Prologue Three Months Ago “Your friend looked wrecked,” Claire McKinley said as she followed her future brother-in-law into the darkened front hall of his townhouse. She bent down to unlace her sneakers, feeling Dylan Wade’s green-eyed gaze boring into the top of her head. She expected him to make a bitchy remark, inform her that his friend’s state of mind was none of her beeswax, but he did none of the above. “Sophie taking off like that really shook him up. Shook me up too,” Dylan confessed. “Yeah, me too. I keep thinking about what would’ve happened if we hadn’t found her…” She shuddered. “Oh God. Imagine losing a child.” The silence that followed was surprisingly free of tension. Weird. Since the moment they’d met, she and Dylan could barely be in the same room without sniping at each other, but almost losing that little girl at the carnival had been so very sobering. Tonight, Claire had witnessed a different side to Dylan. He’d been focused, self-assured, calm under pressure. Which was double weird, because normally he was a cocky, antagonistic ass**le, pardon her French. He was still watching her, even as he kicked off his boots and shrugged out of his blue button-down shirt, which left him in a snug white T-shirt and cargo pants. Claire couldn’t help herself—she swept her gaze over his handsome face