GUARDED SECRETS (A Small-Town Protector Romantic Suspense) by Demetrius M. Kelley

Reagan Voss came to Fallow Creek to disappear. Six months ago she found something she wasn't supposed to find — a name in a ledger, a signature that didn't belong there, proof that the man she'd trusted for years was capable of things she still can't say out loud. She didn't wait to find out what he'd do about it. She packed one bag, drove until the interstate turned to two-lane blacktop, and took a job doing books for a hardware store in a town small enough that nobody asks questions. Nobody except Wade Calloway, who runs the volunteer fire department and notices everything. The false alarms start small — a tripped smoke detector, a car that idles too long outside her apartment, a delivery she never ordered. Wade tells himself it's nothing. Reagan tells herself the same thing, right up until the night her brake line fails on the one road out of town, and Wade is the one who pulls her from the wreck. He doesn't ask who she's running from. He just doesn't let her out of his sight — which is a problem, because Reagan swore she'd never let anyone get close enough to be a target again. But Wade isn't easy to keep at arm's length, and the harder she pushes him away, the more she wants him to stay. Whoever is hunting her isn't guessing anymore. They're closing in. And Reagan is running out of ways to keep the two halves of her life — the woman rebuilding herself in Fallow Creek, and the woman who ran — from colliding in front of the one person she can't afford to lose. Intensity level: High tension, moderate violence (off-page/non-graphic). Closed-door romance. Tropes: Small-Town Romance, Hidden Truths, Heroine in Danger, Protective Hero, Unknown Enemy, Slow Burn