Amethyst Moon (3 page)

             
“The poachers hinted at something like that.  They called it a back-shoot mine.  They knew about a lot of things they shouldn’t have known, like my rank…and our previous relationship.”

             
He turned to her grim faced.  “There’s something else you should know.”

             
Tabitha heard his tense tone.  “There’s a traitor in the firm,” she filled in before he could go on.  “How long have you known?”

             
“I’ve been suspicious for the last six months.”

             
“Since I was promoted,” she finished, horrified that this could have happened right under her nose.

             
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure it wasn’t anyone under your direct jurisdiction.  I’ve been suspicious of a few people for some time.  Elliot Cartridge is one of them.”

             
She stared at him, shocked.  “My boss?  It couldn’t be him! He’s ultra loyal to the firm.  Actually, he’s adamant that anyone going outside regulation be fired.  And this caper is way outside regulations.” 

             
“He’s only one of the people I’ve been investigating.  There’s also Reynolds in engineering.  He’s been living far about his means.”

             
“Sounds like a more likely candidate.  You said investigating—what have you been doing about it?”

             
“Black ops.  I’ve been authorized to make some private investigations.  There seems to be a lot of action going on in these so-called abandoned mines.  People are starting to notice.  Me, for one.  Columbus Minerals’ CEO for another.  I was staking this one out when I came across these two bozos.  What do you think we should do now, boss?”

             
His deferral to her rank pleased her.  “We get the heck out of this stinking mine, back to my craft, and drop the hammer on Reynolds.”

             
“A girl after my own heart,” he said with a chuckle.

             
His own heart.  He didn’t know how true that was.  She loved his heart and every other part of him.  Problem was, he hadn’t said anything about restarting their relationship after this episode concluded.

             
He took her hand as he walked alongside her.  “So you’re not going to turn me in for illegal weapons?”

             
She flashed him an indulgent smile.  “I think I’ll let that one pass.”

             
“Then let’s concentrate on getting out of here in one piece.”  He led her down the shaft. 

             
Tabitha didn’t hesitate.  She could practically taste freedom, and it drove her forward, past exhaustion.  She looked sideways at Laurent.  His broad shoulders reassured her.  Imagine Laurent Fox becoming her hero.  Maybe she didn’t need to fire him.  After all, he’d had good reason for breaking regulations; Elliot Cartridge would just have to understand.

             
What seemed like eons later, she stumbled and turned to look at Laurent.  He didn’t even look winded.  Considering his fabulous body, she wasn’t surprised.  “How long have we been walking?”

             
“They woke up about three hours ago.”  He kept going, but took her arm to prevent her from slowing her pace.

             
She trusted his inner clock.  His words, and his strong touch on her arm spurred her forward.  The poachers were awake and no doubt on the move.  She didn’t want to fall into their grimy clutches again.  She sent up another distress signal to Spot, knowing it was probably useless.  A crunch of rock from far behind her told her the poachers were closing in, and then she heard the growl in front of her.  She looked down the long mineshaft to see red cat eyes in the distance.  “It’s Spot,” she told Laurent.

             
With a snarl, the cave cat shot down the passageway past Tabitha and Laurent, on toward the poachers.

             
Hand-in-hand, Fox and Tabitha raced toward the exit.  She knew they couldn’t hesitate.  Spot could take care of himself.  She heard the poachers’ cries of alarm and the thunder of feet running away.  Shock would buy her and Laurent precious minutes.  The mine’s entrance was a bright light ahead. 

             
In minutes, they raced out of the shaft into the bright sunshine. 

             
“This way,” she said, pulling him toward the clearing where she’d left her craft.  Laurent didn’t argue, just followed.  Jerald 4 waited by the open hatchway. 

             
“Prepare for pre-flight, Jerald 4,” she yelled as they approached.

             
“Yes, Lieutenant King,” he said, whirring away.

             
Tabitha hesitated on the gangway and turned back to look into the deep green jungle.  She couldn’t leave without Spot.  Where was he?  He should have chased the poachers and doubled back. 

