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Daryn Mabry was the sexiest medical examiner Mike had ever seen.

And Mike had had plenty of fantasies of her wearing nothing more than a stethoscope and a lab coat. Tiny at five-foot-nothing, with big brown eyes that routinely looked at him like he was a slug and dimples that flashed every time she spoke, she looked like a pixie. All he had to do was glue on some iridescent wings and the look would be all set.He didn’t get it. He had never gone for the wholesome little sister, girl-next-door type before.

But no woman had ever made him hotter than this one.

He suspected she was aware of it—and it was another thing that just pissed her off at him.She was always cranky when he was near. He had yet to figure out why. But he was an investigator—he had a few possibilities.

He’d heard through the grapevine—mainly his sister, who she was close friends with—that during a recent investigation, he and his partner Callum had interrogated the doc’s closest friend.

A little too harshly.Enough to make that friend cry.

That friend was supposedly innocent, of course. Like they all were. Mike was a bit on the cynical side, too.

Mike had a problem caring about that.So what if he’d ruffled some feathers of some woman he didn’t even remember?He’d been trying to save lives, after all.

It was kind of what he did.

Daryn would get over it, eventually.

He just wished she’d like him a little better after.

She stood and rounded the desk in her tiny cubicle. Invaded his space without flinching. He was over a foot taller. He had to give it to her; she wasn’t afraid to go right at him when it was needed.

He wished she liked him just a little.

Mike would have chased Daryn in an instant—if she’d ever shown even a moment of interest.

It wouldn’t have been a permanent thing—he didn’t think he was ready for permanent anything yet. But all that passion was hard to resist.

She’d dated Brett Naylor for four months before breaking it off him. Naylor was a bigger jerk than Mike had ever been.What was so ok about Naylor but not Mike?

No. It had to be because of that friend of hers he’d questioned. Well, he interrogated people every single day. Not like he was going to apologize for doing his job.

“So… why don’t you let me take you to dinner at Mamaw’s Place? Make up for whatever it is I’ve done to totally piss you off this month.”He had to try—he tried every chance he got.

She stopped moving and shot him a look. There was that you’re a slug thing again. “Not going to happen. I’m meeting my friend and we’re doing volunteer work at the women’s charity across from the hospital. You know, trying to make the world a better place?”

“You mean like I do every single day? Detective Michaelangelo Evers, at your service. Working to keep Finley Creek a better place for you and your friends every day.”

Her perfectly shaped lips twisted, and he waited, ready for the snark. She’d expressed her opinion of his job skills more than once.

That, more than anything, was what bothered him most—other than that she was super-hot and wanted nothing to do with him—she thought little his abilities as a cop.

She basically questioned his very purpose in life.

He couldn’t stand that. He wanted nothing more than to convince her he wasn’t the loser she thought he was—both on the job and off.

“I could help you and your friend first. Then we could all go out to eat. I could bring Callum along, and we can double? Is your friend single?”

Hell, he didn’t know why he pushed. She’d told him ‘no’ eight times in the past six months already. Casually. Like he was a cute little puppy for asking his human to go fetch.

At least the puppy got a yes nine times out of ten.

He had yet to and doubted he ever would.Her own brother, a guy Mike had even shared beers with on multiple occasions, had told him to just give it up all ready. That Daryn would never be interested.

Well, Mike was persistent.

“Not happening. I don’t date jerks, ever—Evers. Remember that.”

“That is why you broke it off with Naylor? I can’t think of a bigger jerk than that.”

“I can. And Brett wasn’t a jerk. Not to me, anyway.”

“Oh?”

He bet Naylor wasn’t. No man would be an asshole to her. Not really.

He wouldn’t.He’d fantasized what he’d do if this woman ever said yes to him. Not that he thought it would have ever happened.

Mike would take her out, show her he found her intriguing as hell, and then he’d hope she let him hold her a lot closer. With or without their clothes.

She drove him nuts, fiery attitude and all.

“I wouldn’t subject Shelby to you again. Sorry, not sorry. Go play somewhere else.”

Shelby. He was trying to think if he’d ever met a Shelby. Mike honestly didn’t remember.

What he should do was just cut his losses and take off. Find another woman to spend some time with. To think about in off moments, or whenever he’d see her walking around the TSP.

Daryn was obviously not interested.

Still… his parents hadn’t raised a quitter. “Hey, Mabr?—”

Sirens sounded, drowning him out. Daryn turned toward him, stepping away from the door to the open back loading bay.

“What’s going on?”Rain blew in, splattering him in the face. He lifted one arm to block her from the spray.

Mike could hear thunder outside, too. He grabbed his phone and checked the warning flashing across his screen. His younger brother was a meteorologist at the local news station.

Houston was obsessive about watching the weather.

“Storm warning!” he said, just as a feminine voice came over the intercom. He pulled Daryn away from the door.

The voice overhead continued.

Instructing everyone to enter tornado protocols immediately and move to the center of the building.

The thunder outside was louder than he had ever heard before. It had him actually concerned for once—most times he just tuned out the weather, having heard about it from his brother for years.

“Come on, doc. You heard the boss. Let’s go.”

“I have to lock this up first.” She reached for the doors.

He waited impatiently.The storm just got louder. Hail slammed against the metal building. Mike swore. “Come on!”

“You can go without me,” she yelled over the sirens and the intercom that were mingling.

Mike looked toward the window on the steel door behind her. Just as a tree slammed to the ground outside.As a damned car shifted fifteen feet before his eyes.

Daryn screamed his name.

Shit.

This was the big one Houston was always shouting about.

“Hell, no.” He bent and scooped her over his shoulder. Easy to do. She didn’t weigh much.He didn’t stop to think that she’d be royally pissed at him if this was all for nothing.Better safe than sorry.

Pixies usually didn’t. They were usually all wings and air, after all. Hell, the storm could just blow her away.

“We’re getting away from the damned windows.” From the walls, too. He hustled through the small pathology department toward the end of the annex, thinking that if he could get them to the actual brick building, they’d be better off.

Get them inside the building deeper, somehow. She didn’t fight, just clung to his shirt.

He put her on her feet, right next to the steel doors that separated the annex from the main building.

No one else was around. That stood out.

No one—no one was anywhere.

Fear of what was about to happen shot straight through him.

The walls started shaking around them.

He saw it happening.Knew what it meant. His brother had watched so many tornado documentaries from the time they’d been teenagers, Mike could recite stats in his sleep.

Crushing injuries. Crushing injuries were the killers. He remembered that.

They had to find a safe place. Fast.He had to find his sister, too. She was in the TSP building somewhere.

Fear for A.J. was stronger than fear for himself right now.

And fear for Daryn.

He yanked Daryn closer, and they ran, back down the hall a good twenty feet. The hall was wide enough to accommodate an actual forklift with evidentiary boxes or even the rear of an ambulance bringing a DB. Mike wrapped his arms around Daryn and pulled them both to the floor as the cheap white tiles above their heads rained down around them.

He covered as much of her tiny body with his own as he could, used his arms to protect both of their heads.

And prayed.

As hell fell down around them.