Finn’s fingers curled tight around the cup of coffee he couldn’t drink as he watched over Brodie just lying there, stitched up, bandaged, and drugged into silence, where he hoped the nightmares would never find him.
Yet Finn sat.And waited, watching over the boy.
Because once upon a time, someone had sat like this for him.Back when the hours stretched longer than they should, between midnight and dawn—when the world got too quiet and the weight of everything got louder and he was a kid who’d run out of luck.Wearing cuts and bruises that did little to hide his scars, you needed someone watching over you in times like that.He knew that.
Back then, it was Drew.
Not Commissioner Bannon.Just a cop named Constable Andrew Bannon, who didn’t know one end of a horse from the other, wearing city boots that got stuck in the mud.He’d sat by Finn’s bed after that mustering accident, asking the dumbest questions, while spending half his downtime scribbling in one of those dog-eared, mail-order word puzzle books, like he was cracking codes instead of killing time.
And yet… he’d stayed.Watching over a kid in a hospital bed.More than once.
Finn had never said thank you to Drew.Not for the pardon.Not for the second chance.Not for just being there when a sixteen-year-old boy didn’t have anyone else.But for making a dumb deal that Finn would teach Drew how to spot the signs of a good steer in exchange for helping out the local troublemaker.
That stupid deal had saved his life.
And now?
Now he was watching over a kid the same age he’d been.A kid also with cigarette burns on his arms—just like the ones Finn had hidden beneath the complex ink that covered his arms and chest that hid his history.But it didn’t erase it.
From the moment they’d met, Finn had recognised the same haunted look in Brodie’s aged eyes.He got it.
Finn also knew that Brodie would wake up soon.And when he did, the kid would swing one of two ways—he would fall apart, or get angry.
Finn knew that fork in the road.Hell, he’d taken both paths, and still ended up in prison.
So what made Finn think he was the right man to keep this kid on the rails?
But he’d promised Lydia.And promises meant something to a man trying to outrun the wreckage of his own life.
Brodie needed someone.They’d knocked him out just to reset his shoulder, and now he had an IV in one arm, the other strapped tight in a sling.
The tough little bastard had driven with a dislocated shoulder.Bleeding.Scared out of his mind, just to get to Finn.And even then, not once had he complained.All he’d cared about was Lydia.Getting her help.Keeping her alive.
That took guts most grown men never had.
Sadly, he hadn’t said a word since.
But Finn hadn’t moved either and wasn’t planning on it.Not when the nurse checked Brodie’s vitals.Or when Marcus radioed in with updates from the crime scene at Boab’s Bend.He didn’t even move when the doctor finally came and told him Lydia was critical, but stable.For now.
Red had disappeared.Two-bob Bob as well.Which meant, at least, that Brodie hadn’t killed Red.
According to Amara and Porter, who were first onsite, the blood found at the crime scene had been a mess.Lydia’s ute had rolled a few times to stop, face down behind a tree in an old irrigation ditch.
As for the alleged stock theft?
Well, they’d made it look like it hadn’t happened.Yet, when Cowboy Craig showed up, he’d found the tracks back to where the fence had been neatly patched, with tyre tracks leading away from the gully, as a mob of cattle casually stood around chewing their cud, while watching the show.
But Finn knew better.
Come daylight, the brand checks would start.And the property owner, rushing back from Darwin, would know exactly what was missing.Because prime stock didn’t just wander off in the dark.Everyone knew that.
In the meantime, Marcus had set up roadblocks across the southern and northern highway corridor.While Craig and Porter were in the Hellhound checking back trails.They were casting the net wide—but it might not be wide enough.
Finn knew Bob had Red, who’d be crippled with guilt… or stuck with a blinding headache.Holed up somewhere close, licking his wounds, buying time, waiting to hear if Lydia survived.
And in this town?
News never stayed quiet for long.
