ONE

      Jacksonville, North Carolina

      Someone was harming her patients.

      Audrey Harris was determined not to let anything happen to the force-recon marine currently in her care. Not only was Sergeant Julian Tan her neighbor, but he was also in her father’s unit. Fortunately, the recovery room where she worked had only three patients this morning, and they weren’t scheduled to receive more until after lunch.

      She reassessed the IV lines and inspected the dressing on his lower arm.

      “My team,” he murmured, shifting restlessly beneath the thin sheet. “Have to reach them.”

      Audrey winced. His team was gone, their deaths the result of a training exercise gone horribly wrong. Julian had escaped with several broken bones in his left arm and wrist. The first surgery—performed a month ago, at the time of the accident—had been a success, but he’d had an allergic reaction to the stitches. They’d had to go back in and replace them.

      His head lifted from the starched pillowcase. “Where are they?” he demanded in a thick, slurred voice.

      “You’ve had a surgical procedure and will feel groggy for a while. As soon as the anesthesia wears off, I’ll take you to post-op.” Typically, those nurses would retrieve him, but she wasn’t letting him out of her sight.

      His eyes, shimmering like copper pennies in a fountain, narrowed in confusion. “I’m in the hospital? Where are the others?”

      She’d been on shift when he’d been brought in with the marines who’d initially survived the helicopter crash. While she hadn’t been assigned to him, she remembered he’d responded poorly to anesthesia and woke disgruntled.

      Audrey wished