Page 36 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

“I hate it when men say that.”

“He’s watching for movement. Give him thirty seconds of nothing and he starts to wonder if he hit something he didn’t mean to.”

“I’m not lying here while he gets away.”

“I know.” Something showed in his face that wasn’t quite a smile, even now. “Give me thirty seconds. Then fight me.”

She held his eyes for one full breath, weighing it, and then she stayed down.

The wait stretched.

She counted his breathing without meaning to, the measured rise and fall of his chest a foot from her own. Her body matched it because it was the only steady thing in a world tilted sideways. She deliberately changed her count, putting an inch of distance between whatever that had been and whatever came next.

Her hands shook with adrenaline that had nowhere left to go now that the immediate danger had gone still. She pressed her palm flatter against the grip of her gun and willed the shaking to stop.

“Time,” he said.

His eyes swept the ridge one last time. The drifted snow below the crest. As if he expected the mountain to give something away.

Then he nodded. “Now.”

His hand fisted in the heavy fabric between her shoulder blades and hauled her into a crouch. By the time she found her footing, he’d already shifted himself between her and the ridge. His hand dropped away immediately.

The mouth of the avalanche gully was sixty yards away. They reached it in tandem, the terrain rising around them until the ridge disappeared from view.

Hudson never looked at her while they ran. His attention remained locked on the ridge above, scanning it with the same intensity as a tracker reading fresh snow.

Whatever he was looking for, she couldn’t see it.

Finally out of sight, Sarah’s legs burned, cold air dragging sharp into her lungs. They didn’t speak again until the gully bent north and the ridge disappeared entirely behind a shoulder of rock.

“We’re not running,” Sarah said, catching her breath against the stone. “We’re going up.”

Hudson looked at her. “You want to find where he was.”

“I want to know who he was.” She straightened, pointed with her chin at the higher ground, the long spine of rock that ran up toward where the muzzle flash had come from. “That’s the only position with a clean line to the cabin door. I’d put money on it.”

Hudson glanced toward the ridge, then back to her. “You already worked the angle.”

“Yeah.”

He gestured toward the climb. “Lead on.”

He fell in behind her without another word.

Sarah picked her way up the rock, using the scrub spruce for balance where the snow had iced over the stone. Behind her, Hudson drew measured breaths. There it was again. The careful breathing she’d noticed on the boat. Whatever it was, he was hiding it well, just not all the time.

The climb steepened for the last twenty yards. Sarah planted a gloved hand against the rock and pulled herself over the lip of the ridge.

Nothing.

Just wind, scattered saplings and snow stretched white across the shelf beyond.

“Wait.” His hand clamped her shoulder. He wasn’t looking at the ridge anymore. He was studying the snow.