“Let me know the minute Randall gets in.” The whippet turned on her tall heels.
“Yes, ma'am,” said Leah meekly. “Hmm. Who do I contact?” she asked the retreating back.
The whippet spun around, her pinched nostrils were white with anger. “Ms. Townshend,” she said and marched out.
Leah looked at Townshend's narrow back as she flounced off. That was trouble on stilts and she was going to get flack whatever happened. The temp was always to blame. Three months of working for Executive Services had taught her that her best was never good enough.
Because everybody asked for a competent person to fill in, but what they actually wanted was The Amazing Kreskin. If only she could show up having downloaded not just the exact skill set, but also the personal knowledge of the administrative assistant she was filling in for. Sadly, she was no mind reader. If no one told her, she didn't know where the photocopier was or how to operate it. And she didn't come with a complete set of passkeys either.
Townshend was already on her case because she hadn't done what she had no way of knowing needed doing. And she hadn't bothered with explanations, just attacked. Where the heck was Cecelia's boss if there was supposed to be an important meeting first thing this morning?
Leah reached for the desk phone to call security to see about getting the boardroom open, but it rang first. She answered it. “Sarkan Industries,” she said clearly, as she had been instructed by HR. “Ms. Randall's office. Leah St. George speaking.”
“Where's Cece?” croaked a female voice.
Leah repressed her sigh. “I'm the temp, ma'am. Cecelia is out sick. May I help you?”
“This is Gwen Randall. I'm afraid I have the same thing as Cece. You're filling in for her?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Who called you in? Have you been able to get the agendas ready for the C level meeting this morning?”
At least Gwen sounded pleasant, even if her nose was stuffed up. “I don't know who asked for a temp, Ms. Randall,” Leah said. “My company called me at six this morning, to be here for nine.”
“Huh.”
“Cece's desk is locked. Her computer turns on but won't let me in. Ms. Townshend was here a few minutes ago. She seemed unhappy to find the boardroom locked.” Leah laid it out in hopes that Randall would provide the missing details.
Gwen chuckled wetly and then coughed. “I'll bet. You get on to security right this minute. Tell them to send a tech to get you into Cece's computer. I think she waited to print the agendas until today—there are always last minute changes. You'll need to arrange coffee and pastries, too.” She coughed again. “I'll call Ms. Townshend myself.”
“Thank you, ma'am,” said Leah automatically. She dialed the number for security and was soon talking to an unhelpful man.
“'Taint my job,” he said. “André can override a password for a level ten, like Ms. Bradley, but not me. Want I should tell André when he comes in?”
“I do. Apparently there is a meeting of C level executives today and the boardroom can only be opened by this computer or Ms. Randall's.” Leah made it a question.
“Oh, I could open the boardroom. If I get authorization.”
By a quarter to ten, Leah had arranged to access Cecelia's computer, had the boardroom open, and had altered and emailed updated agendas to the attendees. She was in the boardroom kitchenette arranging donuts on a couple of large plates when the whippet spoke from behind her.
“Where the hell is Randall?” Ms. Townshend demanded.
Blindsided. But Leah knew better than to protest that Gwen Randall had promised to call Townshend herself. “Ms. Randall is also sick,” she said matter-of-factly. “She won't be in today either.”
“What the hell is that?” asked Townshend without acknowledging Leah's explanation.
“Krispy Kreme donuts,” said Leah holding out the platter.
“You can't serve those to Mr. Sarkany!” sputtered Townshend. “Where are the pastries?”
Leah shook her head. “I looked, but Cecelia didn't leave any notes about catering. So I went out for donuts. And I made coffee,” she indicated the industrial machine that was still dripping.
Tina's face was white and strained under her makeup. Her green eyes flashed angrily. “You can't serve drip coffee to Mr. Sarkany,” she insisted. Her whipcord body seemed to be vibrating in her sleek black suit.
