Love by Association

She had a job to do—two of them now, Julie and Leslie together, two women who deserved justice—and she was not going to screw it up. Or screw him.

Whether she was free to fall for Colin Fairbanks or not, he was...everything she’d ever dreamed of finding in a man, minus the wealth that definitely wasn’t her style. She’d be damned if she was going to hurt him.

Which was why she’d made certain that it was clear, right up front, that their...friendship...was only temporary.

Right. He knew that. They were fine. She was fine.

But she made that call she’d been promising herself. To Max. Her best friend’s husband. First Jill’s, her lifetime best friend. And now Meri’s, her only close female friend in the world. When he invited her for dinner, she accepted immediately. She spent the evening playing with four-year-old Caleb, in between holding and feeding fifteen-month-old Haley. She was honored when, as always, they offered to let her rock the baby to sleep; in the chair next to her in the nursery, Meri rocked Caleb. And the silence was truly golden.

She’d planned to leave as soon as the babies were in bed, but Max grabbed her shoulder, pulling her backward from the hall toward the living room. “Not so fast,” he said.

Meri, standing beside him, grabbed her hand and led her to the couch. “Out with it,” she said.

“I don’t have to say anything.” The retort felt even more childish than it sounded.

“No, you don’t. But we’ll all get more sleep if you do.”

They worried about her. And she wasn’t looking forward to facing the darkness that was waiting for her at home. She was too wound up to sleep. And had no valid reason to stop by the precinct.

“I’m going to stop at the gym.” She came up with the idea on the spot. It was in the basement of the precinct house. If there was anything going on, she’d hear about it. “I’ll be plenty tired enough to sleep when I get home.”

“Good plan,” Max said. “Now tell us what’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going...” He saw them both look pointedly at her hands.

She’d taken some razing at work. Not from Daniel, who wouldn’t have noticed anything as personal as her fingernails or have said anything if he had. But a couple of other guys had noticed the acrylic. Not the polish. She didn’t wear that to work. And was actually getting the hang of putting it on and taking it off by herself.

She just hadn’t taken the time to remove what she’d put on that morning before breakfast. She hadn’t been going into work.

And couldn’t go to the gym with her hands looking that way, either.

“Do you have any acetone-free polish remover?” she asked Meri.

“I do.” Meri, who’d held on to a little of the weight she’d gained having Haley—enough so that she no longer looked emaciated—didn’t move from her seat on the couch beside Max. “And I’ll get it for you as soon as you tell us what’s going on.”

All over a little polish on some fake nails. Good thing she’d scrubbed off the makeup—when she’d gone home to change back into jeans and a T-shirt—and brushed out the curls in her hair and put it up.

What if she’d come in wearing her stilettos? They’d probably be calling in the armed guard. After they picked themselves up off the floor seeing her sway so perfectly in them...

She’d left on the damned polish. Chantel was too good a cop, too good with details, too aware, to have done that by mistake.

“I’m working undercover.”

The announcement wasn’t anything earth-shattering. She was a cop. Cops went under sometimes.

Jill had. Once. For an evening. She’d posed as a waitress in a strip club. Max had shown up, plopped himself down as a client at a front table and got so drunk he’d had to be taken home in a cab.

He’d been furious with her for taking the assignment. She’d been furious with him for checking up on her, for thinking he had to guard her all night.

And Chantel had prayed that they’d start talking to each other again before any real damage had been done. They’d held out for two days, until Jill’s next days off. Chantel only heard bits and pieces of the fight that had ensued. But they’d worked it all out...

When Max took another look at her nails and left the couch to go stand by the mantel—the one that held his favorite picture of Jill, along with a million photos of the babies and him and Meri—she realized that his mind had traveled the same road as hers.

“It’s not what you’re thinking, Max.”

“What’s he thinking?” Meri asked, looking between them. Beautiful, strong, peaceful Meri. She worried like hell, but only about external dangers. She didn’t doubt Max’s love for her, nor did she hold back any of her adoration for him. Chantel, who’d been largely instrumental in saving Meri’s life and getting her and the baby she was carrying—Haley—back to him, was family to them, not a threat.