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She murmured something against his skin before she was out like a light. Something that sounded an awful lot like, “Love you, Daniel.”
“Love you, too, Sunshine,” he whispered before closing his eyes and drifting toward sleep.
Outside, the sleet had softened to a cleansing rain. In its steady rhythm, Daniel found peace—warmth, connection and the quiet certainty that healing didn’t always come in therapy sessions or battlefield advice.
Sometimes, it came like this—two wounded hearts finding what they needed most in each other’s arms.
Chapter Fourteen
The knock came like a gunshot.
Daniel bolted upright, heart hammering. Pirate’s bark echoed through the duplex, deep and sharp, answered by Luna’s higher-pitched yaps from the hallway. For a second, he wasn’t in his bedroom—he was back in a barracks under mortar fire, body reacting before his brain caught up.
Polly stirred beside him, clutching the blanket to her chest. “What—what time is it?”
“Too early for visitors.” He was already out of bed, dragging on his jeans from the night before and yanking a T-shirt over his head. The cold floor bit at his bare feet. Outside the window, pale light revealed a world glazed in half-melted snow—slush pooling in the gutters, ice shining like glass on the driveway.
The knock came again, harder. “KCPD. Sergeant Travis, it’s Detective Standage!”
Daniel’s pulse kicked faster. He motioned for the dogs to stay behind him, then strode to the door and unlatched it.
Joel Standage stood on the porch, collar turned up against the early morning chill, his expression tight. Another detective—a broad-shouldered man with dark hair and a permanent scowl—hovered beside him.
Daniel frowned. “Morning. What’s going on? Did you catch the guy who broke into her apartment?”
Joel hesitated, his eyes flicking toward Polly, who’d appeared behind Daniel, now dressed in his T-shirt and sweats again. “I’m sorry, Daniel. Polly.” He drew a slow breath. “There’s been another incident. Tate Emery. Found early this morning behind the St. Luke’s parking structure. Stabbed several times in the chest. He’s dead.”
Polly’s gasp cut through the air like glass shattering. Daniel reached back instinctively, pulling her against his side. “What do you want with us?”
Before Joel could answer, the other detective shouldered forward. “Quit dinkin’ around, Standage. I’m Detective Harris. We’ve got an eyewitness who says Mr. Travis here threatened the victim in that same parking garage last night. We need him to come in for questioning.”
“What witness?” Daniel asked, tension crackling in the air around him. He remembered the footsteps, the car door slamming, the face in the shadows he hadn’t been able to see.
“Doesn’t matter,” the burly detective replied. “We follow where the leads take us.”
“And they led you to me?”
“We just need to ask you a few questions,” Joel insisted. “Check you off the list.”
“I’m a suspect?” He reached for Pirate’s head at his side to anchor himself. “I’m not the guy who’s been terrorizing Polly.”
The familiar rumble of a K-9 unit SUV rolled up beside the curb. Jedediah Burke climbed out, coat unbuttoned, face set like stone. “What’s going on here?”
“Dad,” Polly breathed, relief and panic tangling in her voice. “Tate Emery—that creepy guy from work?—is dead. And they think Daniel… Do something. Daniel didn’t do this. He was with me all night.”
“Somebody want to fill me in on the details?” Burke demanded.
“Not your case, Sergeant Burke,” Harris seethed out between his teeth.
Burke crossed his arms over his chest. “It is my family you’re talking to.”
Joel raised his palms. “It’s just questioning, sir. Sergeant Travis may have seen something that will help us. Polly, we’re not arresting him.”
“Yet,” the other detective muttered.
“Ease up, Harris,” Joel warned.
But Harris only smirked. “Put on some shoes and grab your coat, Mr. Travis. I hear you’ve got a temper—punching walls, beating on men who harass your woman.”
