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 always knew how to figure his way around a problem. It was the Reed Graystone way of life. He was good at figuring his way around problems.
Cassidy’s phone ringing punctuated the tense silence and he saw the quick flash in her eyes that suggested she’d like to ignore it, before a reluctant sigh had her off the couch and headed for the hallway. Bailey glanced up at her with an adoring expression as she moved toward the back of the shop—another sign of just how in this together the women of Elegance and Lace and the men of Dragon Designs were.
Even the dog had adopted the women as his own.
Reed’s gaze drifted to Lilah and he fought the swell of attraction that always punctuated his interactions with her.
How had it come to this?
His thoughts had been consumed by a woman who lived and breathed pink and who perpetually smelled like vanilla frosting. And even if the vanilla was a side effect of her job as baker extraordinaire, the pink was just a flat-out choice.
He liked long, lithe women who dressed in all black and avoided commitment like the plague.
Instead, he’d found himself increasingly intrigued with a woman who looked like a cross between a guardian angel and a pixie with a Pepto-Bismol addiction.
Cassidy waved from the hallway, the dark expression on her face a match for the somber words she murmured over and over. “When? How? Who would do that?”
Tucker crossed to her, his arms around her as she continued to murmur in shocked surprise.
“What is it?” Violet spoke first as soon as Cassidy had hung up the phone.
“Robert was found dead. Out in an empty field near Fair Park.”
Robert, the ex-fiancé who’d tried to kidnap her.
“Murdered, more like.” The words were out before Reed could pull them back or soften the implication, and he was already reaching for his phone to contact the investigating officer.
Lilah spoke first, her vivid features going ashen with the question. “But wasn’t he in jail?”
“Which means whoever’s been behind all this got to him or managed to post bail for him.” Reed dropped his phone back into his pocket. The call could wait.
“Where the hell did he find a judge who would let him post bail?” Tucker’s anger exploded like a gunshot. “The bastard attempted premeditated murder.”
“That’s what I need to find out.”
* * *
Lilah busied herself in her kitchen, the long, sleek countertops shining like a homing beacon as she set out trays of ingredients. Cupcakes today, for a wedding shower in Highland Park, followed by a delivery of a luscious Italian crème cake for a ninetieth-birthday party. The grandmother of a happy bride they’d taken care of the previous spring.
It was a light day, relatively speaking, and Lilah thought she might work on a few designs for an upcoming holiday wedding. She’d tried several poinsettia designs in fondant and hadn’t yet settled on what she wanted.
Anything to keep her mind off the matter at hand.
Attempted kidnapping. Stolen jewels. Murder.
A hard shiver gripped her shoulders as she thought