             
Laurent urged her toward the gangway with a tug on her arm.  She turned to face him.  “I won’t leave without Spot.”  He looked like he wanted to argue, but he finally stepped back, his posture tense.  “Fine.  I’ll go get him.  You get inside and prepare this baby to take off at a moment’s notice.”

             
She shook her head in protest.  “It’s not safe for you.  Stay with me, and I’ll call for backup.”

             
He gently touched her cheek.  “You know that’d take too long.  If you see anyone coming other than me or your cave cat, take off.  We can take care of ourselves.”  Dropping his hand, he turned and rushed back into the jungle.

             
“No!” she cried out after him, but he was already disappearing into the undergrowth. 

             
He would have to be so independent.  She shook at his stubbornness.  She was in charge here, damn it.  And she couldn’t face losing him again.

             
It wouldn’t do any good to stand around worrying about him.  She had to call for backup and prepare for their escape.  As she turned to head inside the ship, a dark whirl from behind caught her side vision.  She let out a cry of alarm just before something crashed on her head and her world went black. 

             
Tabitha woke slowly.  She turned her head and groaned at the pain the slight movement brought.  She remembered then.  Something had hit her.  She could swear it’d been her boss, Elliot Cartridge, in the split second before she’d lost consciousness.  Then she remembered that Laurent had gone after Spot.  Were they all right?

             
She opened her eyes and saw the ceiling of her sleeping compartment.  For an instant, she tried to make herself believe it’d all been a dream, a bad dream.  But her head hurt too much to really believe it.  Besides, Jerald 4 would have been there with her cactus juice if she’d only been dreaming.  He’d been tuned to her body rhythm, and subsequently would present instantly when she roused from slumber. 

             
Sluggishly, she sat up in bed and looked down at her clothes.  She still wore her torn, dusty mine clothes.  None of it had been a dream.  Her frightened gaze darted around the craft’s interior, finding it empty.  Where was everyone? What had happened to her?  She touched a hand to her throbbing temple and came away with blood.  She’d been injured.  She slid off her bunk and forced herself to walk to the image enhancer.  In it, she saw that her forehead was cut and bruised.  She was so shocked, she could hardly take it in.

             
She didn’t have the time, she reminded herself.  She had to save Laurent and Spot.  Her attacker had probably disabled her and her craft, to go after Fox unhindered.  She spun and headed toward the flight deck.  A low repetitive thud came from somewhere on the left side of the craft.  A chair was propped in front of the ablution room door.  She pushed it aside and opened the door.  Jerald 4 stood inside, screwdriver in one mechanical hand, pry bar in the other.

             
“Lieutenant King, you’re all right.  I am pleased.  It would have taken me longer to dismantle the ablution portal access.”

             
“What happened?”

             
“As I was preparing for pre-flight takeoff, some ruffian thrust me in here.”

             
Tabitha had already surmised as much.  A third poacher had to be in the area.  The jungle was rife with the marauding thieves.  “Put out a distress signal.  I’m going out to recover Laurent and Spot.”

             
“Yes, Lieutenant.”

             
Tabitha cautiously walked out the airlock, on the look-out for poachers.  She saw not a soul in the ring of pristine jungle greenery.  Heading back toward the mine, she detected a sound.  Stopping, she heard a twig snapping up ahead, then another and another as something unhurried crashing through the underbrush, coming straight for her.  A moment later, Laurent followed the two poachers handcuffed together.  Elliot Cartridge, her boss, was also in custody. 

             
“What happened?” she demanded.

             
“Just as Spot and I were marching the poachers out of the mine, Cartridge showed up.”  Fox turned to look at Tabitha, his jaw tight when he saw the blood on her head.  “What happened to you?”

             
“Him,” she said, scowling at her soon-to-be-ex-boss.

             
Elliot sneered.  “Should-a hit ya harder, King.”

             
Laurent turned a furious glare on Cartridge.  “You bastard.”

             
Spot snarled, and Cartridge yelped and picked up his pace.  The poachers bound to him scrambled to keep up.  He threw a terrified glance back at Spot, who bared his fangs.

             
Tabitha fell into pace between Laurent and Spot.  She gently smoothed Spot’s raised hackles down, then touched Laurent’s arm.  He looked down into her face.  “My heroes.”

