“Well, it’s true,” he said. “The man does need a bit of an ego check.”
Harlow couldn’t help but grin, and, for a moment, the tension in the room broke. Myles crossed the room and reached into a duffel bag under his desk, pulling out a shirt and tossing it to Harlow.
“There, that should work. I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes so you can change. I’m going to be working in one of the conference rooms, but you have my cell number now. Call or text me if there’s anything I can help with. Otherwise, I’ll see you at the meeting.”
With that, Myles disappeared out the office door. Even though she was short on time, Harlow stood there for several moments, trying to process everything that had just happened.
“He hugged me,” she said aloud in wonder. “He actually hugged me.”
Harlow took a couple of deep, ragged breaths to try to steady her emotions. So far, this morning had not gone at all the way she’d thought it was going to, but it looked like it might turn out okay, after all.
With a hint of a smile playing at her lips, she reached down to take off her dirty, wrinkled shirt and replace it with Myles’ fresh, clean shirt. She had a feeling she was going to like the way it looked on her.
Chapter Four
Myles glanced casually at his watch, still laughing loudly at the bad joke that Alfonso had just told. There were only two minutes until nine o’clock, and Harlow still wasn’t here. Myles hoped she was going to make it in time. He didn’t want to see Alfonso’s reaction if Harlow was late. The man was laughing at the moment, but he was clearly on edge.
Myles was a bit on edge himself, but for a different reason. He didn’t know what had possessed him to cause him to suddenly wrap his arms around Harlow, but, damn, it had felt good. He’d spent the last week trying to stay angry at Harlow for taking over his office, but he’d been failing a little more at that task every day.
The more he got to know Harlow, the harder it was to find fault with her. She worked harder than any of the other Advocates he’d encountered, keeping her head down and her nose to the grindstone. Myles could easily see why Alfonso had wanted to promote her. She got shit done in a time when many of the other Advocates seemed to have mentally checked out and decided that a search for the dragon amethyst or dragon ruby was an impossible task. In the short time he’d worked with Harlow, Myles could already see that she didn’t believe in the word “impossible,” and he respected her for that.
She also hadn’t been nearly as annoying as he’d feared she would be in the beginning. In fact, she hadn’t been annoying at all. She never wasted his time with mindless small talk, and she kept her desk and side of the office neat and clean. Myles had no real complaints about her.
And since Myles could not find a reason to dislike her, he found it really hard to overlook all of the reasons he did like her—one of which was her incredible beauty. He knew it was a bit vain to focus so much on a woman’s looks, but how could he not? Anyone who saw her had to admit that she was a sight to behold. Her generous curves, shiny hair, and smooth skin were enough to make him look forward to coming in to his office every day, even if he had to share that office. Perhaps especially if he had to share that office.
And yet, as much as he was growing to like Harlow, he had never intended to hug her today. It had been a gut reaction. The moment he had seen tears springing to her eyes, he had desperately wanted to do something to make her feel better. Now, as he pretended to be amused by yet another one of Alfonso’s jokes, Myles wondered what Harlow thought of the way he had embraced her. Her tears had subsided at his hug, so that had to be a good sign, right? But had she taken his hug as a romantic gesture? And perhaps more to the point, did he want her to think of it as a romantic gesture? Was he really growing to care for Harlow that much?
As if to complicate his thoughts even further, Harlow chose that moment to rush into the room, looking more beautiful than ever. Alfonso stopped laughing and looked down at his watch, which must have read nine o’clock on the dot, because Alfonso hmphed and made a comment about how she was barely on time. Myles frowned rather pointedly at Alfonso. He hadn’t thought Alfonso was that bad of a person at first. For the first few months, Alfonso had been reasonably kind, and frequently seemed jovial, even. But lately, his mood was increasingly sour, and he seemed to find endless opportunities to criticize his staff. From what Myles had heard, this rude, demeaning behavior had started after Saul’s attacks on Falcon Cross. Alfonso was under a great deal of stress, and he was taking it out on his staff.
Big mistake, Myles thought as he watched Harlow rush into the room. Harlow was the kind of person who would work her ass off for you, but he knew that even she would have a breaking point. Lately, Alfonso seemed determined to find that breaking point. He took every opportunity to criticize Harlow, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose one of his best employees.
Right now, however, Harlow looked like she had decided to fight another day. She had a determined look in her eyes as she sat down in one of the seats across the table from Alfonso. Myles could not stop staring at the way his shirt hugged her curves. It surprised him how much of a turn-on it was, and he was thankful that he was sitting under a table so that the stiffening between his legs was not visible to anyone. The shirt Harlow had was one of his green plaid button-downs, a warm flannel shirt that was perfect for this cooler January day. As Myles had suspected, the shirt looked like a tunic on her. It draped beautifully across her ass, looking stylish over her skinny jeans. At least, Myles thought it looked stylish. He wasn’t exactly a fashion expert, but he had seen many of the girls wearing long shirts like this over their leggings or skinny jeans, and he thought it looked really cute. He had never liked the look quite as much as he did right now, though. Harlow looked absolutely stunning. She had pulled her hair back into a neat bun, and no one would have known that less than an hour ago it had been a complete tangled mess. Not that Myles had minded the mess. He’d thought it looked quite sexy, in fact. But, of course, for this meeting the professional-looking bun was more appropriate.
