Everyone has secrets, and some will kill to keep them buried…

It started with a break-in. And though normally wedding dress designer Cassidy Tate could have handled it, having Tucker Buchanan’s strong arms, quick wits and great dog as backup was reassuring! The former army engineer turned architect was the perfect guy in an emergency—and the fact that he was willing to pick up the pieces was even more appealing.

Because it turned out it wasn’t a simple robbery. Someone was after something in the shop Cassidy and her fellow bridal boutique owners shared. Now Tucker didn’t want to let Cassidy out of his sight. But was that to protect her—or claim her for his own?

Who was this woman?

Drawing back, he stared down at her, dazzled by the fierce urgency that had consumed them, locking them in a moment rife with power and need.

A witchy little smile tinged those bee-stung lips. “You look surprised, Lancelot.”

“Lancelot?”

That smile broadened as she cocked her head. “You were the one with the white-knight complex this morning.”

“I’m not feeling very pure and honorable at the moment.”

“That makes two of us.” Her temptress’s smile shifted, gentled, as she released her hold on his waist. “But it doesn’t change the fact we don’t know each other very well.”

He knew he stared, unable to look away from the vivid, bright woman standing before him. But he also knew she had secrets.

***

Be sure to check out the rest of the books

in the Dangerous in Dallas miniseries—

Dangerous in Dallas:

Danger and desire fill the hot Texas nights…

Dear Reader,

Have you ever heard the history of a place and it got you thinking? After working in Dallas’s Design District I knew I needed to set a book there.

For the longest time the area was home to many warehouses, then a few decades ago the design community overtook the space, resulting in a series of interesting galleries and wholesale shops.

About five years ago, the area went through another renaissance and in that short time has become one of the city’s crown jewels. Trendy and full of residential and business development, the area has remained bohemian enough to be interesting yet trendy enough to attract young entrepreneurs.

And that’s where we find my heroine, Cassidy Tate, wedding dress designer and part-owner of Elegance and Lace with her two best friends. Unbeknownst to them, there is a secret hidden in the floor of their shop. Fortunately, they’ve got some rather attractive neighbors—ex-military men who have an architectural firm in the same neighborhood—who are more than willing to help them figure out what it is.

I love the adventures my imagination takes me on when I’m writing a book, and it took me on a whopper with this one. I hope you’ll join me on the adventure and forgive my flight of fancy—and creative license—when I happened upon an idea about the British crown jewels. I’d like to think the Queen Mum would approve.

Best,

Addison Fox

Silken Threats

Addison Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ADDISON FOX is a Philadelphia girl transplanted to Dallas, Texas. Although her similarities to Grace Kelly stop at sharing the same place of birth, she’s often dreamed of marrying a prince and living along the Mediterranean.

In the meantime, she’s more than happy penning romance novels about two strong-willed and exciting people who deserve their happy-ever-after—after she makes them work so hard for it, of course. When she’s not writing, she can be found spending time with family and friends, reading or enjoying a glass of wine.

Find out more about Addison or contact her at her website—addisonfox.com—or catch up with her on Facebook (addisonfoxauthor) and Twitter (@addisonfox).

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For Girlfriends.

One of life’s truest joys.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Tucker Buchanan heard the scream as he moved into the last quarter mile of his run, his boxer, Bailey, beside him. He’d always shunned earphones, favoring the subtle din of early-morning ambient noise and abstractly solving quadratic equations in his head. The run both soothed and invigorated him and he was rigid in keeping this time to himself each day, even if the incessant solving of formulas only proved his geeky beginnings.

While his business partner would suggest he was still a geek, he knew damn well an early-morning scream of terror definitely did not solve for x, y or z.

Years of training kicked in and with a glance, in unison with Bailey’s, they both ran harder in the direction of the noise. As a second scream echoed through the warm, hazy Dallas dawn his gaze narrowed in on the only shop lights visible in a nearby row of storefronts.

Slim shoulders that still balanced a large tote bag and an oversize purse stood quaking as he closed the last few feet down Dragon Street. “Miss!”

Another scream died on her lips as she turned toward him, her vivid blue eyes wide. He lifted his hands as he called Bailey to a halt, and they both came to a stop a few feet away. “Are you okay?”

She took a few steps back, the fear still visible in her gaze, and he and the mutt remained in place, waiting for her to calm. Bailey dropped to a seated position, his tongue lolling, and that final action seemed to do the trick.

The woman blinked, the fear receding slightly from her eyes. “They... It...” She pointed toward the store. “Someone was in there. I can see the destruction from here.”

Tucker wished he had his gun but figured an eighty-pound dog would provide some measure of menace. “Stay here and I’ll go check it out. Do you want Bailey with you or would you rather I took him?”

“I’m going in there with you.” Her voice had calmed another notch and now that fear faded fully, replaced with sheer, stubborn grit.

“You seem pretty shaken up.”

“I only screamed the second time because I saw movement from the corner of my eye.” Her voice grew stronger, more aware. “Something skittering down the street from the garbage.”

“You’re still shaken. Why don’t you wait here?”

“My store. My rules.”

He shrugged. The likelihood anyone was still in the store was slim—especially with the clear signs of destruction evident in the window—but he pointed toward the phone in her hand to buy a few additional minutes. “Why don’t you call the police first and then we’ll check it out.”

He gave her space to make the call, moving up toward the windows with Bailey by his side. The storefront was still dark but the early-morning light brightened it enough for him to see the destruction that littered the floor in a morass of white material and what looked to be dressmakers’ forms.

Storefront, Tucker knew, wasn’t the most apt description. Dallas’s design district had evolved out of a series of old warehouses along the banks of the Trinity River. Or what had become the Trinity River after the Corps of Engineers had outfitted it with a series of levees in the 1930s.

From the detritus on the floor, he quickly processed that the woman owned what looked to be a wedding store. As his gaze took in a lavish wall of gilt-edged mirrors and lush couches, he figured he’d hit it spot-on. Any number of designers and decorators had chosen to make this corner of Dallas their own, and with the district’s renaissance in the past five years several businesses were thriving.

Hell, it was the reason he and his partner had opened their firm here. Max’s grandfather had given him an old warehouse on the south end of Dragon Street and it had seemed as good a place as any to set up shop. The past eighteen months had proven the decision was a good one and they’d worked themselves to the bone.

If those same eighteen months had been rather light on female companionship, well, starting a business was tough work. He’d heard about the neighboring wedding business—and had seen the pink truck delivering cakes all over Dallas—but hadn’t yet met the women who owned the place.

“They’re on their way. The police and my partners.” Her husky voice broke into his musings and Tucker turned, registering the tightening in his stomach at the sultry tones.

“Do you want to go in?”

“Might as well.” A small smile quirked her lips and he was pleased to see her fear had fully faded, replaced by what looked like grim determination. “So you’ve introduced Bailey but not yourself. I’m Cassidy Tate.”

“Tucker Buchanan.” He held the slim fingers, firm under his palm, and wondered how he’d missed seeing her around the neighborhood. Those blue eyes were set off by pale, creamy skin and long, curling red hair. The shade was so vivid—so full of life—there was no way he’d have passed by the delectable Cassidy Tate and not noticed.

“You and your partner own the architectural firm at the end of Dragon.”

Her quick confirmation surprised him. “We do.”

Her smile broadened, a slight hint of mischief evident. “I have two female partners in my business. It hasn’t escaped our landlady’s notice that some single male and female shop owners are only separated by a few blocks.”

“So that’s why my partner, Max, came back complaining after the last community leaders meeting.”

“My partner Violet came back hot to trot about the same thing.”

Tucker glanced up at the wide windows. “Let’s hope this wasn’t quite what your landlady had in mind to get us introduced to each other.”

Cassidy gestured toward the door, her smile fading as she neared the destruction once more. “I suspect it wasn’t.”

“Come on, then. Where’s your alarm keypad? Or will you need to get across that mess to disarm it?”

“Oh, no.”

If possible, her pale, ethereal features turned whiter as her eyes widened until they threatened to fill up most of her face. “We never got a call. Whoever did this disarmed the system.”

* * *

Cassidy swallowed past the renewed lump of panic that tightened her throat. The initial shock of seeing the showroom floor had faded and all that remained was a sick ball of lead that seemed to grow by the second in the pit of her stomach. She raced toward the small keypad inside the door and saw the bright green lights indicating it was disarmed.

“How?”

Had she forgotten to turn on the alarm last night before leaving? She’d been the last to head home; Violet had been out on a date and Lilah on a delivery in a northern suburb. A tight weight settled on her chest and she struggled to calm and regulate her breathing.

