caught himself. He curled it back against his knee.
The ambulance slowed, then turned under the bright wash of the hospital lights. Doors opened. Cold rushed in, and the world became movement—boots, voices, wheels clattering over rubber matting, the sharp slide from darkness into the emergency department’s hard glare.
Hudson stepped out and kept pace beside the stretcher until one medic eased a step sideways, reminding him he wasn’t part of the team.
“Rollover MVC,” the medic reported as they pushed through the ER doors. “Restrained driver. Vehicle intentionally struck. Alert and oriented with intermittent confusion?—”
“I’m not confused,” Sarah said as the staff transferred her onto the hospital bed.
“Intermittent,” Hudson said.
Sarah frowned at him. “You're still here?”
The doctor apologized for the jacket before cutting away one sleeve. The fabric ripped. Purple bruising was already blooming along the edge of her vest’s shoulder strap. Sarah made a noise that suggested she’d rather face another ambush than another minute of being fussed over.
“Sheriff,” the nurse said. “You need to stay still.”
“I am perfectly still.”
“You are absolutely not.”
Hudson moved to the foot of the bed, giving the staff room to work. Heat caught in his lungs and the dry hospital air abraded every breath. He set it to one side. Not now. Sarah came first.
The nurse asked if they should call anyone.
Sarah opened her eyes. “No.”
The lie hung there before she exhaled through her nose. “My mom,” she said. “My brother Wyatt. But not like—” Her eyes drifted toward Hudson, accusing and tired. “Dramatic.”
“Of course not.” The nurse gave her hand a squeeze.
Sophie Meyer arrived coat half-buttoned, eyes fixed on Sarah with a terror she was trying to turn into efficiency. Wyatt came in behind her, quieter, his face stripped down to something impassive and focused.
Hudson had seen that look before. In places where men searched for exit routes, blood trails, and the person responsible.
Sophie went straight to the bed. “Oh, baby.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“You are not fine. You’re in the hospital.”
“It’s mostly precautionary.”
“You rolled your truck.”
“Technically, someone rolled it for me.”
Sophie made a small sound and reached for her hand.
That did something to Hudson he wasn’t prepared for, the quiet surrender of her fingers into her mother’s. He’d spent so long remembering the girl she’d been that he’d forgotten there were people who still got to protect the woman she’d become.
He looked away. Blood, he understood.
“Hudson.” Sophie looked him over for the first time. “Have you been checked over?”
“Yes, ma’am. Ambulance crew checked me before we left the scene.”
She studied him for another second anyway, as though deciding whether she believed him, then turned her attention back to her daughter.
Wyatt stopped at the end of the bed. His gaze skimmed over Sarah, then shifted to Hudson.
Sarah glared at her brother. “Don’t start.”
“I haven’t said anything.” Wyatt folded his arms.
“You have a face.”
Wyatt’s jaw flexed.
Sophie leaned closer. “Do you know who did this?”
“No.” Sarah gave a tiny shake of her head.
“Was it connected to Hudson?” Sophie asked, then looked as if she wished she hadn’t.
Sarah’s eyes slid toward him. Hudson held her gaze.
For a second, nobody spoke.
Sarah gave a tired, crooked little breath that might have been a laugh if it had more strength behind it. “Deputy Marshal Kane.” Her eyes were half closed now, her voice softened by exhaustion and whatever filter the crash had shaken loose. “Threw away his case file.”
Hudson closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.
Wyatt looked from Sarah to Hudson. “You threw away your case file?”
“They had a gun on Sarah.”
Wyatt studied his sister. She was pale beneath the bruising, exhaustion pulling at her features, one hand still wrapped in Sophie’s. When he looked at Hudson again, something in his expression had shifted.
“Yeah,” Hudson said.
Wyatt held his gaze another beat. “We’ll talk.”
Sarah cracked one eye open. “He’s not in trouble.”
Wyatt never looked away from Hudson. “Didn’t say he was.”
The nurse stepped in with excellent timing. “Let’s give her a little quiet. Immediate family can stay for a few minutes, but we need to keep stimulation low.”
Hudson was already backing toward the door. “I’ll step out.”
Sarah looked as if she might say something, but the nurse was already securing the blood pressure cuff around her arm. He let the door close behind him.
The hospital had the same dry heat everywhere, but the temperature dropped inside his body. He walked until he found a vending machine that charged too much for something nobody could honestly call coffee.
He fed the machine money and watched dark liquid spit into a paper cup. When he lifted it, the cup burned his fingers. He held it anyway, letting the heat bite into his skin until the sensation gave him something simple to track.
A few seconds later, footsteps stopped beside him.
Wyatt.