Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 48039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Axel leans forward, scanning. “Copy. Take left flank. I’ll grab vitals. You assess driver.”
The second I park and jump out, the cold slams into me. Snow flurries sting my cheeks. The smell of leaking coolant and burned rubber fills the air.
Axel moves beside me—fast, efficient, powerful. His voice takes on command strength when he calls out instructions.
This is the part that’s familiar in a way I hate admitting: we work together effortlessly.
We always did.
He reaches the crumpled sedan at the same time I do, crouching to stabilize the door frame as I scan the driver for responsiveness.
“Ma’am? Can you hear me?”
She groans.
“Pulse is weak but present,” Axel reports, already slapping a cervical collar out of his pack. “Glass in her hairline.”
“Airway open,” I say, leaning in.
He angles the door wider so I can reach.
“On your count,” he murmurs.
And god help me, that tone—that steady, patient, syncing-to-me tone—shoots straight through my bloodstream like a memory I wasn’t ready for.
“One… two… three,” I say, and we move as a unit.
Our hands brush while securing her head. The brief contact jolts me.
Axel stills for half a second, jaw flexing once, but his voice stays steady as he says, “I’ve got her.”
We extricate the patient together, load her into the back of the ambulance, and I hook her up to the monitor while Axel starts an IV line.
His fingers hover close to mine more than once, like his body can’t help but gravitate the same way it used to.
We’ve always worked like this.
Like instinct.
Like breathing.
Like something in us recognizes the other before thought even catches up.
When the patient is stabilized, Axel pulls the doors shut behind us, his breath clouding the cold air.
For a moment, it’s just him and me and the echoes of a decade that never really left.
He wipes sweat and melted snow from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Good work.”
“You too.”
Silence charges the small space between us.
His gaze drags over me—not inappropriate, but intense enough that my skin heats. He doesn’t hide the way he looks at me.
He never did.
But now there’s something heavier in his stare. Something restrained. Something raw.
I break eye contact before it cages me. “We should get her to the hospital.”
“Yeah,” he says, voice husky. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
The drive is quiet, but not calm. Not with the air so thick it’s hard to inhale without feeling like his presence is creeping under my skin.
We deliver the patient, file the report, and head back to the station.
The second we walk inside, the teasing begins.
Torres grins like a wolf. “Look at that teamwork. Like nothing’s changed.”
Axel ignores him. Barely.
Blake whistles. “Man, if I had an ex who worked that smooth with me, I’d marry her out of pure efficiency.”
I choke on my own saliva.
Axel shoots him a deadly look. “Back off.”
“Touchy,” Blake laughs. “Just saying, the tension in that rig could’ve boiled water.”
My face burns.
Axel looks like he wants to throttle someone.
I regain my composure and say, coolly, “We were doing our jobs.”
“Sure,” Torres says. “And Axel wasn’t staring at you like a kicked puppy the entire time.”
My stomach drops.
I expect Axel to deny it. Bark back. Make a joke. Something.
Instead, his silence is deafening.
He doesn’t deny a damn thing.
And that—more than anything—makes my pulse stutter.
I swallow hard and turn away before anyone can see the cracks forming in the careful armor I built for myself.
I can pretend all I want. I can bury the history, the feelings, the wildfire of memories clawing up my spine.
But I’m not stupid.
Axel still feels everything.
And I… feel too much.
Far too much.
Chapter Four
Savannah
Cold air knifes through the valley as I turn off the engine.
The world is quiet here. Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that presses against your ribs and threatens to wake every memory you spent ten years burying. I’ve been avoiding this place for the week since I’ve been back, but there’s no more avoiding it now. I have to confront the pain of my past head on.
I step out of the truck and crunch into the snow, boots sinking just deep enough to make each step feel heavy. Ghostlike fog curls from my breath. A thin layer of frost coats the grass, the remnants of last night’s snowfall glittering under a pale sun.
And there it is.
The place I once called home.
Or what’s left of it.
A stone foundation. A few charred beams half-swallowed by the earth. The faint imprint of rooms that don’t exist anymore. It all looks smaller now—like loss has a way of shrinking things in your mind until you come back and realize it was never the house that collapsed.
Just you.
I wrap my arms around myself, partly for warmth, partly to hold the pieces inside me that never quite settled right again.
I should’ve prepared for this.
I thought I had.
Turns out some wounds stay raw no matter how many years pass.