The destruction was even worse than she’d originally thought, yet another swift reminder that whoever had been here had meant business. Several delicate chairs, designed for those waiting to fuss over a bride-to-be, were scattered on their sides, and a wall rack of gowns lay on the floor. Since she’d done a few chin-ups on that bar to confirm it was solidly attached to the wall, it must have been pulled down with considerable force.

Her gaze caught on a large pool of shattered glass—the remains of a small crystal bowl she used to keep pins in for alterations—and that small act of destruction penetrated her panic. With one hand on Tucker’s arm, she reached past him to grab Bailey’s collar. “He’s going to get something in his paws. Stay here and I’ll get something to gate him up.”

Tucker’s easygoing, friendly manner from the street had vanished the moment they walked through the door. “You stay here and tell me what to look for.”

Her hand tingled where she touched his arm, and she snatched it away as if singed, using the momentum to point toward the far end of the showroom. “I’ve got a baby gate in the back storeroom, just inside the door. We use it every so often for guests.”

“Be right back.”

She watched him move, the tight outline of his butt evident just beneath the hem of his gray T-shirt. A large outline of a dragon filled the material over his back, and she watched, fascinated, as it rippled with his movement. The words Dragon Designs spanned the width of his shoulders.

This was the last moment she should be noticing her rangy neighbor with the broad shoulders, but that subtle spark of interest went a long way toward making her feel a bit more settled.

More normal.

It was normal to feel a subtle flutter of attraction for an attractive man. It was not normal to walk into one’s store and find it burgled and destroyed.

Bailey—momentarily forgotten next to her—nudged her knee as he sat down.

Dropping to a crouch, she pulled him close, her hand still wrapped in his collar while she stroked his short, brindled fur with her free hand. “You’re a sweet boy.”

His tongue lolled once more as his solemn brown eyes roamed over her face.

A protector.

The word flitted through her mind, swift and immediate, and she somehow knew Bailey had a lot in common with his owner.

“He likes you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” She glanced up to see Tucker heading her way with the baby gate. “I’ve got a small dressing area over here, and we can put him in one of the rooms.”

“First time you’ve had a dog in your dressing room, I’d wager.”

“Only if you don’t count the handbag dogs several society matrons have carried in here. Oh, or the cheating fiancé I caught in there with a bridesmaid a few months back.”

Tucker’s eyes widened as he leaned over and took Bailey’s collar in hand. “Seriously?”

“There’s something amorous about the smell of tulle, I’m told.”

Confusion stamped itself in the depths of his brown eyes, and she put him out of his misery. “Sorry. Bad wedding joke. But you would be surprised what I’ve caught people doing in here.”

“In a dress shop?”

“Yep. Something about the thought of happy ever after seems to bring out the strangest reactions in people. Sex. Fights. Makeup sex. My partner Lilah has had it worse, I think. She caught a couple in her kitchen having sex with a vat of icing.”

Tucker fastened the baby gate to the fitting-room door and patted a whining Bailey on the head. “Sounds like a break-in is the least of your problems.”

The reminder of what had happened hit her with swift fists, and Cassidy let her gaze roam around the room. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“I’m sorry. Really sorry. That was insensitive. Come on, let’s take a look. The damage in the back doesn’t look nearly so bad and I did a quick look around when I got the gate. No one’s here.”

She let out her first easy breath and followed him toward the back of the store.

“You mentioned your partners but I don’t see their stuff.”

Cassidy kicked a seed pearl with the toe of her shoe, the small bead tinkling as it lightly skimmed the floor. “Violet uses an office in the back next to my studio, and Lilah’s store is technically next door, even though it’s the same building. We keep her kitchen officially separate.”

“Health codes?”

“Yep.”

“Or should I say, health codes so long as no one’s having sex in there.”

“Pretty much.”

He halted in front of a large rack of wedding dresses. “Any idea why someone would target you? Do you keep a lot of cash on hand?”

“No, hardly any.”

“How much are these gowns worth on the black market?”

Cassidy turned his words over in her mind. She carried merchandised stock from several major designers, as well as her own creations. Although she’d been written up in several bridal magazines and had been steadily building her reputation since getting out of college, she hardly considered her store a mecca of high-value goods.

“A fair amount, I suppose, if you added up all my current stock. But it doesn’t make sense. If someone wanted the dresses, then why didn’t they take them? I’ll have to do inventory, but I don’t immediately see any that are obviously missing. And that one over there—” she pointed out one of the well-known designers “—is worth quite a bit and is untouched. Other than a heck of a lot of destruction I don’t see what they were after.”

Another round of anxiety coated her stomach in acid. She had several fittings this week and three bridesmaids were scheduled to pick up their gowns later that day. She raced toward the small area where she kept completed alterations, pleased to see the dresses were all there.

One or two might need pressing, but she didn’t have to brace herself for upset phone calls with stressed-out brides.

“A competitor, then? Someone who would want to see your business suffer.”

Cassidy pulled her attention from the rack of gowns, mentally cataloging the ones she’d press first. She knew his was a valid question—had already run through any number of similar thoughts—but it just didn’t play. Her showroom felt as if it had been searched, even if she couldn’t quite put her finger on why she felt that way. “I can’t explain the instinct, but it seems like a long shot that someone would do this out of competitive spite. I haven’t even spoken to anyone in the business since a local bridal show in June. Two months is a long time to hold a grudge without any escalating behavior.”

“Anyone who would have the code to your alarm?” His voice was quiet—steady—and she appreciated he didn’t shy away from the difficult.

“No one beyond my partners and myself.”

He rubbed a hand over her shoulder, the small gesture as soothing as it was intoxicating. “I’ll call my buddy down. We’ll help you get everything cleaned up after the police go through here.”

“You don’t need to do that. Lilah and Violet can—”

His gaze narrowed, drinking her in, and she swallowed the last of her words.

“We’ll help.” A small smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “If you won’t allow me to get my white knight on, then consider it a matter of giving your landlady a thrill.”

A loud bark pulled her attention from the warmth of his touch, and she saw the flashing lights of the Dallas PD outside her front windows. “I’d better go get that.”

* * *

“I can’t believe the hottie down the lane is the one who came to your rescue,” Lilah Castle, baker extraordinaire and one of Cassidy’s two partners in Elegance and Lace, uttered for the third time from around her large latte.

“It must have been the tall one.” Violet Richardson, partner number two, had her own coffee and a speculative gaze as she stood with a notepad near a rack of ruined gowns.

“Define tall.” Lilah pushed a strand of cotton-candy pink behind her ear—her current color streak of choice amid a sea of blond—before letting out a rather lusty sigh. “Both owners I’ve seen are deliciously taller than average.”

Violet turned from her inspection, her eyes lighting up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. “Let me amend my comment, then. Were you rescued by the long, rangy man with the sigh-worthy derriere and ugly dog?”

“Hey. Bailey was cute.” Although his mushed-in face with a steady line of drool earned the term “only a mother could love,” Cassidy had a soft spot for the boxer. “And I will be forever grateful for the sense of protection emanating from that large body.”

“The dog’s or the man’s?” Lilah’s smile was even faster than her retort.

Cassidy reluctantly grabbed a small broom to start picking up scattered seed pearls. “You’re as bad as Mrs. Beauregard. She’s been going on and on about the men who moved in down the street and how we need to meet them.”

“I can only hope to be as spry as Mrs. B. when I’m eighty. She’s got a good eye and she can spot a douchebag loser at twenty paces.”

“Lilah has a point,” Violet pointed out. “Mrs. B. has impeccable taste and knows her hotties. And I’ve met the other owner, Max Baldwin.”

“Oh. Oh!” Lilah broke in. “Is he the one with the tool belt?”

“I believe he’s a structural engineer.” Violet’s voice had gone prim, a distinct sign, Cassidy knew, that she’d noticed the tool belt.

“I bet Mrs. B. already has visions of matchmaking floating through her sweet little head.” Lilah downed another slug from her ever-present coffee cup.

“I suspect it’s more than matchmaking.” Violet brightened. “Rumor has it she had a wild affair with Max’s grandfather years ago. Maybe she sees it as renewing the sexy for another generation.”

“Where do you get this stuff?” Cassidy knew she should be surprised, but her friend had more information in her head—and significantly better connections—than half the data streams on Facebook.

Violet’s cat-’n’-cream smile matched her equally catlike green eyes. “I’m a pillar of the community and our business representative to the neighborhood. I hear things.”

“If ‘pillar of the community’ is code for ‘wicked gossip’ then I concur.” Lilah righted a fallen mannequin before dropping cross-legged to the floor next to it.

“None of it changes the fact that I’ve not yet met Cassidy’s rescuer, which, if his promise to return is kept, will be remedied soon.”

“I’m not a damn damsel in distress.” Cassidy reached for a small band in her pocket and dragged her hair into a thick ponytail.

