Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad World by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

Comic book artist Annabelle Simmons has walls. She put them up ten years earlier after she was kidnapped for ransom. They’re big, strong brick walls, forming the literal warehouse that’s been her entire world for years. But after she witnesses a murder in the street outside her home, her walls come under threat. The killer knows her location–and Annabelle’s agoraphobia means she’s a sitting duck. She can’t run, she can’t hide–even into her comic book world–so she hires Benson Security to protect her. Expecting the team to turn her home into a fortress, she’s surprised when they move into the building instead–and into her life. Forcing her walls to expand to accommodate them.

Ex-cop Noah Merchant has walls. He started building them around his heart after he lost his wife to cancer five years earlier. He won’t put himself, or his kids, through that kind of loss ever again. Now his job is to protect a woman who seems to know how to find all the cracks in his own defenses, while he’s busy shoring up hers. Tasked with keeping her safe from attack, the former cop can’t retreat emotionally the way he usually does. Especially not when the enemy is coming. An enemy who desperately wants the quirky artist dead.

Walls.
There to protect us.
There to imprison us.
There to keep the big, bad world at bay…

*** This is a slow burn romantic suspense filled with action and thrills, with a team of quirky and often funny misfits that form a found family.***