A shadow blocked the doorway and Leah looked up. The man standing there was immensely tall, dark, and weirdly attractive—although she couldn't have said why. The hard, bleak angles of his face were too grim to be called handsome. And his expression was sardonic. But he did have great hair. Thick, lush, and almost black, it gleamed like polished stone.
He also had peculiar golden eyes that were examining her from head to toe as if he didn't care for what he saw. Leah kept her smile pinned to her face, even though her cheeks felt tight enough to split. And she knew she was blushing.
“Sure she can,” drawled the man. “So long as it's strong, hot and black, it will be fine, Tina.” His deep voice caressed the syllables of the other woman's name. “The important thing is that there be some.”
Tina put her red tipped fingers on the sleeve of Sarkany's black pinstriped suit jacket. “I'll send out to Vardi's,” she said.
The man shook his dark head. Not a single hair moved. Leah was impressed. It wasn't stiff looking and it was long enough that shaking his head ought to have ruffled it a little bit. She folded the donut box, put it in the recycling bin, and washed her hands. She stood awkwardly in the small space as Sarkany and Townshend talked to each other with their eyes.
Neutral. She could do neutral. She let her lips curve into just the barest hint of a smile and kept her eyes demurely lowered. She jumped when Sarkany spoke.
“What's your name?” he asked. His voice purred at her as if he couldn't help himself.
Leah opened her blue eyes wide and met his golden ones boldly. His black lashes were longer than hers. It was so not fair. But her blue eyes were her own, while his were obviously contacts. Who has gold eyes, for Pete's sake? “Leah St. George, sir,” she said clearly.
“Where's the other girl?” he asked.
“Cecelia Bradley is home sick, sir. So is Ms. Randall.”
“Huh.” His gold eyes wandered over her lush curves as if he could see beneath her buttoned suit jacket and high collared blouse to her opulent body. She felt naked but she didn't lower her eyes. Let the bastard look. She was worth looking at! She kept her face attentive but bland. Let this day end now.
“Is there anything else that needs to be done before your meeting, sir? Ma'am?” she asked deferentially.
“There should be water on the table and glasses and napkins,” said Tina as if she were stupid not to know. Yup, Kreskin wanted, again.
“Yes, ma'am. Do I serve, or do I just put out bottles of water and carafes of coffee?” Leah asked.
“You serve, of course,” Tina bit out.
“Gwen always takes notes,” said Sarkany at the same moment. “So she can send out a summary afterwards.”
Leah nodded. “Do you want me to do that, too, sir?”
Sarkany nodded.
“Where do I sit?”
Tina drew in a sharp breath and glared at Leah.
Sarkany laughed. “You'll sit behind me at that little console table.” He pointed to a narrow table behind the chair at the head of the long, polished mahogany table. It had a small chair that looked elegant and hard.
“Yes, sir.”
The door to the boardroom opened and people began to file in, greeting each other jovially while jockeying for position. Leah left the room briskly and retrieved the recorder she had found in Cecelia Bradley's desk. She checked the charge and returned to the boardroom as Tina was looking around impatiently. Leah showed Tina the device before going to the console table to plug it in.
“Mr. Sarkany,” she said quietly, 'I'm recording as of now.” She pressed start and headed for the kitchenette.
Let the games begin.
Read the rest of Dragon’s Treasure on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
Phoenix Alight
New Release!
Alpha Phoenix Book 4
Two Air Force Officers. Two military heroes. She’s a Phoenix. He’s a Bear. She wants him to accept the Gift of Immortality and become a Phoenix. He offers her a good old-fashioned Bear Bond. She won’t compromise. It’s her way or the high way.
Alpha Male Cameron Reynolds of Special Forces has never been able to tear Frankie D’Angelo out of his heart. He knows she knows they are Fated Mates. But BBW Frankie is too strong willed to give in. Yet when Cam is badly wounded and failing to heal, it is Frankie’s songs and common sense that bring his bear back to life.
Can this phoenix shifter test-pilot sow some wild oats with her hard-headed bear shifter without having to buy the field? Or will love bloom between them and teach them that true love always puts the other person first?