“No, but you did have a scare.” Lilah’s normally quick grin had faded. “I’m really glad he was here when you needed him. And I’m baking an entire tray of cupcakes for you to take there as a thank-you gift.”

Cassidy couldn’t hold back the smile. Or the blessed feeling of normalcy that her friends could impart with a few teasing words.

Where would she be without the two of them?

She’d met Lilah Castle and Violet Richardson on their first day of their freshman year of college and they’d been a trio ever since. These women knew her. Got her.

And they always had her back.

“I bet it’s Anastasia Monroe. She’s been jealous of your latest line for the past three months.”

Cassidy couldn’t quite hold back the shocked look at Lilah’s words as she rekeyed in to the conversation. “One, it’s not nice to go around accusing people. And two, I hardly have a line.”

“Lilah sort of has a point. You did have three designs featured in the Brides of Dallas magazine.” Violet held the dressmakers’ dummy in place while Lilah made quick work repairing the base with a small handheld screwdriver.

“Let go, Vi, and let’s see if it’s sturdy.” Lilah sat back on her heels and pressed a hand to the base. With a satisfied nod, she stood after it held firm. “Better than before. Which is more than I can say for this place.”

Cassidy glanced around at Lilah’s words, their truth more than evident. The police had come and gone, leaving behind a couple of business cards and paperwork for her to fill out if there was anything missing. They had perked up when she’d mentioned the alarm and promised to look into the situation with the shop’s security provider, confirming if she’d forgotten to set it or if it had been turned off at some point. Beyond adding it to their investigation and promising a report she could turn into her insurance agent, there was little else the police could do.

All in all, relatively small comfort or help now that she was staring at two thousand square feet of destruction.

Tucker had left after the police departed and Lilah had arrived, but he’d promised to return with coffee and his partner, Max. Her friends’ continuous glances toward the front door weren’t lost on her.

Violet held up a delicate veil, a large rip evident in the center of the lace. The simple veil was one of Cassidy’s favorites and—unbidden—a well of tears filled her eyes before cascading over her cheeks.

“Why would someone do this?” Cassidy knew full well the tears were useless, but suddenly, the knowledge her sanctuary had been violated crashed over her in a wave. On a hard sob, she dropped the contents of her dustpan into a garbage can Violet had dragged to the middle of the room, then sat on one of several couches strategically positioned through the shop.

“Oh, Cass!” Lilah moved first, her thick Crocs thwapping on the floor as she crossed the room. “It’s all right.”

“No...no—” Another hard sob gripped her throat at the comforting arms that wrapped around her. “What if they come back? They know the alarm codes.”

The thought had slithered through her mind, taking root as she’d begun the slow slog of cleaning up the mess left by their intruder.

Or intruders.

The thought of more than one criminal traipsing through the store only brought another hard knot in her throat and another hot wave of tears.

“What if we’d been here? What were they after? And the destruction—” She broke off, struggled to catch her breath. “It’s mean. Vindictive. Evil.”

Lilah and Violet stayed by her side, flanking her both physically and emotionally, as the tears fell. And as the moments ticked past, the adrenaline fading along with her sobs, Cassidy knew another emotion.

Anger.

Raw and white-hot, its steady drumbeat filled her as she slowly dried her tears.

Someone had done this to her work. To the business she shared with her friends. To the neighborhood that had scratched and clawed its way from obscurity into a glittering jewel of commerce within the city she loved and called her home.

The light tinkle of shop bells rang out, dragging their collective attention toward the door. Tucker stepped through first, followed by another man Cassidy assumed was his partner, Max.

She took in their intimidating size, both large and impressively built, and could only feel their arrival somehow punctuated the moment.

“Looks like the cavalry just arrived.”

Violet’s voice was low, but Lilah managed to keep hers even lower, tinged with a breathless edge. “You know that saying. About cowboys. I think I finally understand it.”

“What saying?” Cassidy turned toward Lilah and brushed at her cheeks, dashing off the last few lingering tears.

“I could definitely save a few horses and be more than happy to ride those cowboys.”

Chapter 2

Tucker took note of Cassidy’s red-rimmed eyes and the supportive stance of her friends and knew her adrenaline rush had faded in full. Something primitive tugged at him, tightening his hands around the toolbox and drill he carried.

She could have been hurt. Worse, had she walked into her shop at the wrong moment, while someone was bent on destruction, she could have been killed.

Collateral damage to whatever else had taken place.

The Design District was an up-and-coming neighborhood but it still had some dodgy edges. Although any number of apartments and restaurants had sprung up around those edges in the past few years, slowly reclaiming the area as a trendy spot for work and play, the warehouses themselves could be prime picking for thieves. On their walk from their own offices, he and Max had thrown out various ideas as to who might benefit from robbing a store focused on weddings.

And when they came to the humbling realization that they knew next to nothing about weddings, Tucker knew they’d be a far better resource as a repair crew than as detectives.

That still hadn’t stopped him from placing a gun in the bottom of his toolbox for extra protection.

Tucker gestured his buddy through the door for introductions, and Max settled the large ladder they’d carried between them before turning to the women. He’d met Lilah earlier and had pinned her as the lighthearted one of the group, with her pink streak of hair, baker’s uniform and ready smile. She didn’t disappoint in that respect, that quick smile reappearing immediately along with a promise to provide goodies before she disappeared through the door that led to her half of the shop.

The other woman—Violet, with her long sweep of black hair and serious eyes—finished off the triumvirate, as he was quickly coming to think of them. She already knew Max from the neighborhood business meetings and Tucker finished off the introductions before setting his tools on the floor. “We came to help, so put us to work.”

“As far as we can tell, the main damage seems confined to up front in the showroom area.” Cassidy’s voice still held a slight quaver but he heard a note of steel clearly underneath. With each step and gesture toward destroyed merchandise or littered debris, the warrior goddess who had marched into her store this morning more fully reappeared.

Max followed Violet toward a heavy rack of dresses that needed righting, leaving Tucker a few moments with Cassidy. Her smile was warm and genuine and faded the last vestiges of her crying jag. “I can’t imagine Bailey was too happy to be left behind.”

“Since I left him with a rather large bone I suspect all’s right with his world.”

“Let him know a second one’s headed his way. A small token of my gratitude for the reassurance this morning.”

His gaze drifted toward a small corkscrew curl that had fallen out of her ponytail. The urge to reach out and tug that curl—as much to watch it spring back into place as to assuage his curiosity that her hair was as soft as he suspected—gripped him. With a step back, he let his gaze drift deliberately around the shop. “How long have you been in this space?”

“Almost three years now.”

“And you and your partners go to all those weddings?”

“Violet more than either Lilah or I. She’s a wedding planner so she’s much more involved in the actual event, as well as all the activity that leads up to it. Lilah mostly handles wedding cakes and I’ve got the bride’s dress and trousseau.”

Their business was pretty much what he expected, but it still didn’t explain why they’d been targeted for a robbery. Especially when it appeared as if the would-be thief was more hell-bent on destruction than any actual burglary. “I can’t imagine you make a lot of enemies in the wedding business.”

“You’d be surprised. It’s a competitive market.”

He heard the pride—and the unspoken words underneath the comment. “A lucrative one, as well?”

“It’s not nice to brag.”

“Facts are facts.” He shrugged it off but was curious about her response. With an attentive eye, he pushed past her beauty to focus on her more wholly.

There was an elegance to Cassidy Tate. A subtle grace that suggested good breeding and a veneer of class. Yet here she was, in one of Dallas’s up-and-coming neighborhoods, building a business with her friends.

He’d met more than his fair share of Dallas socialites, and while it wasn’t fair to paint them all with the same brush, his overall impression had been of money, polished beauty and the raw ambition to marry well. Beyond the polished beauty, he saw very little resemblance between that venomous set and the woman standing before him.

“Lilah thinks a competitor did this.” Cassidy fingered a length of lace in her hand. “I just don’t know if I agree.”

“The destruction suggests something personal.”

She shrugged. “Like the bragging, it’s not nice to go around accusing people of bad behavior.”

“And like I said, facts are facts.”

A loud shout from the back of the store had both of them rushing in the direction of Violet and Max. Tucker took off first, Cassidy in his wake, as they threaded their way through the destruction.

“What is it?”

“Look at this.” Max was on his knees in front of a small, squared-out area in the floor.

“A trapdoor?” Cassidy moved from her position behind him, and Tucker didn’t miss the way the casual brush of her arm lasered through him in a hot, heated rush.

“Have you ever seen this, Cass?” Violet stood on the other side of Max, pointing toward what appeared to be a filled-in hole.

Cassidy shook her head, confusion blooming in her eyes like a ripe flower. “No. Besides, I assumed this entire place sat on a slab of cement like all the other warehouses down here.”

