“They’re okay. Shaken, but okay. I untied them.”
Her shoulders loosened at that.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” The words slipped out before he could stop them. His gaze locked onto hers. “Running back in like that. Coming after her.”
Hadley lifted a hand and gently touched his face.
The contact stilled him.
“Of course, I should have,” she murmured. “You’re worth it.”
The certainty in her voice caught him off guard.
Max frowned. “Even knowing . . . my past?”
Hadley didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
Max swallowed, something tight in his chest shifting. “But you don’t even know all the details.”
“I don’t need to know the details. I know you.”
The words settled deep and solid.
Relief flooded through him in a way he hadn’t expected, loosening something he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying. For so long, his past had defined how people saw him—what they assumed, what they feared.
But not Hadley.
Max exhaled. Then his focus shifted again as he took in Hadley’s condition more carefully. “You are hurt.”
“It’s just my ankle?—”
Before she could finish, he slid one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back.
“Max—”
“I’ve got you.”
He lifted her, pulling her close as he stood. She tensed before relaxing against him, her head resting against his shoulder.
Behind them, Kendra’s voice still carried through the trees, still frantic and disjointed as deputies led her away.
Max didn’t look back.
He turned toward the path through the woods, his steps steady despite the uneven ground, despite the cold, despite everything.
Hadley was safe.
That was all that mattered now.
And he wasn’t letting her out of his sight again.
Hadley barely registered the first few steps.
One moment she was on the ground, the cold seeping through her clothes, her body trembling with exhaustion. And the next, Max’s arms were around her, lifting her like she weighed nothing at all.
She didn’t protest. She didn’t have the strength to.
Instead, she let herself lean into him. Her head rested against his shoulder as the steady rhythm of his movement carried her forward through the trees.
