Then There Was You
Can a perfect love heal even your deepest wounds?
As a helicopter medic, Daniel Bliant saves other people’s lives. He’s cool under pressure, a calm presence for trauma victims on the worst day of their lives. So why can’t he heal himself? When he answers an emergency call at Phil’s Bar, he can’t believe who the bartender is: the beautiful woman he saw in his ER months ago and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about. But even though Annika is intelligent, lively, and gorgeous, he knows he should forget her. He hasn’t worked through his own trauma after the incident that left him shattered, so how can he possibly think about love? Annika Mehta loves her job as a kindergarten teacher, even if the low pay means she has a side gig tending bar at Phil’s. She may be reeling from a bad breakup and the terrible event that caused it, but she knows she’s resilient. What she doesn’t need is Daniel. He’s wrong for her in every single way, but somehow, she can’t let him go. This tear-jerker of a romance follows two souls in need of healing—when all roads lead back to each other.
PRAISE: ‘Shroff is a writer to watch.’ Publisher’s Weekly
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Excerpt from Then There Was You
Crista took the brother’s information as Daniel did a sweep of the area to make sure they had gathered all of their equipment, and that’s when he saw her. Annika Mehta. He would have missed her in the dark, except that she stood under a streetlight. For the third time that night, Daniel froze midjob. Her wild curls were pushed into a ponytail, but the curve of her jaw and cheekbones were already familiar to him. She was unmistakable. Was it possible that she was even more striking now?
She wore a dark apron with Phil’s Place emblazoned across it. In the dim light of the street, her brown skin looked almost golden, and she didn’t smile at anyone. As he watched her, she folded her arms across the name and shivered in the cool air. An older man with salt and pepper in his beard started herding people back into the bar. Her gaze passed over Daniel, and he had the sensation of being scanned. She was too far away for him to know if she recognized him, but then how could she? She had never even opened her eyes that night. His stomach did a flip at the possibility.
The older man spoke. “All right, now. Nothing left to see. Come on back in. Next round’s on the house.”
Daniel was lost in her movements as she slowly turned and followed the customers back into the bar. She hung her head slightly, and as she passed the older man, he rested a hand on her shoulder. She lifted her face to him and smiled. Daniel just barely caught that smile in the faded light, but it put his heart in a vise like grip. He couldn’t remember ever having seen something so beautiful, yet so sad