Tempting Target. Addison Fox

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Tempting Target - Addison  Fox Mills & Boon Romantic Suspense

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capable of committing it.

      That fact should have bothered her, yet they’d all made her feel safe.

      Secure.

      Max and Tucker were former military, part of the Army Corps of Engineers. She didn’t know all the details, but Cassidy had shared a bit of Tucker’s background and she knew his skills in architectural design were only rivaled by his ability to destroy architectural marvels.

      As for Reed...

      She hadn’t pegged his personality yet and she was usually very good when it came to reading others.

      Usually.

      Lilah shook off the old memories and focused on the matter at hand. She’d made a valiant attempt to read the detective over the past week and while she didn’t have all the answers, she couldn’t deny that he also made her feel safe.

      His devotion to justice certainly went a long way toward cementing that feeling, but it was something more. Something hovering just out of reach. A sense, really, that Reed Graystone was more than the sum of his parts.

      And there she had it. Where her business used to be full of estrogen and wedding talk, it had devolved into discussions centered on danger, decades-long deception and men who gave her moon eyes over her gooey, pork-infused pastries.

      She wasn’t a fanciful woman—she’d lost that skill long ago—but even she wasn’t immune to that juxtaposition.

      “Come on. Back in the main office so we can discuss finally getting back to normal.” She didn’t miss the matched looks of longing across all three men’s faces at the small scattering of appetizers on the warmed plate. “After, of course, I throw another batch in the oven.”

      * * *

      Reed snatched the last puff pastry—more to piss Max Baldwin off than any real hunger—and watched the byplay between the three women who had descended into his life like Dorothy in the middle of Oz.

      While he didn’t quite feel as if he had a house on his head, he was increasingly concerned how his world had exploded in vivid Technicolor.

      Speaking of color...

      Lilah returned, now with a plate of desserts that drew a worshipful expression from Max, and set them down on an oversize coffee table in the main area of what Reed supposed was a bridal salon. A long wall of mirrors and elaborate-looking dressing rooms stood on the far wall and he had positioned himself in a very large velour chair in a shade of red that screamed brothel or a Louis of France. Fourteenth? Fifteenth? Who the hell knew.

      Buchanan’s boxer, Bailey, watched with equally worshipful eyes until Lilah pulled a boiled soup bone from behind her back. Those solemn brown eyes nearly rolled into the back of his square head as she offered it to him.

      If dogs could talk, Reed suspected he’d have heard a prayer of thanksgiving. As it were, the ugly—yet lovable—beast gently took the bone between his teeth and trotted toward a welcome mat near the front door.

      The dog had lain near that door since all of them had assembled earlier, his devotion to his task only pulled away by the arrival of the food. While he didn’t consider himself a fanciful man, Reed could only think of the boxer’s behavior as sentinel duty.

      He keyed in to the reassuring feel of his gun strapped to his ankle, but couldn’t deny the presence of the large dog offered a damn good bit of reassurance, as well.

      He turned back to Lilah, color exploding before his eyes once more as he looked at her. It wasn’t simply the vivid pink streak that stood out in her blond hair, currently brushed behind her ear, but it was her.

      The woman just transmitted pink in everything she was.

      Her warm, rosy cheeks. A wide, generous mouth, with plump cherry-colored lips that had drawn his gaze more times than he could count. And her usual pair of thick pink plastic shoes that seemed her perpetual choice of footwear.

      Even with her nondescript white baker’s coat and black slacks, when Reed looked at her he saw pink. The fact that he found that wash of color so enticing was only the latest surprise in a long line of them over the past few days.

      “We need a plan to draw them out.”

      Reed keyed back in to the discussion, his ears ringing with the mention of a plan. “I went along with you on this once but not again. You need to get those damn stones out of your possession.”

      “We’ve been over this.” Lilah’s voice was quiet, her usual animation gone. “No one, not even the Dallas PD, will be able to protect all of us. And without the stones we don’t have any leverage.”

      “And with them you’re all sitting ducks.” Reed was done pussyfooting around the argument. He understood the choice to hide the jewels. And while he didn’t have to like it, he also knew his jurisdiction to do anything about it was suspect.

      But he’d be damned if he was going to sit there and let them talk about drawing out some criminal who was determined to get ahold of the find. Especially after their faceless enemy had proven how ruthless he was in his pursuit to acquire them.

      The break-in that had started it all had devolved into a body dumped at the back door and an attempted kidnapping on Cassidy. Although they’d determined the responsible party for the body was Robert Barrington, Cassidy’s ex-fiancé, the man’s lack of history as one of Dallas’s criminal masterminds didn’t sit well with Reed.

      Someone else was pulling the strings.

      Reed took a cream puff and considered the rest of the players. Although he’d initially given Buchanan a second look, the man’s devotion to helping the women and his subsequent relationship with Cassidy had changed Reed’s mind.

      Buchanan’s partner, Max Baldwin, was an interesting one. Stoic and stiff, he’d obviously come to understand the implications of taking possession of the stones after their discovery. And, in his remorse, had grown gruff and impatient as they worked through various scenarios.

      Reed also hadn’t missed the byplay between Max and Violet. His career was all about observing people, and the two of them had something going on, even if it was just a massive case of verbal foreplay.

      But none of it changed the fact Violet was mad Max accidently focused the mastermind’s attention onto the women. She was smart and sharp, but her every exchange with the man held decidedly tart edges and a layer of frustration that his impulsive act had put them in this position in the first place.

      Reed rubbed the back of his neck, willing away the tension curled there. This was a case, nothing more. He had no right to be mad or frustrated with the three women who’d had their livelihood—and their lives—interrupted.

      But nothing about this case had been easy or smooth and he was increasingly coming to care about what happened to this crew.

      So here they were. Four days into an endlessly circulating argument that he hadn’t figured a way around.

      The women had jewels that they were rightfully allowed to possess. Said jewels had a bad history and an even worse present. And none of them were willing to give them up.

       Damn it.

      He

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