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“Oh…” Sasha murmured in interest, her blue eyes sparkling in anticipation. “The commercial offices? Did you actually manage to lease one of them? I told Caine they were wasted effort when he bought them.”
Poppy grinned in triumph. “All five empty suites are now leased with first and last month plus security deposits. The leasing agent outdid herself selling the offices, but they demanded a face-to-face meeting for information. I didn’t think I’d ever get away from them.”
“No wonder, Miss Career Barbie,” Saige laughed, her brown eyes teasing. “You look hot. Hell, they were probably mentally jacking off the whole time. I know damned near every man here was doing just that when you strolled in.”
Poppy flushed, looking around quickly to make certain no one had heard her friend.
“Would you shut up,” she hissed, barely hiding her own laughter. “I didn’t have time to go home and change.”
The slim black skirt, three-inch heels, and sleeveless white chiffon blouse with golden yellow geometric print and pearl buttons was great for a meeting. Not so much for a jeans-and-beer bar.
“Hey, the dudes are lovin’ it,” Lilith agreed, her purple, pink, and blue highlighted shoulder-length hair a good complement to the violet-colored contacts she wore.
Erika grinned. “I bet everyone one of their G.I. Joes fucked good ole Barbie when they were boys. I know my Barbies disappeared every time my brothers got a new version of that Army nut job.”
Erika hated Barbies as a girl and refused to participate when the rest of them had one of their Barbie dress-up parties. She’d actually bring her brothers’ Army figures and cause chaos.
“Hmm, too bad they didn’t have a Navy SEAL version of G.I. Joe,” Lilith murmured, her gaze moving to the bar entrance. “I bet he’d have looked something like that. My Barbies would have been ecstatic.”
Poppy knew even before her head turned who her friend was talking about.
He strolled in like a beast, an overgrown tiger or wolf. Like a predator, not really on the hunt but damned sure ready for trouble.
“Bridger,” the bartender and owner, Mike Preston, Lilith’s uncle, called out in pleased surprise. “Hey, man, heard you were home.”
Jack lifted his hand and headed for the bar, but not before his gaze connected with Poppy’s and he shot her a shocking, playful little wink.
No expression, no grin, just that sexy-as-hell gesture that reminded her of the night before and had heat working from her toenails up.
She jerked around quickly, almost groaning at the wide-eyed surprise on her friends’ faces.
“Oh my,” Sasha breathed out, curiosity filling the sound. “What have we here? Even Poppy’s freckles are blushing, right to the roots of her red hair. Honey, haven’t I warned you that the colors actually clash?”
Poppy laughed and tossed one of the rolls sitting in the middle of the table at her friend before sitting back and looking around.
When she’d driven up, she’d noticed the three Harleys parked at the front of the building. None had been Jack’s, but she’d recognized them as the bikes that had arrived at his house that morning as she was leaving for work.
According to what her brother had told her the night before, Jack had met with three other men, former SEALs as well, who had moved into the tristate area in recent days, which was unusual enough, she thought, and all discharged under suspicious circumstances. The three men, according to John David, had all been held in the same secure lockup as Jack, and at least one of them was known to have been on a team that worked closely with Jack’s overseas.
They weren’t native to the tristate, but they were known to Jack.
She found three men sitting in a shadowed corner with none other than Ian Richards and his bodyguard.
Resignation washed through her. It seemed John David was more right than wrong. If Jack wasn’t aligned with the man rumored to be running the Fuentes Cartel, then why were his men all chummy with Diego Fuentes’s bastard son?
“My, my, isn’t our little town attracting some worldwide attention,” Sasha remarked, her lowered tone mocking as Poppy turned to her. “That’s Ian Fuentes…”
“Richards,” Poppy reminded her, though she didn’t know why.
“Whatever.” Sasha rolled her eyes. “Might as well be ‘Fuentes.’ As soon as he left the SEALs years ago, he spent over a year running the cartel before his father resumed the throne. Doesn’t mean he’s out of it.”
“Diego Fuentes likes having an heir that’s a former SEAL, according to the news,” Saige pointed out. “Wonder what he’s doing in our little town.”
“His wife was in the shop yesterday,” Lilith said, glancing around the table at them. “She’s a very nice lady, actually. We had coffee and she bought several dresses. She even gave me the names of some suppliers of vintage clothes that I didn’t know about.”
“Clothes or drugs,” Saige harrumphed. “I’d be careful if I were you.”
Lilith shrugged at the suggestion. “I like her. And it’s only rumored and suspected that her husband is part of his father’s illegal activities, because of their blood connection. The Richardses have denied it on several occasions.”
