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But what she saw was strength. And courage. And maybe, under all that gruff silence, there was a good man who didn’t know he was still good.

He’d walked her to her car like it was a mission he’d sworn an oath to complete. His head had been on a swivel, just as Pirate’s nose had been, as her two protectors scanned their surroundings for any kind of potential threat.

Of course, there’d been nothing. Maybe their presence had kept anyone from stepping out of the shadows—and maybe he thought she was a paranoid whack job who saw ghosts where none existed. Or hell, maybe he thought her request was a weak attempt at flirting with him—not that she was any good at that kind of thing. She doubted he saw her as a potential date. But maybe they could be friends.

A friend who made her pulse quicken anytime she caught sight of his tall, well-built frame. A friend who made her shiver at the rare times that deep, damaged voice danced against her eardrums. A friend who made her dream about being held against that solid, unyielding chest.

She sighed heavily. Then again, maybe the taciturn veteran didn’t want anything to do with anybody. He’d done his duty by her, but anything more would probably make him uncomfortable. And uncomfortable and friend didn’t really go together in the same sentence.

Polly glanced up at her reflection in the rearview mirror and nodded. She could do this. On her own. She didn’t need Daniel Travis around to make her feel safe.

Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. She turned off the engine and scanned the shadows around her parking spot before she moved. Just like her stepdad, a veteran cop, had taught her.

Fifth level. Nearest the elevator. Avoid corners. Don’t park next to vans. Check the mirrors before getting out. Keys in hand.

Everything looked clear. But she still hesitated a beat longer than usual.

It hadn’t helped her sleep any better, remembering how Daniel had shortened his stride to keep pace beside her, silent but solid, like a wall between her and the night.

Man, she missed that wall.

Polly climbed out of the car and crossed the garage at a brisk tempo, her snow boots silent against the concrete floor. Although she heard cars moving and car doors closing from the floors below her, she couldn’t hear anything around her on the fifth floor. And even though she scanned from side to side as she walked, the only thing she could see was her own warm breath clouding in the cold air around her.

Logically, she knew she was safe. There was no one following her. No mysterious footsteps creeping up behind her. There were no puffs of stinky exhaust indicating someone sitting in an idling car to watch her. She’d had some self-defense training, thanks to her stepfather, Jedediah Burke, the officer who ran KCPD’s K-9 unit. She’d also gotten security tips from her sister Ashley’s fiancé, Enzo Moretti, another cop with the KCPD. She knew what to do if trouble approached her. She needed to stop being so paranoid about having garnered someone’s unwanted attention.

But the uneasy feeling had been growing for weeks—like a shadow always a few steps behind her, just out of sight. She couldn’t shake the prickling awareness that someone was watching her. Tracking her. It wasn’t a harmless kind of attention, either. Not a curious coworker new to the hospital or a new neighbor in her downtown loft building. This felt darker, deliberate. A secret admirer with boundary issues? A stalker? Or worse—someone studying her routines, noting her favorite haunts, the times she came and went…like a predator mapping out the perfect moment to strike.

It had started when her sister moved out of their shared condo to live with her fiancé. Polly didn’t begrudge Ashley a second of that hard-earned happiness, but the silence left behind was deafening. Even with Luna—her four-month-old pit bull pup curled faithfully at her side—the place felt too empty. Too still. She came home to quiet, fell asleep to it, woke to it. The kind of quiet that reminded her how little company she kept. Polly didn’t date much—her crazy ER schedule and natural shyness made sure of that. Add in the lingering trust issues from a chaotic childhood—her father had cheated clients out of millions of dollars, tried to kill her mother, and generally made her and Ashley feel like afterthoughts and impositions instead of protecting them from the backlash of his illegal dealings. Even now that Aaron Cooper was out of prison, he’d made no honest effort to be a part of their lives. It was no wonder she’d never had a serious boyfriend. She’d certainly never shared her bed with anyone. Opening herself up like that—to touch, to vulnerability, to the possibility of heartbreak—had always felt too risky. And she’d never wanted to have sex just for the sake of losing her V card.

