Loe raamatut: «Silken Threats»

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.”