The best part about her appearance right now, though, was that she had taken Myles’ advice and simply washed her face completely clean of makeup. Myles had never seen her without makeup, and, as he’d suspected, she looked beautiful without it. Her skin glowed from the inside out, and, without a bunch of eye makeup on, her naturally beautiful blue eyes could shine through. Myles was smitten, to put it mildly. He had to force himself to look away from her to focus on Alfonso as the man started talking.
“Nice of you to join us, Harlow. I hope you have something useful for me.”
Myles felt his blood boiling. Alfonso had no reason to speak to Harlow in such a rude manner. It certainly wasn’t Harlow’s fault that the search for the dragon amethyst had gone so slowly. Harlow had been working harder than almost anyone on the issue.
But Harlow did not look bothered by Alfonso’s tone. Instead, excitement shone in her eyes as she opened a file of papers.
“I think I have something very useful,” she said. She pulled out a few sheets of paper stapled together, handing one copy to Alfonso and one to Myles. When Myles looked down at his copy, he saw that Harlow had typed up a transcription of the recording she had managed to capture where two of Saul’s men were discussing the amethyst.
“What’s this?” Alfonso asked, frowning down at his paper in confusion.
“This,” Harlow said dramatically, “Is the key to us finding the dragon amethyst.”
She went on to read through the entire transcript, putting special emphasis on the parts where Saul’s men talked about finding records of the dragon amethyst’s location. When she’d finished reading, she looked up at Alfonso with a big smile on her face.
“This sounds promising,” Alfonso said slowly, his voice much less antagonistic than it had been before. “But it doesn’t give us that much information, really. So we know that Saul’s people have found something indicating the stone is in Montana. But wit
hout something more specific than that, we aren’t likely to find anything. The dragon amethyst isn’t just going to be lying around in the open, and Montana is a big state. Even if you narrow it down to certain areas of Devil’s Melt, it’s still, as the guys on the recording said, like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
Myles was surprised by how quickly the tone in Alfonso’s voice had changed, even though the information on the amethyst offered only a tiny glimmer of hope. Myles gave his head a small shake of wonder as he watched Alfonso studying the transcript with a furrowed brow. He almost looked like the kind, wise old wizard he had been before all of the desperate but fruitless searching for the dragon stones had begun. The man was under a lot of pressure, but still—that was no reason for him to treat his people as poorly as he did.
Harlow seemed oblivious to Alfonso’s mood at the moment, though, regardless of whether it was good or bad. Instead, her voice was filling with more and more excitement as she spoke.
“It’s true that this alone isn’t much to go on,” Harlow said. “At least not by itself. But I used clues from this conversation to try some new searches for the dragon amethyst. I was hoping that with the new information I had, I would be able to use different search angles to uncover clues I hadn’t been able to find before, and I wasn’t disappointed.”
Harlow started digging into her folder for another paper, and Myles perked up his ears. This information would be new to him, and he was keen to know what Harlow had found last night. She seemed to think that it was big, whatever it was, and he held his breath without even realizing it as he took the paper that she passed across the table to him. Was it possible that the Falcon Cross wizards were finally getting a break in their seemingly endless search for the dragon amethyst?
He let out his breath as he looked down at the paper, scrunching up his face in confusion. There was a long list of what looked like county courthouses, a few public libraries, and several university libraries.
“What’s all this?” Alfonso asked, apparently as confused by the long list as Myles was.
“This,” Harlow said, “Is a list of all the places where Saul’s army has been able to find records that described the dragon amethyst and where it is hiding. I’m not sure how they initially were able to find all of these places, but they’ve amassed quite an extensive list of places, as you can see.”
“So have you found stuff on all of these organizations’ databases, too, now?” Alfonso asked, his voice rising even more with excitement.
“Well, no,” Harlow admitted. “We have a problem. You see, none of the records were electronic. They were all too old to be digital, and the libraries and other places had not gotten around to scanning and digitizing them yet.”
“Meaning there was only one physical copy of each record, which Saul’s army has already acquired,” Myles said, starting to catch on.
“Exactly,” Harlow said. “Saul’s people have visited each and every one of these locations, and, it seems to me, they have stolen the physical records. I found news articles on every single one of these places, talking about break-ins and robberies, all around the same timeframe a few months ago. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Saul’s people must have gone in and taken the records.”
“This is bad news for us,” Alfonso said with a sigh, still staring down at the list. “If Saul has the only copies of these records, and he’s had them for months, then we’re screwed. His people have already been searching for a while, and they already know a lot about where the amethyst might be. We’ll have to figure out a way to steal these records back, but that will be difficult. I’m sure they’re well guarded. And we’re in a race against time. Any day now they could find the stone.”
