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She’d always despised Detective Michael Evers. He was such a jerk.

Dr. Daryn Mabry had found him to be arrogant, rude, and an all-around jerk from the moment she’d first met him.

When she’d signed on as the assistant M.E. for the Finley Creek TSP and he’d been introduced to her, she’d had a hard time remaining professional.

She’d remembered him, all right.

This man and his partner had harassed her best friend and made Shelby miserable.

Something Shelby had not deserved and had yet to fully recover from.

What they’d did hadn’t been fair to Shelby—one of the nicest, kindest, quietest people Daryn knew—at all. Mike Evers and his partner, Sean Callum, had claimed they were just doing their jobs, given orders to solve the question of the mysterious drug that had originated in Finley Creek.

She got that. She truly did. She couldn’t work for the TSP if she hadn’t supported them and what they tried to do.

But since joining, she’d learned one thing—some of the TSP were arrogant assholes.

Callum and Evers had caused her best friend pain. And left traumatic memories Shelby still fought against. Memories Daryn had done her best to forget, too.

She’d thought she’d moved past it, but apparently not. Mike had shown up in her office today—she’d taken one look at him and her animosity had come rushing right back.

Maybe it was the arrogant look in his eyes when he stared at her. Even though he had beautiful eyes, really.

“So what’s your problem with me, Doc?” He always called her doc and repeatedly asked her what was up whenever he saw her.She had his measure. He was like a twelve-year-old butthead in a far too pretty body.

Mike Evers was one of the hottest men in the post. There were a lot of pretty men at the TSP, starting with the chief and working down the list to the rank and file.

She’d looked a time or two hundred. She was young and healthy and seriously unattached. What woman wouldn’t at least look ?

Look, no touch. Ever.

Mike Evers thought he could do no wrong—either on the job, or with women. Daryn didn’t need a guy like that in her life. Period.

“I don’t have a problem with you, Evers. But there’s a procedure for what you’re asking. And you know it. I’m not risking my job because you are impatient.” And demanding and not above pushing for what he wanted.Just like he and his partner had done to Shelby.

Shelby and their friend Zoey—and Darrell, Daryn’s older brother—had been all the family Daryn had had from the time she and Shelby were twenty and Daryn’s mother had died in a house fire in her hometown of Stephenville.

The years since that day had been fraught with studying doubly hard so she could graduate medical school early and go straight into her internship/residency in pathology. Daryn was doing what she wanted now, on the career path she’d chosen for herself all those years ago. She helped stopped the bad guys, there was no better rush than that.

“I’m getting the feeling you don’t want me in here today. Any particular reason?” Evers grabbed for the files on her desk. They weren’t his files. She barely resisted smacking his hand. That was just the reaction he was looking for. The man loved to torment her. Just her.

Every single time their paths crossed.

She didn’t have an actual office—that was reserved for her boss—but her cubicle was her space. Period.

She didn’t want him in her space. That shouldn’t have been too hard for him to understand.Mike enjoyed giving her fits. She almost thought he sought her out to do just that.

Most likely because she’d told him once that she thought he was a real asshole.

He hadn’t enjoyed that, especially since his buddies from Major Crimes had been present at the time.

She’d spent all afternoon that day with Shelby at a youth center helping teenagers develop job skills. Shelby—the kindest woman Daryn had ever known.

She’d seen the good Shelby did, and it had just angered her that men like Mike Evers, Sean Callum, Daniel McKellen and Jake MacNamara—all bigshots at the TSP post—had thought nothing of savaging Shelby in order to get information out of her about Shelby’s brother’s best friend.A man Shelby had cared about a great deal, who had died tragically.

Shelby had had nothing to do with the things that man had been involved in.

Evers and his posse hadn’t cared.Zoey, the sheriff of Garrity now, had broken up their final interrogation of Shelby all those months ago and made threats of her own, while Daryn helped comfort Shelby.

She and Mike had had their battles ever since.

He was still staring at her. Waiting.

Daryn wanted to slug him.

He, more than any of the other jerks who’d targeted Shelby back then, got under her skin and infuriated her the most.

He did not know the damage he had done to her best friend that day.

None at all.