I had hoped it would be months before I ran into Shane Nelson—if ever. But here I am, only on my second week, and here he is. Live and in the flesh.

The man who tried to kill me.

For a moment, I feel a tightening in my neck. The necklace he tried to choke me with cutting off my windpipe. I can’t breathe. I grab onto the door frame, taking deep breaths. I can’t let this get to me. I have to be a professional.

I’m okay. I’m okay. He can’t hurt me anymore.

Shane notices me a split second after I recognize him. He looks about as shocked as I felt. Maybe more, because he had no idea I was working here. He had been shuffling in the shackles, but when he sees me, he stops short, his mouth falling open.

“Come on.” Hunt gives him a shove to get him moving again. “We don’t have all day, Nelson. Move it.”

They keep walking until they reach the examining room, where they come to an abrupt halt. Shane’s brown eyes are filled with pain when they meet mine.

“Hi, I’m Brooke,” I say stiffly. I feel a little ridiculous introducing myself to the man I lost my virginity to, but here we are.

Before Shane can open his mouth, Hunt barks out, “This is Shane Nelson. Injury on the yard to his forehead.”

“Okay.” My voice sounds oddly calm considering my heart is doing jumping jacks. “Come on in, Mr. Nelson.”

Shane again seems frozen in place. Hunt has to give him another shove to get him moving again.

Climbing onto the examining table is tricky given he’s got his wrists and his ankles shackled. I’ve seen Hunt help other men in this position

before, but he does nothing to help Shane. It takes him a few tries, but Shane manages to get up on the table.

Once Shane is situated, Hunt leaves the exam room. I start to close the door behind him, but he puts up a hand to keep the door from closing.

“You should keep the door open with this one,” Hunt says.

I glance over at Shane, who is sitting on my examining table, his head hanging down, his wrists and his ankles bound together. I have felt twinges of fear around some of the inmates, but I don’t feel it right now. Despite what I know he’s capable of.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, hoping I don’t regret my words.

Hunt keeps his hand on the door, still preventing me from closing it. Our eyes lock, and for a moment, I’m sure he’s going to push his way in. But then releases his hold on the door. “I’ll be right outside,” he tells me. “You have any problems, you give me a yell.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say again. But I don’t close the door completely. I keep it cracked just the slightest bit.

Now Shane and I are alone in the examining room. It’s the first time we’ve been alone together since he… well, we don’t need to relive that night. He looks different from the way he did when he was seventeen. Different and the same. His hair is much shorter, clipped barely an inch from his skull, and there’s a hardness to his face that wasn’t there before.

I hate that he’s still every bit as handsome as he was back then. I hate even more how much he looks like my son.

For a moment, the two of us just stare at each other. Glaring, more like

—his eyes are dripping with venom. I don’t know what he’s so upset about. I should be the angry one—if it were up to him, I would be dead. I suppose he’s mad that I told the truth in that courtroom.

“Hello,” I say in the flattest, most emotionless voice I can muster. Shane doesn’t lift his eyes. “Hi.”

I square my shoulders. This was what I had been dreading when I took this job in the first place. And now here I am, and I just have to deal with it. I’ll get his injury taken care of like a professional, and I’ll send him on his way.

“How are you?” I say.

At my question, he whips his head up and stares at me. “Well, Brooke, I’m spending my life in prison for something I didn’t do, so how the hell do

you think I am? I’m not great.”

I return his seething gaze. “I meant your head.”

“Oh.” He lifts a shackled hand to touch the bandage on his forehead. “That’s not great either.”

I slip my hands into a pair of blue latex gloves. I cross the small room to take a look at his forehead. This is the closest I’ve been to him in a long time—except in my nightmares. A decade ago, the thought of being this close to him would have made my skin crawl. But I can handle it now. I’m stronger than I used to be. This monster won’t get the better of me.

The last time I was near Shane like this, he was wearing an aftershave that smelled like sandalwood. If I close my eyes, I can still almost imagine that deep, woody but floral aroma. I can’t stand the smell of it anymore. I once went on a date with a guy who was wearing a sandalwood cologne, and I wouldn’t go out with him ever again. I dodged his phone calls rather than explaining why.

