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Praise for novels of USA TODAY bestselling author
VICTORIA
DAHL
‘Dahl smartly wraps up a winning tale full of endearing oddballs, light mystery and plenty of innuendo and passion.’
—Publishers Weekly on Talk Me Down
‘Sassy and smokingly sexy, Talk Me Down is one delicious joyride of a book.’
—New York Times bestselling author Connie Brockway
‘Sparkling, special and oh so sexy—Victoria Dahl is a special treat!’
—New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips on Talk Me Down
‘Lead Me On will have you begging for a re-read even as the story ends.’
—Romance Junkies
‘[A] hands-down winner, a sensual story filled with memorable characters.’
—Booklist on Start Me Up
‘Dahl has spun a scorching tale about what can happen in the blink of an eye and what we can do to change our lives.’
—RT Book Reviews, 4 stars, on Start Me Up
Also available from Victoria Dahl
CRAZY FOR LOVE
LEAD ME ON
START ME UP
TALK ME DOWN
And watch for more titles coming soon!
BAD BOYS DO
REAL MEN WILL
www.mirabooks.co.uk
This book is for Anne and RaeAnne,
because I couldn’t have written it without them.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are a great number of people who contribute to the well-being of this author during the course of a book. My family, of course, who makes sacrifices for the sake of romance every day. Thanks for loving me no matter what. My agent, Amy, who’s always on my side. And my editor, Tara, who performs gracefully under huge amounts of pressure, along with the whole team at MIRA. Thank you.
As always, Jennifer Echols was there for me as a true friend, a cheerleader and a stern taskmaster. She is a constant in my life and I couldn’t do this without her.
I also want to thank the wonderful women of the Peeners, who provide advice, support and filthy jokes, as needed.
RaeAnne Thayne and Nicole Jordan are the greatest brainstorming partners in the world and, without them, this series would still be ten lines scribbled in a notebook. Thank you.
Of course, the whole basis of this book is balanced upon the wonderful inspiration of micro-breweries everywhere. You taught me how to like beer and I love you.
Most importantly, thank you to my readers. You are my inspiration and you make it all worthwhile.
And one last special thank you to all my wonderful new friends on Twitter. You kept me company while I wrote this book, although you failed spectacularly at keeping me on track.
CHAPTER ONE
TESSA DONOVAN STARED across the parking lot of Donovan Brothers Brewery, mesmerized by the flashes and swirls of blue and red across the gray brick of the building. She couldn’t help but stare. The police lights were so at odds with the birdsong and pale sunlight of the early-morning hour.
Her brother Jamie stood between the two cop cars parked at haphazard angles near the back door. He wore a dazed expression, probably because he’d never met an early morning willingly.
She stalked across the parking lot and grabbed her brother by the collar of his rumpled T-shirt.
“Hey!” he protested.
Tessa pulled him closer, tugging him down until they were nose to nose. “James Francis Donovan,” she whispered, “what have you done?”
“What are you talking about?” Jamie asked, sounding just outraged enough that Tessa almost believed him for a second. But only for a second.
She twisted his collar tighter. “Spill it.”
“Come on, Tessa.” He yanked away from her grip and waved an angry hand at the police cars. “You’re not accusing me of having something to do with the robbery, I hope? I set the alarm, I locked the doors. This is not my fault.”
Tessa ran a suspicious eye down her brother’s body. He looked like he always did. Tall and handsome and laid-back. His jeans were worn out by a thousand washings, his T-shirt faded to cloudy gray. His light brown hair was sleep-tousled, but that was nothing new. Unfortunately, neither was the guilty shift of his eyes when she looked into them.
“Damn it, Jamie.”
“Tessa—”
“I know the robbery wasn’t your fault, but you said you were the one who found the door open. So what the hell were you doing here at seven in the morning? And why’d you call me instead of Eric?”
Eric was their older sibling, and though they all owned equal shares of the brewery, Eric had always taken the lead. He was the logical person to call to report that the brewery had been robbed. But Jamie had called her instead. Not good. Not good at all.