But last night had been different. Just for a little while, that aching sense of loneliness had eased. And it wasn’t just because the big, sweet, scruffy mutt named Pirate would draw her attention to any man he was with. It was Daniel himself. Gruff, scarred and guarded Daniel Travis, who looked at her like she wasn’t invisible. Who made her feel safe. Important. Seen. Maybe she trusted him because, in his own way, he seemed as broken and bruised as she was. Or maybe it was the quiet strength beneath the growl in his voice, the unspoken pain behind his eyes, the sense that he’d charge into hell for someone he cared about—that he had done just that. Whatever it was, something deep inside her had stirred—something fierce and female and yearning. And that something refused to go back to sleep.

A car door slammed behind her, making her jump and forcing her out of the musings in her head. While the sound echoed off the concrete walls and hard metal surfaces around her, she quickly scanned her surroundings for any sign of danger and strode with purpose past the tight confines of the elevator to the open stairs.

“You’re fine, Poll,” she said out loud, hurrying down to the sidewalk that led across the street to the hospital. “It’s a new day. You’re safe. You got this. Keep your eyes sharp and your mind focused.”

Hearing the words out loud seemed to help. By the time she reached the employee entrance and stepped into the hospital’s fluorescent warmth, she’d tucked her feelings away and traded them for the familiar focus of duty.

Polly stopped in the women’s locker room to hang up her coat, scarf and stocking cap, and traded her boots for her work clogs. She never wore much makeup to work, but she groaned when she glimpsed the dark shadows beneath her eyes in the small mirror hanging inside her locker door. Wow. She must have made a stellar impression on Daniel last night. If she looked this wiped out first thing in the morning, then she must have looked like death warmed over by the end of her shift.

Oh, well. She exhaled a deep sigh. There was no room for vanity in the ER, especially as a trauma nurse. Besides, just because she was crushing on the taciturn man who’d come to her rescue twice already, it didn’t mean that Daniel Travis wanted to date her. Although her heart ached for the veteran Marine who had suffered so much, he seemed to be even quieter than she was. She didn’t think he was shy the way she was, though. He was a man of duty, like her stepfather. But he was wrapped up inside his head—in the terror and grief of everything he’d seen and lost in his military career, and in the ongoing challenge of finding his new normal. He was still acclimating to life outside the military, acclimating to life with the partial loss of his vision, acclimating to the stares and gasps of pity when he interacted with people outside of his therapy group or the hospital. Daniel probably lacked the headspace to even consider starting a relationship.

So, why should she even think about asking him out for a cup of coffee or taking him to lunch to thank him for his help and possibly get to know him better?

“You shouldn’t,” she chided herself in the mirror before closing her locker.

She pulled on a white sweater over her scrubs and made her way to the ER break room, hoping for caffeine and a few quiet moments before the chaos hit. The room was dim, as always, with the humming soda machine and a faint smell of microwave popcorn lingering from someone’s late shift snack.

What she didn’t detect was the smell of fresh coffee brewing. “Great.”

Whoever was on the night shift hadn’t started a fresh pot for the morning staff coming in. Polly turned off the coffee maker and stared with dismay at the thin layer of dark brown goo at the bottom of the carafe. If she wasn’t so tired and didn’t crave her caffeine so badly, she might have headed down to the cafeteria to see if their coffee was any better. But since her shift was about to start, and she wasn’t one to leave a mess like this around, anyway, she rinsed out the carafe as best she could and started a new pot herself.

While it gurgled and brewed, she went to the cupboard to get her coffee mug. She searched through the mugs the staff members stored there and frowned.

Her mug wasn’t there.

Polly checked again, sifting through a chipped holiday mug and the one shaped like a smiling brain with googly eyes.

Nothing.