Tempting Target

by Addison Fox

  The man had nothing to gain by accusing an innocent. On the contrary, he had a chance to name his killer and seek some sort of justice, even if he wouldn’t ultimately be the beneficiary.

  His mother had protested being hidden away, of course. But in the end, he’d wheedled and cajoled, using the still-fragile state of the women’s landlady, Mrs. Beauregard, and her need for attention and help. And then sent up a silent prayer of thanks for his mother’s caring nature.

  She still wanted to call Tripp—still might, he knew—but he’d also promised repeatedly he’d alert her to any news or updates.

  And then he’d sent her on her way. Heartbroken and scared underneath the tearful bravado.

  “Reed?”

  Lilah’s voice was tentative, her gaze wary as she laid a hand on his arm. “Come sit down. Let’s talk through this.”

  “I’m good from here.” He shrugged her off, then watched wariness turn to desolation.

  “Of course.”

  He was being an ass and knew it, but he still hadn’t reconciled her unwillingness to call him for help with the night they’d spent together. He had feelings for her. Had known it from the very start that there was something about her. Something special and warm and meant for only him.

  He’d believed she felt the same.

  And still, she’d avoided him at the moment she needed him the most. That wasn’t a relationship. And it sure as hell wasn’t love.

  He turned his gaze toward the window as that little gem settled in his thoughts.

  Love?

  Was he in love with Lilah?

  He loved his mother, of course. And up until that afternoon he’d held a genuine affection for his stepfather. But the love of a man for a woman? How was it possible he’d avoided entanglements his entire adult life, only to get caught in a trap the size of Texas?

  Before he could further consider the irony his life had become, Violet took control of the room. “We need to figure out what to do with the other two rubies. Cassidy and I have them in separate safe-deposit boxes, but the events of the last week have proven someone won’t rest until they have their hands on all the jewels.”

  “It’s not someone. It’s Tripp Lange.” Reed turned from the window and faced the people he’d come to like and respect. “Tripp Lange. Dallas businessman. Purported family man. He’s the one who won’t stop until he has the jewels.”

  Violet nodded. “Tripp Lange.”

  “He also won’t rest until he destroys you.” Reed let his gaze travel around the room, to Max, then Cassidy, where she sat with Tucker’s arm wrapped around her, then on to Violet, as he allowed that message to settle.

  Finally he let his gaze linger on Lilah. She’d technically given up her ruby, but he had a sense that wouldn’t matter. She was a pawn now, and if she could be used to manipulate her friends into giving up their jewels, Tripp would do it.

  He might not know the depths of his stepfather’s depravity, but he’d spent his formative years with the man. He’d then spent the next decade and a half watching Tripp continue building his business with ruthless efficiency.

  Tripp had a soft spot for his mother and a sense of familial commitment, but none of it changed the fact he was a barracuda.

  Reed just never realized that same sense of purpose and urgency and desire to win extended to illegal activities.

  “You don’t think your connection to him will change things?” Lilah pressed the question and he smiled at her sweet naïveté.

  No matter what had happened, he wanted to believe she could keep that. Could still find it in her heart to give someone who most certainly didn’t deserve it the benefit of the doubt.

  “You can’t think this is coincidence?”

  “No, I don’t.” Lilah shook her head. “But what if it is? Don’t we need to play that scenario out?”

  “Three people are dead, each violently murdered when they stopped serving a purpose. I hardly think there’s any other scenario to play out.”

  “Yet here you are. With good instincts you presumably got from your mother, also a person with good instincts. They’ve been married how long? Nearly twenty years?”

  “Twenty next fall.”

  “So how does a person spend two decades with another and not know they’re that vicious? A person doesn’t just hide that. There’s no way you can live that disciplined a life and not mess up.”

  Whether it was the question—one he’d asked himself all afternoon, after attempting to answer it for his mother over and over—or the sheer frustration at circumstances, he didn’t know.

  But before he could stop them, his words shot out with all the quiet lethal grace of bullets.

  “You tell me, Lilah. You’re the one who managed to marry a monster. How’d you see past it?”

  * * *

  Lilah wrapped her arms around her midsection, a bid for comfort and self-protection, before she dropped them, then stood to her full height.

  Cassidy and Violet had begun talking angrily at once, but she needed to do this alone.

  She needed to stand on her own.

  Her gaze on Cassidy, then Violet, she said, “Would you mind giving us a moment?”

  Everyone nodded or murmured their agreement, filing out of the living room and disappearing into Violet’s study. Lilah knew their interest was high—and knew by the gentle pats on her arms and shoulders that her warriors wouldn’t hesitate to come rushing back if she called them—but she stood firm.

  And once she knew they were out of earshot—relatively—she turned her attention fully on Reed.

  “That was uncalled for.”

  “After all that’s happened, I’d say it was an appropriate reminder.”

  “I took you for stubborn and frustrating, but cruel never made the cut.”

