PRESS RELEASE—Evgeni Malkin a Vampire?

 

Evgeni Malkin (far right) appears to be garbed for an initiation rite at the House of the Eternal.

Has Malkin been Turned? The LVH investigates.

(Quebec, October 2014)

Photos surfaced last night indicating Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins, arguably one of the best hockey players in the world, has been Turned. The pictures were released in the guise of a Halloween party, with Malkin and other NHL players in full costume. However, the photos clearly show Malkin baring fangs and wearing traditional ceremonial garb used in initiation rites in the House of the Eternal, the fundamentalist vampire church that has become quite vocal about vampire rights in the lead-up to this fall’s mid-term elections in the US.

“If Malkin’s been Turned, he needs to contact us,” states Patricia Beaulieu, LVH Commissioner. “We have numerous rules in place stating that an NHL player, if he’s been Turned, must leave the NHL and play for the LVH if he chooses to continue to play hockey.”

“We have no evidence Malkin’s no longer human,” counters NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. “It’s a Halloween costume, for God’s sake. Get your fangy heads out of your asses.”

We also reached out to Travis Payne, right wing for the LVH’s Chicago Cobras, whose fight with the NHL to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup has been well-publicized. “Those fangs are fake,” says Payne, “and nobody has fangs that look that fake unless they’re wearing them over real fangs. Trust me on that. Malkin needs to face the music. They kicked me out of the league so fast it’d make your head spin—I don’t know why they’re waffling on this guy.”

More information as the story develops.

Blood on the Ice--Out Today!!

My new book, Blood on the Ice, debuts today from Samhain! Check out the excerpt below, and I hope you'll check out the whole book!
 

Chapter Fifteen

He woke to pitch blackness, and for a few seconds he couldn’t remember where he was. Panic rose, but he was too sluggish to react to it.

And he was hungry. So fucking hungry. Even paralyzed in the blackness, his body and brain not quite transitioned to nighttime consciousness, he was hungry.

The blackness receded, as if his eyes hadn’t quite started working yet when he’d awakened. Returning consciousness prickled along his arms and hands, his brain, like circulation returning to numb limbs.

He was never going to get used to this.

As soon as he could, he sat up and groped for the bottle of pills on the nightstand. He popped two into his mouth, letting them dissolve on his tongue. The hunger eased, feeling more like a normal early-morning craving for eggs and a bagel and less like a crazed badger setting up a home under his rib cage.

He made his way downstairs, tiptoeing because the silence of the place seemed far too...silent. He was loath to break it, not because he liked the quiet but because he was afraid it might become corporeal and attack him if he disturbed it.

Downstairs seemed more normal. He could hear the vague sounds of traffic from below, a siren wailing somewhere, a screech of brakes as someone narrowly avoided an accident. The refrigerator hummed. He opened it, took out a bottle of blood.

He felt like he was physically holding the hunger back as he waited for the blood, transferred to a highball glass, to heat in the microwave. Don’t try to rush it, he remembered, watching the LED numbers count down.

He had to concentrate to keep from chugging the blood, instead rolling it over his tongue, letting the flavor settle. He savored it, feeling the hunger recede as the blood washed warm through him. He’d finished the first glass and set the refill in the microwave when he heard his cell phone tweedling from the bedroom. He dragged himself away from the hypnotic spectacle of his breakfast turning around and around on the carousel to go find it.

By the time he retrieved the phone from the bedside table, it had stopped ringing and made the beeping noise that alerted him to a voicemail. He looked at the call history. Marc. He called back as he made his way back downstairs.

“Hey!” Marc answered on the second ring. “Turn on CSN Chicago.” The connection clicked off.

Travis grabbed a TV remote and did as told. As the microwave dinged in the kitchen, his own face appeared on the TV screen in all its widescreen, high-definition glory. His pores looked like a small child could swim in them.

“...makes his debut tonight at Cobra Stadium in the team’s third game this season against the Detroit Damnation. These teams are bitter rivals, and their last confrontation ended in a shootout, with Detroit coming out on top after the fourth round. Sources from inside the Cobra organization say Payne’s more disciplined, team-based play style has already had an effect on the Cobra’s practice sessions...”

The door swung open and Marc ambled in, joining Travis in front of the TV. Travis gave him a startled look.

“I still have the key.” He eyed Travis sidelong, the corner of his mouth curling.

Travis nodded, wondering if he should ask for the key back. The smirk on Marc’s face made Travis think he probably should, or Marc would take advantage. Mulling, he turned back to the TV.