Tucker had grown up in New York, so it had come as a surprise to him on one of his earliest architectural jobs that no one in Texas had basements. The region’s soil composition simply wasn’t conducive to a below-ground layer of structural support.

“It is strange.” Violet shifted around the perimeter of the small square of concrete, her heels clicking on the exposed slab of floor where they had pulled away the rug.

Tucker held back a smile at the way Max’s gaze tracked over the woman’s long legs before Cassidy’s voice pulled him back to the situation at hand. “Mrs. B. already had the rug in here when we moved in. Remember?”

Violet tapped a lone high heel. “That’s right. One of her selling points for the lease. Fresh carpeting throughout the office areas.”

Tucker glanced at Max, well aware the man’s thoughts matched his own. “Why’d you think to pull it up?”

“The rug had a tear in it when I came back here to inspect the office,” Max said. “If I hadn’t been looking for anything out of place I’d likely have missed it.”

“We didn’t even see it until I noticed that my desk was out of place.” Violet pointed toward the floor, and Tucker could see the indentation of where the leg of the desk had left an outline in the carpet.

Cassidy dropped to her knees and ran her fingers over the handle built into the concrete. “You think this is what the burglar was really after?”

At her light frown, Tucker dropped to his haunches beside her. “It appears so. Do you have any idea what your landlady might be hiding?”

“No.” Cassidy’s gaze never left the handle, but he saw the moment her puzzlement shifted to something more. “But if this was what the burglar was looking for, that means his first trip was unsuccessful.”

* * *

“Mrs. Beauregard can’t be responsible.” Lilah stood over the sealed entrance, her hands on her hips and a stain of chocolate smeared across her white chef’s coat.

“And she’s certainly not the type to hide things,” Violet added.

“How do you know?” Max piped up from behind her. “She’s your landlady, not your grandmother.”

Lilah and Violet turned at the same time, their eyes flashing. Where Lilah’s gaze was purely defensive, Violet’s held something more. Challenge?

Anxious to diffuse the situation, Cassidy stepped in. “Because she wouldn’t do that to us.”

“And, well—” Lilah broke off. “She’s old.”

Cassidy wasn’t sure age had anything to do with it but had to agree with Lilah that their sweet, twinkle-of-mischief-in-her-eye landlady seemed unlikely to be hiding secrets.

Especially secrets that would lead to danger.

Unwilling to let the jarring impact of the break-in further color her judgment of others—the accusations against Anastasia Monroe already sitting uncomfortably on her conscience—Cassidy held up a hand. “I was already planning on running this month’s rent check over to her during lunch. I’ll ask her about the hole when I go.”

“You can’t go alone.” Violet’s normally calm features were lined with concern. “Especially not about this.”

“Look. I’d already promised her I’d repair that tear in her grandmother’s wedding veil, which I was also planning to bring with me. I’ll use that as my way into the conversation. Besides, someone needs to stay here and wait for the alarm people to come check the system and reprogram a new code.”

“I’ll go with you.”

A small shot of pleasure wove through her at Tucker’s offer before she brushed it off. “I’ll be fine. I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it.”

“You already said earlier the woman has matchmaking on her mind. We’ll drop a few hints and make eyes at each other to keep her distracted.”

The image he painted was far more tempting than she wanted to admit, but Cassidy opted for casual nonchalance. “She didn’t get to eighty and remain wily as a coyote because she was dumb and easily played. We’re making too big a deal out of this.”

A slight grunt from the floor pulled their attention to Max, who tossed a wrench into the box by his side. “Damn thing’s shut tight, cemented into place.”

The challenge spurred Tucker into action and he joined Max on the floor, both of them searching the small area for a way to get underneath it. Cassidy didn’t miss Violet’s speculative gaze or Lilah’s breathless expectation as the men went to work attempting to get to whatever lay beneath the concrete flooring.

When they’d made no headway after ten minutes of prodding, tugging and putting their backs into it, the talk drifting to blowtorches and drills, Cassidy finally stepped in. “I’m not comfortable continuing to do this. It’s obvious whatever this space was created for has been sealed over for a reason. We shouldn’t keep prying. I’ll ask Mrs. B. about it.”

“And I’ll go with you.” Tucker gathered up the various tools he’d pulled out for their attempt at the sealed floor and dropped them into his toolbox, then stood.

“I really can go alone.”

“Humor me. You had a big scare this morning and while I believe you when you say your landlady is a sweet woman who is incapable of doing harm, I’d like to see for myself.”

“Tucker’s got a point,” Lilah piped up. A wicked light filled her dark chocolate gaze, and Cassidy fought the blush that crept up her neck, her cheeks going warm. “Distract Mrs. B. with visions of matchmaking and she’ll answer whatever you want.”

When Tucker only shoved his hands in his pockets, a small, impish smile on his face, Cassidy gave in. She’d learned long ago how to put a smile on her face and go with the flow.

She might as well put the skill to good use.

* * *

Tucker followed Cassidy’s directions as he threaded through downtown traffic toward one of East Dallas’s oldest and most well-heeled neighborhoods. The trapdoor Max and Violet had discovered in the floor continued to fill his thoughts. “Have you had any other problems since you moved into the shop?”

“Nothing. We get the same alerts as the rest of the neighborhood when a crime has happened, but for the most part we’ve been left alone.”

“And no one’s happened by or stopped in to casually ask questions? Maybe ask for directions, then start asking about the building?”

Tucker stopped at a light and glanced over toward her. The vivid blue of her eyes turned thoughtful before she shook her head. “No, nothing, but I will ask Vi and Lilah if someone’s come in.”

He didn’t want to scare her but after spending time inside the shop and seeing the destruction with his own eyes, he couldn’t quite chalk it up to a run-of-the-mill burglary attempt.

“I keep playing it over and over in my mind. I make wedding gowns. Why would someone want to destroy that?”

“Which takes us back to a competitor.”

Cassidy let out a hard sigh. “Which doesn’t play for me. I don’t have enemies.”

Tucker knew it wasn’t that simple, but he opted to hold his tongue as she tried to work through the angles.

“And then I come back to the alarm. No one has the code except Lilah, Violet and me.”

“Could either of them have given it out?”

“Nope. Lilah doesn’t even give it to her delivery teams. If she’s sending a cake out with someone else, she meets them at the store.”

“You’ve been in business awhile. There’s no chance she gave it to someone she trusts? Someone who’s been dependable trip after trip.”

“I just don’t see it. In fact, Lilah’s been the one of us who has been the most insistent about not sharing our alarm codes.”

He filed that one away, as well. The bright, happy baker seemed as if she didn’t have a care in the world, but someone that maniacal about giving an alarm code to what he’d expect were trusted employees seemed a bit off. “Yet someone got the code.”

“Yes.”

Cassidy tapped her fingers on her thigh, the nervous motion spearing through his chest. Tamping down on the surprising—and altogether uncomfortable—sensation, he pointed toward an upcoming light. “This is the turn, right?”

“Yes. Left at the light and then a right at the next one.”

Tucker moved through the light and drove toward one of the most elite neighborhoods in East Dallas. The homes were old—some of the oldest in the city—and the structures had great bones. Even more apparent was the fact that the owners in Mrs. Beauregard’s neighborhood took care of what was theirs.

Although he knew he and Cassidy could keep going round and round like this, there didn’t seem to be any answers to their questions. Recognizing this downward spiral, Tucker latched on to the opportunity to shift their focus. “I haven’t been over here before. These homes are spectacular.”

“Swiss Avenue was one of the city’s first Historic Districts, if not the first.” Her gaze drifted from the passenger window toward a home about half a block away. “Each one’s more beautiful than the next, but that one there on the corner is my favorite.”

He took in the neoclassic architectural style on the pristine white home that rose three stories and had to give her points for style. “It’s gorgeous.”

“A glittering diamond among diamonds, but extraspecial somehow.”

Her murmured words only added to his curiosity, especially combined with his observations of her earlier. Although she gave off the impression of wealth and that subtle society-girl vibe, maybe he was mistaken. “Are you from Dallas?”

“Born and raised.”

“What part of the city?”

“Not too far from here, actually. My mother grew up knowing Mrs. B., and I’ve known her my whole life. She knew about the business we wanted to start and offered us a great deal on the space we lease from her.”

Bingo.

Tucker prided himself on his ability to read a situation, and his impression of elegance and money was spot-on, especially if she had grown up nearby.

“What about you?” Her question pulled him from his musings, and he thought about how to answer what was—at its core—a simple question.

Even if his ability to give a casual answer would be a hard-won victory.

“A bit of a mutt. I moved around as a kid, then settled in upstate New York for high school before going to West Point. And then it was into the military.”

“You and Max were in the armed forces, right?”

