Jenna Kernan - Defensive Action

A daring CIA agent and a risk-averse I.T. expert

need to combine forces—like it or not.

Ryan Carr’s mission is to deliver top secret intel—not guard I.T. expert Haley Nobel, the unsuspecting woman who saved him while he was in a shoot-out. But with bullets flying, Ryan and Haley have no choice except to rely on each other and their survival instincts. With both of their lives on the line, will they find the best defensive action is total engagement?

JENNA KERNANhas penned over two dozen novels and received two RITA® Award nominations. Jenna is every bit as adventurous as her heroines. Her hobbies include recreational gold prospecting, scuba diving and gem hunting. Jenna grew up in the Catskills and currently lives in the Hudson Valley in New York State with her husband. Follow Jenna on Twitter, @jennakernan, on Facebook or at jennakernan.com

Also by Jenna Kernan

Surrogate Escape

Tribal Blood

Undercover Scout

Black Rock Guardian

Turquoise Guardian

Eagle Warrior

Firewolf

The Warrior’s Way

Shadow Wolf

Hunter Moon

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Defensive Action

Jenna Kernan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09411-5

DEFENSIVE ACTION

© 2019 Jeannette H. Monaco

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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For Jim, always.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

About the Publisher

“Turn around or keep going?” Haley Nobel muttered to the car’s empty interior. There was no one in the rental with her to answer and she realized it was the first time she had been outside alone, all alone, in years.

The GPS app had taken a holiday during her drive in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State and the darkness had fallen like a curtain outside her shadow-blue 2018 Ford Taurus. Beyond the windshield there were no twinkling stars. No bright moon. No mystical glimmer of the aurora borealis. Just blackness with the only sign of life being the deer that had darted across the road a few miles back and nearly given her a heart attack.

Adult adventure camp was looking increasingly like the colossal mistake she’d expected it to be. She had about as much business being back here as that deer would have on the Number 7 Subway.

“Where am I?” she asked the silence about her as she peered at the gas gauge that had dipped below a quarter-tank of fuel.

She shivered against the chill, trying again to adjust to the heat on a night that was forecast to dip into the thirties. She’d forgotten that summer nights were so much colder up here in the mountains.

Her light L.L.Bean jacket looked rugged in the catalog but it was designed for wind and rain, not cold. There wasn’t even a fleece liner. Inside one of the front pockets was her impulse buy, offered at checkout for 25 percent off, a Victorinox Rambler pocketknife including scissors, file, two screwdrivers, bottle opener, toothpick, wire-stripper, tweezers, key ring and a blade long enough to use to slit her own throat for being stupid enough to let her father convince her to leave her upstairs apartment in the building she owned in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to redeem his Hanukkah gift to her.

She’d been planning the specifics of this week for six months and it was already here. Back in December, she’d thought her father had a point. She did need to get back out there. But rocketing down zip lines was a little too out there. Besides, her job furnished all the thrills and chills she needed, strictly virtual, of course.

She’d tried to get him to take the gift back but he’d said it was nonrefundable and then told her that she needed to stop acting like she was the one who had died.

That cut deep, but the more she thought about it, the more she felt he might be right. But perhaps going out with friends for drinks would have been a better start than kayaking in white water.

Haley had told her father that her life held plenty of risks, which wasn’t exactly true. Hacking wasn’t dangerous if you were paid by the company you were hacking, which she always was. Her father thought she was paid by local businesses to build websites and manage social media accounts.