“...in the meantime,” the announcer continued, “controversy continues to rage over Payne’s right to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup after the Hawks’ victory last spring. Payne played in all but two regular-season games and every game in the playoffs until the finals against the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers. Under normal circumstances, he would be eligible for inclusion on the Cup, but the league has shown reluctance due to questions regarding his changed status.”

The NHL commissioner’s face appeared on the screen then. Travis was happy to note that his pores looked even more spacious than his own had.

“We still don’t know the circumstances of this incident. If Payne chose to be Turned, then he has no reason to complain. And it’s my understanding that very few full transformations are involuntary. It requires a certain level of cooperation from the ‘victim.’”

“You smarmy motherfucker,” Travis muttered. Then he fell silent again as Susan’s face replaced that of the commissioner.

“Travis Payne was Turned involuntarily, and there is a pending police investigation regarding the identity of the individual responsible. Mr. Payne is no more responsible for his change in circumstance then was Vladimir Konstantinov of the Detroit Red Wings after his devastating car accident in 1997. And, as we all know, Konstantinov’s name is, indeed, on the Cup. In fact, it’s on the Cup for the 1998 win, during which season he never played due to his injuries. Travis Payne’s should be allowed, as well.”

“And there you have it.” The main announcer dominated the screen now. “Yet another blatant act of prejudice against the vampire race. Only this time it looks like we have a human on our side. Best of luck, Ms. Harris, with your crusade for justice, and best of luck to you, Mr. Payne, in your LVH debut tonight.”

The coverage switched then to a story about the Eastern European vampire rugby league. Travis flicked off the TV, a little stunned.

“I just called her last night. Or way early this morning. She wasn’t even awake.”

“She’s a good agent,” said Marc. He punched Travis in the shoulder. “And you, my friend, are a big fucking deal.”

Travis just shook his head. He’d known all this was going on, but seeing it on a fifty-inch TV was a bit different from watching clips on YouTube.

There was a moment of silence, not quite awkward but not quite comfortable, then Marc said, “I’m keeping your key.”

Travis didn’t look at him. “Fine. God knows when you might have to bust in here to save me from myself.” He finally gave Marc a sidelong look, his mouth twisting into something that didn’t really feel like a smile. He knew damn well that wasn’t why Marc was keeping the key. “Let’s face it—I’m still kind of a shit vampire.”

Marc chuckled and dragged a hand across Travis’s back, the touch lighting up Travis’s skin in ways he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. “Not going to argue with that,” Marc said. He waved toward the kitchen, where the microwave was still blinking. “Finish your breakfast. Game’s in four hours.”

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Hockey

I've mentioned before that Blood on the Ice is the direct result of my Evil BFF's five-year crusade to turn me into a hockey fan. You might wonder how she accomplished this evil deed. Well, she sent me a blueprint I could share for those of you who might be trying to drag a friend down the path of evil. Or, you know, just trying to get them to like things. This blueprint works. I'm living proof.

Talk about what you love....A LOT


Humor helps

So does shiny


Shiny is really fucking awesome


Sparkly isn't bad either


Neither is bromance


...or pretty

Sometimes more direct persuasion is necessary


Now that the groundwork has been laid, share things that may be to their tastes


Lather, rinse, repeat


Did I mention the repeat?


Reference stupid memes when sending links...cock goes where?


Weird rituals are always interest grabbing


Quality portraits are a good idea

Suits are nice


As is bad hair


Nakedness is always good


Mocking is too


When you have sufficiently brought them over to the dark side...jump for joy


Celebrate!


Try not to smirk too much


PROFIT

In retrospect, I'm kind of ashamed that I responded to a campaign that employed so much exposure to Ryan Kesler.

New Book on the Way!

Taylor Pyatt. He sat on my casting couch and he liked it.

Today is October first. What does that mean? Opening night for the NHL, of course. It also means I'm going to announce a new book.

I just signed a contract with Samhain Publishing to publish my book Blood on the Ice, a literary look at the importance of... no, that's not right.

It's about vampires who play professional hockey. If you see anything particularly literary in it, please shoot it.

On the eve of the Stanley Cup Finals, Travis Payne of the Chicago Blackhawks intervenes in a vampire attack outside a bar where he and his friends are celebrating. The vampires in question turn on him, and just plain Turn him.

Waking up in the Warm Room of the Cook County morgue, Travis discovers his whole life has been turned upside down. He can never play for the NHL again. Fortunately, there's the VHL--the vampire-only league--and his contract is transferred to the Chicago Cobras.

Marcus Antonius, ex-gladiator, has been a vampire since the days of Julius Caesar. He's also the Cobras' captain. He takes on the job of mentoring Travis, helping him adjust to his new team, his new life, and his shifting views of sexuality (that last one means there's lots of vampire sex...).

