The sirens were still echoing in Beau’s ears when he stepped out of the cruiser. Flashing lights painted the trees red and blue. Deputies moved with controlled urgency, voices clipped over radios. But all Beau saw—all he saw—was you.

You sat on the back bumper of a cruiser, hunched forward, blood blooming dark across your shirt. A deputy held gauze to your side while a medic worked quickly, voice calm. But your eyes weren’t on them. They were on him.

And his heart nearly stopped.

He wanted to run to you, to touch your face, to ask if you were okay. He wanted to drop to his knees in front of you and let the panic show, because god, you were hurt. But he didn’t move. Couldn’t. His badge weighed too heavy.

He stood a few feet away, stoic, unreadable—because he had to be.

You watched him, eyes wide. Expecting… something. But Beau didn’t come closer. Didn’t say your name. Didn’t even let the panic show in his voice when he turned to the medic.

“How bad?”

“Clean graze. She’s lucky,” the medic said. “She’ll need a few stitches. Nothing worse than that.”

Lucky.

You were lucky.

So why did Beau feel like he’d lost something?

He stayed just long enough to make sure you were stable. And then he left—because Emily had arrived with Jenny, because eyes were on him, and because this—this thing between you—was still tucked into the shadows where no one could see.

Even when you bled.

The fluorescent lights in the hospital made your skin look pale, almost translucent. Beau stood just inside the door, the quiet beep of the heart monitor filling the silence between you.

You didn’t look at him right away. You were lying back on the bed, bandaged and stitched, arm across your stomach like you were trying to hold yourself together.

When you finally spoke, your voice was rough. “You didn’t even come near me.”

Beau closed the door behind him. Slowly. Like he wasn’t sure he had the right to be there now.

“I couldn’t,” he said. The words felt hollow, even to him.

Your laugh was dry. “No. Of course not. Not with your daughter around. Not with your deputies watching.”

He winced. “Don’t—”

“I had your blood on my hands, Beau.”

That shut him up. You turned your head then, eyes locking with his. There was no anger there—just a deep, quiet ache that made him feel like the worst kind of coward.

“I got shot. And I had to sit there pretending I didn’t want you next to me.” You swallowed hard. “Pretending it didn’t kill me to see you walk away.”

Beau crossed the room in two strides and stopped beside your bed, jaw clenched, hands shaking like he was trying to hold something in. “Do you think I wanted to leave you out there? That I didn’t feel like something in me snapped when I saw you bleeding and couldn’t do a damn thing about it?”