LITMIR.BIZ

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love to her? When he was inside of her?

      Before he could get a handle on his thoughts, an image had flashed into his mind—he and Cat standing against a wall. Except for a few wispy pieces of lace she was naked, her bare legs wrapped around him. And he was thrusting into her, pulling out, thrusting in again.

      Recalling it now, his whole body hardened, his blood heated.

      “I checked you out, too,” McGuire was saying.

      Dino ruthlessly reined in his thoughts. But he had less luck controlling his body’s reaction to the image fading from his mind.

      “I don’t mind telling you that I specifically asked Bobby to find me an army man.”

      Dino met McGuire’s eyes steadily. “Admiral Maxwell told me to tell you that with a navy man you’re trading up.”

      McGuire grinned, then broke into a full belly laugh. The sound filled the room, and Dino felt the corners of his mouth curve.

      “That sounds like Bobby,” McGuire said. Then his expression sobered. “I trust Bobby to have chosen the right man, and that means I trust you with my daughter’s safety.”

      Dino once more felt that heightening of his senses. Hadn’t he known from the beginning that the job would be about the daughter? Wasn’t that precisely why he’d gone to the store to check her out? And considering his intense reaction to Cat as a woman, he was going to have to be very careful.

      “Why don’t you tell me exactly what it is that you want me to do?”

      The colonel met Dino’s eyes directly. “You already know that my daughter Cat owns and runs a toy store in Tribeca. She’s been doing it for a year and a half now. Before that, she was in the toy department at Macy’s and worked her way up to head buyer.”

      McGuire picked up his cigar yet again, but still made no move to light it. “The fact that Cat’s in retail is a problem for my wife’s family, especially for my mother-in-law, Lucia Merceri.”

      McGuire gestured to the portrait that Dino had studied earlier. “That woman is a true matriarch. She runs her family with the verve and determination of a five-star general. When Cat met her at Gianna’s and my wedding, she likened her to the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.”

      Dinowas beginning towonder where McGuirewas headed.

      “Ever since we married, Lucia has been pressuring my wife, Gianna, to find a suitable husband for Cat so that she can take her rightful place in New York City society. Lucia believes that women have a duty to produce a family, to contribute to the community, and that they should leave the business world to men. Unfortunately, she’s influenced my wife’s thinking in that direction, too.”

      “I take it Cat disagrees.”

      “That’s putting it mildly. But between us, we can usually handle Gianna.”

      Dino frowned. “Does this job have something to do with running interference between your wife and your daughter? Because if—”

      “No.” McGuire raised a hand, palm outward. “I can handle that part myself. I’m getting to be quite good at it although at times it’s a little like moving through a minefield. The trouble my daughter is in has to do with that shop of hers.”

      Dino merely raised his brows.

      “The Cheshire Cat imports and sells unique toys. There’s nothing in the place that you would find in one of the big chain stores or even in the more upscale department stores. Almost everything is one of a kind. About a year ago when Cat was still doing a lot of traveling, she discovered a town in Mexico, Paxco, where doll- and toy-making are highly revered and a local cottage industry. She signed a contract with the craftsmen, and in the past year, has imported a number of products from Paxco.

      Dino said nothing. For the first time since he’d walked into the office, he heard worry in the colonel’s voice.

      McGuire picked up his cigar and jabbed it at the air again. “That’s where the trouble is. Someone has taken advantage of my little girl.”

      “How?” Dino asked.

      “Some bastard is smuggling drugs into the country in those toys. Cocaine.”

      Dino thought for a minute. How much cocaine could be smuggled in toys? “It must be a rather small-scale operation.”

      McGuire’s expression turned very grim. “Small, but very profitable. My contacts at the CIA tell me that the cocaine is premium quality and the person running the operation targets a select group of clients who are willing to pay very generously for high quality and the guaranteed discretion of the distributor.”

      Dino nodded thoughtfully. “The rich folks don’t have to lower themselves to rubbing elbows with someone on the street.”

      “Exactly. But drugs aren’t the worst of it. The profits from this little enterprise are being used by a terrorist group out of Latin America to help establish a cell in this country. That’s brought in both Homeland Security and the feds—which means the whole situation’s got cluster fuck written all over it.”

      Dino silently agreed. “Does your daughter know about the smuggling?”

      The colonel shook his head. “I thought about telling her, but I know her too well. She’d be furious that someone was using her shop that way. There’s no way I could convince her to keep her nose out of it. She’d start poking around, and that could put her in even more danger.”

      “What else did your CIA informants tell you about the operation?”

      “Someone on the other end in one of those small towns is loading the drugs into the toys just before they’re shipped here.”

      Simple, safe, Dino thought. And a toy store was a good cover. “There has to be someone in the store who knows which pieces have the drugs in them.”

      “Yes.” McGuire tapped his cigar on the desk. “And the feds’ prime suspect is my daughter. They think she’s part of a damn terrorist smuggling ring.”

      Dino kept his eyes steady. “Is she?”

      McGuire’s color heightened, but there was no other sign of his brief struggle for control. His voice was flat and firm when he spoke. “No. She’s not. From the time she was a little girl, she’s dreamed of running a toy shop—a place where she could make children’s dreams come true. That was her mother’s dream, too. Nancy even designed some dolls. It was something they shared before Nancy passed. Cat’s not involved in this criminal enterprise, but someone else in that shop has to be.”

      “Any idea who?”

      “She has two full-time employees. Her assistant manager is Adelaide Creed, a retired accountant, and Cat looks on her as a second mother. And she often speaks of her buyer, Matt Winslow, as the brother she never had. She also has a part-time employee, Josie Sullivan, a sixty-five-year-old retired schoolteacher. Any one of them is close enough to the business to be involved. Hell, they could all be working together.”

      “I assume you’ve run background checks on each of them, and none of them has an urgent need for money, or a sudden influx of the same.”

      McGuire nodded. “I used a man your boss recommended—Jase Campbell. He researched their finances and found nothing out of the ordinary. On top of that they each appear to be stellar citizens. Josie was given an award from the mayor for excellence in teaching, and Matt is going to school at night to get his MBA. When she first retired from her career as an accountant, Adelaide Creed worked for Congresswoman Jessica Atwell. When the governor appointed Atwell Attorney General, Adelaide applied for work at the Cheshire Cat.”

      “So you have no leads.”

      “None. And my informants tell me that the feds expect to move on the operation any day. This whole thing is about to come crashing down on Cat’s head.”

      “And my job is to bodyguard her?”

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