Aspen yanked the lid off the coffee in her hand and threw it over her shoulder into Bea’s face.
Drops of scalding liquid splattered onto Aspen’s neck and cheek, but she ignored the burn as Bea screamed. The second she moved the gun to grab at her face, Luke tackled her to the floor.
Jesse was across the room in a second, cupping her face and looking intensely into her eyes. “Are you okay?”
She wrapped her arms around him and breathed him in, air whooshing from her chest. “I’m okay.” Her gaze moved to Bea, struggling beneath Luke on the floor.
This entire time, it had been her…and no one knew.
“It’s over.” There was a thread of disbelief in her words.
“It’s over,” Jesse breathed.
CHAPTER 35
People moved around him. Deputies. Paramedics. But Jesse’s entire focus remained on Aspen perched on the edge of the ambulance.
Twice he’d almost lost her, in just over a week. Twice he’d had to relearn how to breathe after seeing her gripped in the hands of evil. It was two times too many.
This entire time, Margot’s killer had been sitting right outside his office. He couldn’t wrap his head around it because it didn’t feel real.
He should have known it was Bea. He should have worked it out. Why didn’t he see it?
“Stop it.”
He looked down at Aspen, her soft words breaking into his internal battle. His gaze zoned in on the small burn marks on her neck. She said she was fine.Hewas the one who wasn’t fine.Hewas the one who needed every inch of the woman he loved checked by the paramedic.
“Stop what?” he finally asked.
“You know what. You’re spinning everything around in your head to make it your fault. You’re blaming yourself when her actions were her own.”
“Her desk was right outside my office.”
“It was.”
“Shekilledone of my deputies and aided in your kidnapping.”
“She did.”
“And I didn’t know.”
“No one knew.”
He shook his head. “Ishould have known. I’m the sheriff of this town. It’s my job to keep everyone safe, especially you.”
She stood and cupped her cheeks. “Stop holding yourself to impossible standards. We had no reason to think Margot’s murderer wasn’t Dylan. Bea knew that. She set it up that way because she was smart. But she didn’t win.”
“You never should have had a weapon put to your head.”
“But I’m okay.”
He frowned and looked behind her. “Where’d the paramedic go?”
“He took one look at my burns and told me I was fine, just like I knew he would.”
He had? Jesse had been so deep in his own head, he’d missed it. He looked up to see Luke moving toward them, a deep frown between his brows.
Aspen gave him a little push. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