  She saw the comment strike home—saw the acknowledgment in his stormy gaze—before he nodded. “I guess I never took you for someone who couldn’t ask for help.”

  Lilah knew she’d misstepped earlier. She’d crawled into her shell and allowed the old fears—and her old life—to overpower her. But she knew damn well she didn’t deserve to have that old life thrown in her face.

  “I made a mistake, Reed. I was caught up in the moment and wasn’t thinking.”

  “You didn’t call me!”

  The words spilled from his lips, layered in a sort of fierce anguish that clawed at her heart.

  “I couldn’t call you. After he invaded the kitchen and stole the ruby, I couldn’t get off the floor. I kept trying to. I told myself over and over I needed to call you and tell you, but I couldn’t move.”

  The stoic statue that had hovered at the windows all evening crossed the room in long strides. His hands were on her face, his fingers caressing her cheek that still stung from Steven’s slap. “He put a mark on you. Hurt you. And still you didn’t call me.”

  Those magnificent eyes that could flash from a liquid silver to a dark, storm-cloud gray were clear, shining with a layer of tears.

  “I’m sorry. I can only tell you that at that moment I couldn’t move. I simply couldn’t come back to myself. I was so happy, dancing around the kitchen thinking about you. And then he was there and he wasn’t you. Was nothing like you. And I froze.”

  His thumb brushed her cheek, the press of his finger a gentle caress over her bruise.

  “It was like a slap, even before he laid a hand on me. A reminder that no matter how far I ran or how happy I tried to be, I’d never be free of him. And now—”

  A hard sob exploded from her throat, one she wasn’t even aware of holding.

  “What is it?”

  “I wished him dead. So many times over so many years. And now he is.”

  Tears she’d never have believed she had for Steven DeWinter rose up and choked h
er throat before spilling over in a hot wash down her cheeks. “What does that make me?”

  “A woman who wanted her captor out of her life where he could never hurt her again.”

  “No.” She shook her head, pulling away from the gentle understanding that had replaced his anger. Understanding she didn’t deserve. “I’m in the wrong. I wished for things that are unnatural. What he did to me was unnatural but wanting the death of another is no better.”

  “Lilah.” He crooned her name as he pulled her close. She knew she should protest—should resist as some form of penance—but the feel of his arms was so wonderful as they banded around her. “Damn, but we’re a pair.”

  “I’m messed up. You’re rather dishy.”

  A hard laugh rumbled in his chest as he hugged her tighter. “I’ll file that one away.”

  The hot tears continued to fall, staining his shirt with an ever-growing pool of wetness, and still he held her. Her rock. Her salvation.

  And maybe—if she was truly lucky—her love.

  * * *

  Diana Graystone Lange lay in the small, darkened bedroom, staring at the ceiling and reflecting on her life. The Baldwin house wasn’t huge, but it was state-of-the-art and Max Baldwin, grandfather to one of her son’s friends, had already loaned her a laptop for her personal use.

  The laptop now lay abandoned on a small desk across the room. She’d drafted several emails to Tripp, deleting each and every one after the cathartic words spilled forth from her fingers. Much as she wanted to hit Send, she respected Reed’s parting words.

  Respected even more the descriptions that still swam in her thoughts, of three dead bodies, all of whom were alive a week ago.

  Was her husband responsible?

  Had she overlooked something so fundamental in the man she’d chosen to make a life with?

  Over and over, her tornadic thoughts ripped through her memories, churning up every experience—every moment—over the past twenty years. How had she been so stupid?

  And where could he have done all these things?

  At the heart of the matter, that was the question that stung the most. She lived with the man, for heaven’s sake. Made a life with him, day in and day out. Where did he go to do these horrible, terrible acts? Because there was no way three bodies was the start of something.

  Oh no, if anything, this was the end. Her son would see to it that this was the end of whatever choices Tripp had made over the years.

  Her husband was a businessman and she’d accepted from the start that he’d have long stretches out of town or evenings full of commitments. Was it possible he’d filled those hours away from her with any manner of sins instead of coming home to her?

  Instead of making a life with her?

  It had taken her years to get over the poor choices in her early adulthood. Her one saving grace was that her misbegotten romance with Brad had given her Reed. Her beautiful baby boy, so bright and vibrant, the very best of herself and—she’d hoped—her inconvenienced ex-boyfriend.

  And then Tripp had come along. Yes, he was older, but he had a gentleness about him that she fell in love with immediately. After fending for herself and her son for so long, she’d had someone to take care of her.

  Of them.

  She’d known fatherhood was likely not his first choice at that stage of his life, but Tripp had taken on his responsibilities to Reed, as well, and she’d loved him even more for it. It was Tripp who’d encouraged Reed’s interest in the law, sending him to—

  Diana sat up, realization striking with all the stealth of a high-plains rattler.

  “It’s dangerous, Tripp. Why would I want my son to become a cop?”

  “It’s his dream, darling. He’s a bright boy and he has a desire to take care of others.” Tripp laid a soft press of lips against her cheek. “He’s like you that way.”