He couldn’t hold back the cheeky grin at her clear knowledge of his background. “More details from Mrs. B.?”

“And Violet. That woman’s a walking social network. Not much escapes Vi’s purview.”

“Yes, we were. Part of the Army Corps of Engineers.”

As the words came out, Tucker waited for the inevitable drop in her smile—that subtle gesture that indicated she was disappointed he didn’t say they were with the Navy SEALs or Special Ops. His father still wore that look of disappointment every time his career came up.

“That’s so cool. So you went around blowing up bridges and building dams and stuff.”

He fought off the surprise at the interest sparking in her words. “A few times. Although I suspect the protectors of said bridges weren’t quite so happy with our efforts.”

She laughed at that—a deep, throaty chuckle that speared him down deep—before gesturing to the next driveway. “You’ve got a point there. The next one’s Mrs. B.’s.”

The house was a vision, and his innate appreciation of architectural lines and good old-fashioned home design approved of what he saw. They parked and he came around to help Cassidy out of his SUV.

The light scent of her—something along the lines of sweet lemons—greeted him, and his gaze caught once more on the vivid color of her hair. Shaking off the flight of fancy, he turned to stare up at the three-story home. “Does Mrs. Beauregard live here alone?”

“She does now. The girls and I have tried to convince her to get a live-in companion or consider moving but she claims she’s fine.”

“Max fights the same battle with his grandfather.”

“He used to date Mrs. B., you know.”

“How would I know that?”

A spark of mischief lit her eyes before she concealed them with a pair of sunglasses. “Consider yourself further informed on the Design District gossip chain.”

“So noted.”

Cassidy carried the fragile lace veil she’d mentioned earlier in both hands so he moved on ahead to knock on the door. The wide, thick entrance was offset by a large porch. He took in its simple comforts—an oversize porch swing, several plants and a pair of mud-caked garden shoes neatly lined up near the door.

When no sound echoed from inside, he knocked once more. “She knew you were coming, right?”

“Yes. I talked to her about it yesterday. She was so excited about getting the veil back.” Her voice remained level, and all hints of mischief in her gaze were gone, replaced by a thin sheen of concern.

“Is there a back entrance?”

“Knock once more.”

He did as she asked, then moved to look in the windows. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Would you hold this for me?”

He took the veil, the thin material weightless in his hands as she dug out a cell phone. She tapped the face and in moments he heard the ringing echo through the house. After four rings the phone went to voice mail, and Cassidy redialed once more.

When the ringing stopped a second time, Cassidy shoved the phone back in her purse and reached for the door. “This isn’t like her.”

She knocked before trying the handle, a small moue of surprise springing to her lips when the door slid open.

“Wait.” Tucker handed back the fragile lace before moving through the door. Concern had filled him on his walk through Cassidy’s shop this morning, but a decided sense of menace crept down his spine as he moved through Mrs. B.’s neat home. Foyer. Living room. Kitchen.

Cassidy saw the woman a split second before he did. She cried out before racing for the prone figure lying in front of the oven.

Chapter 3

Cassidy fought back the wave of terror creeping up her throat as she raced toward Mrs. Beauregard. Please let her be okay. Please. Please. The words pounded through her mind with the heavy tread of Thoroughbreds as memories of another day rose up and threatened to swamp her with grief.

“Mrs. B.!” The older woman had a sturdy frame, and Cassidy knelt beside her, running her hands over her shoulders, arms, then face. “Mrs. B.!”

Cassidy probed still-warm flesh, her limbs shaking as she sought evidence of life. Abstractly, she heard Tucker on the phone calling for emergency assistance.

Nothing...nothing...and there.

Thin and faint, she paused until she could calm herself enough to finally recognize a pulse.

“She’s alive.”

Tucker knelt on the other side of Mrs. B. and leaned his head toward her face. “I can feel her breath. It’s faint and slow, but I can hear it, too.”

Her touch was gentle, but Cassidy kept pressing Mrs. B.’s arm and squeezing her hand, all the while murmuring the woman’s name to get her to wake up. Tucker vanished, but returned a few moments later with a thick throw that had lain over the sofa in the living room. “Let’s get her wrapped up.”

She sat back on her heels as he wrapped the blanket around Mrs. Beauregard, then settled a small couch pillow under the woman’s head. The soft sound of sirens echoed in the distance, growing louder by the second.

“Stay here with her, I’ll go meet them.”

She watched him leave the kitchen, her gaze trailing after his large, capable form. They’d met under the strangest circumstances—shocking ones, even—yet she was more than grateful for his presence.

For how right it felt to have him there.

A light moan pulled her from her thoughts, and she squeezed Mrs. B.’s hand as another moan—louder this time—fell from the woman’s lips. “Shh. Shh now.”

Thin, blue-veined lids fluttered open, Mrs. B.’s normally vibrant green eyes filled with pain and confusion. “What happened?” She blinked once. Twice. “Cassidy?”

“It’s me, Mrs. B. Shh, now. You’re all right.”

Mrs. B.’s eyes darted left and right and her breathing hitched as she grew more agitated. “But what happened?”

“It’s okay now. We don’t know what happened, but the ambulance is almost here. We’re going to get you checked out and you’ll be fine.”

She crooned a few nonsense words, pleased when she heard Tucker’s directions echoing from the front of the house.

The paramedics moved in, and she stood up to give them access. A large man, his dark blue T-shirt stretched tight against his chest, took charge immediately as he knelt next to Mrs. Beauregard. Cassidy gave the team room to work and took a spot beside Tucker.

It was several long minutes later that she looked down to realize her hand was firmly clenched in his.

* * *

Tucker and Cassidy followed the paramedics from the house. The ambulance had just pulled away, the team having confirmed the emergency room where they were taking Mrs. Beauregard, when Max pulled up in his sports car. The two-seater was anything but practical, but Lilah and Violet didn’t seem to notice as they tumbled out of the passenger seat.

Questions carried across the yard as the women raced toward Cassidy before they surrounded her in a tight embrace.

“What the hell’s going on?” Max’s gaze stayed steady on the trio of women before giving Tucker his full attention.

“I’ll be damned if I know.”

“Did you get anything from their landlady?”

“She was pretty out of it.” Those first few moments in Mrs. B.’s kitchen rolled through his thoughts, the shock and horror of finding the woman. “I’m just glad she’s alive.”

Max’s face set in stoic lines, concern etching his tanned skin. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking this was a coincidence.”

“I’ve never put much stock in coincidence.”

“I fiddled a bit more with that panel in the floor.”

“And?”

“Nothing. It’s cemented tight and won’t budge.” Max paused a moment before pressing on. “I stopped short of jackhammering it but it smacks of something curious.”

“So why now? Unless they’re damn good actresses, Cassidy and her partners obviously weren’t aware of the hole. Besides, they’ve been there for a few years already. If they were responsible, they could have dug it up at any point and without destroying things. So who suddenly decided to go digging for whatever’s been hidden?”

Snippets of the conversation between the women floated toward them on the rising heat of the day. Their concern for Mrs. Beauregard had faded to speculation on what might have happened. Tucker missed the specifics of their discussion, but he didn’t miss Cassidy’s hard head shake or the shrug of her shoulders in response to her friend’s questions.

He suspected she didn’t believe in coincidences, either.

“They make quite a sight.” Max’s voice was low, hovering in the register he’d perfected when they were on active duty. Only this time there was a layer of intrigue that spoke of anything but the enemy.

“A beautiful trio.”

Tucker wasn’t sure if he realized it, but Max mentioned Violet every time he came back from one of the Design District’s business meetings. He’d never mentioned the other women, but now that he’d met them all, Tucker saw what a team they made.

A competent and beautiful one.

Their conversation faded as the women moved toward them as a unit.

“We’re going to head to the hospital. Would one of you mind taking us?” Cassidy’s brow furrowed. “Mrs. B. doesn’t have any children and we don’t know who else to call. We don’t want her to be alone.”

“I’ll do it.” Tucker ignored the subtle lift of his friend’s eyebrows, satisfying himself that his quick reaction was tied to the knowledge his SUV offered better transportation than Max’s two-seater. “Max can follow us with the keys after the locksmith gets here.”

In minutes they were loaded back in his car, Max’s lone figure left standing on the porch. As he took in his friend’s speculative gaze, Tucker instinctively knew Max’s thoughts matched his own.

Someone thought Mrs. Beauregard was sitting on a secret. What bothered him was what that nameless, faceless threat would do to possess it.

* * *

Charlie McCallum slammed the door to his apartment and stalked toward the bottle of bourbon that sat on the bar divider between his kitchen and living room. Heat radiated off him, the thick, long-sleeved sweatshirt he’d donned for the job a bitch in the Dallas heat.

