She blinked. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. You’ll need it.”
The deputy who’d said it muttered something under his breath.
Scout didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t posture.
He just turned his head slightly and said, “Knock it off.”
Sara’s eyes lifted to his for a second—surprised. Cautious. Almost disbelieving.
Then her shoulders eased, just a fraction.
Like she’d been waiting her whole life for someone to stand beside her.
By lunch, Scout was at her desk again.
“You’re riding with me,” he said.
She blinked up at him. “For what?”
“Training rotation.”
“Burke said that?”
“He will.”
The corner of her mouth lifted.“Guess that makes you my unlucky mentor.”
“Guess so,” Scout said, and held the door.
That first day, they drove the back roads east of town. Sara kept a small green notebook on her knee, scribbling road names and call codes like she was building herself a map she could trust.
“You don’t have to write all that,” Scout told her.
“If I don’t,” she said, “I’ll forget. And if I forget, they’ll say I don’t belong.”
Scout glanced at her, something hard settling in his chest.
“Nobody says that when they ride with me.”
That got her.
A real smile. Small, but real.
She’d said her dad was a volunteer firefighter. Her mom called every night shift like she was checking the weather. Her last boyfriend liked the idea of dating a deputy until she missed two dinners and cuffed his cousin for drunk driving.
Sara didn’t bend for people.
Scout respected the hell out of that.
That was why, when she’d looked at him lately with something softer behind her eyes—something that lingered a second too long—Scout had pretended not to notice.
Not because he didn’t care about her.
Because he did.
