Chapter 13
Sirens wailed behind Tessa. “Come on, Hudson. Come on.”
Voices erupted around her, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the orange glow behind the thick smoke choking the doorway.
“Come on, Hudson.” Be my superhero on the fridge. “Please.”
Shawn stepped into her sight line. “You two okay?”
She shoved him toward the house. “Hudson and Malcolm are inside. Don’t just stand there. Help them.” She pulled the gun from her waistband and held it out. “And hold on to this.”
“Jesus Christ, Tessa.” He took the weapon, his pupils blowing wide. “Where did you get this?”
“I’ll explain later, just—”
She gasped as Hudson emerged from the house with Malcolm under his arm. “Thank God.”
Tessa took off toward them. Shawn clamped his hand on her shoulder. “Stay here.”
She broke free of his grip and ran toward the house. A wall of heat stopped her cold at the bottom of the stairs. Shawn bounded past her and supported Malcolm’s other side.
“Get back, Tessa.” Hudson choked back a cough. “The roof isn’t stable.”
She retreated as the firefighters advanced, the heat dissipating with each backward step to the sidewalk. A paramedic raced past her. She held her breath until her superhero on the fridge broke past the responders like a man built for battle.
Sweat-soaked soot covered his face and neck. A crimson streak bisected the angle of his jawline.
“You’re bleeding.” Cupping his face with both hands, she wiped blood away with her fingertip.
“Just a scratch. Are you hurt?”
He gripped her wrists and lowered her hands to his chest. For an elongated heartbeat, the commotion around them stilled as ferocity simmered beneath his controlled calm.
He led Tessa toward the ambulances. Lia and Malcolm sat across from each other in the back of the rigs. Oxygen masks covered their faces.
Hudson waved off a paramedic and pointed to Malcolm. “I’m fine. Check him for a head injury.”
Cupping Tessa’s elbow, he led her out of earshot. “What the fuck were you thinking running into a fire?”
“Same as you. My friend was in there.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was stupid. The ceiling could have fallen. Burning debris could have ripped your arm clear off, and trapped you under a pile of flaming rubble.”
“But the ceiling didn’t fall and I have all my limbs.”
Hudson winced and looked away like she’d slapped him. He didn’t glance back at her as he stalked down the street. Since meeting him, she’d witnessed a myriad of emotions in his eyes. He hadn’t meant to reveal that hidden scar she’d bet ran the deepest.
“Hudson, wait.”
He didn’t stop.
She ran and caught up, pulling fresh, salt-laden air into her lungs. “I admit I acted stupidly, but—”
He whipped around to face her. The wildness she’d sensed pulsing under his militant control broke through the surface.
He stepped within inches of her and caught her chin with his fingers. “It was stupid, Tessa. Don’t ever pull anything like that again on my watch.”
The storm he’d finally let loose slackened the tether Frank’s “keep your mouth shut” training held on her instincts. “Your watch? Right, because I’m your duty. But while you were doing what felt right, so was I, and I won’t apologize for it. I’m in one piece and I’d do it again to help my friend.”
“For fuck’s sake, Tessa, I get why you did it, but it was still stupid.” He tightened his grip on her chin. “You scared the hell out of me.”
That she would apologize for. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t know. When you were a paramedic, your job wasn’t to run into a situation like that.
You waited outside the hot zone for people like me to complete our part of the mission.
You haven’t seen charred bodies trapped under smoldering rubble.
Or victims bleeding out without their limbs, unable to move while fire blazed around them. I have. I saw what happened to Chris.”
He backed up and looked away, but she caught the flash of pain. She’d been wrong about him being scarred. His wound still seeped fresh blood.
She touched his arm. “Who was Chris?”
Hudson jerked his arm away. His very attached, very functioning arm he’d managed to keep along with his other limbs after two stints in burning buildings in the space of two weeks. “Chris isn’t past tense. He survived.”
And that was all he’d share. Tessa had her reasons for not answering his question about who hurt her. He wouldn’t answer any more questions about Chris.
He strode further down the street, away from the sirens and the crowd and Russ—or maybe Shawn—calling his name.
Sweat dripped from his brow. He wiped it away along with the grime before it bit into his eyes.
He cared about Tessa, and she was trouble.
He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but she was his charge now in a much bigger way than yesterday.
The duty settled on his shoulders like the weight of the duplex’s wet roof.
For all of Hudson’s adult life, Pop had been his only responsibility.
Even from thousands of miles away, he’d made sure the old man was taken care of.
As much as Vivian annoyed him, they stayed in regular contact to discuss everything from Pop’s doctor’s appointments to what to get him for his birthday.
When he came home, he was in charge of keeping the fishing equipment clean and the knives sharp.
