Betrayal of the Dove - By Capri Montgomery Page 0,24

already knew how he was going to use that against him. How many people fell asleep with a lit cigarette, or in his case, cigar, in their hand? Well, this one would. He was sure of it. Slowly, but ever so surely, he was going to wipe out the entire team. He was working his way west. This next one was in Round Rock, Texas. Then he would have a stop in Arizona before working his way on up to Washington. The last four were between Oregon and Washington and he was going to have to work quickly for them. They would be a challenge, but a fun one. He was going to take out the “elite” Dove Team all by himself.

Chapter Four

Two weeks, that’s how long Shane had been working for her and for two weeks she had been seriously lusting after the man. It didn’t matter if he was behind the closed door, now locked and secured, security room. He was there and she knew he was there and she felt him, felt his presence as if he were right out there in the store with her. And every lunch hour he spent it in her apartment, eating lunch with her. She wondered if the man didn’t bring his own lunch just so he could come up and eat at her place. He didn’t go out to eat, even though there was a bistro down the street with really good food.

She smiled to herself. Those lunch hours with Shane had been some of the best lunch hours of her life. The thought scared her, but it was true. Normally she just ate a sandwich, did a little work on one of her pieces and found her way back into the store within a half hour. But with Shane there, she ate, had great conversations about his travels around the world, her life growing up, and family—her family because he seemed to shy away from talking about his. She had deduced that he was the only child, no brothers or sisters to go home to. They had spent an hour each day up there. She never closed for that long and she wasn’t sure it was good that she was closing for that long now, but the more she talked to him, the less she wanted the moment to end. God, she really liked this guy. They weren’t dating, not technically. That night at the restaurant wasn’t a technical date either since it was just two people who worked together going out for a meal. She nearly laughed at her own reasoning. It was a date—mostly, whether either of them called it as much or not. But since neither had labeled it a date she was free to keep denying what it was and covering it for something it really wasn’t. There was nothing platonic about their feelings. There was nothing business as usual about what they felt for each other, yet she kept trying to pretend that was all it was, and for some reason he seemed content to let her do so.

Before he had changed the lock, or more like installed a lock, on the security room door she had accidently walked in on him while he was changing his shirt. Craig had brought her coffee once again and she was just getting ready to tell him she didn’t like coffee when she realized that she might hurt his feelings. So instead of going straight for the, “please stop because I hate coffee,” statement she decided that it was only his second time and that she would try a different tactic. “Wow,” she had said. “This is a really big cup of coffee. Being a one woman shop here I don’t tend to drink anything while I’m down here.” That was code for stop bringing me coffee, but he didn’t hear it that way.

“Now you can have coffee,” he said. She turned around swiftly, knowing she was rolling her eyes, but not realizing she was going to walk dab smack into Shane. She spilled coffee all over his navy blue button down shirt. She had apologized profusely because now he was covered in hot coffee.

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “You hate coffee anyway.”

She smiled, even though she really was trying not to, because he had, in one breath, just told Craig what she had been trying to subtly tell him moments earlier.

After Craig left she grabbed a towel that she kept behind the counter. She usually kept