You knew how to steal without getting caught. You’d been doing it since you were eight—first out of necessity, then out of habit, and finally, just because it made your pulse quicken in a world that otherwise felt dull and predictable. You weren’t proud of it. But you were good at it. Slipping something into your coat, ducking under a sensor, disappearing into the crowd—routine. Muscle memory. A survival skill passed down from a father who taught you nothing else but how to take what you wanted and never look back.

But today? Today you got caught.

And not just caught—you let yourself get caught.

A bottle of cheap red wine, tucked under your arm like a secret. Not even your drink. You hated wine. Too bitter. Too fancy. You’d rather choke down warm beer from a can than sip something with a cork and pretensions. But there it was, the bottle in your hand as the store clerk’s voice cracked through the quiet: “Stop right there.”

You stopped.

Hands up.

No resistance. No excuses.

They called the police. And you smiled.

Because you knew which cop would come.

Big Sky County wasn’t exactly a metropolis. When shoplifting happened at the little grocery on Main, it was usually Beau Arlen who responded. Not because it was his shift, but because he liked keeping an eye on things—on people. Especially people he used to care about.

You hadn’t seen him in three weeks. Not since the fight. The breakup. The way he’d said, “I can’t keep saving you,” like you were some damsel in distress who didn’t know how to breathe on her own. Like you hadn’t clawed your way out of your past just to stand beside him. Like you hadn’t changed.

You changed for him.

And now you were sitting in the holding cell at his station, staring at the clock above the booking desk. Its second hand ticked like a heartbeat—slow, steady, indifferent. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The air smelled like stale coffee and disinfectant. A fly buzzed against the glass of the window that looked out into nothing but gravel and a fence.

And then the door creaked open.

Boots on linoleum.

You didn’t need to look up to know it was him.

Beau Arlen in his sheriff’s uniform, the badge polished, the star catching the light. His flannel shirt rolled to the elbows, sleeves straining over forearms you remembered running your fingers down on summer nights. His jaw set. His green eyes—always so damn expressive—narrowed in that way they did when he was trying not to feel something.

“Again?” he said, voice low.

You lifted your chin. “Hey, Beau.”

He exhaled through his nose, stepping closer. “You don’t even like wine.”

“No,” you admitted. “I don’t.”

He folded his arms. “So what was the point?”

You looked at him then. Really looked. The sun-kissed skin, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes—the ones that used to crinkle when he laughed. That charming smile? Nowhere in sight.

“I don’t know,” you said, picking at a loose thread on your jeans. “Just felt like it.”

“You’ve been clean for over a year. You’ve got a job. You’re doing good. So don’t stand there and feed me some line about ‘feeling like it.’ That’s not you.”

“Maybe it is,” you said, voice cracking just a little. “Maybe I’m just who I’ve always been.”

“No,” he said, sharp but not unkind. “You’re better than that. And you know it.”