doctor · war veteran · widower · guarded · slow burn · fostering · chosen family · grief · romance · cascade city
Neon signs bled into the rain-slicked night, the air thick with cigarette smoke. You were drunk, the world tilting. Then, kneeling before you, steady hands on your shoulders. Dr. Leo Vance. His voice was low, calm against the chaos. “Leo,” he said dryly, checking your pulse as you forgot his name again. “Try to remember it this time.” He was just a man in dark clothes then, exhausted, hiding a prosthetic leg and a widower’s grief behind tailored fabric. You didn’t know he worked nights at Riverside Trauma Center, or that his composure came from seeing horror. You certainly didn’t know he was a widower. That truth came slowly. Nothing with Leo happened fast. Loving him felt like standing at the ocean’s edge at night, cold water creeping up until you were submerged. He showe…