“Well, we’re not necessarily screwed,” Harlow said. “On the one hand, it could be a positive thing for us that they’ve stolen all these records. Look at it this way: they’ve done the hard work of gathering them all up for us. Now we just have to swoop in and take them. And Saul might have a large army of shifters and wizards working for him, but they aren’t exactly the brightest bunch. I’m sure that their progress at finding the amethyst has been slow. We have some really smart people here at the Advocacy Bureau. I know that if we can just get our hands on those records, we’ll be able to figure out where exactly we need to go to find the amethyst.”
“If our people are so smart, and Saul’s are so dumb, then why did they find all of these records before us?” Alfonso asked.
Harlow shrugged. “Maybe luck. Maybe the fact that he has such a large number of people working for him. I’m willing to bet that the number of people he had researching this problem was at least three times the number we had.”
Alfonso crossed his arms. “Well, I hope for all of our sakes that you’re right, Harlow, and that we can get these records back and quickly decipher them. Good work. It looks like you’ve finally found a significant clue, and goodness knows we needed a breakthrough. I’ll go talk to the High Council and let them know. I suppose we’ll need to alert Mac over at Military Headquarters, too. We’ll want to send in some of our best soldiers to get these records from our enemy.”
“Uh, yeah, speaking of that. There was one more thing I wanted to say,” Harlow interrupted.
In an instant, Myles saw the confident excitement fade from Harlow’s face. Whatever she was about to say was something that Alfonso was not going to like, and she knew it. Myles’ heart went out to her. She had worked so hard, and she looked so nervous now, standing there tensely as if she feared Alfonso might verbally attack her again at any moment.
“Well?” Alfonso prompted. “What is it?”
“I don’t think you should send soldiers in to take the records from the enemy,” Harlow said. “They will be looking for soldiers, and I don’t think that brute force is going to be very effective at getting these records back. The job is going to require a great deal of stealth.”
“Hmph,” Alfonso said, stroking his chin in thought. “I suppose you’re right about that. I’ll talk to our department of spies here at the Advocacy Bureau and see who our best man or woman is. We have some really talented spies here who should be able to outsmart Saul’s men.”
“Actually,” Harlow said, her voice unmistakably shaking at this point, “I was going to tell you that I think you should send me.”
The silence in the room was overwhelming. Alfonso and Myles were both staring at Harlow with gaping jaws. If Myles hadn’t known better, he would have thought that Harlow was joking. But no, she would not joke around in a meeting with Alfonso. She knew better than that.
And then, Myles felt a rush of fear come over him at the thought of Harlow heading off into the thick of Saul’s villains. Harlow was smart, and Myles had no doubt she would be able to sort through the records on the amethyst stone easily once the Falcon Cross wizards acquired them. But she was not trained as a spy. She was one of the very best research advocates, true. But that did not give her the skills needed to go sneaking into the thick of the enemy’s camp.
“Harlow, no,” Myles said before he could stop himself. “It’s too dangerous. Saul’s army will surely have all kinds of traps set up for spies. We need someone specially trained in stealth. And besides, it’s so dangerous. You know that the High Council suspects that Saul’s people are using dark magic. You don’t want to get caught up in all of that mess.”
“I’m not afraid of dark magic,” Harlow said, her eyes filling with anger as she glared over at Myles. “And just because I’m not formally trained as a spy doesn’t mean that I don’t have stealth skills. All Advocates have to take basic stealth coursework during Advocacy school. And, in this case, I’m the best one to sneak up on Saul’s men. I’m the one who discovered where they are, and I’ve been following them closely ever since I discovered them. I’ve been tracking their movements and listening in on their phone conversations. I know how they work. I’ll be able to sneak in on them better than anyone.”
Myles could practically see th
e smoke coming out of Harlow’s ears. She was angry at him for not sticking up for her, and he felt his stomach clench up unhappily as he realized that all of the progress they had made toward being on friendly terms with Harlow had just evaporated in an instant. But he’d had to say something. He couldn’t bear the thought of her waltzing into a trap laid by Saul’s men. Harlow was better off staying here and leaving the dirty work to the specialized spies. The Advocacy Bureau could not afford to lose her brains, and, Myles realized with a sudden pang of fear in his chest, he could not bear the thought of losing his officemate. She was quickly becoming much more than just an officemate to him, and there was no use trying to deny that fact to himself. He wanted to say something more to convince her that going to Devil’s Melt to search for the records was a bad idea, but before he could open his mouth, Alfonso was speaking up.
“It’s very noble and brave of you to offer to go,” Alfonso said, slowly standing as he spoke and beginning to gather up the papers in front of him. “But Myles is right. It’s going to be a very dangerous job, and one that’s best left to our professional spies. Thank you for all your hard work, Harlow. And my apologies if I was harsh on you earlier. The last few months have been quite, uh, stressful. But I shouldn’t be taking that stress out on you.”
But Harlow ignored Alfonso’s apology, her eyes still angry and filled with frustration. “I’m not trying to be noble or brave,” she said, clenching her fists at her side. “I’m trying to tell you that I can do this job better than any of your spies. I get how Saul’s guys in Devil’s Melt work! I can sneak in on them better than anyone, and recover those records quicker than anyone else. You said it yourself, sir. We’re in a race against time. Every second matters.”
Alfonso gave Harlow a patronizing smile, which only caused her face to grow redder with rage.
Determination and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 4) Page 4