Free To Catch a Thief by Christina Skye Page A

a little reckless, but Dakota wasn’t convinced that she was a thief.
    Not because she wasn’t smart enough. Not because she didn’t have the skills. It was her personality that didn’t fit the pattern. Doing undercover work, you learned to read people fast, and Dakota had pegged Nell for a loner, while a complicated job like the museum theft required a big, well-knit crew, long weeks of coordination and close communication as well as dependence on one another.
    Not Nell’s style at all, he thought.
    But Jordan MacInnes was a different story. The man was smart enough and manipulative enough. According to his file, he had highly placed criminal connections scattered over every continent. The art fraud experts in the FBI were convinced that MacInnes was back at work with a vengeance, and Dakota could buy that. But his stubborn, gutsy daughter?
    He watched Nell pace the room, her face wary but intent. She wasn’t beautiful, he thought. She didn’t have perfect features or the kind of cool sexuality that would make a man turn to watch her in a crowd.
    But for all that he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.
    When they’d huddled together inside the tent, with her legs wrapped around his waist, he’d wanted to do a whole lot more than talk. He couldn’t get the memory of her body out of his mind. He woke up dreaming of how she’d feel when he drove her over the edge to a blinding climax. Starkly erotic fantasies involving her had already cost him more sleep than he cared to admit.
    The SEAL shook his head. He had to forget how her body had felt on that snowy cliff. Sex with Nell MacInnes wasn’t happening in this or any other lifetime. She was his target to assess, the key to the location of thirty million dollars worth of missing art.
    She was work , nothing more.
    Since the museum break-in, Dakota had been fully briefed about her habits. He knew her usual route home, the names of all her friends and her favorite foods, along with everything else of importance in her life. He would use all those details to assess her response and ensure that she followed orders. This blood-stirring response to her body would change nothing.
    Her cell phone rang on the table, and she reached out to answer it, but Dakota cut her off. His hand circled her wrist. “Let it ring.”
    He felt her stiffen, her cell phone dropping to the big leather sofa. “You can’t make me—”
    â€œI just did. I will keep on doing it, too. Right up until my mission is complete.”
    Her face paled in the glow of the overhead light. “Do you always treat people this way?”
    â€œOnly when it’s necessary.”
    The phone stopped ringing. He saw her glance down, reading the caller ID. Dakota didn’t bother checking, because he knew Izzy was already in place nearby, monitoring her phone and e-mails.
    She still hadn’t opened the file.
    â€œAre you afraid to read it?”
    â€œTell me instead.”
    Dakota crossed his arms. “I’ll talk while you pack.”
    â€œNo, now .” She sat down on the sofa beside her phone, but made no move to reach for it. “Exactly what is this urgent job that I need to do?” she said tightly.
    Dakota prowled the room, choosing his words carefully. “Last month a newly discovered, unpublished and unrecorded piece of art was brought to the National Gallery for assessment. Two weeks later it was stolen.”
    â€œWhat period and provenance?” Nell sat up a little straighter, frowning. “And how did they get in?”
    He watched her face closely but saw only questions. There was no guilt or calculation. He moved closer, reading the heat spots of her body using his enhanced vision. Normal flow at pulse points. Normal respiration heat patterns. She wasn’t trying to block him.
    Which proved nothing.
    Dakota narrowed his focus. His orders were to see how much she knew. His Foxfire training gave him