Chapter 1

Detective-Sergeant Doyle McCann strode through the squad room under the hostile stares of his fellow officers. Cops and detectives—most of them anyway—held him in contempt. The only reason he could still hold his head up and keep working was that he knew they were wrong about him. That and the fact that this job was all he ever wanted. It was the only kind of work that made him feel whole. He knew the truth about himself and what’d happened and he wasn’t about to let the others cheat him out of the career he’d worked so hard to have.

Mostly, he just wanted to do his job—put the bad guys away, keep the world in order, make a difference. That’d been enough so far. Other things like love and happiness had taken a back seat. More and more, though, he wanted to find someone to make his life better than the living hell it’d become. But, for now, that was on hold.

The early morning call to meet with the captain had surprised Doyle, but he’d gotten himself out of bed and made it into the station as the sun was rising. Running a hand through his thick dark hair, he made his way to the captain’s office, trying not to think about the Incident, as he’d come to call the thing that’d changed his life on the force.

“You smell something?” Carmine Talorico asked no one in particular as Doyle passed his desk

“Yeah,” answered Alexa Pulaski. “I smell something rotten. Like, you know, when you don’t throw out the garbage and it starts stinkin’ up the whole house. My husband’s on me all the time about that.”

“If I was your husband I’d be on you all the time about a lotta things,” Jerry O’Brien said and smirked.

“Go fuck yourself, O’Brien. You’re probably the only human who can stand bein’ that close to your creepy self anyway,” Pulaski said.

Doyle was glad O’Brien had deflected the banter onto himself. Jerry was not as hostile as the rest of them. In fact, sometimes he could even be friendly. Doyle suspected Jerry’s reasons had nothing to do with his opinions about the Incident. O’Brien was a closet case and he knew—or thought he knew—all about Doyle’s life. Doyle was open on the force but that was more common now and no big deal, which made him wonder why Jerry had never come out. But Doyle always felt other people’s lives were none of his business as long as they didn’t hurt anyone else.

He lifted his hand to the captain’s door and knocked lightly. Turning the knob, he entered.

“It’s about time, McCann,” said the captain, a beady-eyed, stout, black man who stood behind his desk gazing out the window.

Doyle’s breath caught in his throat when he saw the man sitting in a chair opposite the captain’s desk. He stumbled slightly as he stared and hoped the others didn’t notice. The man sitting in the chair was like a piece of art—he couldn’t be real. Built but not overly muscled, he appeared to be a little taller than Doyle. A lock of the man’s blond hair had fallen over one eye and his three-day growth of beard was as thick as Doyle’s. The guy turned toward Doyle when he entered, and raked him up and down with his emerald eyes. There was an expression of distaste on his face but his eyes glimmered with something unreadable—Doyle figured he was just another hostile bozo waiting to get his own shots in at him.

Still, Doyle felt that certain something—a wave of arousal, a flutter in his stomach—at the sight of the stranger. It was impossible not to feel it.

“Captain Herd,” Doyle said curtly. He knew the captain had disdain for him like everyone else but he was usually professional on the job.

“Got a new partner for you, McCann.” The captain nodded in the direction of the blond. “This is Kord Verlangen.”

The blond seemed reluctant to stand, so Doyle moved with his hand outstretched and they shook. The man’s handshake was unenthusiastic.

“You didn’t tell me it was thisMcCann. You’re stickin’ me with him? The McCann that—”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Doyle interrupted before the invectives cascaded over him.

“Whatever. You got the better end of this deal.” His voice was deeper than Doyle expected and it sent another thrill up his spine. How could he be attracted to this guy, Doyle asked himself. They’d have to work closely together on cases. How was that supposed happen? Between his attraction for him and the guy’s hostility, this seemed like a really bad idea. Doyle wanted to turn around and leave but he didn’t want to lose this job. This work was too important to him. He refused to toss it away on a whim.