Braden peered out the wall of windows over the beach for the hundredth time, scanning the sand for some sign of Nora. Twice he’d made it to the door with his coat and an extra one for her.

Twice he’d forced himself back into the house.

She’d walked out for a reason. She wanted to be alone to sort through her feelings about everything she’d learned about him. About everything he now knew about her. She was a strong, capable woman. A woman trained in the art of keeping herself and others safe. He would give her another half hour. If she wasn’t back by then, he would turn the island upside down to find her if that’s what it took.

He cursed, then resumed pacing the room. Fucking Locke. He should have known the other man would dig deeply into his life. All that bullshit about Nico vouching for him only went so far. Locke had a lot to lose, was letting Braden into both his business and his home. Was making him privy to details that could cost Locke his freedom. He would have been foolish to take everything Braden brought to the table at face value, even with Nico’s backing.

He ran a tired hand over his face. He should have come clean with Locke, told him about Nora from the beginning. The rational part of his brain told him he should have held off making a move on Nora too. Waited until he knew where things would go with Locke. Until he could have been honest.

But he couldn’t bring himself to regret a moment he’d spent with her. Of all the reckless things he’d done in his life, loving Nora Murphy was the best.

He knew now that it was true; he loved her. Had loved her for years. He’d told himself it was friendship, a product of the family that was the Bureau. It had been a lie. His feelings for her might have started out friendly all those years ago at Quantico, but it hadn’t been all friendship for a long time, and there was nothing familial about the way Nora made him feel.

Not unless you counted the fact that she felt like part of him.

He should have waited to tell her he knew about her brothers. It hadn’t come out right, had seemed like a card he was playing to guilt her into forgiving him. But he didn’t want her to forgive him because she felt ashamed of her brothers, because she felt ashamed of herself for looking the other way.

He wanted her to forgive him because she understood.

It was a lot to ask, especially of someone like Nora who prided herself on honesty, on playing it straight and narrow.

Then there was the added complication of Shields. Braden had told Locke about his second run-in with Cletis and Locke had promised to do more digging on Mike, but Braden had seen the look on Nora’s face when he mentioned Mike, knew how hard it would be to get her to consider that he was a traitor. The Bureau’s organizational structure was designed to create a cohesive unit. It wasn’t unlike the military that way. Both organizations forced you into close quarters, stressful situations, and long hours with the same people day after day. It made it nearly impossible to turn your back on each other.

To betray each other.

Or it was supposed to anyway. Apparently, Mike had no such reservation.

The possibility that Shields had been lying to Nora, playing her, made him angrier than the possibility that Shields was a traitor to the Bureau.

Braden thought about Nora’s brothers. There were three of them according to Locke’s information, all of them managing partners in an umbrella company whose organizational structure was so complex it would take years to unravel, which was undoubtedly the idea. Two of them had law degrees — all the easier to navigate the legalities of their situation — while the third seemed to be a bit of a black sheep, had even been incarcerated shortly after the death of Nora’s sister, Erin.

Braden didn’t hold it against the guy. Apparently he’d given Erin’s boyfriend a beating that had almost killed him. The boyfriend was obviously an addict who needed help, but Braden couldn’t blame Nora’s brother for his instinct to take a pound of flesh from the man who’d gotten his sister hooked on heroin.

The melancholy that had dogged him since his conversation with Locke grew inside him. Nora had returned to the living room right after he’d gotten off the phone. Then he’d had to come clean, tell her everything. He hadn’t had time to process most of what Locke told him.

Now it was all beginning to dawn on him — all the pain in Nora’s eyes, the weight she carried on her slender shoulders, the way she avoided talking about her family in Boston. Before they'd slept together, he’d assumed she wanted to keep things professional. Afterwards, everything had moved so quickly. He assumed they would get to all the personal stuff eventually. It’s not like he was eager to spill his own guts.

She’d been in an impossible situation. He saw that now. She was on the side of the law every day, and every day her brothers were breaking it. Every step she took toward justice must have felt like nothing more than a balancing of the scales her brothers were tipping the other way. Every victim must have been a reminder of her sister, every perp who was cut loose another blow to her sense of fairness.

And then he’d joined the other side. Another betrayal.

He resisted the urge to punch the wall, throw something. He’d fucked it up, positioned himself as her enemy when he’d never met someone who needed an ally more. Even backing off his decision to join up with Locke wouldn’t undo it, and he wasn’t sure that was an option.

He had to live with himself, too.

He was pulling his phone out of his pocket, hoping thirty minutes had passed so he could go after her, bring her back, if only for one night, when the door opened. He hurried to the foyer, looked toward the front of the house.

She stepped inside, shut the door. He was paralyzed for a moment, terrified by the sight of her nearly-blue lips, her soaking hair, wet clothes sticking to her body and making her seem even smaller than she already was.

Then he was moving toward her, pulling her into his body, wrapping his arms around her. Her body shook against him, and he was surprised to feel her arms fold around his waist. He kissed the top of her hair, tasted rain and salt and wind. He saw her as she must have been when she was outside, looking for shelter, weathering the storm alone.

But she wasn’t alone. Not anymore. He would show her.

Lifting her into his arms, he turned toward the stairs. She leaned her head against his shirt as he climbed to the second floor, made his way through the bedroom suite that was his and into the big bathroom, glad for once that it was far too elaborate for an island house.

He set her down, then stepped toward the shower, turned the water on, adjusted the temperature until it was hot enough to warm her without burning her skin. The room began to fill with steam, and he walked back to where she stood, arms at her sides.

He smoothed her hair back from her forehead before sliding the sweater, heavy with water, from her shoulders. It fell to the floor, and he touched the hem of her T-shirt.

“Lift.”

She followed his command, raising her arms so he could peel the wet fabric from her body. Her skin was rippled with gooseflesh, and he knelt at her feet, put his hands on the waistband of her leggings, wondering if she would stop him now. Tell him to leave. Tell him she could undress herself.

Instead she rested a hand on his shoulder to balance herself while he pulled the pants down her hips, then lifted her legs one at a time so he could free them from the leggings. He was kneeling at her feet now, looking up at her body, clad only in a tiny scrap of white lace between her legs and a satin bra.

He’d never been so conflicted looking at a nearly-naked woman.

He wanted her. There was no denying it. Even now, he wanted to scoop her into his arms and lay her in bed, warm her not with a shower but his own body, bury himself inside her until she forgot everything that was between them. Until she remembered that nothing mattered except the fact that they’d finally found each other.

But there was something else, too. A ferocious protectiveness that was entirely new. A primal need to shelter her not only from danger but from pain as well.

He stood, not wanting to take the liberty of stripping her the rest of the way. Not wanting to take advantage.

“Let’s get you in the shower,” he said. “You need to get warm.”

She reached behind her, unhooked her bra, let it fall to the floor. Then she slid her panties from her hips and walked toward the shower, stepping inside the marble enclosure.

He was turning to go when she spoke.

“Braden.” He turned back, saw that she was standing in the door, holding out a hand as the water streamed down her back. “Stay with me.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure?”

She met his eyes. “I’m sure.”

He walked slowly toward the shower as he stripped off his clothes.