Jamie ran a hand through his hair and stared up at the pale blue sky. “It’s bad, Tessa.”
Her heart fell to somewhere below street level. “What’s bad? What?”
“Monica Kendall came by last night.”
“No. Oh, no, no, no.” Monica Kendall was the vice president of High West Air and the key to the distribution deal that Eric had been working on for months. “Jamie, please tell me you didn’t. Even you wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“Even I wouldn’t? Nice thing to say to your brother.”
“Jamie!” she screeched. God, she wished the cops would turn the lights off on the patrol cars. The colors were digging into her eye sockets.
Jamie finally gave up his outraged stance. His shoulders slumped. His head fell. “I don’t know what happened,” he murmured. “She said she wanted a tour of the brewery. Of course, she sampled a few of the beers and then …”
“And then?”
“She needed a ride home.”
Tessa’s sunken heart flopped weakly. She knew exactly what he meant. Women loved Jamie, and at twenty-nine, he was in the prime of loving women right back. “No,” she muttered again. “This isn’t happening.”
“I took her home,” he said. “I had to.”
“You could’ve called a cab!”
“Tessa … Christ, I just thought I’d get her home and take a cab back and … I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t mean to? Good God, you are such a dog! Try thinking with your brain sometime, Jamie. Just on special occasions if that’s all you can handle.”
His eyes flashed green hurt, and Tessa immediately felt terrible. He’d been lobbying for more responsibility at the brewery lately, trying to step up to the plate, but Eric had resisted. If he found out about this …
“Okay,” Tessa said, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “Okay, as long as her dad doesn’t find out. Monica won’t say anything, right? Why would she?”
The blank regret on his face told a different story, but before she could get it out of him, the back door of the brewery opened and one of the officers came out. “A detective is on his way over. He’ll want to walk through with you when he arrives, Mr. Donovan.”
“Thanks,” Jamie muttered.
Tessa craned her neck to try to see through the cracked door. “You’re sure the tanks are okay?”
Jamie nodded. “Everything looks fine except for a couple of missing computers and one keg.”
The break-in should have been the most upsetting event of the day. On any other day, she’d be crying and wringing her hands over the violation. But if Eric found out what Jamie had done with Monica Kendall, it would ruin her brothers’ relationship, and her brothers … they were all she had. She had to fix this, somehow.
“Please, Jamie,” she said as the officer paced toward his car. “Tell me there’s no more bad news.”
He sighed as if he’d been holding his breath. “It was stupid. You’re right. Really fucking stupid. But it seemed like it would be no big deal this morning. It was fine. Only I didn’t realize … When we pulled up to her place last night, I thought it was just a house up in the foothills. But it wasn’t. She lives in the guesthouse. Her dad’s guesthouse.”
For a moment, the world actually turned around Tessa’s head. The sky and the clouds and the dark green pine trees—they rotated in a slow, sick spin. Tessa closed her eyes and prayed.
“When she was pulling out of her garage, her dad jogged right past. He saw me.”
“Oh, God.” This was the perfect storm of bad news. Their brother had been working Roland Kendall for months, trying to convince him that Donovan Brothers beer would be the perfect microbrew to serve on the fleet of the brand-new High West Airline. Eric had worked stubbornly toward this moment, intent on getting the brand into new hands, new customers. A few weeks before, he’d finally arranged a private meeting with Roland and his daughter, Monica. They’d made their final pricing offer. The deal had almost been done, the contracts sent over.
And now … disaster in the form of Jamie Donovan. “I’m going to kill you,” she said flatly. “This one woman. Just this one woman you had to avoid touching.”
“That’s not fair,” he snapped. “You two always talk like I’m with a new woman every night. I haven’t dated in months!”
Tessa crossed her arms and paced away from him, trying to think. “Are you sure he saw you?”
“He saw me. Though I suppose it’s possible he didn’t recognize me.”
“Okay. We can handle this,” Tessa said, thinking fast. “First of all, don’t say anything to Eric.”
