I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight, but when I saw him it was, as the Italians say, il colpo di fulmine. The thunderbolt. Holding his hand in mine as I stitched the gaping skin together, I felt electric.

“You’re lucky you missed any major veins,” I’d said.

“I’m lucky, all right.”

My stomach had twisted as I met his gaze. I snipped the ends of the last stitch and wrapped his hand in gauze, declaring him fit to leave.

“Let me take you to dinner,” he’d said.

He was drinking me in with his eyes, and when I spoke it was with less conviction than it should’ve been.

“Absolutely not.” It didn’t matter that my hand was still warm from his or that his gaze made my stomach feel like it had touched a live wire. “I don’t date patients.”

I didn’t think I’d see him again, but a few weeks later I ran into him at a Christmas party my roommate had dragged me to. I’d been adrift and alone, and then there was Nate, and I chose not to be alone anymore.

Nate was different from other guys I’d dated. He cooked me dinner, showed me pictures of his family, listened when I spoke, and asked thoughtful questions. And he made me laugh. He always made me laugh. We’d moved in together after just a month, joining our lives the way soul mates and best friends do. And when I found out I was pregnant, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to say yes when he proposed.

“I have a million things to do,” I murmured against Nate’s mouth.

“I could arrest you, you know.” Nate wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “I have handcuffs.”

I burst out laughing. “Maybe I have just a little time.”

“Ooh-la-la!” Nate lifted my sweater over my head and unbuttoned my pants, rolling them down over my ankles and gazing at my body in admiration. He smiled, the left side of his mouth curving up just a little bit more than the right, and ran his fingers lightly over my bare shoulders as he bent to kiss my neck.

I kicked my pants off so I was only wearing my bra and underwear. “Now, what was that you said about handcuffs?”

CHAPTER 2

THE FIRST OVERDOSE CALL came at 8:20 a.m., just as Detective Nate Sweeney was dropping his son off at school in Skamania, a small town pressed up against the Cascade mountain range about forty-five minutes outside of Seattle. His mind was crowded with worry as he watched Josh walk down the covered corridor toward his classroom.