LITMIR.BIZ

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and that would be another failure. Another life he’d cost.

      “You’re usually out jogging the beach too,” she said. “Where were you this morning? Not afraid of a little rain, were you?”

      “No, not a little rain. But I read the warning signs and they deterred me. I wasn’t going to jog in the storm. Why did you?” He really wanted to know the answer to that. He needed to understand her better if he was going to protect her.

      “I trusted the weather app I use to tell me when the dangerous part of the storm system would hit. According to the meteorologists, I had a couple of hours to jog. That strategy has worked well enough for me until today.”

      “You could have been swept away. There’s no surviving those violent waters.”

      “I run a storm-watching inn, don’t you think I know that?” she asked. “No need to worry about me.”

      “Maybe we should jog together from now on, if we don’t catch this guy right now.” He’d offered earlier to jog with her, but she’d insisted she needed the time alone since she ran a lodge. So he’d given her the space. If she suspected Ian had an agenda, she didn’t show it.

      He watched out the window to see if he could catch a glimpse of the guy. Indecision roiled in his gut. Hired by his uncle Gil, the Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Homeland Security’s Miami field office, Ian was here to watch over Jonna. Uncle Gil had been Jonna’s boss, and even though she’d left HSI, he still felt an obligation to keep her safe. Especially from the criminals she’d angered in her years of service. He’d made it clear he didn’t want Jonna to know Ian had been sent.

      Like most law-enforcement officers, Jonna would believe she could take care of herself—after all, she’d been trained to do so—and she would send Ian away. Or worse—she’d hightail it back to Miami, furious that someone had come to Washington to find her. Uncle Gil didn’t want Jonna back in Florida. He’d hired Ian to watch and report if he saw anything suspicious, as well as protect Jonna if necessary.

      According to Uncle Gil, three years ago, Jonna had just finished wrapping up a human-trafficking-ring case when she went missing. The department feared she was dead, but then she called Gil and explained she’d been attacked and left to die in a marsh. The guy probably thought he’d succeeded in killing her.

      She’d woken up in a hospital in a small town off the Florida coast and walked out before she answered their questions. She didn’t have the answers they were looking for—she didn’t know who had shot her or why. The injury, the whole experience of lying there in the marsh and waiting to die, had been too traumatic. In order to cope, her mind had buried those memories out of her reach.

      She resigned over the phone. Gil managed to keep the information out of the media. As far as the man who’d shot her knew, she was dead, that is, if he even questioned or came asking. But recently her name had popped up via an informant—and Gil was worried she would be targeted again.

      What could she know that would make her a target?

      “I wonder if it’s the Shoreline Killer,” she said. “I need to call the sheriff.”

      “Let’s say it wasn’t the Shoreline Killer. Could it have been a disgruntled guest?”

      Jonna quirked her face. “Are you kidding me?”

      Ian stifled a laugh. “Look, I’m not saying there’s actually anything to complain about at your lodge. Not at all. But didn’t anyone ever tell you that you can’t please all the people all the time? Just humor me. Could someone have been unhappy?”

      “Enough to try to kill me? No.”

      Ian didn’t think so either but he had to ask. “Any acquaintances outside of the lodge, then? Or...” Is there anyone from your past with a grudge? Ian couldn’t say that or he’d give himself away.

      “What’s with the questions? You sound like a detective.”

      Maybe he already had given himself away.

      “Just a concerned guest, that’s all.” And while his motives were more complex than that, he really was concerned. When Ian had learned that Jonna had gone jogging, he’d rushed out and down the landing steps to join her, even in the storm. That’s when he’d spotted a man watching her from behind the rocks.

      A man with a gun.

      A man who seemed to have made a clean getaway. Ian didn’t see the shooter anywhere. How could he in this storm? Trees swayed and rain rippled like sheets in the wind. The guy had likely escaped in a vehicle and was long gone.

      “Thank you for your concern, but there’s no need.” She sighed and glanced around the interior. “Like I said, we should call the sheriff. I need to find my phone. I hope it survived.”

      “You don’t have a waterproof cell? I’d think that would be a priority for someone who lives here.” He sent her a wry grin and tugged his own phone out from a protective pocket. “Let’s see. Looks like my waterproof cell really is waterproof. Let me give the authorities a call and tell them what happened.”

      “Okay, fine. I’ll head back. But I don’t need emergency vehicles showing up at the lodge. I don’t want my guests to worry or be afraid.”

      “Then you can be glad the shooter picked a location on the other side of those rocks. Your guests probably didn’t see a thing.” What if Ian hadn’t gone after her? His gut tensed.

      He’d failed to protect before. He couldn’t let that happen again—had left that life behind so he wouldn’t find himself in this position. He wouldn’t even be here trying if Uncle Gil hadn’t needed someone he could trust. Ian hoped he didn’t let the man down. Or that he didn’t let Jonna down, though she had no idea why he was here.

      She drove down Main Street in Windsurf while he focused on his cell and called the sheriff’s department to relay the message about the shooter. Someone would meet them at the Oceanview Lodge in short order.

      She steered into her garage and closed the door behind them, muting the sound of the winter storm. The call made, he remained sitting in the GMC, wrestling with how much to tell her.

      Indecision and exhaustion weighed on Ian. “We should get back inside and get out of these cold wet clothes. We need to be ready for the authorities when they get here.”

      Covering her eyes with her hands, she nodded, then quickly dropped them. Flashed him a tenuous look. “Thanks, Mr. Brady. I should already have thanked you. You saved my life.”

      “I know you like all your guests to call you Jonna so it’s not so formal, but then you keep the formality on your end. How about you call me Ian instead? I’d prefer it, actually.”

      Ian and Jonna had spent plenty of evenings sitting near the big roaring fireplace in the common area and talking well into the night along with other guests. Still, she’d kept the formality with him, just like she did with all her customers, calling them by their surnames. It went hand in hand with her insistence that she could take care of herself, her determination to keep her distance from others and not let anyone near. Couldn’t reveal any weakness. He understood that mentality. That’s why when he looked at Jonna, he could see right through the tough veneer she projected to the soft side she hid away—a side he very much wanted to know more about, against his better judgment.

      Ian didn’t mind the extra barrier between them. He wasn’t sure why he’d removed it now.

      “I like to keep the lines drawn so there’s no confusion.” Her brow wrinkled, and she held his gaze for a bit longer than necessary. “All right, Ian. You saved my life on the beach today. I owe you.”

      “I think we’re even, considering you pulled me out of the water before the ocean took me.”

      Though she shot him a soft smile, a tempest brewed in her eyes. “You wouldn’t have been caught in those waves if you hadn’t been trying to save me. I don’t want to put

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