She took out the inhaler and puffed on it twice, pausing between inhales to hold the medicine in her lungs before replying. “You really can’t help yourself, can you?”
He raised an eyebrow, not sure he wanted to know what she meant. “Meaning?”
“You have white-knight syndrome. Always there when the ladies need you.” She tried to laugh, but it came out tight as she struggled to breathe in the cold air.
He rolled a shoulder and looked out over Main Street instead of at her, uncomfortably aware of the accuracy of that statement. “I’m sorry if I overstepped,” he said.
She stared back at him, her eyes suddenly serious and more direct than he’d ever seen her look. “I know what it looked like in there.” She winced. “But I don’t need any more people treating me like I’m fragile.”
“Hell, I know that,” he said gruffly, his voice low and rough. “That’s not why I did it.”
Unable to resist, he reached up and gently tucked a wild curl behind her ear, letting his fingers linger just a moment on the smooth warmth of her skin. He didn’t miss the way her breath hitched and her pupils widened slightly in the dim light, or how her lips parted just a little.
“You really sold it in there,” she said huskily. They were just a step apart now. Their breaths puffed out icy-cold puffs that mingled together. “That boyfriend act. All growly and possessive.”
Rush stared down at her and let his gaze drop to her mouth lazily. Tension coiled inside him. “Wasn’t much of an act,” he murmured. “If you were mine, I’d spend every damn day making sure you knew it.”
Lily’s playful smile faltered, and they stood that way, eyes locked on each other, for a beat. The silence between them was heavy with something else. Something unsettled and unfinished. The connection between them hit him like a gut check again. The first woman he’d even looked twice at in the last year, and she was staring at him like she could see directly into his soul.
“So why did you do it?” she asked, too gently.
There it was, glaring at him. He knew Lily Hart didn’t need saving. She was strong. Smart. Capable as hell, even with the air of vulnerability he knew she tried to hide. But when he’d seen Tucker Cawthorn tower over her, smug and condescending like he hadn’t been caught fucking another woman, something in him had snapped.
He hated drama. Avoided it like the plague. But when she reached for the little pink stone around her neck, he was crossing the room before he even knew what he was doing. He’dacted on instinct, like he always did when someone needed help. She was right about that.
He’d spent his life protecting people, especially women.
What the Callahan family didn’t talk about was the night their mother died. Christina Callahan had packed up Rush, Rachel, and Sarah in the middle of the night, still in their pajamas, and bundled them into the back seat. The little girls were half asleep, clutching their stuffed animals, and hastily thrown together overnight bags.
Rush remembered the curve of the dry Texas highway, the black stretch of road ahead. His mom’s white knuckles on the steering wheel, the sudden glare of headlights from a truck taking the bend too fast. The screech of tires. The sickening crunch of metal.
Mostly, he remembered her voice, calm even after their car slammed into the guardrail and twisted to a stop. “Rush, are you okay? Okay, be careful now. Get the girls out.”
He’d shoved the panic down and done what she’d asked, unbuckling his sisters from their car seats, dragging them clear of the wrecked car. A bystander stayed with them while Rush went back for his mom. He’d tried so hard, but the front end had crumpled inward, pinning her in place.
Her face was bloody, and her voice was shaky, but she kept talking to him even as the firefighters arrived with the Jaws of Life.
“You’re okay, baby. Take care of the girls. You’re going to be okay. I love you.”
He’d always loved his mother’s voice. She used to sing to him and the girls at night, and he’d pretend not to listen because he was a boy and older and not a baby like his sisters, but he’d always secretly listened. Christina Callahan had already started fading away on the side of the road on that hot, sticky night, but she spent her last moments comforting her three kids.
He remembered the smell of motor oil and felt the heat of twisted metal. He’d held Rachel’s hand and pressed Sarah’s head down into his shoulder so she wouldn’t see their mother’s broken body being cut from the wreck.
He hadn’t saved her.
But he’d spent the rest of his life trying to save everyone else.
Their father had been gone long before that night. He’d dragged them from state to state, chasing jobs that never lasted, until one day he just didn’t come back. After that, their mother had done it all—worked shifts at a diner, paid the bills, and kept the three of them fed and clothed. She was strong, but she was tired, and somewhere along the way, she let someone into her life who made things harder instead of easier.
After the night of the accident, it was decided that the kids would move to New York to live with Gram and Pop. They loved them fiercely and gave them a safe home, but Rush had made a promise. No one had asked him to step in, but he did—taking care of Rachel and Sarah the way his mom had told him to.
When he left home at eighteen, it wasn’t to escape; it was to serve. First in the Marines and then in the sheriff’s department. He traded one uniform for another, but he never stopped protecting. It was the one thing he knew how to do.
Service was the only space he knew how to put all the things he didn’t have words for—guilt, grief, loyalty, love. He never unpacked those feelings, but they were always there.
He couldn’t save his mother, but damned if he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it.
Except the one time he hadn’t been able to.