Jamie shook his head. “I need to tell him.”
“Are you insane?” she snapped. “Eric is going to be furious. With both of us! I took your side on this, damn it. I told him to let you help with the negotiations. You are not telling Eric.”
“He’s going to find out. And I’m not interested in hiding from him like a kid avoiding punishment. This is my company, too. If I screwed up, I’ll face it.”
“This isn’t just about you, Jamie. We’re a family, and I don’t want this to be the wedge that finally drives us apart. So keep your mouth shut until I find out what Roland Kendall is going to do.”
He threw his hands up in frustration, but Tessa ignored him. Sometimes the best defense was a good offense, and Tessa was on the attack today.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” she said in a rush. “I’m going to leave. You call Eric as if he’s the first one you called. If he asks, you went home with a woman and she dropped you off this morning, but do not mention Monica Kendall. I’ll come back in twenty minutes or so and act like I’ve never been here.”
“God, you’ve gotten devious,” he muttered.
He had no idea.
“I’ll call Roland Kendall later and see if I can read him. You keep your mouth shut.”
“Tessa,” he started, but she stalked away from him, heading down the street toward her house.
She knew she should be worried about the robbery, but that seemed far and away the least of her problems. Even losing the deal with High West wouldn’t exactly be a family tragedy … except that it would be.
Eric was becoming more and more withdrawn into his role as head of the family. Tessa could understand that. He’d filled the shoes of their father since their parents had died in a car accident. Eric had only been twenty-four when he’d become responsible for two kids and a business. So Tessa could understand why, thirteen years later, he might have trouble stepping back from that. But he had to.
If Eric needed to relax a little, Jamie needed to add some stress to his world. He couldn’t keep living like a carefree bartender for the rest of his life. Hell, he didn’t even want to. He wanted to step up and act like a full-fledged partner. Minus, apparently, any restraint when it came to women. But plenty of successful men had that problem. There was no reason Jamie shouldn’t join their ranks.
Tessa spotted another patrol car approaching, followed by a suspiciously nondescript sedan. She ducked her head, trying to escape the crime scene undetected. Her house, the house they’d all grown up in, was only three blocks away. She’d change from her yoga pants to jeans and brush her hair as if she’d been up for an hour before receiving Jamie’s call. Speaking of …
She hit redial on her cell phone. “Did you call Eric yet?”
“He’s on his way,” Jamie muttered, then reminded her, “I don’t like this.”
“I know. But we have to make this right.”
“He’s our brother, Tessa, not our dad. I don’t answer to him.”
“No, but you owe him. We both do.”
While Jamie’s sigh was still echoing through the phone, Tessa hung up on him and rushed up her front walk. She’d done all she could for now. She couldn’t call Roland Kendall for several hours at least. If he hadn’t placed Jamie’s face yet, her phone call might trigger the connection. She’d have to be patient, and plan this deception with ruthless care.
It shouldn’t be that hard. She’d been managing her brothers’ relationship since the day her parents had died. She played referee, defused fights and forced them to spend time together over Sunday dinners and holiday feasts. They were the only family she had left and she wasn’t going to lose that, certainly not over a business deal.
“I can handle this,” she insisted to herself as she turned onto her street and rushed toward home. “It’ll be okay.”
So why did she feel so sick inside?
DETECTIVE LUKE ASHER whipped the latex gloves off and tossed them into the alley Dumpster before turning to shake hands with Eric Donovan. “Eric, it’s good to see you again, though not under these circumstances.”
“Well, Jamie was just telling me that not much was taken. In fact, I was surprised to see you here.”
“I’m sure you won’t be out more than your insurance deductible on the computer equipment. But we’re more concerned with the information on the computers. Social Security numbers, credit card information. There’s been a rash of these types of break-ins at local businesses. Patrol called me when they realized the alarm had been circumvented somehow. That makes it less likely to be a casual robbery.”
Eric’s eyes slid toward his brother. “Are you sure the alarm was circumvented? Maybe it was never set.”
