Page 12 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

Not enough to condemn them. But enough to justify an arrest.

Deacon had hated every step of it. Every question. Every inch of procedure that shoved him closer to the people he cared about. But he was the sheriff. He followed the truth, even when it punched holes straight through his chest.

When he’d put the cuffs on Lauren, Jessa had shattered right in front of him. God, he could still see it. The disbelief. The fury. The heartbreak. As if he’d driven a knife straight into her.

Jessa had begged him to slow down. Told him they just needed time. Time for her mother to explain, time for Roman to get a lawyer, time for the truth to shake loose. But Deacon couldn’t show bias. Not with the entire damn county breathing down his neck. Not with reporters circling like vultures and the mayor demanding answers.

He wouldn’t back down. Not for politics. Not for pressure.

Not even for Jessa.

What he didn’t know, what no one told him, was that Lauren had been diagnosed with cancer days before. That Jessa had been raw, terrified, already standing on a cliff she couldn’t see the bottom of.

And he pushed her right off it.

Arresting Lauren during those first brutal days… it was a betrayal Jessa couldn’t breathe through, much less forgive. In the end, the truth surfaced like oil on water. The real killer was convicted—the rancher’s estranged wife who’d planted the so-called evidence. Lauren was cleared. Roman was cleared.

But Jessa? She didn’t come back from it.

She couldn’t forgive him for not believing in the people who’d saved her life, raised her, given her a family when she’d had nothing.

So she walked away.

Deacon let her. Because he believed he’d done his job. But damn it, he also knew he’d failed her, as a man, as someone who’d loved her deeper than he’d ever loved anyone.

He hadn’t learned about Lauren’s diagnosis until weeks later.

And by then… by then it was too damn late. Jessa was gone from his life. Lauren was dying. And Deacon had been left standing in the wreckage of the one thing he’d never wanted to lose.

Now she stood in front of him again, closer than she’d been in a year, worry carved into every line of her face, and all that old pain curled up inside him, sharp and familiar. And he hated that, even now, even after everything, the first instinct in his chest was still to reach for her.

Corbin finally peeled himself out of the chair, stretching like he’d been lounging on a damn beach instead of sitting outside a treatment room where Deacon had just gotten stitched together. He took one slow, calculated look between Deacon and Jessa, and a crooked grin slid across his face.

“Well,” Corbin drawled, “I can practically smell the bad blood between you two from here.”

Jessa stiffened, her jaw tightening. A grimace flickered across her face—half annoyance, half embarrassment—and she cut her eyes away like she wished Corbin would evaporate.

Deacon felt heat creep up the back of his neck. Irritation, mostly. And something else he didn’t care to name.

Corbin wasn’t done.

“Which is why,” he added, tipping his chin at Jessa, “I’m a little shocked you came running to save his ass.”

Jessa inhaled sharply, a quiet, tense sound. Her gaze flicked toward Deacon and then away just as fast.

“Yeah,” Deacon said dryly. “And I’m a hell of a lot more surprised you showed up. There’s no love lost between us.”

Corbin shrugged, utterly unbothered. “When Shade gives me intel, I’ve learned to act on it. Fast.” His expression sharpened, losing its lazy edge. “Guy’s never wrong. If he says someone’s about to get dropped, someone’s about to get dropped.”

Shade. That hacker again. The one who’d warned Jessa. The one who’d warned Corbin. Deacon’s pulse kicked up, not from pain this time, but from the wrongness curling in his gut.

Corbin stepped closer, tone shifting. “Word is Marty Wynn’s out there hunting. But why? What the hell does he want? And why’s he dragging you,” he jabbed a finger toward Deacon’s chest, “into it?”

Deacon opened his mouth to snap, to defend himself, hell, maybe to admit he didn’t have a damn clue, but before he could get a word out, Jessa drew a breath as if she were about to speak.

She didn’t get the chance.

The doors at the far end of the hallway swung open, and Noah Riggs strode in with that relentless, controlled stride that made everyone look up. His expression was carved into a hard line that said he’d already been briefed and was more than ready to start tearing into answers.