Nagging annoyances, like Shayla’s attempts to rekindle their relationship and the half-dozen women in town who wanted to come by the mansion and “catch up,” were easily dealt with and forgotten.
But Tessa presented a life-or-death duty he hadn’t anticipated.
“Fucking Chris.”
Despite the real and remembered acrid air, he somehow still managed to smell Tessa’s rose scent as she slid next to him.
“You should really get some oxygen.” Tessa tilted her head toward his chest, like she was assessing his breathing. “You were in there way too long.”
“I’ve inhaled five times more smoke than that.”
She shielded her eyes against the morning glare cutting across the boardwalk. “Then you know the reasons you should get treated.”
Shit, she was right. His lips clamped close as he scanned her with a not-so-clinical intent.
Her hair had fully escaped her ponytail. Curls tangled past her shoulders and clung to her sweat-dotted face. Her chest heaved with each breath that pushed from her parted lips. She looked as volatile as he felt, like if so much as a twig snapped, she’d lose control and do something stupid like…
“Hudson.” She stepped in front of him.
He squeezed his fists, so he didn’t do something reckless like wrap her in his arms and vow to protect her forever.
“I know this is all my fault because I’m here and Frank always shows up where I am, but…” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Frank taught me to keep my mouth shut and run when things went sideways. Every cell in my body wants to drive as far away from here as I can get, but I can’t.”
She sniffed as she glanced back at the firefighters spraying water at her roof. “I won’t because I owe it to Sam, and to you, and now to Malcolm and Lia who could have died, no doubt because of me.”
The raw honesty in her voice scraped at his last particle of control. The effort it took to buck an ingrained flight response upped his respect for the pretty little thief.
“Tessa.” He reached for her hip to pull her into him. He didn’t know why, only that his duty to protect her had developed without his permission into something more.
She held up her hand. “No, I need to talk this out and not…” She sucked in air as she ran her fingers down her cheek. “Not run from my past, and memories, and Frank.”
Hudson’s fingers twitched. He stifled the urge to wipe away the sooty smudge on her cheekbone and demand she tell him who’d hurt her.
She glanced toward the now-smoldering house on an uneven exhale. “Why did Fry Jack say I was in danger? Did he mean in danger of burning to death in my bed? From whoever tampered with Sam’s car and caused him to crash, because I know it wasn’t Frank.”
She waved her finger, as if daring him to say otherwise.
She might think differently after he showed her the video the General sent him, but he needed her calm to view it objectively.
Until the quiver in her voice receded and words stopped tumbling out in a frenzied rush, he’d keep the evidence to himself.
“And is Frank in danger too? Does Fry Jack have him tied up at a dock somewhere?” She gathered her hair on top of her head.
Shifting her hands, she pulled an elastic band from her pocket and wrapped it around her makeshift bun.
“If someone wanted to kill me, why blow up my house when I wasn’t there?
I was supposed to be in the hands of the kidnapper for God’s sake. ”
“You’re right. None of this makes sense, but I’ll figure it out.” He tucked a lock behind her ear, staring open-mouthed at her curls fanning in every direction like a crown.
“No. I’ll figure it out.” She shook her head. “Frank started this. He’s my problem.”
“He’s our problem now. We’ll work together, but when it’s not safe, you’ll stay where I tell you, especially when there’s a gun or fire involved. Got it?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to say, ‘yes sir,’ and salute you?”
He smiled. “I won’t stop you.” The part of his anatomy that shouldn’t have an opinion during a crisis jerked its approval against his jeans.
“Maybe I’ll salute you just once for living up to your superhero on the fridge status.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The superhero on the what?”
“The picture of you on Sam’s fridge in your dress uniform.” She raised up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
Sparks raced down his neck and into his torso. The pain in his body dimmed as her lips moved against his skin. Time stilled, like it did for a heartbeat after the explosion. Hudson had that second to decide if he was going to stay still.
Fuck it.
He turned his head. Lips grazing hers, he banded an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him.
A soft sound rasped from her throat as his roughened fingertips skimmed the warm skin at her waistband.
“It’s my job to play the hero. I can’t turn it off when I’m not in uniform, nor can I abandon my duty. ”
Her breath hitched. “I thought I was your inherited responsibility. Now I’m your duty?”
“Yes.” The pretty little thief with secrets and trauma added fuel to his nightmares. But even more disturbing was the adrenaline rush that shot endorphins with so much intensity his ribs barely hurt. Despite his broken mind, he still craved action.
Coveted the high of saving a life.
Anticipated hearing the details about Project V.
The adrenaline those scenarios incited didn’t fade. It settled into steadier focus, like she was the one who could anchor him when his mind threatened to spin out of control.
“You’re my duty in more ways than one, little thief, and in some you might not like if you don’t listen to me.” He tapped his finger against her lips. “Or maybe you will.”