“I can’t explain it. It doesn’t make sense to anyone except her. You crossed the line for her.”

“I just wanted to love her.”

“That’s crossing the line. You can love her. You just can’t love her all the way.”

It made a twisted kind of sense. Nick pictured the day at the watering hole where Mikey Pryce had promised to love Melanie forever, even promising to marry her. Unwittingly, he’d triggered Melanie’s murderous reflex, which she repeated with Matthew Warner, Miles Talbot and now him. They’d all promised their undying love only to see it die.

“God, you’re bleeding bad.” Jamie took his hands away. Blood pulsed from the wound and Nick felt his strength drain from him with every pulse. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry, Nick. Truly, I am.”

Jamie rose to his feet and hugged his sister. “It’s okay. You’ve done nothing wrong. I’ll make this all go away.”

“Call 911,” Nick pleaded.

“I wish I could, but I can’t let the police take her,” Jamie said and turned to Melanie. “It’s okay. You’re safe. Now, go back to the car and I’ll take care of this.”

Seemingly under a hypnotic trance, Melanie followed Jamie’s command and ambled back to the car. Nick screamed out to her, but she was lost to him.

“You can’t keep protecting her, Jamie,” Nick said as Jamie bent toward him.

“I know,” Jamie said with genuine regret, “but I can this time.”

It was the last thing Nick heard as Jamie lifted him over the pier railing and rolled him into the bay.

JOAN JOHNSTON

In the hands of Joan Johnston, the human heart becomes a catalyst for suspense. With more than forty novels and ten million copies of her books in print worldwide, she is a proven master of the craft who knows how to complicate the tensions behind everyday relationships. If there’s a character’s heart to be broken, Joan will snap it in two and decide later if it should be allowed to heal.

In “Watch Out for My Girl,” Nash Benedict finds himself turning Benedict Arnold after promising to look after his brother’s girl while he serves in Iraq. An accidental crush becomes an inappropriate affair of the heart. And that leads the characters headlong into a meeting with murder.

WATCH OUT FOR MY GIRL

“I had a helluva time getting your number, Benedict. I called because Morgan Hunter is missing.”

Nash Benedict heard the irritation in the voice of Morgan’s boss, Captain Hart, Commander of Fire Station 7 in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He made no apology. He was hard to reach for good reason. A picture of Morgan’s anguished face the last time he’d seen her flashed across his mind. His voice was unexpectedly thick with emotion as he confirmed, “Morgan’s missing?”

“She didn’t show up this morning at seven for her twenty-four-hour shift and didn’t call to say she wouldn’t be showing up. She’s never missed a day of work in five years. Never even been late. You can see why I’d be concerned.”

Nash glanced at his watch. 6:00 p.m. “She’s been missing since seven this morning and you’re just now calling me?”

“I’d have called you sooner, but nobody knew how to reach you,” the captain retorted.

Someday soon, Morgan Hunter would be his sister-in-law. She was dating his younger brother, Carter, who’d left six months ago for a one-year tour of duty in Iraq.

“Watch out for my girl, Nash. Don’t let anything happen to her while I’m serving my country overseas.”

Nash had known what Carter really meant was Don’t let some son of a bitch move in on Morgan while I’m serving my country overseas. Carter had never imagined that something sinister might threaten his girl. Or that the something sinister might be his elder brother.

Nash felt the blood pound in his temples. Carter had asked only one favor. And Nash had failed to deliver. Completely.

He’d done his best over the past six months, while Carter was dismantling IEDs-improvised explosive devices-in Iraq, to keep an eye on Carter’s girl. In between covert missions for the U.S. president, Nash had gone sailing with Morgan on Chesapeake Bay, laughed with her at a revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Kennedy Center and picked crabs with her at the Crab Shack in Baltimore.

Nash hadn’t expected to fall in love with his brother’s girl any more than he’d expected her to disappear.

But he was in love with Morgan Hunter. And no one had seen hide nor hair of the woman for the past eighteen hours.

Nash felt a wave of guilt wash over him. This was his fault. Morgan had run from him. Because of what he’d done last night on her front doorstep.

He hadn’t meant to kiss her. They’d been convulsed with laughter, leaning helplessly on each other. She’d turned her face up to his, sharing the hilarious moment. On impulse he’d lowered his head, and his mouth had found hers. For a moment, she’d responded. Hungrily.

Then she’d gasped and backed up a step. And stared at him in the harsh porch light with wide, wounded brown eyes. Asking him without words how he could betray his brother. How he could betray her trust.

Nash didn’t want Morgan to be the victim of some accident, but he grasped at that possibility as something besides his behavior that might have caused her absence from work. “You’ve checked with the area hospitals?” he asked the commander.

“I called the hospitals, I checked with her father in Bethesda, I’ve left messages on her cell-which have gone straight to voice mail. I even sent another firefighter to her apartment in Avendale,” Captain Hart said.

“The front door was unlocked, but the place was pristine, no signs of disturbance. Her purse was there with her wallet inside. But her keys and her cell phone and her Jeep were missing.”

“Are you telling me no one has any idea where she might have gone?” Nash asked the station commander.

“I figured you would know, Benedict. You’re the one she’s been spending all her free time with.” Captain Hart made it an accusation.

“I don’t have a clue where she is,” Nash snapped. “She was fine when I left her about ten last night.” Except, perhaps, for feeling as guilty then about what had happened between them as Nash did now.

“I can’t believe you kissed me! What were you thinking? I’m going to marry your brother when he comes home. I love him.” She’d swiped the back of her hand across her mouth as though to wipe away his kiss, staring at him above that erasing hand through wary, watery eyes.

“I miss Carter,” she’d said quietly, using his brother’s name to stab him in the heart. “I think it would be better if we don’t see each other anymore,” she’d added, twisting the knife.

Nash shuddered at the memory.

“One of my best firefighters has disappeared,” the captain said. “If you know anything-”

“I don’t!” Nash could hear the affection and agony in the commander’s voice. He knew exactly how the man felt.

“I’ll be calling the local precinct to file a missing persons report when enough time has passed. I don’t like the looks of this, Benedict. I don’t like it at all.”

Nash closed his cell phone and slipped it back into the pocket of his cammies. He was scheduled to leave for El Salvador with his team on a covert presidential mission at midnight.

Which gave him just six hours to find his brother’s girl.

And make amends. Assuming she would let him apologize. Assuming that the reason she’d disappeared was nothing more sinister than an unwanted kiss.

Nash felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck as he thought of what else might have happened to Morgan Hunter.

What if Juan Espinoza, the drug lord whose coca crop Nash had ruined the last time he was in Colombia, had figured out the identity of his nemesis, “The Ghost,” and made good on his threat.

“I’ll find you, El Fantasma. Then I’ll find what you love most. And I’ll destroy it.”