             
Later, after the authorities had taken Elliot Cartridge and the poachers away, Laurent laid sprawled on Tabitha’s bunk.  She smiled and climbed into bed with him. 

             
“So you came out here to fire me?” Laurent teased.

             
Her face heated.  So Cartridge had told him.  Embarrassed as she was, it was bound to come out with the fact that her boss had deliberately mismarked Mine Twelve as defunct so he could pillage it.  He’d set Laurent up for the fall, thinking him an easy target because of his free-wheeling reputation.  And he’d supplied the poachers with weapons so that they could eliminate Laurent if he got in their way.  What Cartridge hadn’t counted on was Tabitha taking it upon herself to make this personal visit.  “Guilty, but, in my defense, Fox, it did look like you were goofing off.”

             
“And now?” he asked, nuzzling her neck in a very distracting way.

             
“Now you’re right where I want you to be.  In my bed and in my life.  For good this time, if I have my say.  What’s your say, Laurent?”

             
He chuckled, rolling her over him.  “You took the words right out of my mouth, Tabby Cat.” 

A Kiss Under The Mistletoe

by

Julia Brandywine

Chapter One

            
 
Jessie Barnes crunched through the snow as quietly as she could, creeping along the prickly juniper bushes surrounding Nick Maxwell’s hideaway cabin, looking for the easiest way in.  Not being a burglar by profession, she was making this up as she went along.  Three days before Christmas, she was on a mission to rescue her brother. 

             
She’d left her rental car tucked discreetly in a fire lane a country block away and trudged through snowdrifts up to her knees at times to get to her goal.  Her feet felt like blocks of ice, her hands were frostbitten, and she was plastered with snow from falling down twice.  But she couldn’t let anything divert her.  She had to get this done and beat the blizzard—and the last ferry back to the mainland.  Otherwise, it meant an evening hunkered down in her rental car at the dock, a prospect that didn’t fill her with joy.  But all her discomfort was worth it if she came away with a clue to her brother’s fate.

             
Her mission was clear—slip inside the cabin while Maxwell was in town for supplies and look for clues.  The rumors about West Tec, the computer software design business Maxwell and Michael had founded, floundering a few weeks before, had worried her.  When she’d mentioned them to her brother, he’d told her not to worry, not to believe all she read in the trade papers.  Now she knew it’d all been an effort on his part to keep her from worrying.  Now that he was missing, she felt sure Maxwell was responsible. 

             
Her older sibling’s loss had left a void in her life that nothing would fill.  Throughout their childhood, they’d relied on each for emotional support.  Their mother, a jetsetter who’d left them in the care of a series of nannies, had taught them to turn to each other in times of need.

             
Nick Maxwell was dead meat if he’d dared to touch a hair on Michael’s head.  Her suspicions focused around the stories of a bitter proxy fight at West Tec.  Could Maxwell have silenced her brother so that he wouldn’t lose half of his company? The prospect chilled her.  All she had to go on was the last item in Michael’s date book—a meeting with Maxwell.  As her only lead, she would follow it.

             
She had to find out if her suspicions were correct.  She’d go to the ends of the earth to find her brother.  Crunching through snowdrifts, crowbar in her hand, she knew that there was nothing she wouldn’t do to find him.

             
Snow started to fall harder, fat flakes that stuck to her eyelashes.  Jessie groaned in dismay.  The blizzard wasn’t holding off, as she’d hoped it would.  Well, she’d better get to work before a blizzard prevented her escape from the island.

             
She stopped to catch her breath at the side of the cabin and glanced at the seedy looking place in surprise.  For a wealthy entrepreneur, Maxwell’s choice in a vacation dwelling was unusual.  The shack had to be at least fifty years old, the green paint peeling. 

             
Brushing the snow off her tan jacket, she shivered.  This was a far cry from her home turf of Atlanta.  She should have dressed warmer.  She’d had no idea before she left her apartment how remote and frigid this location would be. 

             
Yearning for a nice hot cup of cocoa, she crept up to a rickety storm window that seemed to be sticking out more than the others and started prying with her crowbar.  The sooner she got this odious task over, the better.  The storm window popped out with a sickening crack that sounded like a gunshot.  Jessie let out a little yelp, quickly scanning the area to make sure no one heard.  The woods remained silent all around the remote cabin. 

