Addison Fox - Silken Threats

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.