I peel back the tape from the wound on his forehead, not bothering to be as gentle as I normally would be. It looks pretty bad. Despite the bandage, it’s still bleeding significantly. It definitely needs stitches. He also has what looks like the start of a black eye forming on the same side.

“How did this happen?” I ask. “I ran into the fence.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Really?”

He stares at me, challenging me to question him further. “That’s right.” “Because it looks like somebody did this to you.”

“If somebody had done this to me,” he says, “and I ratted them out to you, the next time, whatever they did to me would be worse. So, you know, good thing this just happened from walking into the fence.”

I notice now that he has other scars on his face. He’s got a scar splitting his other eyebrow, and one running along the curve of his jaw, almost concealed by the stubble on his chin. There’s also a long white scar just on the base of his throat.

For some reason, I think of Josh. About the other kids bullying him at school and giving him a black eye like Shane has right now. Shane, who also grew up without a father. And I feel the tiniest twinge of…

Well, not sympathy. I would never feel sympathy for a monster like this. Somebody capable of doing what he did.

“Shane,” I say, “if someone is beating up on you…”

“Stop it, Brooke.” His voice is firm. “Whatever you think you’re trying to do, just stop. Just stitch me up and let me go back to my cell, okay?”

“Fine.”

He’s right. I can’t do anything to help him, even if I wanted to, and I don’t. My job is to get him stitched up and back to his cell, like he said. And that is all I’m going to do.

I can handle it.

I leave Shane alone in the room while I go to grab some suture material. Everything I need is in the supply room except for the lidocaine to numb him up. Since that’s a medication, I’ll need Dorothy to dispense it. So I return to her office, where she again takes her sweet time telling me to come in.

“Done already?” she asks me.

I press my lips together. “I need to stitch up a forehead laceration. I need some lidocaine.”

“We’re all out.”

I blink at her. “Excuse me?”

She shrugs. “We carry a small amount of anesthetic, but at the moment, we’re out of stock.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” “Stitch him up without it.”

My jaw tightens. What is wrong with this woman? These men are human beings. How could she be so cavalier about their health? I have more reason to hate Shane Nelson than anyone else here, and maybe I should be happy for a chance to torture him a bit after what he did to me, but even I think he deserves to be treated with dignity. “It’s inhumane.”

Dorothy lifts her eyes skyward. “Don’t be so dramatic, Brooke. It’s a few needle sticks. I’m sure he won’t mind. Or you can glue it if you want.”

This laceration is too messy for glue, but Dorothy doesn’t care about my protests. And if she tells me I need to problem solve again, I’m going to scream. Even though that’s apparently what I have to do.

I return to the examining room, where Shane is still sitting on the table with his open head wound. He looks up when I come in, and a lot of the anger that I saw in his face when we first locked eyes has now dissipated.

Maybe he isn’t as furious with me as I had thought, even though it was my testimony that put him in here. All these years, I imagined he was sitting in a prison cell, tattooing death threats against me on his body, but he doesn’t seem all that angry. Just… well, kind of sad. Beaten down.

“So here’s the situation,” I tell him. “I have the suture material, but we’re all out of lidocaine. So—”

“It’s fine,” Shane interrupts me before I can tell him his options. “Stitch me up without it.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“Yeah, it’s fine. They’re always out of lidocaine.”

He does not seem at all fazed by this. I wonder how it felt to have that long jagged scar at the base of his throat sutured without lidocaine.

“All right,” I say. Let’s get this over with. “I’m going to need you to lie down.”

He tries to lean backward, but it’s hard for him with his wrists bound. He starts to slip on the table, and instinctively, I reach out and put a hand on his back to help guide him down.

I touched him. After all these years, I touched Shane Nelson again.

I wait for the wave of revulsion. I hate this man—I had nightmares about him for years after. It would not be an exaggeration to say he ruined my life, and if it were up to him, I wouldn’t even have a life.

But the revulsion doesn’t come. Touching Shane’s shoulder doesn’t feel any different than touching anyone else. I guess I really have gotten over it, all these years later.

It’s about time. I’m proud of myself.

I draw up the suture material while Shane watches me. He doesn’t look that nervous about the fact that I’m going to sew his forehead together with no anesthetic. I sure would be. I’ve never even had stitches before, except for the ones I got after childbirth.