Luke was sure he’d never seen someone snap from relaxed to furious as quickly as Jamie pulled it off. “I told you I set the damn alarm, Eric.”
“I know you think you did,” Eric said.
Jamie’s mouth twisted and his hands balled to fists. “Screw you.”
Hoping to restore peace, Luke raised his hands. “There’s no doubt about this. Jamie definitely set the alarm. The alarm company shows it was armed at 9:30 p.m. and turned off at 1:00 a.m.”
Jamie shot a look of pure fire at his brother, but he didn’t seem satisfied with the vindication. His tension held tight when he paced over to a patrol car, his arms crossed as if he wanted to keep his hands still. Strange. Luke had known Jamie for ten years, and his demeanor had always registered on a scale that started with sleepy and topped out at laid-back.
Luke cleared his throat. “Do you know what payroll information was kept on the computers?”
Jamie glanced over his shoulder. “Tessa will know more. She takes care of all that stuff. She should be here any—”
“We outsource payroll,” Eric interrupted. “So the information is limited. And I don’t think there’s any credit card information on the PCs these days. Hopefully the damage will be minimal.”
“Good,” Luke said. “We’re almost finished in there. We’re just dusting for a few prints and then we’ll get out of your way. I hope this’ll be nothing more than an inconvenience for you. They hit a temp agency a couple of weeks ago. That place had thousands of Social Security numbers on file.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to take a look around out here.” Luke walked to the back of the building, hoping to note anything out of place, but the exterior seemed fine. Wooden pallets were stacked in neat columns. A ten-foot-long carbon dioxide tank sat next to the building on clean concrete, untouched by weeds or debris. The same applied to the big stainless-steel grain silo.
He knew from the layout inside that the padlocked corrugated door rolled up to reveal the bottling area and a small loading dock. If he’d been thinking of the brewery as a bar, he would’ve changed his mind back here. Not one bar in the world had a back lot this clean.
When he didn’t find even a hint of something suspicious, Luke circled the front of the building. Sunlight deteriorated beer, Jamie had explained earlier, so the few windows in the place were high up and always locked.
Luke was just rejoining Jamie and Eric when he noticed a woman approaching across the parking lot. Her blond ponytail bounced as she rushed closer. Luke found his eyes dipping down, taking note of the tight jeans and gorgeous thighs. Aside from a killer body, she looked perfectly innocent, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed.
“Hey, guys,” she said breathlessly. “What’s going on? Do you know anything more?”
Eric reached for the woman to give her a hug, so Luke used his detective skills to determine that this was the sister. They didn’t pay him the big bucks for nothing. Also, she looked a lot like Jamie Donovan, though smaller and way prettier.
She shot Jamie a tense look. Jamie’s gaze fell to the ground, his mouth tightening. Whatever passed between them seemed set aside when she looked at Luke and smiled. “Hi,” she said, offering a hand. “I’m Tessa Donovan.”
“Detective Asher,” he said. When he took her hand, he felt the fine bones of her fingers and smelled a faint flowery scent that made him clear his throat in defense. His life was way too complicated to leave room for noticing how a pretty woman smelled.
Luckily, she followed Eric Donovan through the door to see the damage. Luke was left alone with Jamie. “So how’ve you been, man?” he asked. They’d been a year apart at the University of Colorado, but they’d attended a lot of the same parties. Emphasis on a lot. “Jamie?” Luke prompted.
“What? Oh, sorry. Yeah, everything’s good, aside from this. How are you doing? I hear—” Jamie seemed to catch himself at the last moment, clueing Luke into the fact that Boulder might have a population of one hundred thousand souls, but it was still a small town. The rumors about Luke hadn’t stayed confined to the police department.
“Everything’s good,” Luke said, answering the unfinished question.
“Oh, great!” Jamie slapped him on the shoulder, but when Luke’s partner emerged from the brewery, tucking a notebook into the pocket of her jacket, Jamie’s eyes went right to her belly. It was getting hard to miss.
