Chapter 38
Hudson headed to the hotel bar twenty minutes early. He told himself it was because he liked being early. It had nothing to do with the fact he hadn’t been on a date in years.
The hotel bar sat just off the lobby, its walls paneled in polished wood, an open fire crackling at the far end. Beyond the broad windows, snow drifted lazily across Aurora Cove, the town muffled beneath a fresh layer of white.
He chose the table nearest the fire and sat down.
Thirty seconds later, he realized his back was to the entrance. He got up again and moved to a table closer to the window.
A small tealight flickered on the table in a glass holder.
He straightened the candle. Moved the napkin holder half an inch.
Squared the sugar bowl with the edge of the table while the waitress brought his drink.
She set his bourbon on a white paper napkin.
He thanked her and held the glass between his hands without drinking.
He’d been in firefights with a calmer pulse than this.
He checked his watch.
6:56.
He ran a finger inside his collar, undid a button, and checked his watch again.
6:58.
He put his phone away and adjusted his glass of bourbon. The exterior entrance to the bar opened at seven precisely. A swirl of cold air swept through the room, carrying a scatter of snowflakes.
Sarah.
She unwound her scarf as she looked around, cheeks flushed from the cold.
Her gaze met his. A smile tugged at her mouth, and she gave him a little wave. Hudson stood up, his mouth dry.
She crossed the room to him, unbuttoning her coat, a nervous laugh escaping her. “This feels weird.”
“A little bit,” he agreed. Years of imagining this, and somehow he’d never once imagined the nerves.
He came around to help her with her coat. Tiny silver hoops caught the firelight when she tucked her hair behind one ear, and he had to consciously remember what his hands were for.
When he returned from hanging the coat, she was smoothing her dress over her thighs, and he lost his train of thought entirely.
Christ. She was beautiful.
For the first time since he’d arrived in Aurora Cove, there was no badge or uniform between them.
Just Sarah. Hair loose. Eyes impossibly blue against the navy of her dress.
She’d lived in jeans when they were teenagers.
Somewhere in the years between, she’d become a woman, and he’d missed all of it.
“You’re staring,” she said, but she didn’t sound as if she minded.
“Yeah.” He didn’t try to deny it. “Give me a second. I had a whole plan for this evening, and you just walked in and deleted it.”
That got a laugh out of her, quick and surprised, as if she hadn’t expected him to admit it.
“What was the plan?”
“Something about being casual.” He pulled her chair out for her, and when she sat, he caught the scent of her, citrus and soft musk, and lost another few seconds deciding whether she’d chosen it for tonight or if it was just her. “Doesn’t seem to be working.”
“No,” she agreed, settling into the chair. “It really doesn’t.”
He nodded, trying to shove his brain back into gear. “Can I get you a drink?”
“I’d like that.” She lifted his glass and took a cautious sniff. “I’ll have what you’re having.”
He motioned to the waitress and ordered her drink.
Sarah glanced around. “I’ve never actually been here when I wasn’t arresting someone.”
Hudson laughed. “You arrest people in hotel bars often?”
“Small town.”
His face was solemn. “Occupational hazard.”
The earrings. The dress. Her hair. Sarah Meyer hadn’t done any of that by accident. She’d dressed for dinner. With him. Tonight she’d wanted him to see her.
Fuck.
For years he’d told himself he’d imagined what they’d once been. The thought sank deep and refused to move.
The waitress set Sarah’s bourbon on a coaster between them. “For you.”
“Thanks.” Sarah took a careful sip and immediately fought to keep her face straight.
Hudson didn’t bother hiding his smile.
“Don’t,” she warned.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it very loudly.”
He turned his glass, watching her recover. “You’ve genuinely never had bourbon before?”
“No.” Her smile was crooked. “I don’t know why I ordered it.”
She frowned at the glass as if it had betrayed her, then tried another sip. His attention followed the swallow before common sense dragged it back to her face.
The fire flickered light across her face as she placed her glass back on the coaster.
Silence stretched between them. He’d spent too many years rehearsing what he’d say if he ever got the chance.
Now that he had it, he didn’t want to fill the quiet with words.
He wanted to watch her not-drink her bourbon in the firelight and commit it to memory in case this was the only night he got.
Sarah traced a fingertip around the rim of her glass. “I spoke to Nora before I went off duty. She’s going to be okay.”
The tension in his chest released a little. One person brought home. One, this time.
“Good,” he said, and meant it more than the word carried.
Sarah eyed him as if she was setting something down. “I’m banning us from talking about work tonight.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You can do that?”
“I’m the sheriff.”
“Pretty sure that’s an abuse of office.”
“Not tonight, it isn’t.”
She said it lightly, but there was something underneath it he recognized, because he’d been doing the same thing all evening—building a wall around these few hours, keeping Cord and everything else out of it.
Just for one night, pretending they were only two people at a table. Nothing chasing either of them.
