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The man was still there.

Devon forced herself to look straight ahead with the mental reminder he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He wasn’t standing in one place staring like some creepy stalker from a made-for-TV movie. He’d been moving through his own workout for the past thirty minutes.

Free weights. Cable machine. Something involving a medicine ball that looked unnecessarily painful.

Devon set the dumbbells back on the rack and reached for her water bottle. Her pulse was elevated, but that was because she’d spent the past forty-five minutes working out. It had nothing to do with the fact that some random guy was wearing an all-black hoodie.

Half the men in here are wearing black.

She took a long drink. “You’re being ridiculous,” she muttered beneath her breath.

The older woman doing bicep curls a few feet away glanced over.

Devon gave her an awkward smile. “Hi.”

The woman’s eyebrows lifted but she said nothing.

Great.

Now she was the weird lady at the gym who talked to herself. But hey, at least it was an improvement over being the overly paranoid recluse.

Devon grabbed her phone and towel, then moved to the next station. She’d started coming to the gym a little over two months ago. Not every day.

Not a chance.

Twice a week was plenty. And even that had taken some serious self-convincing.

For the first several months after she’d come home from D.C., basic grocery trips had been challenging enough. Two trips a week. Always on different days at different times.

She got in, got what she needed, and got home as quickly as she could.

Eventually, Devon had realized there was a fine line between giving herself time to recover from the attack and allowing fear to dictate every part of her life. She’d been getting dangerously close to crossing it and becoming a full-blown agoraphobe.

So she’d joined a gym.

She still varied the days and times she came here. Still parked close to the entrance in well-lit spots. Still scanned the lot before getting out of her car. And Devon always, always kept her keys between her knuckles whenever she walked back to it after her workout.

But she came. That mattered. Twice a week, she forced herself out into the world. For now, that had to be enough.

Devon sat at the leg press and adjusted the weight. She glanced toward the mirror. Black Hoodie was gone.

Relief was instant, but a hefty dose of annoyance followed right behind it. She barely held back the urge to growl.

She hated this. It had been six freaking months. A stranger looking her direction shouldn’t make her question every instinct she had.

Before Billy, Devon would have assumed the guy was looking because he either thought she was cute or because she had something stuck in her teeth. Now her brain went straight to Warning: Potential threat detected.

She put her feet against the metal platform, glancing back one more time to confirm Black Hoodie was gone. Devon finished the rest of her workout in relative peace when she didn’t see him again.

The cool evening air hit her damp skin the moment she stepped outside. Pulling her lightweight jacket tighter against her body, she turned and headed down the sidewalk.

Rush-hour traffic moved steadily along the street beyond the parking lot. A delivery truck rumbled past. Someone laid on their horn farther down the road.

The sun had dropped low enough to create long, thick shadows between the buildings and rows of cars. But there was still plenty of daylight left as Devon started toward her car.

Her gaze automatically began sweeping the lot.

Left. Right. Behind her. It was all clear.