Alex tried to ignore the searing pain in his thigh.

His attention was glued to the woman standing in front of him.

Camila Perez.

He swallowed thickly, drinking her in like a parched man wandering the desert might eye a fountain of fresh water.

He stared at her long dark hair, her dark eyes, her brows arched in both disbelief and confusion. It had been twelve years since he’d last seen her, and yet it felt as if not a single day had passed.

But it had been more than a day, and more than a decade.

A lifetime had gone by.

A lifetime filled with poor decisions and unfathomable regret.

“Alex?” Her voice was filled with as much uncertainty as her expression conveyed.

He gave a weak nod. The wound in his thigh throbbed, but he could already tell it would be superficial. Despite her solid thrust, the jeans he was wearing had slowed the momentum and thus the force with which it pierced his skin. It would definitely leave a scar, and would probably need stitches, but he knew he wasn’t in any immediate danger from it. His other wounds might be another story, though.

He tried taking a deep breath, grimacing as a piercing pain ricocheted through his rib cage.

Cam noticed.

“Are you alright?” she asked in a halting voice.

Weakly, he shook his head.

No, he wasn’t alright. Not in any way.

That was why he was there, slumped on the floor of his ex-girlfriend’s house. A woman he’d last seen when she was a teenager, so bright and beautiful that the sight of her always managed to take his breath away.

Hell, it still did, he realized.

Camila Perez was the type of woman dreams were made of. Gorgeous, lithe, but with brains and guts and determination to match. He’d seen all of that back then, when he’d made one foolish decision after another, decisions that had dictated the direction his life had taken. Decisions that had led him right to this very moment, with him on the cool wood laminate floor, struggling to take in air, fighting the waves of nausea roiling through him.

He was pretty sure the only smart decision he’d ever made was walking away from her. Even if it had been the worst decision of his life.

Funny how it could be both.

“What are you doing here?”

He could hear the incredulity, the outright shock, in her voice.

Alex couldn’t blame her.

He was hard-pressed himself to explain what had convinced him that coming to the small town of Aspen Falls was a good idea.

It was his first time in this town, despite the fact that he was born and raised in Minnesota. But he’d grown up in the cities, on the rough streets in south Minneapolis, with its pre-World War II homes planted on tiny slivers of lots. Most of the houses had bars on the windows and doors, junked cars in the driveway, yards filled with dandelions and clover and stubborn Canadian thistle, whose thorny leaves easily pierced the tender feet of shoeless kids chasing after the ice cream truck, hoping this time it would stop in their neighborhood as it traveled up Lake Street, heading to the nicer parts of town.

It was the same neighborhood Cam had grown up in.

The same neighborhood he’d last seen her in.

She cleared her throat and he refocused his gaze, his eyes locking on hers.

“What are you doing here?” she repeated. She was firmer this time, more in control of her tone, her inflection. She sounded like a cop.

Which she was.

Alex knew this.

He knew a lot about her, all things considered.

Just because he’d removed himself from her life all those years ago didn’t mean he’d erased her from existence. At first, he had. The memories had been too painful. But then, slowly, he’d started looking. He knew when she graduated college. When she got her first job at a police station down near Mankato. When she’d transferred to Aspen Falls. And when she’d made detective.

It wasn’t stalking. He’d never intended to do anything with the information.

He just wanted to know she was okay.

That she’d done something with her life. What she’s wanted to do.

And that nothing had come along to screw things up for her.

It was the reason Alex had walked away, despite the fact that every fiber of his being had screamed at him to stay put, to fight for her, to turn his life around so he could be all the things she needed him to be.

Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned, and he remembered that she was waiting for an answer. An answer to a question she’d now asked twice.

He licked his lips, his tongue running over the bloodied crack that had split his lower lip in two. He still tasted blood, and he wondered if it looked as swollen as it felt.

“I…” His voice was hoarse. He tried to clear his throat but the motion was too painful, sending a stabbing pain through his rib cage.

He groaned, slumping to his side.

His eyes left hers, focusing instead on the detailed pattern of the wood flooring. Anything so he wouldn’t pass out from the pain.

Something in his peripheral vision shifted and Cam appeared, crouched cautiously on her haunches. She was still holding her phone.

“Please,” he rasped.

“You’re hurt.”

He didn’t think she was talking about the knife still stuck in his leg.

He managed a weak nod.

“You need an ambulance. A doctor.”

He shook his head. “No. No doctor.”

Her face came into view and he saw the frown darkening her pretty features. She still looked beautiful. So damn beautiful.

“This is ridiculous.” She shook her head. “You break into my house after I haven’t seen you in God knows how long—”

“Twelve years,” he whispered, closing his eyes as he struggled to breathe through the pain.

She continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “You’re clearly injured, and not just because I shoved a knife in your leg.” She sighed. “What the hell is going on?”

It would be so easy to tell her. To just spill his guts and tell her everything that had happened since he’d last seen her.

But doing that would put her in danger, and that was a risk Alex wasn’t willing to take.

Hell, he was already beginning to realize that he’d made a piss-poor decision in coming to her house in the first place.

What had he been thinking?

He was injured. He was being pursued.

And what did he do?

He’d gone running to the one person he cared about most in the world.

The one person he had moved heaven and earth to protect.

The woman he’d vowed to walk away from so she could live the life she deserved. The life she wanted.

So why was he curled up on her living room floor with cracked ribs and a split lip and maybe a concussion, and now a knife protruding from his thigh?

He knew exactly why.

Because hours earlier, his life had flashed before his eyes.

He’d thought he was a goner.

And all of the regrets, all of the what-ifs had hit him like a freight train barreling down the tracks.

He knew, even in his dazed, almost delusional state—maybe because of it—that he needed to see her one last time.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered for a second time, mostly to herself. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

It took a concerted effort, but Alex managed to reach out a hand to stop her. His fingers gripped the long-sleeve T-shirt she was wearing. “Please,” he mumbled. “Please.”

“Please what?” She pulled her arm out of his grasp and shifted away from him, her expression instantly wary. Her eyes drifted to the knife, and Alex wondered if she would pull it out so she could use it as a weapon for a second time.

Her eyes flashed. “Why are you here? After all these years, why are you at my house? In my house?”

His vision blurred, a blanket of silver and black descending over him. He tried to fight it, tried his best to stay lucid. He couldn’t black out now. Not when he didn’t know what her next move might be.

Not when what she did next could literally be the difference between life and death.

For both of them.

“Camila.” He relished the sound of her full name, the way it rolled off his tongue. He’d spoken it over the years, but here she was in front of him. The living, breathing Camila.

“Tell me,” she commanded.

He could feel himself slipping into the darkness.

But not before he managed to tell her one thing.

“Because I need you.”