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Zerek. He’d seen my car.

I stepped into the hallway.

He stood just inside the front door, one hand braced on the wall like he needed it to stay upright.

For a second, all I saw was him.

Tall, broad shoulders filling the space. Dark hair a little too long, curling at the nape of his neck. A day or two of scruff on his jaw. The worn Jasper Creek Fire Department T-shirt clinging to his chest.

Then the details hit.

The butterfly bandage over his right eyebrow, holding together an angry cut. The faint purpling around his eye that promised a spectacular bruise by morning. The way his left arm hovered close to his side, hand pressed over his ribs like he was trying to hold himself in one piece.

My stomach dropped.

“What in the hell happened?” I gasped, moving toward him before I could think better of it. “Were you attacked?”

Chapter Six

I left the gym limping more than walking.

The cool night air hit my sweat-damp skin and did absolutely nothing for the throbbing in my ribs. My right eyebrow pulsed in time with my heartbeat, and my shoulders felt like someone had poured concrete into the muscles and let it harden.

I should’ve beaten the guy.

Just like I should’ve beaten the guy before him.

Just like I sure as hell should’ve beaten JJ.

That one still stuck in my craw. JJ might have had me fair and square, but there was a part of me that still whispered I could’ve found a way. That I used to be the guy who could dig deeper, push harder, drag a win out of nowhere.

Lately? Every time I stepped into that ring, it felt like I was already behind before the bell ever rang.

If I kept this up, Cappy was going to start pairing me with guys half my size. Let me beat on some kid whose biggest worry was student loans and not whether his marriage was circling the drain.

I snorted under my breath and winced when the movement tugged at the cut above my eye. Yeah, that’d be a sight. Me, the sad old firefighter, finally getting a win on somebody who still got carded at bars.

I slid into my truck with a grunt and sat for a minute, hands loose on the wheel. My knuckles ached beneath the wraps. I should’ve taken them off in the gym, but I didn’t have the energy to do it now either. I couldn’t do more than sit here and breathe.

The interior smelled faintly of bad coffee, sweat, and takeout. My life in three scents.

I turned the key and pulled out of the lot, not really paying attention to the road at first. My body knew the way home. I could’ve driven it blindfolded.

Halfway to the house, my brain finally engaged enough to drag up something from earlier that day.

Simon had stopped by the station between calls.

He had leaned in the watch room doorway like he belonged there, big and solid and steady the way he always was. We’d shot the shit about nothing for a few minutes—weather, town gossip, one of his cases at Onyx Security and some idiot who’d tried to barbecue on a wooden balcony at the apartments.

Then he’d dropped it.

“Family barbecue next week,” he’d said. “Everyone’ll be there. Little Grandma, her sister Miss Gladiola, Florence, and more Averys than you can shake a stick at. Even the California crew are flying in.”

I’d made some noncommittal noise. Barbecues used to be my thing. Meat, beer, chaos. Chloe laughing with her sisters while I tried to stop Bella from talking Evie’s two boys into climbing the tallest tree in the neighborhood.

Now the idea made my throat tight.

“Trenda’s worried about you,” Simon had added, voice gentling. “She says you’re ghosting. And Bella…”