“Did you meet Detective Parker?” Luke asked as if things hadn’t turned awkward. “Jamie this is Simone Parker. Simone, this is Jamie Donovan. We went to the U together.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, her voice sweet and soft as ever. People were always surprised by her femininity, despite that her flawless brown skin and dark, wide-set eyes left men a bit starry-eyed. They thought female police detectives had to be tough and hard-nosed. But Simone was simply the sharpest cop he’d ever met, and she’d made the rank of detective by outsmarting everyone around her.
Simone excused herself while Luke handed Jamie a business card. “All right. Call me if you think of anything else. I’ll be in touch.”
“Great. Hey, she’s beautiful, man.”
Luke paused in the act of turning away and winced at the implication. He wanted to clarify that Simone was his partner and not his girlfriend, but that would lead to questions he didn’t want to answer. Couldn’t answer. So he forced himself to finish the step he’d been about to take, and he headed for the car he shared with Simone.
Up until a few months ago, it had been an easy place to occupy. Now her pregnant belly took up all the space in the damn car and pushed out the breathable air. Despite his years as a detective, Luke couldn’t figure out what the hell had gone wrong. And Simone wasn’t talking to anyone.
CHAPTER TWO
TESSA KEPT HER EYE on the clock as she prepped the barroom for the evening rush. It was four forty-five and Roland Kendall hadn’t returned her call.
She hadn’t meant to leave him a message at all. After carefully calculating the absolutely perfect time to contact him: after lunch when the morning was far from his mind, but before five, just in case he was heading out for drinks before hitting his box at the Rockies game. She didn’t have his cell phone number and she couldn’t think of a good reason to ask Eric for it.
So she’d called Kendall’s office at two-thirty, and when his secretary had said he wasn’t available, Tessa had hung up. But when she’d called again at three, the secretary had pointedly asked, “May I take a message, Ms. Donovan?” Damn caller ID.
Now Tessa was stuck waiting for a return phone call. She hated waiting. Thank goodness she was working the bar this afternoon. Her office had become a suffocating box and her new computer wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow. But the bar work was soothing, especially at this quiet hour. They didn’t serve lunch, so their only customers were the regulars who wandered in from the sandwich shops across the street. Though there were often brewery tours during the week, none were scheduled today, so Tessa was free to sweep and wipe down tables and chairs, and even give a nice spring cleaning to the laminated beer menus. All without once taking her mind off the clock. Five o’clock loomed on the horizon and there was still no word from Roland Kendall.
Jamie wasn’t there to bitch at, so Tessa called up the Twitter application on her phone and began typing. She was the only one interested in social media as a marketing tool, so she was in charge of their Twitter account, but Jamie … Jamie was the face of the company. And the voice.
She smiled as she finished up her message from Jamie Donovan.
My sister won an argument & made me admit I was an idiot. Drop in tonight & tell me you lost an argument too & get half off your 1st pint.
There. She felt a little better, but as if warning against relief, Eric’s voice drifted in from the back room as he placed another furious call to their alarm company. Actually, if his voice was any indication, they were now the brewery’s former alarm company. Any lightness she’d felt was immediately swept away.
She was straining so hard to listen to Eric’s conversation that she jumped like a startled cat when the front door opened. Before she could summon up a smile of invitation, she recognized Jamie’s sun-rimmed silhouette.
“Jamie!” She rushed forward so she could whisper her question. “Did you call Monica?”
“No.” He looked even more miserable than Tessa felt.
“Why not? I left you a message. I can’t get ahold of her father and—”
“Because it was a meaningless night, Tessa. For both of us. If I call her today, she might think I’m interested in something serious and that is not going to help the situation.”
Tessa reconsidered. “Oh. You may be right. If she decides she wants to see you again, that’d be disastrous.”
“Exactly. As it stands, we left on neutral terms.”
“Wow, you’ve got a whole language for this.”
“Shut up,” he snapped. “I’m not some kind of man-slut.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. That was below the belt. So to speak.” When he only scowled harder, Tessa stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Don’t be mad.”