“This must be your dream, huh?” he says. “Getting to stick a needle in me without anesthetic.”

“I tried to get it,” I say defensively. “I’m sure.”

“I did.” I turn to glare at him. “I’m not like you—I don’t enjoy hurting people.”

“Well,” he says, “it’s not like I could blame you after what you think I did to you.”

There is something in his eyes I can’t quite interpret. It’s enough to make me look away.

“So you’re a nurse practitioner now, huh?” he says. “Good for you.” “Thanks,” I say stiffly.

“I, uh…” One corner of his lips quirks up. “I got my GED while I’ve been in here. And I’ve been tutoring other inmates so they could do the same.”

He says it almost like he’s trying to impress me, the way he used to when he would throw a pass across the football field and look in my direction to make sure I saw it.

“Oh,” I say, because I’m not sure what else to say.

“Never mind,” he mumbles. “I don’t know why I thought you’d want to know that.”

I clean off the laceration with some sterile water before sewing it up. It’s got to be painful, but Shane barely flinches. I get my needle ready to make the first stitch. “Going to be a little poke,” I warn him.

“Go for it.”

I’ve stitched up many people during my tenure in urgent care. I’ve seen grown men cry, even with the lidocaine to numb the area. Shane winces slightly when the needle goes in, but nobody could say he’s not taking it like a man.

“So,” he says as I tie off the first stitch. “You’re not married, huh?” My fingers freeze on the needle. “Excuse me?”

He starts to shrug but then thinks better of it with the needle still in his skin. “No ring. And I heard some of the guys talking about the cute new nurse practitioner who’s also single.”

“That’s really none of their business.”

“Hey, you were the one who must’ve told one of them you’re not married.”

He’s right, of course. The first thing Dorothy warned me was not to share any personal information, but I got careless. To be fair, a lot of these men don’t look like criminals. They just look like harmless old men.

“And you have a kid,” he adds.

Now I’m really going to be sick. I’m such an idiot. What am I supposed to say when a patient asks me if I have a child? None of your damn business? Well, that probably is the right answer, but it’s hard not to talk about my son when I’m away from him the whole day. I’m learning this lesson the hard way.

“Anyway, congratulations,” Shane says. There’s no bitterness or anger in his voice, which is a relief. “How old is he?”

I cringe at this question. Like Tim, he’s not stupid. If I tell him I have a ten-year-old son, he will figure it out. But unlike Tim, he has no way of finding out the truth on his own. “He’s five.”

He flinches slightly as the needle passes through his skin again. “I always wanted kids. Guess that’s never going to happen.”

I don’t reply to that. I just quietly tie off the suture.

“I can’t believe you’re living out here again,” he comments. “I figured you would be gone for good. Except maybe to visit your parents.”

“My parents died in a car accident,” I blurt out. I shouldn’t have given him any more information, but this seems like the most innocuous thing I’ve told him. I want him to know that I’ve had other tragedies in the last decade that have not involved him. That what he did hasn’t defined my existence.

He frowns. “I’m so sorry, Brooke.”

“It’s okay,” I mutter. “We weren’t close.”

I can’t explain to him why my relationship with my parents fell apart. Partially, they were angry that I had defied them and dated Shane in the first place. That I had lied and gone to his house, which almost resulted in the end of my life. But what they were furious about—what they could never forgive me for—is that when I found out I was pregnant, I decided I wanted to keep it. I have no regrets about doing that, but my parents’ love for Josh was always reserved. Even when Josh was part of the family, they still made it clear that they thought I made a mistake. My son was a mistake and an embarrassment—the child of a monster.

And that’s what I couldn’t forgive them for. It’s the reason I eventually cut them out of my life

“My mother died a couple of years ago too,” Shane says. I tie off another suture. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

I mean it. Shane was close with his mother—after his father took off, it was just the two of them. If she’s gone, that means he has nobody.

He holds my gaze for a moment. “She died believing that I had killed those people.”

My hand gripping the needle trembles, nearly missing his skin. But you did kill those people. I want to say it, but it would be unprofessional. And there’s no point. Despite all the evidence, Shane would never own up to what he did that night.

But it doesn’t matter. Shane is guilty. I was there that night. If it were up to him, I would be dead right now.

I can never forget that. And I will never forgive him.