“Not anymore.” Daniel’s words were clipped. They had an IV going, and the bleeding was temporarily under control, but they needed to get Mark onto the chopper. He caught Crista’s eye and nodded, indicating that they were ready to move.

“Too bad. I loved my Lisa. She—she was everything,” Mark sobbed again as they moved him into the ambulance.

Daniel couldn’t hold his peace any longer. “Maybe she was—I don’t know,” he growled. “But what I do know is that you have a little boy. You’re a father. Nothing trumps that. Nothing.” His voice was gruff and filled with anger—not at all the comforting tone of a paramedic or a nurse practitioner. “You want your little boy in foster care?”

Crista glared at him, burning holes right through him. “Daniel!” Personal stuff had no place on the job. Besides, if there was no other family, little Nick was headed into the system for the foreseeable future, just based on Mark’s activities tonight.

But Mark was staring at him. “No—of course not!” He looked wildly around and tried to sit up. “I need to get to him.”

Daniel pushed him down. “You’re not going anywhere except into this ambulance and onto the helicopter. Your family will watch Nick until we get you patched up.”

“My brother. Call my brother.”

Crista took the brother’s information as Daniel did a sweep of the area to make sure they had gathered all of their equipment, and that was when he saw her. Annika Mehta. He would have missed her in the dark, except that she stood under a streetlight. For the third time that night, Daniel froze midjob. Her wild curls were pushed into a ponytail, but the curve of her jaw and cheekbones were already familiar to him. She was unmistakable. Was it possible that she was even more striking now?

She wore a dark apron with Phil’s Place emblazoned across it. In the dim light of the street, her brown skin looked almost golden, and she didn’t smile at anyone. As he watched her, she folded her arms across the name and shivered in the cool air. An older man with salt and pepper in his beard started herding people back into the bar. Her gaze passed over Daniel, and he had the sensation of being scanned. She was too far away for him to know if she recognized him, but then how could she? She had never even opened her eyes that night. His stomach did a flip at the possibility.

The older man spoke. “All right, now. Nothing left to see. Come on back in. Next round’s on the house.”