Page 14 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

Water always sounded louder indoors. He didn’t look down.

Sarah had moved ahead with Walter, following Petey through the packing room and along a short passage into cold storage, where large refrigerator hulks sat silent in the gloom. Beyond them, a broad doorway opened into the covered loading bay. Loading gates lined the far wall, with an exterior walkway running above the water beyond them.

As Sarah stepped into the loading bay, her foot went through.

The board exploded downward with a crack that echoed through the cannery. Sarah vanished to her thigh, her other foot skidding on rotten timber.

The rest of the floor lurched after it.

Petey shouted something.

Hudson was already moving.

His hand closed around her forearm. Momentum carried her straight into him while his other arm caught her around the waist. She hit him full force.

Dark water flashed beneath the broken boards. His grip tightened instinctively.

Not again.

His pulse hammered against his throat as he hauled her clear of the hole. One step back. She was upright. Safe.

The danger had already passed. Even though his hands hadn’t gotten the message yet.

She was warm despite the cold, her breath ghosting against his neck. For a second, neither of them moved. Walter said something. Hudson had no idea what.

“Are you hurt?” His hand still rested on the curve of her waist.

She looked down. “I don’t think so.”

Her hat had tipped sideways. One strand of hair had escaped and caught against her mouth. Sarah looked up. For a moment she looked genuinely surprised.

Not by the fall.

By him.

6

Sarah stepped back, professionalism kicking in.

Everything else—especially the memory of Hudson’s hands around her—could wait. She’d expected a comment. A joke. Or a lecture. But Hudson said nothing. She concentrated on pulling her hat straight because, for reasons she couldn’t explain, looking at him right now felt dangerous.

“Are you all right there, Sheriff?” Petey ambled back toward them, boots loud. He peered down into the gap with the mild interest of a man assessing a crack in his own driveway. “Well. That’ll need fixing. I told Seattle that floor wanted replacing.”

Walter sighed. “You mention this now?”

Petey looked affronted. “Seems like a good time to mention it.”

Hudson crouched at the edge of the hole.

There it was, his economy of movement—weight dropping straight down through his heels instead of folding forward. Time had changed almost everything else about him. Somehow, not that.

She’d seen it before. Years ago. A boy coming down off the loft ladder in a barn at two in the morning so the boards wouldn’t creak and wake his parents, ending the whole enterprise of two teenagers being somewhere they shouldn’t be.

He’d always landed like that. Like the ground owed him quiet.

Sarah sucked air through her teeth and studied the hole. Far safer.

“Rot’s deeper than the surface.” Hudson’s fingers traced the broken edge of the board. “Goes back a few feet. This whole section’s been compromised a while.” He glanced up.