Debating between pouring his drink and stripping, the heat won out as he dragged the sweatshirt over his head. The thick ski mask bulged from his back pocket and he threw that across the living room after the rest of his clothes.

Damn old woman. That crotchety old biddy was a useless dead end. He hadn’t gotten a single thing out of her and had shaved about ten years off his life in the process.

The moment when he’d let himself in her door and had come face-to-face with her, shock and horror lining her features...

It’d nearly had him running in the other direction.

He grabbed a glass from next to the sink and poured a generous portion of the bourbon with shaking hands. Damn it, he had the stones to do this.

He did.

He slugged back the drink and let the heat of the liquor wash through his system as the list of his sins piled up. When had it gotten so bad?

And why weren’t the pieces where he’d been promised?

His late wife had been vague, the rumor of a cache of jewels something she’d heard as a child. But he’d done his homework. Had hunted up that old appraiser and knew what he was looking for. Jo Beauregard was sitting on a boatload of jewels, and they were all hidden in the floorboards of his former sister-in-law’s shop.

And what were the freaking odds of that?

Charlie poured a second glass, calmer now as he worked through the problem.

Cassidy didn’t know he’d been in her shop. She had no reason to suspect him, and after the number he’d done on her dresses there was no way she’d think it was anything but a standard break-in.

Mrs. B. didn’t know it was him today, either. He’d seen the fear in her eyes and not a single moment of recognition it was him under the wool. He knew he could have gotten the location out of her if she hadn’t panicked and slipped in her kitchen.

Calming, he nodded as the liquor went to work on his system. He was okay. Fine. Better than fine.

He was clean with Cass and he was clean with the old bat. There was absolutely nothing to tie him to either place. Add on the fact that no one in the Tate family had seen him in three years and he was golden.

Of course, since the damn hole he’d finally found was shut solid and he hadn’t gotten a whiff out of Mrs. B., he was going to have to find a way to play buddy-buddy with freaking Saint Cassidy or lure her away from the shop somehow.

On a sigh, he figured he’d better start thinking up a good way to get her and her friends out of the shop. Attempting to contact her needed to be a last resort.

She’d never liked him and was certain not to have lost any sleep over him these past several years.

Especially since he was a living reminder of what she’d lost.

* * *

Cassidy noted the detective’s sharp gaze as the man scribbled another note into a small black folio. Detective Reed Graystone had arrived about an hour after the doctors had wheeled Mrs. B. back for tests and had quickly commandeered a private room from the information station.

Where Cassidy had initially appreciated the privacy and the detective’s ready attention to details, they were going on hour two and the repetitive questions had grown tedious.

“Please take me through this morning’s events, Miss Tate.”

“Detective Graystone. I appreciate the time and your need for answers, but as I told you, the police who arrived at my business this morning showed very little interest in the break-in. They were kind, did their job and left, assuring me there’d be a report as a follow-up.”

“And then you happen upon the owner of your establishment after she was assaulted in her own home. Please don’t tell me you think it’s a coincidence.”

“Hardly.” Cassidy bristled at the implication she was slow on the uptake but kept her smile firmly in place. “What I’m questioning is why we keep going over the same events.”

“Witnesses often remember things they forgot.”

Or detectives can ask different questions to trip those witnesses up, Cassidy thought ruefully.

“That’s fair, Detective. But I’ve spent all day racking my brain to understand why someone would target a bridal boutique and my landlord. Other than Mrs. Beauregard’s ownership of the location, she has nothing to do with my business.”

“So why did you go to Mrs. Beauregard’s?”

“As we discussed, I owed her our rent check as well as a bridal veil I was repairing for her. My partners and I also felt it was proper to tell her about the break-in this morning.”

“And Mr. Buchanan? What’s his relationship with the victim?”

The detective’s gaze grew sharper as he turned his attention toward Tucker. Speculation ran rampant in the man’s enigmatic gray gaze and Cassidy called on every shred of Southern charm and decorum she possessed not to call him out and request the name of a supervisor. “Tucker is one of the owners of another firm in our neighborhood. He found me this morning outside my shop.”

“Found you?”

“I was shaken up. He was out running with his dog and happened upon me.”

Detective Graystone didn’t smile as his gaze landed fully on Tucker. “So the two of you never met before today?”

Before she could reply, Tucker cut in, smooth as spun cotton candy at the state fair. “Our partners have met at neighborhood events but Cassidy and I had never met before today.”

“Yet you were more than willing to take her to her landlady’s?”

“My mama would expect no less. Cassidy had a scare this morning and I offered moral support.”

Cassidy held back the snort—she suspected that was the first time a New Yorker had ever called his mother his “mama”—but she had to give him points for style. The aw-shucks routine had the detective standing down a notch or two, even if he appeared no closer to believing the coincidence.

“What were you doing outside her store at—” Graystone consulted his notepad “—a little after 6:00 a.m.?”

“I was on my morning run. My dog and I stumbled across Cassidy as she stood outside the store.”

“And you accompanied her inside?”

“After Cassidy called the police, yes, we did.”

The detective’s gaze skipped between Tucker and Cassidy before coming to rest on Tucker. “And you weren’t scared?”

“I served in the army. I assessed the situation and felt it was okay to go in.” His smile brightened and edged toward celebrity wattage before he added a cocky grin. “And I have a big dog.”

Detective Graystone bared his teeth in a gesture that bordered on a snarl—as if he were irritated at being thwarted—but his words were deceptive as he spoke. “I think that’s all my questions for now. I plan on following up in the morning. I’d like to talk to your partners, too. Will you be at your shop?”

“Yes.” Cassidy nodded. “We won’t be open for business in order to finish dealing with the damages, but come by anytime. I’ll be there.”

“I’ll see you in the morning then.”

Tucker waited until the door had closed behind the detective before he spoke. “He believes you.”

“Why do you think that?”

“He didn’t want to, but every question he asked, you had an answer for.”

“He sure didn’t act like he believed me. In fact, he sort of resembled the big bad wolf, just before he ate Grandma.”

“Don’t mistake standard interrogation tactics for lack of belief. Every volley the good detective tossed your way you sent right back. Nice job.”

“Thanks. But I think you get the award for bringing Bailey into it. I still owe him that bone.”

Tucker’s easy smile—the one that kept snagging her pulse—fell away so suddenly she blinked at the rapid change. “You didn’t tell him about the alarm.”

The words weren’t quite an accusation, but she heard the note of disapproval all the same. “He didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t mention the hole in the floor, either.”

“It’s Mrs. B.’s building. As far as we know, it’s empty.”

“They were both omissions.”

“It wasn’t relevant to the questions.”

Panic bloomed, chasing away the light, airy butterflies he’d created with his smile.

She’d been questioned before. Remembered how it felt to have someone stare at you as if you were nothing. Or worse.

As if you’d done something to be ashamed of.

She’d lived through that once and she’d be damned if she was going to go under the microscope again.

Tucker leaned forward, his dark eyes urgent. “Can you honestly sit there and tell me you think a hidden, sealed hole in the concrete floor of your office is empty? That you’re not in danger and that whoever was in there once won’t try again?”

With swift efficiency, she bricked up her emotions. This wasn’t the same as before. No matter what they ended up discovering about the break-in and the concrete floor and even Mrs. B.’s attack, this would never be the same.

“It’s not my building. It’s not my business to say anything until we’ve spoken to Mrs. B. Besides, we’ve been there for nearly three years and nothing’s happened.”

“Yet someone came and ruined your things—your business—to make a point.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“By keeping the cops in the dark?” His big shoulders hunched, and he stood to pace. She watched the long, trim lines of his body and couldn’t help wondering what had suddenly spooked him.

“You’ve been my partner all day and suddenly you’re playing judge and jury. What gives?”

“This isn’t a joke. Someone with access to your building wants something inside of it. I’d think you’d take it a bit more seriously.”

“I am taking it seriously.” The shift from easygoing flirt to fierce protector caught her more off guard than she wanted to admit, and Cassidy heard the quaver in her voice. Swallowing hard, she firmed up her tone. “I just spent two hours with a cop taking it seriously.”

“Then prove it.”

“I don’t need to prove anything and I don’t appreciate round two of an afternoon interrogation. While I appreciate the partnership, this isn’t your problem. Violet, Lilah and I are more than capable of handling it.”

“Handling it?”

She knew sparks arced between them—could practically see them float in the air—but Cassidy held her ground. It was embarrassing enough to be treated like a criminal by the detective. She’d be damned if she was going to take it from the one person who’d been with her all day.

Before she could say another word, those same sparks thickened, then exploded in a rush.

Tucker had his hands on her shoulders and hauled her to her feet. Somewhere inside she knew she should protest that she’d be fine. That she could take care of herself. That she could deal with whatever the hell was going on.

