Chapter 3
Interim Chief of Police.
The idea of it zinged around his brain like a pinball. Judd had been working for this position for years, but he’d never in a million years wanted to get it like this.
The scent of antiseptic coated the back of his throat and made him twitchy. He despised hospitals. It was all too easy to remember lying in that bed, seventeen years old, hooked up to machines and in agony as his body healed, knowing that taking that bullet hadn’t been enough, because the heart defect no one knew about had still nearly killed her. Autumn had lain in the next room over, pale as death, with an uncertain prognosis after emergency heart surgery. He’d made so many deals with God, promising to do anything and everything necessary to protect her, if only she’d wake up again. Be
