He braids her hair for school. Packs lunches with color-coded notes. Holds her through middle school drama and midnight nightmares.
Navy veteran and single father Nathan Crawford has been his daughter's whole world for eleven years-and he's damn good at it. As an ER nurse, he saves lives for a living, but he couldn't save the little girl who died in his arms in Fallujah, and he's never forgiven himself. Still, he's built a life for him and Paige that's safe. Controlled. Predictable.
Then Tasha Williams joins the ER team.
Sharp-tongued, fiercely competent, and completely unimpressed by his carefully maintained walls, Tasha challenges everything Nate thought he knew about keeping people at a safe distance. She sees through his military precision to the man underneath-the one who sings lullabies at midnight and builds color-coded science fair projects. When a crisis with Paige brings them together outside the hospital, Nate begins to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he doesn't have to carry everything alone.
But just as their unlikely family begins to heal old wounds, the past comes calling. Paige's biological mother-the woman who walked away when Paige was three months old-returns with lawyers, money, and a plan to destroy everything Nate has built. Sarah Davis claims she's changed. She says she's ready to be a mother. But what she really wants is far more calculated.
Suddenly, eleven years of bedtime stories and scraped knees mean nothing in a courtroom. When Sarah's high-powered attorneys threaten to paint his PTSD as a liability, Nate realizes he's not just fighting for custody... he's fighting for the right to be the father Paige deserves. With Tasha by his side and everything he loves at stake, Nate must learn that sometimes the greatest act of courage isn't charging into battle.
Sometimes it's believing you're worth fighting for.