Phoenix Alight is Book 4 in the Alpha Phoenix series. It is a 60k standalone novel with no cliff hangers and an HEA.
Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
CHAPTER ONE
Frankie~
Night ops. Her favorite. She absolutely had the best job in the Air Force. Possibly in the world. Captain Frankie D’Angelo opened the large buff-colored envelope marked TOP SECRET and read through her orders.
She was to fly blind into uncharted enemy territory and do aerial reconnaissance. In the last sixteen days, three of twelve supply planes had been shot down. Twenty KIA. Seven MIA presumed captured. Three planes lost, six others badly damaged. Thirty-six drones picked off by snipers. A catastrophic sixteen days for the US military. Her task was to fix this clusterfuck.
The mountains and the prevailing winds meant that the supply planes had no alternative but to use this route. Carefully aimed artillery had failed to take out the subterranean enemy emplacement. She was to search and destroy and if possible return with the detailed photographic data that would insure that if – make that when – ISIS rebuilt they could be swiftly destroyed.
Frankie was dressed for combat flying. Her emergency chute was a constricting bulge on top of her breasts. Her bulky G-suit restricted her mobility even more. Nothing new there, D’Angelo. Costume designed for the flat-chested male. Deal with it.
She buckled on the outsized night vision helmet and to her everything became an eerie red and gray. She strapped herself into the single-seat cockpit, which was barely large enough for her. Thick webbing crisscrossed her chest and pressed her firmly to the seat back, while giving her just enough mobility to access the instrument panel.
Unconsciously, Capt. D’Angelo became one with her plane. Infused its controls with her own paranormal phoenix energy, until it was literally an extension of her body. Calmed her breathing and her pulse, and then she was airborne.
She had the coordinates of her target, but the landscape was a blank. She was supposed to locate the secret, uncharted enemy base, neutralize it, and return to base without being taken out herself. Just the sort of assignment she most loved. It combined danger with an opportunity to handle a spanking new fighter jet that she had helped design. Perfect.
The instrument panel was a daunting mosaic of buttons flashing a dazzling pattern of bright lights. Her brain sorted them swiftly. Her gloved fingers flew over them, flicking and pressing. Frankie calibrated her speed and altitude and oriented herself to the unknown location.
The transparent canopy of the jet revealed a clear night sky turned gray by her infrared goggles. But she recognized the stars immediately. Having identified the constellation above her, she brought to her mind’s eye a detailed image of the landscape below. She had the advantage over her colleagues that she had flown these skies in both greater and lesser phoenix. The terrain was as familiar to her as her own home.
These new night vision goggles were a distinct improvement over the ones they were designed to replace. The four-scope design had been retained. But the lenses and optics had definitely been tweaked. The infrared was vastly more powerful. Not that a phoenix needed night goggles, but they were standard issue for night missions.
She recognized the rock formations and pinpointed the entrances to the underground caverns that pockmarked this region. For centuries, the inhabitants had been enlarging the natural caves and using them for defense and offense. They had an underground network of tunnels that reached for miles and could be easily provisioned. Most importantly, the enemy had access to huge reservoirs of water. They were set up for a siege.
The cockpit screen displayed patches of infrared overlaid on blank green. From memory she filled in the hills and dunes and the goat tracks that stood in for roads in this area. From the present heat signature, she estimated two dozen personnel on the surface. Probably armed with rocket blasters with infrared scopes that could effortlessly pick her plane out of the sky. Frankie hummed happily as she fine-tuned her trajectory.
With her mental map of the area, it was child’s play for her to predict where the big guns had been embedded. She probably faced old Soviet tech. Possibly the latest US issue. Global trade in weapons created many opportunities for treason. But her mission was not to uncover treason, it was to take out this death trap.
If she could see the enemy, they could see her. Instinctively Frankie banked the plane and zigzagged it through the sky. The Scud missile that intersected what had been her flight path was intercepted by a Patriot missile. The resulting shockwaves created turbulence that she rode like whitewater. This was getting interesting. The night sky lit up. Her helmet deflected most of the noise.
