words were laced with the slightest tinge of something he recognized immediately. Victory.
“We have a deal.”
“Then uncuff me. I’m not going anywhere, and you can stay as long as you need, but I’ve got work to do.”
“What work?”
“I’ve got to get going on five oversized trays of enchiladas, and I’m burning night-light.”
The swift change in topic when his heart still thundered with wild beats in his chest chafed against his sense of equilibrium, but he refused to show any sense of vulnerability or all-around pissiness. “That’s why you’re here?”
“I’ve been a bit behind with helping Violet, Cassidy and Lilah. And it wasn’t until tonight on the phone that I got roped into the enchiladas for tomorrow night. So while you were running around downtown getting shot at, I’ve been doing paperwork and food prep.”
“Are these the same enchiladas you brought the other day to Elegance and Lace?”
“My grandmother’s world-famous recipe.” She shot him a dark stare before pointing toward a row of disposable pans stacked along the counter on the far wall. “Which I need to get to.”
“Baldwin dived into them like he was a man dying of starvation.”
“Max Baldwin is a man with good taste.”
“They looked good.”
And he’d wanted a plate, surprised at himself for the hard ball of need that had lodged in his gut at the savory meal. He’d learned to go without at a young age, and it had served him well as an adult with an unpredictable schedule. He wasn’t particularly enticed by food as a rule, but something about the pan of hot, cheesy enchiladas had made him wish for a few cracks in his armor of self-control.
It was a ridiculous reaction to a plate of food, but even with a solid line of logic and reasoning, he hadn’t quite convinced himself he hadn’t missed out two days ago.
“They are good. Too bad you didn’t take any.”
“I was working. Trying to get a handle on what the seven of you have been up to.”
He’d admitted to himself it was a hell of a story. The Renaissance Stones had lain buried in the concrete floor of an old Dallas warehouse built in the late 1950s and owned by the daughter of one of London’s greatest jewelers. Joseph Brown had been commissioned to create the fake crown jewels during the war and after the bloodshed was over, when he decided to move his young family to America, he’d been asked to take both the false and real gems with him.
The story was fantastical, Knox knew, even for someone who had significant levels of clearance to some of the world’s most revered secrets. Yet here he was. In the city that was known for sheer grit, beautiful women and the death of JFK, priceless gems had been smuggled out of England and lay buried for decades in the floor of a bridal boutique.
“The seven of us weren’t up to anything. Those gems have brought nothing but heartache and danger.”
“They seemed to do quite a job on everyone’s love lives.”
He didn’t consider himself a fanciful man, but the evidence was hard to argue with. The three women who had discovered the jewels each ended up with the three men who came to their aid. If the Renaissance Stones didn’t have such an ugly history, he’d be tempted to think they carried something special.
Which went beyond fanciful, veering straight into superstitious.
But seeing as how those same rubies lay in one of the pockets of his cargo pants, warm against the same thigh that had recently pressed to Gabriella Sanchez as he kissed the ever-loving hell out of her, Knox figured he couldn’t be too careful.
Gabby stilled, the feisty spark in her eyes morphing with a strange light. “I suppose there is that.”
Unwilling to dwell on any of that nonsense a moment longer, he dug the key to the cuffs out of his pocket and went to work on their metal tether. He unhooked her first, then his own, shoving the cuffs back into his pocket. He’d ignored his shoulder up to then, but it burned like the very devil.
“Can I clean up?”
“I’ve got a full first-aid kit in the back bathroom. Help yourself. I also have a stack of T-shirts in the storage room next to the bathroom from some of the vendors who call on me. Help yourself there, as well.”
He lifted his eyes at the idea of a full kit. “You encounter much danger here, Miss Sanchez?”
“It’s an industrial kitchen, and I regularly have students in my cooking and wine classes. Accidents happen.”
That much was likely true, but he still let out a low whistle a few minutes later when he investigated the full set of medical equipment she had stored in her back bathroom. Everything he needed was in the stockpile, including gauze and the required materials to stitch himself up.
Knox inspected the flesh wound in the mirror, the red slash a straight graze across the thick roundness of his shoulder. It still hurt like hell, but it was relatively easy to manage.
The heavy scent of cooking meat had already wafted his way when he finished taping on the last piece of gauze. He’d had worse, and he counted himself lucky Moray had such rotten aim.
Grown soft sitting behind a desk, old man?
Although the thought wasn’t entirely off base, Knox quickly banished it. He’d suspected Moray was up to something, but he had sorely underestimated just how deep the man’s corruption ran. He’d do well not to assume a paunch, and a penchant for issuing orders equaled a lack of skill.
The T-shirts Gabriella had mentioned were stacked neatly on a shelf in a large closet—as ruthlessly organized as the woman’s kitchen—and he snagged one on the top. The name of a vineyard covered the upper-left corner.
He recognized the vineyard—had just had a glass of their wine with room service, as a matter of fact—and marveled again at what she had built. Although he’d been out of it when he first arrived, he hadn’t missed her impressive setup. A large class area in the front of shop, with the industrial kitchen in the back.
He’d done his homework on Dallas before coming here, and the area where Gabby and her friends had built their businesses—the Design District—had caught his attention from the first. Old warehouses, built along the banks of the Trinity River, had lain empty or underused for many years. The design community had brought the area back and turned it from decrepit to a bit dodgy about two decades before, using the large spaces as a place to sell wholesale furniture, fabrics and art. But it was the past five years or so when the area had really come back to life, even more vibrant than its roots.
Storefronts, ad agencies and several restaurants had turned the Design District into a successful business community. The addition of apartments had turned it into a home.
He’d heard from several old friends the same was happening in Manchester and that he should come see for himself, but he’d managed to avoid a trip thus far. He had no desire to go home and wanted even less to see how the near slums he’d grown up in had gentrified through outsiders’ money.