But as those large, capable hands pulled her close, she had to admit that Tucker Buchanan might be a bit more than she could handle.

Chapter 4

Tucker had no idea why her omission to the detective had him so riled, but now that it had, he couldn’t quite stop the raging need to touch her and assure himself she was whole.

Unspoiled.

He’d seen the destruction this morning in her shop. And he’d seen her corresponding fear, sharp and pointed in that bright blue gaze. Someone had violated her space and ruined her work. And then they’d found Mrs. Beauregard.

What had seemed like a run-of-the-mill break-in at her shop had morphed into something far more serious. A threat hovered around Cassidy and, by extension, her partners. For reasons he couldn’t name or begin to understand, that nameless, faceless danger had every instinct he possessed on high alert.

His gaze roamed over her face once more. Although that wild-eyed fear from earlier was nowhere in evidence, she had gone still, her gaze too bright as she anticipated his reaction.

Tucker gave himself that moment to simply look his fill. Her skin was so pale, a soft cream that spoke of elegance and refinement. His fingers gentle, he ran the pad of his thumb over the fine bones of her cheek. “You need to take this more seriously.”

“I am taking it seriously, but I want to give Mrs. B. a chance to explain what we found.” It was as though wisps of smoke curled around the edges of her voice, the register low and husky. “I owe her that much.”

Fascinated by the softness of her cheek, he skimmed his thumb toward her jawline, tracing the firm length. “Don’t you think she owes you the truth of why it’s there in the first place?”

The moment hovered between them, their bodies close even as their battle of wills kept them at an emotional distance.

“She’s an old woman. I hardly think she’s hiding secrets.”

“Everyone has secrets, Cassidy.” He shifted closer before bending his head to press his lips along the same path his thumb had traveled. The light sigh that floated between them encouraged him, and he ran his lips over her slightly open ones, capturing the end of that small exhalation with his mouth.

Her hesitance vanished, and suddenly she was as in the moment as he was as they explored each other. Her hands settled on his hips before tangling in the material of his shirt where it bunched at his waist, and she moved closer in his arms.

Their bodies flush, Tucker felt that age-old rush of satisfaction as she came to him.

And in mere moments, he had to admit to himself that he was lost. His role as frustrated he-man—not his usual style at all—faded as he went from actively aggressive to humbly enthralled. The slim woman in his arms had turned his attraction on its ear and now stood toe-to-toe with him, giving as good as she got.

Their mouths met and clashed with a fierce urgency that gripped them both, drove them both.

Destroyed them both.

Her soft lips were lush under his, begging him to drink his fill. But when she turned on him, taking his bottom lip between hers, Tucker knew a moment of such deep-seated weakness his knees nearly buckled.

Who was this woman?

Drawing back, he stared at her, dazzled by the fierce urgency that had consumed them, locking them in a moment rife with power and need.

A witchy little smile tinged those bee-stung lips. “You look surprised, Lancelot.”

“Lancelot?”

That smile broadened as she cocked her head. “You were the one with the white-knight complex this morning.”

“I’m not feeling very pure and honorable at the moment.”

“That makes two of us.” Her temptress’s smile shifted, gentled, as she released her hold on his waist. “But it doesn’t change the fact we don’t know each other very well.”

He knew he was staring, unable to look away from the vivid, bright woman standing before him. But he also knew she had secrets.

And some level of fear that ran deeper than even she likely understood.

Willing his raging blood to cool, Tucker took a step back of his own, seeking some sort of equilibrium in that extra degree of space.

“I can at least buy you dinner. You up for burgers?”

“A man after my own heart.”

A funny little tingle settled low in his gut at the mention of her heart, but he ignored it. Instead, he grabbed her hand—unable to not touch her after what they’d shared—and pulled her toward the door. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Cassidy snagged a crisp French fry, loaded with cheese, bacon and ranch dressing, and avoided a low moan as the combination passed her lips.

“These are good.” Tucker shoved about three fries to her one in his mouth, his head nodding as he chewed. “Really good.”

“Angry Dog makes one of the best burgers in town. And their cheese fries are to die for. I have to promise cleansings and salads for a week to even get Vi to consider this place.”

A lone eyebrow raised across the scarred wooden table. “Do I dare ask what’s involved in a cleansing?”

“Not if you want to enjoy that burger that’s about to be set in front of you.” Cassidy glanced at their waitress, who hovered over them with two plates loaded with juicy burgers and even more of those delicious golden French fries. Their waitress settled the plates, and Cassidy didn’t miss the appreciative glance the young woman gave Tucker.

Nor did she miss Tucker’s abstract smile when he nodded for another iced tea.

Cassidy waited a beat until the woman was out of earshot before she spoke. “I think you wounded her.”

“I’m sorry?” He glanced up from the ketchup bottle, confusion stamped clearly in his dark eyes.

“Our waitress. She was getting her flirt on and you seemed oblivious.”

“She wasn’t flirting. She asked me if I wanted a refill on my drink.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“She wasn’t flirting, and even if she was, I’m here with you. Why would I make eyes at her?”

Cassidy nearly fumbled her bun as she layered on her own spread of ketchup. Who was this man?

She’d been single longer than she wanted to admit, but even in her periods of active dating she’d struggled with men who seemed to have a wandering eye, always looking for something better to come along. Hell, even Robert had always acted like there was something better waiting around the corner.

And then he’d gone and proven it.

When she said nothing, Tucker pressed his point. “You look confused at my statement.”

“I’m not confused. Surprised, maybe, is a better word.”

“I’m full of them.” A cocky grin quirked his lips along with something else she couldn’t quite name.

Courtesy?

Humor?

Or maybe it was just another facet of that air of chivalry that seemed to hover around him like a cloak.

Either way, she couldn’t hide the fact that she found it appealing. Found him appealing.

“So tell me about your business.” Tucker split his attention between his juicy burger and her, and again Cassidy couldn’t quite fight the sense that he was unique. “Violet made a few comments about the business while we were cleaning up this morning but I didn’t get a full sense of your place.”

“We started Elegance and Lace several years ago, snagging jobs where we could. Violet’s always been an event planner and was working for a woman who can only be kindly referred to as a bitch.”

“Ow.”

“Exactly.” Cassidy nodded, remembering more than one round of after-work martinis that involved as many tears as anger-fueled words. “And Lilah did some time in a restaurant before going to work for a bakery and then doing her own stuff on the side where she could.”

“And you?”

“I’ve always designed but never thought I could make a career of it.”

“Why not?” Half his burger had vanished and she hadn’t even started on her own. Her uneaten dinner gave her a chance to hesitate for a moment as she figured out how best to answer his probing question.

Even as she worked through what she wanted to say, long-ago fights sprang up as fresh memories.

You’re meant to wear a wedding dress, not design them for spoiled socialites.

If you want a career so damn bad, the least you could do is invest in something worth your time. Law or banking instead of fripperies and lace.

My sister, down on her knees before Dallas’s brides, hemming their skirts.

“Cassidy?” The dim lighting inside the pub had turned Tucker’s eyes such a dark brown they were almost black. The color was rich and inviting, as were the small crinkles that bracketed his mouth in a smile. “You in there?”

“Yes. Sorry.” She fiddled with a fry before taking a deep breath. “Designing dresses was seen as a frivolous thing to do. In my family’s estimation.”

“Frivolous?”

“In the extreme. While waiting to marry well a woman should make herself useful by doing some staid, corporate thing like working at a bank. Then you’ll be sure to make enough money to squander it properly on a variety of items no one really needs.”

The words were out before she could pull them back. And where the hell had they come from?

She did okay for herself and had the benefit of pursuing something she loved at the same time. And she’d stopped worrying long ago about other people’s choices, even if they were her family.

So she had no small measure of surprise when Tucker bypassed the money comment completely.

“You would look cute in a button-down blouse and pencil skirt.” His gaze roamed over her face, and she felt the heat rising at the careful perusal. “But it doesn’t suit you.”

Surprise at his quick assessment banished the storm clouds that thoughts of her family always brought. “Most don’t agree.”

“Then they don’t see what I do.”

The urge to ask him what he meant rose up on the swiftest of feet, but before she could ask what he saw, he pressed on.

“So how’d you break free?”

“I designed on the side and got lucky.”

“Nothing wrong with a little luck. Especially when you’ve done all the prep work in advance.”

Flashes of silk and seed pearls drifted through her thoughts as she popped another fry in her mouth. Cassidy still wasn’t sure Violet hadn’t had a hand in things, despite her friend’s denials to this day, but Tucker was right about one thing.

She had been prepared.

“A girl I went to school with had to stop by my apartment to pick something up. My father had made a donation to a Junior League function and I had an envelope for her.”