On the ground the heat signatures were moving frantically. Random shots created bursts of light in the air. The enemy was spooked. Frankie circled back, dropped a thousand feet in a nosedive, pulled up at the last second. Only the oxygen tube connected to her helmet and face mask prevented her from passing out.
She leveled out and dropped her load. Scored a direct hit. As the bomb exploded, the landscape lit up with visible light. Dirt rose three hundred feet. Shrapnel from the destroyed guns spread out in a deadly circle. Fire blazed. Frankie whistled the victory song of her phoenix clan in a frequency undetectable by her human observers.
The trip back to the ship was uneventful. But she flew the plane as she flew all aircraft, as if it were a part of her body. The instrument panel was infused with her spirit. She channeled her inner phoenix, and executed a perfect landing on the deck of the aircraft carrier. The steel arrestor cable that caught her plane yanked her back against her seat hard enough to break bones. But she was used to that. And the G-suit compensated.
Before she could disengage her harness, the rear door to the flight simulator was wrenched open, dispelling the illusion that she was in a fighter jet. Col. Brigham’s tidy gray head poked inside. “How the hell did you do that, D’Angelo?”
Frankie unbuckled the last set of straps. Swiveled to face her commanding officer. “Do what, sir?”
Brigham backed up so she could exit the flight simulator. “Get back in one piece.”
“With respect, sir, that was my mission.” When had she ever failed to accomplish what she had been given to do?
“Every other pilot executing this mission got taken out by that Scud missile. How did you see it coming?”
Frankie pulled off her helmet. With its breathing tubes and four scopes it was heavy and made her look like the crazier kind of science fiction alien. “I didn’t see it, sir. But I know that area. It wasn’t hard to figure out where ISIS would place their antiaircraft guns.”
“Who told you where you were flying?” Brigham barked, his neat mustache bristling. “You’re supposed to have gone in blind.”
“So I did, sir. But I had the coordinates and I could see the night sky, sir. The constellations gave me the information. I’ve flown that section of desert in a dozen simulations and twice for real.” She shrugged. “I had a pretty good idea where the guns would be and when they would shoot. I made
sure our bird wasn’t there, sir.”
“Dammit, D’Angelo, why can’t you teach the others to do that?”
Because they were not phoenixes blessed with a preternatural talent for mapping the sky and the land. There was virtually nowhere on the globe that she had not flown. And where she flew, she retained a map. “I have a photographic memory for landscapes, sir. Just something I was born with. The Air Force has honed it. But we can’t teach people to use what they haven’t got, sir.”
She unzipped her G-suit and stepped out of it. This one was full of electronics that had tracked her breathing, heart rate and galvanic skin response. Two technicians appeared and saluted.
“Yes?” barked Brigham.
“We need blood and urine samples from Capt. D’Angelo,” murmured the braver of the two airmen.
“Go ahead. Debriefing next, D’Angelo. Five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Five minutes later she was ready. Brigham was hovering in the hallway. That was an unwelcome and unexpected honor.
“Come along, D’Angelo.” Brigham strode down the hall to the debriefing room. “I suppose your brothers and your sister have photographic memories too?”
Frankie effortlessly kept pace with the shorter officer. His dignified gray head came up only to her chin. “Yes, sir. And my father, sir. The D’Angelos are natural pilots because of it.”
Three of her four brothers and her twin sister were or had been Air Force officers. Her father, heavily decorated five-star Gen. George D’Angelo, had retired after an illustrious career. Phoenixes had a natural affinity for flight and warfare. All the D’Angelos were Air Force legends. She had every intention of breaking all their service records.
Outside the debriefing room, an airman saluted them and opened the door. Col. Brigham went in and sat down at the head of the conference table. Frankie followed. She took her seat. Let the games begin.
“Dammit, D’Angelo, you’ve screwed up our stats again,” complained Maj. O’Brien who had designed the simulation. “But if it was a for-real mission, you’d get another medal.” It sounded complimentary, but O’Brien’s tone was bitter.
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