  “But a cop?”

  “Not just a cop. A detective. He’s going to be one of the Dallas PD’s best and brightest. I’ll see to it.”

  See to it?

  That long-forgotten snippet of conversation mixed in her thoughts with all the weight of wet cement. She could still remember her concern for her son’s safety when he’d decided to enter the police academy and all the horrors of what might happen to him in uniform.

  Tripp had calmed her and promised her that he’d be fine. That he’d make detective soon enough, he’d said, so sure of it as their conversation had continued.

  And Reed had. He’d become one of Dallas’s youngest detectives, in fact, on the day he got his shield.

  Had Tripp arranged it all along? Had his support hidden a deeper motivation? With Reed in place, Tripp had a ready set of eyes and ears inside local law enforcement.

  And if he’d arranged for Reed’s promotion, that also meant he had someone fairly high up on his payroll.

  * * *

  Lilah flipped through the cookbook at her kitchen table, willing page after page of brightly decorated cupcakes to calm her nerves. She and Reed had come to some sort of understanding at Violet’s. They both still struggled with the decisions she’d made that day after Steven’s visit, but they’d also committed to each other. To seeing through whatever was going on and working together as a team.

  They’d even made love when they’d returned to her place. She’d insisted they wash clean—unwilling to have any taint of the day on either of them—and then she’d surrendered.

  Warm and tender, she’d reveled in Reed’s gentle touch, even as she hesitated. She wasn’t some fragile doll, ready to break if she were mishandled with even the slightest roughness.

  Nor did she want pity from her lover.

  Which was an unfair thought to both of them.

  Monumentally unfair.

  The heavy pad of bare feet had her turning around, her insides leaping to attention at the half-naked man who stood in her kitchen. Long, lean muscles painted his neck, shoulders and arms, but it was the thin ridge of muscles that formed over his rib cage on down over his stomach, before disappearing into jeans, that nearly made her mouth water.

  The man was absolute, physical perfection.

  “A true baker’s work is never done, I see.”

  “Just relaxing with some food porn.”

  “Excuse me?” His eyes widened, any traces of sleep vanishing at her word choice.

  “Trust me. You know it when you see it.”

  “You’ll have to tell me more.” He pressed a kiss on her head before he took the seat next to her, dragging the book across the table.

  “It’s the way it’s photographed and lit. All the dips and curves. Lighting the food as a highly desirable object.”

  “You seem to know it well.”

  “I’ve styled some food before, for photo shoots. It’s different than when you bake for others. The colors are more pronounced and the food is built for photographing, not eating.”

  “Fascinating.” He closed the book and reached for her hand. “Just like you.”

  “I’m—” What was she? Tired? Irritated? Sad?

  Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to get a handle on any of it. So she’d sat here, methodically flipping pages and not really seeing anything.

  “I’m not interesting. I’m actually rather one-dimensional. If it’s not full of sugar, flour and eggs, I’m pretty much not interested.”

  He settled into his chair as if taking her measure and Lilah nearly choked on her tongue at the play of muscles across his chest.

  Damn, but the man was lethal. Especially when you added in the warm smile, the fathomless gray eyes and the unwavering focus on protecting others.

  “I think you’re actually quite multidimensional. Yes, you’re passionate about your work, but you’re also a businesswoman. A friend. A family member.” He broke off
at that, his brow furrowing in a hard line. “Your mother. We need to get protection for her.”

  “She’s out of the country.”

  “For how long?”

  Lilah had briefly considered calling her mom and telling her about the events of the past week, but something held her back. They’d been so close when she was younger, before her father died. And after...well, after, their relationship had shifted and changed. The child had become the parent of sorts and they’d never fully returned to their old one.

  That had only grown more true once she’d married Steven. He’d pushed her to avoid any relationships besides their marriage and she’d been too ashamed to tell her mother what she’d gotten herself into. On the rare occasions they did get together, their conversation had been stilted from disuse.

  “She’s on a month-long mission trip for her church to South America. She doesn’t even know what’s going on here.”

  “You should tell her. She deserves to know.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “How about making that maybe a yes. She’s your mother.”

  “We’re not close anymore. I love her,” she rushed on, not wanting to make the relationship sound like a horrible one. Because it wasn’t.

  It simply wasn’t what it used to be.

  “But we’re not close.”

  When he said nothing, a small spark lit under her skin. She knew it was irrational—hell, every thought in her head for the past twelve hours had been irrational—but the spark flamed anyway.

  “You’re awfully acquiescent.”

  His smile remained broad, just shy of cocky. “See. Add vocabulary maven to your list of multidimensional skills.”

  “No, I mean it. I tell you, I’m a bad daughter who won’t even call her mother and you shrug it off like I’m infallible.”

  That same furrow returned, but this time it held confusion. “What’s this about?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I asked you first.”

  He stayed in that relaxed pose in the chair, looking for all the world like a male lion of the jungle. In control and calmly assessing all he surveyed.