He lifted his glass, a small toast to the idea of it. “Sounds reasonable.”
Sarah huffed a laugh. Her shoulders dropped, and her smile finally reached her eyes. He’d carried that laugh in his memory for too long. It was better than he remembered.
The waitress arrived with a basket of warm bread and took their order before disappearing again.
Sarah picked up a roll, broke it cleanly in half, and passed him a piece, the same way she’d once tossed him the better apple and kept the bruised one for herself. She’d always organized everyone around her without seeming to notice she was doing it.
He doubted she even remembered. He remembered everything.
He buttered the bread slowly, more for something to do with his hands than any real hunger. He was excruciatingly aware of her across the table. Usually, he was aware of exits, of movement at the edge of a room. This was old instinct, pointed somewhere new.
When he set the knife down, Sarah reached across the table. Her fingertips found the pale scar on the back of his hand and stopped there, tracing it slowly, like she was reading Braille.
She studied it, a small dent between her brows.
Usually people looked at his hands to judge whether they could still do the job. Nobody had ever looked at them like this. “Working dog,” he said. “She was injured, and she didn’t appreciate my first-aid technique.”
That earned him a laugh, and she didn’t lift her hand.
“There’s a place outside Chicago,” he went on. “Retired military and police dogs. I go out when they’re short-handed. Turns out I’m reasonably useful with a shovel and they don’t seem to mind me.”
She was quiet for a moment, her hand still resting over his. He had the strange sensation of being read rather than questioned.
“You like it,” she said.
“Some of the dogs don’t know what to do with the quiet.” Her fingers were slender, the graze on her knuckle almost healed. “Years of every sound mattering. Every stranger being a threat. Then somebody tells them they’re finished, and nobody explains what comes after.”
A log snapped and spat in the fire. Snow melted against the window behind her. Sarah didn’t say anything for long enough that he finally looked up.
“You understand them,” she said.
He turned his hand over slowly, until her fingers rested in his palm. Her fingertips were warm, the pads of them roughened just enough by reins and range days to catch lightly on his skin. It was barely a touch. His body reacted as if she’d put her hands somewhere far less innocent. “Maybe.”
Her thumb rubbed absently across his palm, as if she wasn’t aware she was doing it. “I think they understand you too.”
When their food arrived, Sarah slowly drew her hand from his. Neither of them reached for their silverware for a moment.
Sarah finally picked up her knife and fork and cut into her steak. She took one bite, closed her eyes for a second, then pointed her fork toward him. “Well. This was a good decision.”
Hudson grinned and cut his. “Can I ask you something?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“Did you ever think about leaving? Aurora Cove, I mean.”
She went still for a beat, fork halfway to her mouth, then set it down. “Once.”
He waited.
“About three years ago. Anchorage PD wanted me for a supervisory position. Better money. Real backup on shift. Not just Walter and a radio that cuts out past the ridge.” She studied the firelight moving through the bourbon. “I drove to Anchorage to look at apartments.”
“What happened?”
“I got as far as standing in one. Nice view. Dishwasher.” A small, private smile touched her mouth.
“And I kept thinking about my dad’s shutters.
How they need repainting every spring or the salt eats them.
Ellie had just been born. In Anchorage, I’d have been the aunt who visited instead of the one who was there.
” She rubbed her thumb along the handle of her fork.
“It wasn’t the job. The job would’ve been fine. I just…” She frowned, searching for it. “I don’t know. I think I was scared that if I left, I’d stop being someone this town needed.”
Hudson didn’t speak.
Her thumb stilled. “And I’d become someone who used to be needed here.” She looked up at him. “There’s a difference.”
Hudson turned that over slowly.
“That’s not a small thing to walk away from,” he said. “A promotion like that.”
“No.” She picked up her fork again, her gaze distant. After a moment, she looked directly at him. “I’ve never told anyone that. Not really. My dad thinks I turned it down for the horses.”
She’d chosen him for that truth.
“You didn’t tell Wyatt?”
“Wyatt would’ve called me sentimental.” Her mouth curved. “He’d have been right, probably. Doesn’t make it less true.”
Hudson thought about the file on Cord he’d built for years in a city he’d never once called home. About the rule he’d made for himself at nineteen. Don’t stay. Don’t give anyone a reason to depend on you. He’d pulled it out every time the wanting got dangerous.
“I don’t think that’s sentimental,” he said.
Her face softened. He hadn’t seen that look since the stables. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”
He’d spent years believing strength looked like leaving first. Sarah had built an entirely different definition. Stay. Show up. Keep choosing the same people. Somehow that looked braver.
Hudson looked at her across the candlelight. He’d walked away because he’d believed loving her meant setting her free. Sitting here now, he finally understood what he’d been too young to see.
She’d never needed him to choose her future for her. She’d built something extraordinary.
This time, if she made room for him, he wasn’t sure he could leave her again.