Page 183 of Snowbound Threat

I eye him as he takes my phone and switches it off speaker.

Shawn presses it to his ear. “Yeah.” His gaze levels on mine. “Absolutely. Go ahead. Thanks.” He ends the call.

“What was that about?”

“He told me that you were being too stubborn and he was calling Riley in whether you liked it or not—unless there was a reason I didn’t think he should.”

“And you told him to go ahead?”

“I need you to be safe. I’d bring in an entire private security team if I could.”

“Actually, I know one,” I reply with a smile.

“Of course you do. You bail them out, too?” He smiles softly and takes a seat on the edge of the bed, taking my hand in his.

“A time or two. But mainly, it’s because one of my best friends from childhood is married to one.”

His gaze turns serious once more, and he leans forward to brush some of the hair out of my face.

“Thank you for saving me,” I say.

“I’m the reason you took the bullet in the first place,” he says, expression darkening. “I wasn’t careful enough. I assumed we were safe and?—”

“I didn’t realize you could see the future,” I interrupt. “Because that’s the only reason you would have known I was going to get shot.”

“Beckett, I’m a cop.”

“And you saved me. So, I will continue to thank you even if you’re too stubborn to take it.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then the corners of his mouth twitch. “Stubborn?”

I smile softly. “It’s true.”

“Takes one to know one,” he retorts.

“What are you, five?”

He laughs, but that laughter fades quickly, and he runs a hand through his hair. “I thought you were going to die.”

“And how did that make you feel, Detective? Relieved you might finally get some actual sleep?” The joke falls completely flat, though.

“It made me feel terrified,” he replies. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been that scared in my entire life.”

“I need you.”His words from right after I’d woken up come rushing back to me.

“I need you, too,” I whisper. “I hope you know that.”

He smiles and raises the hand of my uninjured arm up to press a kiss to it. “Good. Because you’re not getting rid of me easily, Counselor. Not now. Not ever.”

22.Shawn

Completely agitated that I was pulled away from Beckett, I slip into the small café, my gaze peeled for someone I never had any intention of seeing again—at least, not unless he was in handcuffs.

But when none other than Lucian Creed insisted on meeting me immediately, and refused to come to the hospital where he could be spotted, Beckett practically threw me out of her room herself.

Anderson has an officer stationed outside her room—someone with no ties to the WSP or the Southern Precinct where Seymore used to work. According to him, they’re trying to track down the WSP captain now, but he’s not at home and didn’t show up for work today.

Big surprise there.