“What exactly is Junior League? And do you graduate to senior varsity or something?”

“I keep forgetting you’re not from the South.”

“No, ma’am.” His grin was broad and she saw the mischief that had replaced concern in his gaze. “Which is why I walk around in a perpetual state of confusion every time I attempt polite conversation with a client.”

“Junior League is a charity organization, not a sporting event.”

“And here I pictured sweet, refined young women mud wrestling.”

She laughed at that, images of the women she’d grown up with rolling around in mud and ruining their perfectly manicured hair and nails.

“We only sling mud of the verbal kind, and even then, it’s rare. Most of the women I know are dedicated to the cause.”

“Be that as it may, I still don’t understand how that ties to a wedding dress.”

“It was a silly coincidence, nothing more. But Suzy had come for a check my father had made out for a table at an upcoming function and I said I’d get it to her. I had a dress I was making laid out on the dining-room table. I hadn’t even expected her to come in, but we’d started talking and she was excited about having gotten engaged the weekend before.”

“Decibel levels too high to keep the conversation in the hallway?”

His smile was broad, and she couldn’t quite fault him for the tease. In fact, she realized, back to her earlier thought, most men wouldn’t have even given the story another moment of their time, yet he seemed genuinely interested.

“Pretty much. So she comes in and sees the dress I was making and that was it. She demanded I design her wedding dress for her on the spot.”

“Off to the races, then.”

“Off to the races. It didn’t hurt that her spring wedding was one of the most covered in Dallas. Nor did it hurt that Violet was her wedding planner. It gave me a bit of street cred to get some interest in dresses from other brides, and gave us the experience to pitch for a small-business loan.”

“Funny that your father making a donation took you on a path away from a ‘proper’ life, especially if he didn’t support what you were doing.”

Tucker’s words were casual, his gaze focused on his last few fries, before he glanced back up at her. But way down deep in those dark depths, she saw just how serious he was.

They’d spent all day in each other’s company—a day full of any number of intense experiences, from danger to attraction—yet this moment seemed the most significant somehow. Because in that moment she knew, without a doubt, that Tucker Buchanan wasn’t casual. Or simple. Nor did he miss much.

And he fully understood the irony of seeing her success come out of the simple action of an unsupportive parent.

“He’s gotten over it.”

“Parents usually do. The bigger question is, have you?”

* * *

Josephine Beauregard came awake to dim lighting and the dull scent of antiseptic. She became aware of a steady beeping somewhere behind her head and tried to figure out where she was. Recognition hovered just out of her reach—like she should know where she was but was too happy floating in a sea of blissful ignorance.

Should she open her eyes? Wait...they were already open.

With a series of rapid blinks she tried to pull the room into focus but her pupils hadn’t adjusted fully to the darkened room.

She wanted to panic. Should she panic? But the blanket around her was warm and she felt an odd sense of safety surrounding her.

Blanket?

The question hit her, tunneling through her disorientation and the fierce edges of a headache she was slowly coming to realize she had.

Why did she have a blanket? It was Dallas in summertime and she hadn’t had a blanket wrapped around her since the freak ice storm they’d battled the previous March.

So why was she wrapped up?

Underneath the antiseptic she became aware of something else. A scent she remembered from so long ago. Strong. Masculine. And mind-numbingly alluring.

Turning her head, she took in a dim shape in the corner of her room. “Max?”

Now that she was aware of it, pain throbbed in her skull with all the finesse of a jackhammer. Despite the searing pain, she couldn’t hide the rush of awareness and excitement at the figure she sensed in the dark. “Is that you?”

“Been wondering when you’d wake up.”

“Why are you here?” Why was he here? He never came, and she’d stopped expecting him to long ago.

“That’s the question I’ve been waiting to ask you.” He moved slowly—wasn’t that the way of it now?—before coming to stand beside her.

Despite the age that tinged his features, she saw the young man she’d loved so well underneath. The firm jaw that had added folds of age still begged for her touch and those bright blue eyes saw as much now as they had fifty years ago.

“What happened to you, Jo?”

“I don’t know.” Confusion warred with the sweet memories of Max and again, the pain rose up in her head with sharp claws. Through the haze of hurt, a dim memory registered. “My house... Someone broke into my house.”

She pulled at the blanket, the warm cocoon turning suffocating. “In my house. There was someone in my house. Someone hurt me.”

He moved closer, his large hand on her shoulder to steady her. “Shh. Don’t move like that. Take it easy.”

A wave of panic stuck in her throat, choking her, as hot tears pricked the backs of her eyes.

Were they tears for the sudden realization she’d survived an attack, or were they for the fact that he was finally touching her? On a hard exhale, she admitted to herself she had no idea.

But it was probably both.

“Who would do that?”

“We don’t know who.”

“We?” The word struck her as strange since she’d been the one hurt.

“My grandson and his friend are helping out your girls. Seems like trouble’s found its way to their door.”

Max leaned closer, his gaze firm as those blue eyes lit with understanding. She’d seen those same eyes on his grandson—his namesake—and it never failed to choke her up.

Never failed to remind her of things best left buried.

“What aren’t you saying, Max?”

“We don’t know who attacked you, Jo. But I think you and I both know why.”

* * *

Cassidy closed her front door behind Tucker, touched he’d walked her to her door. She’d purchased her small bungalow in East Dallas two years before, her home quickly becoming her haven, and it was odd to see his large frame in her doorway.

Odd, yet lovely, she thought now as she watched his long-limbed strides through the glass pane that edged her front door frame.

Maintaining his streak, he’d been the chivalrous gentleman, escorting her home and doing a quick check of her house to ensure the problems they’d battled all day hadn’t found their way to her door.

She’d known the moment they walked in no one had been inside the house, but that knowledge hadn’t negated how nice it felt to be looked after. Nor had it kept her from allowing him to roam through her kitchen and living room, bedroom and studio, confirming all was well.

If he’d noticed the thick duvet and red silk accent pillows that covered her bed she didn’t know. But a girl could hope the sight had been what put the slight hitch in his stride as he walked from her home.

Yep. Tucker Buchanan had gentleman written all over him.

And why was that so damn appealing?

He pulled away from the curb, and she turned to focus on her home. The warm, almond-colored walls set off by bright, vivid prints of various sketches filled her with pride. This was her home. She’d earned it through hard work and the determination to make something of herself.

To make something of her life.

And with a soft sigh, she acknowledged she’d better get her mind off her attractive escort and back to work. She might have started the day early, but the unexpected twists ensured she still had a fair amount to get done.

With a cup of hot tea in hand ten minutes later, she made her way into her studio and assessed the dressmaker’s dummy that stood half-clothed with her latest design.

Although the bride wasn’t getting married for a year, the young woman was in the mood to experiment, and Cassidy had promised a preview of some mocked-up designs by the end of the following week.

The opportunity was a new one and she enjoyed the challenge of designing something with the wearer in mind. Even so, she was still struggling with the sweep of silk she’d planned at the waist.

Gaze speculative, Cassidy kept her distance from the dummy, considering the angles as she stood across the room. The cut of the neckline negated an empire waistline but the gathers she’d planned didn’t quite fit, either.

The dress looked like every other dress and the carefree artist she was designing it for was anything but traditional.

Unlike Tucker Buchanan.

She settled her now-empty mug on the edge of her desk and considered her neighbor. The man had traditional and old-fashioned stamped across every inch of him. He was smart, strong and capable, with that damnable streak of chivalry she’d have never known she even liked until he found her standing in the middle of Dragon Street.

“He even has a dog,” she muttered to herself as she padded back to the kitchen to make a second mug of tea. “A freaking dog. With a smooshed-in face and a big loyal gaze.”

Other than Vi and Lilah, commitment and lasting bonds were not her strong suit. And a man with a dog had commitment painted across every inch of him.

There was no way she was getting herself mixed up with a modern-day version of the Lancelot she’d teased him about. Nor was she a tease, so their hot kiss would have to be the end of things.

When she saw him next—and based on what they’d discovered she knew more time with each other was inevitable—she’d keep her distance.

She’d be polite.

Friendly.

Warm, without being a tease.

It was only right. They were neighbors, after all, running up-and-coming businesses.

The whistling teakettle added a smooth punctuation to her thoughts, confirming the finality of her decision. She had no real interest in Tucker Buchanan. They’d shared nothing more than a luscious lip lock between two healthy adults, capping off a tense and action-filled day.

It was understandable. And really, it could happen to anyone.

She’d nearly convinced herself as she carried her steaming mug back toward her office, once again determined to figure out the lines of the gown.

But when images of Bailey—curled at her feet while she sat with a sketch pad working on dress designs—floated through her mind, Cassidy had to admit the truth.

Who, exactly, was she trying to convince?

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