             
A rabbit sat in the shrubbery, unmoving, as it stared at her with wary eyes.  “It’s okay, bunny,” she whispered, and then turned back to her work. 

             
Carefully leaning the broken storm window against the cabin’s faded siding, she started in on the double-hung window.  She edged the crowbar under the bottom pane.  With all her strength, she tugged.  The window finally rose with a drawn-out squeak of protest.

             
“Got ya,” a voice suddenly muttered nearby.  Before she could react, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her from behind.

             
Jessie struggled to pull free, the crowbar falling from her numb hands, but she was good and pinned to the big man’s impossibly wide, muscled chest. 

             
Nick Maxwell, Jessie realized.  It had to be.  A wave of terror washed over her.  He jerked her up off the ground and carried her through the falling snow. 

             
Jessie flailed in his arms, kicking the juniper bushes, covering them both with snow.  It didn’t even break his stride or his tight grip on her struggling body.  Her breaking-and-entering had apparently made so much noise she hadn’t even heard his footsteps crunching in the snow as he’d crept up in back of her. 

             
“Let me loose,” she yelled, kicking back at him.  Her boot made contact with his tree-like thighs…and something softer and higher that made him swear.  His balls, she thought in satisfaction.  She’d kicked him in the balls.  She aimed for his masculinity again. 

             
With a growl, he turned her, flopping her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and his big hand spanked down on her butt hard.  “Behave yourself.”

             
She let out a screech of outrage, pounding futilely on his broad back.  Her fists bounced off his muscular body like snowflakes.  He didn’t even seem to notice. 

             
He carried her inside the cabin and closed the door behind him, stopping to lock it.  From her upside-down position, she saw worn linoleum floors and an old eat-in kitchen.  He turned to stride into the living room, giving her a view of threadbare carpet and some old, overstuffed furniture.  The window she’d almost succeeded in entering stood half open.  He stalked over to it and shoved it back into place.

             
Striding to the center of the room, he unceremoniously dumped her on her ass on the floor.  He scowled down at her.  “Explain.”

             
Gazing up at his intense, scowling face, she felt like spitting.  In a fierce glare, she took in Nick Maxwell’s appearance, thinking that he looked a world different than she’d imagined.  He held himself more like a boxer than the brain she’d expected because of his chosen profession.  She recognized his sandy brown hair and good looks from the photographs she’d seen of him in a computer magazine that’d done a feature on the computer wizard.  But the intensity in his chocolate brown eyes caught her off guard.

             
She crab-crawled away from him as fast as she could scurry until she butted up against the sofa, where she ran out of escape room.  Trapped, her outrage won out over any initial fear.                “What the hell have you done with my brother?” she spat up at him.

             
In response, he gazed at her like she’d lost her mind. 

             
She wasn’t buying his innocent act.  “Michael Barnes? Your business partner? Any of this ring a bell?”

             
“You’re Mike’s kid sister?” he asked with a sudden smile.

             
“Yes.”

             
She wasn’t surprised at his astonishment.  She didn’t much resemble her Hispanic half brother.  They shared a slightly scatterbrained but very loving mother who’d gone through three husbands and had recently married number four.  She was off on her honeymoon cruise now, and Jessie hadn’t wanted to worry her about Michael’s disappearance, so she hadn’t told her. 

             
“What have you done with Michael?”

             
His eyes narrowed as he frowned at her.  “What do you mean,
done
with him? What’s happened? Is he’s missing?”

             
She scowled.  “Yeah, he’s missing  As if you didn’t know.  And, by the way, I’m not alone.”  She followed her bluff by a quick check for the nearest exit.  Then she scanned the living room, connected to the kitchen, for any signs of Michael’s presence. 

             
A royal blue laptop on the kitchen table caught her eye.  Michael’s laptop!  It had to be.  She jumped up and ran toward it, skidded on the snow-covered linoleum in her equally wet boots.  With a crash, she hit the cabinet with her head. She just barely her own groan as her world went dark.