Free Moonshell Beach: A Shelter Bay Novel by Joann Ross

magazine back and looked at the small pink digital camera the girl was holding. “Would you like a picture?”
    “Really?” The girl looked as if she had just been told she’d won
American Idol
.
    “Well, you have come all this way, after all.” Mary took the camera and handed it to J.T. “Would you mind?”
    And what was he to say to that? That his mission was to keep this obviously awestruck kid away? Besides, it wasn’t really a question, but an order.
    Thinking that he was becoming surrounded by bossy women lately, he took the camera and snapped the first of what turned out to be many, many photos. And, as at the airport, not only did her smile not waver for an instant, but Mary chatted with each and every person in the inn’s small, cozy lobby, making them feel as if
they
were the stars, not her.
    Even when a young man in flip-flops, torn jeans, and a maroon Reed College hoodie with a griffin on the front worn open over a gray grunge T-shirt tried to force the screenplay he’d brought with him on her, she politely turned him down, handed him a card from her purse, and suggested he send it to her production company in Los Angeles.
    Rather than appear pissed, the guy acted as if she’d assured him she was going to produce, direct, and star in his movie herself.
    “That’s a good ploy,” J.T. said, once they’d finally escaped and he was ushering her into the old-fashioned cage elevator.
    “What ploy would that be?”
    “Managing to turn that guy down, but making it seem as if you’d just handed him an Oscar.”
    “What makes you think I turned him down?”
    “Like anyone’s going to actually read his screenplay?”
    “Actually, someone will. All right,” she admitted, when he arched a brow after inserting the key that would take them directly to the honeymoon suite, “
I
won’t be the one to give it a first read, because if I did that with every screenplay we receive, I’d never get anything else done. But I do employ several people to look for work they think might have potential.”
    “Why would you be looking for outside scripts? When you write all your movies yourself?”
    “Ah.” She glanced up at him, interest sparkling in those electric blue eyes as the elevator slowly cranked its way up to the fourth floor. “You’ve done your research.”
    “One of the most important things you learn at boot camp is that the more intel you have going into a mission, the better.”
    “Would that be along the lines of knowing your enemy?”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “No. Though you
do
consider me a mission?”
    “Not exactly a mission.” He’d once always known exactly what to say in uncomfortable situations. Which was probably why he’d been given more than his share of casualty families. If there was a particularly touchy family situation, hey, give it to Douchett to handle. But that was before he’d flamed out. He’d probably talked more in the past hour than he had since returning home. “And not an enemy. More along the lines of a job.”
    “Ah. Then you’d be getting paid to keep starstruckchildren and aspiring screenwriters away from me?”
    She was like a damn terrier. Deciding she wasn’t going to just let it drop, he said, “No, I’m not getting paid, and it’s not how it sounds. In case you haven’t noticed, Shelter Bay isn’t exactly the big city, and Kara—the sheriff—isn’t exactly running a big-city department here. She’s concerned about your safety, so, since I wasn’t doing anything all that important, she drafted me into making sure no crazies decided to kill you in her town.”
    “Well.” The door opened directly onto a living room painted in sea glass blues and greens with a pair of French doors that led onto a balcony and looked directly out at the Shelter Bay lighthouse. “I suppose I should be thanking you. For making such a noble sacrifice on my behalf.”
    “I didn’t sign on for you. I’m doing it for Kara.”
    Hell.
He might be out of