Chapter 31
Hudson stepped out of Sarah's house and crossed the yard toward Wyatt’s Volvo.
Wyatt climbed out of his dad's blue pickup with a coffee balanced in one hand and a glass dish covered with foil tucked under the other arm.
Hudson eyed the foil-covered dish. “Casserole?”
The corner of Wyatt’s mouth tilted. “Mom. She was up cooking at six this morning.”
“Sarah needs groceries, and I’m going to swing by Mitch’s garage to see about the rental.”
Wyatt gave him a nod. “I’ve got her. She asleep?”
A corner of Hudson’s mouth moved. “Nope. Pretending she’s not concussed.”
Wyatt snorted. “Sounds about right.”
They stood for another beat before Wyatt jerked his head toward the Volvo. “Go.”
Hudson didn’t move until the front door closed behind Wyatt. He waited a few more seconds.
Sarah would tell Wyatt she was perfectly capable of looking after herself whether she actually was or not.
He shook his head and got into the car. Inside, he sat with both hands on the steering wheel, his breath fogging the windshield. He didn’t start the engine. The house was behind him in the rearview mirror, neat and square and too empty for a woman who filled every room she entered with force.
Even knowing Wyatt was inside, every instinct objected to driving away.
Fragments moved through him. Sarah in the wreck, blood sliding along her temple.
In the hospital bed. Taking his hand to climb out of the car without looking at him while she did it.
Wrapped in his coat afterward, too pale, shaken, and still trying to be the one in charge.
His fingers tightened around the wheel as his phone rang through the car’s speakers. Owen Alcott’s name lit the dash.
Hudson let it ring twice, then answered. “Kane.”
“You sound like hell,” Owen said.
Hudson started the engine. “Good morning to you too.”
Something crashed on Owen’s end of the line, followed by a sharp bark and claws skidding across hardwood.
“Gunner, knock it off.” Owen exhaled. “Retired means retired, you furry lunatic.”
Hudson waited as the wipers dragged across the windshield and the heater began clearing the fog. “Gunner still running the place?”
“He thinks so. I let him. It keeps his ego stable.” A beat, the shift almost too small to hear. “Tell me why I’m getting leaned on before breakfast.”
Hudson’s grip hardened on the wheel.
Ah.
He pulled out of Sarah’s driveway and kept his speed low, the road shining in patches where frost had hardened into glass. “What kind of heat?”
“The kind where people who’ve never called me before suddenly know my extension.” Owen’s voice was deceptively casual. “They’re asking why you’re in Alaska. Why a local sheriff just got hit in a town nobody knew you were near.”
“Yeah.” The road narrowed between snowbanks. Hudson scanned the tree line, mirrors, the slight bend ahead.
“Yeah?” Owen repeated. “That’s what you’ve got?”
“I think Sarah?—”
Shit. Too late.
The pause after was way too clean. “Sarah?”
Hudson cleared his throat. “The sheriff was run off the road last night. Professional and deliberate.”
“She alive?”
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
“Concussion. Bruised ribs. Cuts. She’s already pretending she’s fine.”
Another pause. “You’re from Aurora Cove. You two got history?”
“No.” Damn. Too fast.
“Hmm. You okay?” Owen finally asked.
“Fine.”
Silence.
“Bullshit.”
Hudson turned into the grocery store lot and parked facing the road. Nothing in the lot moved except a woman loading bags into the back of an SUV and a raven hopping along the snowbank.
“Owen—”
“No, don’t Owen me. You sound off.”
Hudson rubbed a tender spot between his eyes. “I said I’m fine. I need time.”
“Brother, whatever you’ve kicked over by chasing Cord, somebody felt it. They’re asking why. Other people are asking why they’re asking.” Owen’s voice lowered. “That’s not normal.”
“No.”
“Then bring it in officially.”
“I can’t.”
“Then walk away.”
Hudson looked at the grocery store entrance, at the automatic doors opening for an old man with a bag of dog food tucked under one arm. At the ordinary morning happening around him, as if someone hadn’t tried to kill Sarah barely twelve hours ago.
He could walk away from the file. The politics. The career damage. All of it.
He couldn’t walk away from Sarah.
There it was. Not after last night. Not while someone out there still thought she was a way to get to him.
Owen heard whatever he didn’t say. “Jesus, Kane.”
“I’ll get control of it.”
“Yeah,” Owen said. “You'd better decide what it is first.”
Hudson ended the call and sat in the car a moment longer, his fingers curled hard enough that the tendons stood out. Then he got out, locked the Volvo, and went into the store.
He headed straight to the soup aisle. Sarah needed food that required minimal effort. Hydration. Protein. Something warm and easy.
Tactical mistake. He stared at four kinds of chicken noodle. Christ. Four? He picked one up, checked the ingredients, put it back. He tried another brand, frowned at the sodium, put that one in the cart, and added the first one anyway.
By the time he left the aisle, he had twelve soups and no dignity.
Coffee was worse.
Sarah drank it so sweet it was practically dessert. He had no idea what brand she drank.
He ran a hand through his hair as he stared at twelve different dark roasts, as if one of them might confess.
Fuck. Then he chucked six different brands into the cart.
Just to be safe. Then cinnamon coffee too, because part of him remembered that she liked cinnamon in winter and had spent fifteen years waiting for the memory to become useful.
He added fresh fruit because the bowl in her kitchen had dust in it.
Bread because the house had smelled of nothing except work when he opened the door.
He added enough groceries to cook actual meals—eggs, pasta, tomatoes, garlic, butter, chicken, steak.
Peanut butter—crunchy, because he’d heard her once tell Ryder smooth peanut butter was for weirdos, and Hudson had no idea why that memory was still in his head when he’d forgotten entire names from former missions.
By the pharmacy section, he slowed.
The hospital had given her instructions and medication, but he’d rather carry home things she’d never use than have her need something she didn’t have.
He added heating pads, a cold pack, and extra pain meds she might not need, but she might, and that was enough for his brain now.
He looked down into the cart. He had enough food to stock a small family. Regardless, he added chocolate.
He frowned, then reached for fresh flowers. Flowers weren’t practical. He put them in the cart anyway.
At checkout, he unloaded the cart onto the conveyor belt. Enough groceries to survive a moderate weather event.
The cashier scanned everything in silence for a while, then glanced up at him. “Your wife sick?”
Hudson blinked. “No.”
The cashier looked at the pile again. “Uh-huh.”
Christ.
He handed over his credit card, bagged the groceries himself, and escaped before the cashier could ask anything else about his wife.