Marie Harte: Flight of Fancy

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Sitting across from his boss’s desk in a room too small to cage the man’s energy, Gavin Caldwell sighed. He’d had better days. Hell, he’d had better months. Ever since the government had shut down the Psychic Warfare Program—the PWP—he’d grown increasingly dismayed about his place with this team. They wanted him to push pencils and crunch numbers. He wanted to save the day.

“Our client needs that fucking book, Gavin. I assigned the case to Aidan for a reason. He had the damn thing all but in his grasp.”

Aidan had been taking his time about it, then. Gavin didn’t say anything, not with his boss practically breathing fire. Yet even pissed off like nobody’s business, Jack Keiser exuded sex appeal. The man looked like he used trees for toothpicks. Broad shoulders, thick muscles, and a square jaw, he treated compromise like a four-letter word—an arrogance that Gavin found incredibly sexy.

Gavin had spent plenty a sleepless night fantasizing about his ideal sexual partner, an appealing lover with Aidan’s looks and a bit of Jack’s attitude. Total fiction, because Aidan irked the hell out of him, and Jack took domineering to an all-new level. It was Jack’s way or the highway.

Gavin had a bad feeling he’d soon be seeing the highway.

“Well?” Jack’s ice-gray eyes flashed with irritation.

What the heck do I have to lose? Gavin took a chance and blurted the truth. “You don’t need me here.”

A pause. “Explain.”

Frustrated and tired of being the bitch boy, Gavin did. “Ever since you started the PowerUp! gym, I’ve been your go-to man for money matters. Sure, I train downstairs with the guys, but that’s as close to fieldwork as I ever go. The physical stuff keeps my mind sharp so I can balance the books. I make sure we’re legit. I tell you when we’re overbudgeted. And I deal with our mysterious client— Owen Stallbridge —every other week.”

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “If he keeps opening his big mouth to everyone about who he is, why is he insisting I keep his name under wraps?”

Probably to outdick you. Like Jack, Owen had major control issues. Gavin cleared his throat. “Thing is, Jack, I was a part of the PWP as more than an administrator.”

“Until you washed out. Yeah, I know.”

Trust Jack to bring up an unpleasant truth. “Well, okay. But I was young when that happened.” And they’d put him through rigorous training to get back into fighting shape while using his mad math skills to increase funding. Then they’d closed down the damn program before he could show them he wasn’t a total fuckup in the field.

“Young? That was four years ago. And you’re what, twenty-seven, right? Not too young to take responsibility for fucking up, in my book.”

“I’d never done anything remotely interesting with my life before the PWP recruited me. College, academics.” The chess team, but he didn’t think that would win him any points. “That was it. Then I was thrown into a world full of spies, freaky SEALs, and psychic villains. Cut me some slack for being overwhelmed.”

When Jack raised a brow but said nothing, Gavin flushed. “I shouldn’t have jumped on this case. I admit it. But it seemed so easy. Find a book; bring it in. Research, and a trip to pick up the item. Simple. How was I to know someone else had plans to grab it?”

“If you’d been assigned the case, you would have known there was a problem from the beginning. That book is important to Stallbridge, our client ,” Jack added through gritted teeth. “He’s spouting life-and-death shit over whatever’s in that antique pillow book.”

Gavin frowned. “I actually skimmed through it, you know. It’s not a pillow book. It’s a novel of erotica, a fictional account of the Stallbridge heritage, according to Owen’s great-grandfather, and very well written. Johann Stallbridge is revered in the field.”

“Skip it, Gavin. What can you tell me about the book that’s of value? And I don’t mean different sexual positions.”

Gavin flushed. “It’s old, authenticated, and worth a tidy nest egg due to Johann’s skill with a pen and the famous Stallbridge name.”

Owen Stallbridge had millions, and if the latest edition of the Money Mag held true, had recently entered the billionaire club. He dabbled in everything from oil and gold to stocks and properties and couldn’t seem to lose.

Added to that, Stallbridge had a quiet connection to the paranormal. Over a year ago, a warehouse of his had been robbed, and several items had gone missing. Items with unusual properties that men like Jack and their psychic team tracked down and brought back.

Stallbridge intrigued Gavin on several levels, but it was his missing novel that had given Gavin a new lease on life. If he could show Jack and the others he had more to offer than book sense, maybe they wouldn’t look down on him so much. Maybe he could fit in. It didn’t help he was one of the youngest and most inexperienced on the team.

He apologized once more. “I’m sorry, Jack. I was so close to coming home with it. I looked through it, saw it was the book we were looking for. But the broker wouldn’t budge until he checked with his boss. Next thing I know, it’s sold to someone else. It’s beautiful prose. I can see why someone else would want it.”

“I don’t give a shit if the book lists Stallbridge’s grocery list. He wants it back, and he’s paying us a fortune to get it for him.”

“Strictly speaking, he hasn’t paid us yet. The other money we received was for his items already retrieved.”

“We’re on retainer,” Jack growled.

Literally growled.

Gavin swallowed hard. If he had half of Jack’s muscle, maybe he’d feel less intimidated. But of all the members of the PowerUp! staff, he only topped Ian in size. Ian’s power lay in his devastatingly good looks and his skills as a forger. Gavin didn’t even have that going for him. He’d been described as cute and geeky. Never buff or big, despite that since joining Jack’s team, he’d put on twenty-five pounds of solid muscle.

A glance at his huge boss once again reminded him he didn’t belong. Hell, maybe he’d fooled himself for too long. The PWP had ended. Jack’s ragtag band of psychics living under the radar didn’t need him. Now that the gym had roots and provided a solid cover for their clandestine psychic investigations, they didn’t need Gavin to stick around when any CPA worth his or her salt could do the job.

“Shit.” Jack ran a hand over his cropped hair. “Tell me again how this mess went down, so I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Gavin called on his patience, knowing Jack had a right to demand a detailed explanation. “The file on the book was sitting on your desk when I brought in last month’s invoice.”

“Had to be Ian screwing around with my paperwork,” Jack muttered. “I never keep my files out when I’m not in the office.”

Gavin continued. “Something about the case intrigued me. I mean, it’s a book. All the other stuff we go after for Stallbridge is exotic. Stolen paintings, million-dollar jewelry, that stolen dagger Avery and Nathan just retrieved.”

Jack grimaced. Avery and Nathan had nearly died bringing back that weapon.

“So I thought, a book. I can handle a book. I did some digging on the Internet.” And fished through several secure sites, but Jack didn’t need to know that. Bad enough Gavin wasn’t supposed to work on real cases. Only Ian supposedly had the skills to hack illegally into secured servers. “I found Chronicles after a lot of research and followed the trail to Fort Collins, Colorado. The broker was an older woman with no ties to Stallbridge or anyone with a grudge against him that I could find. She didn’t know much more than we did, only that her buyer was a woman with plans to pick up the thing a few days later…” Gavin grimaced. “I still don’t understand how it slipped through my fingers. I mean, I literally had the thing in my hands. I thought for sure I could buy it out from under her.”