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"You certainly aren’t making it easy for me to say I’ll head back to the station, that’s for sure,” Yasmine joked.

I shrugged. “I wanted you to have all the information to be able to make the right decision, but I promise that I’m done now.”

“Okay, so why don’t you please tell me more about this guy of yours,” she begged. “Does he have any friends?”

Beaming, I declared, “He has lots of friends. In fact, I’m having dinner with Ty and one of his friends tonight. Unfortunately, this particular friend is already spoken for, and I’ll be meeting Daisy for the first time tonight. But I’m sure there are more of them.”

Yasmine huffed. “I was mostly teasing. I’ve got enough on my plate right now, but maybe one day down the road.”

For the next hour or so, I stayed with Yasmine and told her more about Ty and how things had happened to bring us together. It had been the longest I’d been able to spend alone with her since before she’d been brutally assaulted. It was nice to have that back and to know that she was getting better and stronger with each day that passed.

And hours after my visit with her, Ty and I were sitting across from Forrest and Daisy at a restaurant for dinner. Apparently, Forrest had asked Ty at work if we’d like to join them tonight, and Ty happily accepted.

Daisy was lovely. I liked her from the start, but then she said, “So, Alana, I saw your first podcast. It was incredible. I know the subject was awful, but you did an amazing job.”

“Thank you. That means a lot, considering I’ve never done this whole thing of being in front of the camera.”

“I tried telling her she was a natural,” Ty declared, his focus on me. He looked at Daisy and continued, “Maybe now that you’ve told her, it’ll sink in.”

I rolled my eyes. “It was one thing to pretend in front of Ty. It’s something else entirely to put myself in front of the whole world.”

“Are you enjoying it, though?” Daisy asked.

I nodded. “I love it.”

She glanced at Forrest, bit her lip, and returned her attention to me. “Well, if you’re ever looking for some help occasionally, I’d love to. I’m always up for an adventure, so if you want some company on a stakeout or something, give me a call.”

Forrest nearly choked. “Daisy, sunshine, you’re not going on stakeouts.”

“Oh, come on. Nothing crazy. I think it’d be fun to have a little excitement in my life,” she explained.

He cocked a brow. “Are you suggesting I don’t provide enough excitement now?”

“Of course, you do. I just thought it’d be fun to do something with a friend, that’s all.”

“And you didn’t think that perhaps going out dancing or shopping or essentially anything other than a stakeout would give you that?” he countered.

He had a point. And I couldn’t say I didn’t understand his concern. On the way to the restaurant, Ty had told me all about how Forrest and Daisy met and the horrible situation she’d encountered. She was lucky to be alive, so it was only natural for Forrest to be a bit protective of her.

Forrest turned his attention to me. “Can you keep the stakeouts to a minimum?”

I grinned at him. “I’ll do my best.”

“Yeah, and if there’re going to be stakeouts involving dangerous criminals, I’m coming along for those,” Ty added.

“I think I’ve had enough of that for at least the next month or so,” I teased.

Everyone laughed.

“In all seriousness, I’m glad things worked out the way they did,” Forrest said. “I can remember the day you came into Harper Security Ops, Alana.”

My brows drew together. “What? I don’t remember meeting you.”

He looked at Ty, his lips twitching before he dropped his gaze to his plate.

I focused my attention on Ty. “What is he talking about?”

“Forrest saw you after you had already left and were walking back out to your car,” Ty shared. “He and Avalon started teasing me then that we were heading for our next crisis at work, because not one Harper Security Ops couple had an uneventful start to their relationship.”

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