I'll be talking more about this book in the future, as we get closer to the release date. It's scheduled for next year, but I don't have a final publication date yet. In the mean time, visit the Pinterest board where I've assembled a lot of my research materials and my "casting couch." I've added some short excerpts so you can have an advance taste of the rest of the novel.

And be sure to tune in tonight to see the Blackhawks decimate the Washington Capitals!! :-D

A Couple of New Reviews

It looks like Necromancing Nim is doing not too badly out there in the big, wide, scary world. Thanks to everybody who's picked up a copy! If you've read the book, a review or even a hit on the "Like" button would be greatly appreciated. :-)

In other news, I have a couple of new reviews to share for Dealing With David (Samhain) and Unleashed Hearts (Still Moments).

First, from Long and Short Reviews, a 4.5-star review for Dealing With David:

"For a fun high school reunion, wedding-style, snap up a copy of Dealing with David. It will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered about their high school classmates, wanted to carry out an outstanding appearance at their high school reunion, or just needed a great story to read that combines revenge, overcoming obstacles, and romance."--Lotus and Long and Short Reviews

And from Sizzling Hot Books, 4 stars for Unleashed Hearts: 

"For the dog lovers among us, Unleashed Hearts shows how dogs are really our best friends. In this trio of stories in Unleashed Hearts, these dogs do their best to make their handlers happy. In each case they search out and bring love into lonely hearts."

"'Accidental Evenings' was a cute story showing how Cleo knew best! I enjoyed it, the story running smoothly from beginning to end."--Beverly at Sizzling Hot Books


Thanks for the great reviews!

Kicking the Tropes to the Curb

I talked a little bit about how I came to write Necromancing Nim in my last post (or the one before that—I don’t remember. You really expect me to keep track of my own blog? C’mon, people, that’s hard!). Now’s the part of the show where I admit that part of my motivation for writing this book involved me reacting to urban fantasy tropes.

It seems like urban fantasy has brought two major tropes into its fold over time. These are the Extremely Broken Protagonist and the Whiney Moany Love Triangle. Now, the EBP is pretty common in fiction across the board. This bugs me. Why does everybody in a book have to have a horrible past with parental abuse and tragic circumstances and a great-aunt who turned out to be a demon who put magically noxious chocolate chips in her Christmas cookies? It gets a bit tiresome, in my opinion, and after a while it stops being a character development tool and turns into a cliché. So Nim isn’t Horribly Broken. She’s actually a fairly functional adult (well, maybe not entirely functional since she’s a lot like your dear author-person) with a mostly normal family life. I think the worst thing her parents ever did to her was decide not to pay for braces.

Which brings us to the Whiney Moany Love Triangle (tangentially, I guess, but since a triangle is a geometric concept why not have tangents, too?). Nearly every urban fantasy heroine these days has to have two hot guys (sometimes more—see Sookie Stackhouse) who want in her pants. And then she’s all… omg I love them both whatever shall I do? At which point I yell at the book, “Bang them both and quit whining, for the love of everything!”

So Nim, being the practical, straightforward and flexible gal that she is, bangs them both. And they bang each other. And everybody’s happy! Perfect world, right?

Now if they could just figure out how to deal with that whole turning people into mindless vampire zombies thing...

Now Available! Necromancing Nim

Necromancing Nim arrived today from Samhain Publishing, available at all your usual ebook outlets. In honor of this auspicious occasion, here are some words of wisdom from Nim herself.

"Vampires aren’t great with plants."

"Word of advice—if you’re ever hiding something in your house that you know evil vampires are after, leave it in plain sight on the kitchen table. Otherwise, you’re going to be left with a lot of cleanup work after they turn your house upside down trying to find it."

"The Englewood Police Department is much like any other suburban police department. There are places to wait, places to fill out paperwork, places to be intimidated, interrogated or incarcerated. It’s always a little wackier at night. At night, there are more drunks, more vampires and more drunk vampires. The cops who work there after dark are also quite a bit testier, or at least that’s been my experience."

"God save me from Alpha males."

"Sometimes it’s good to be a bitch."

 Get to know more about Nim Taylor and her two vampire, um... "special friends" in Necromancing Nim.

Necromancing Nim--Coming Soon!!

When last we spoke—a nearly unforgivably long time ago (please forgive me, omg)—I was yammering about learning Russian and posting still more pictures of Evgeni Malkin. Today I’m going to yammer about something else. My new book! Which is coming out really soon! A week from tomorrow, in fact!

You can read what it’s about at the buy links. I’m going to tell you how I came to write it.

(Here, have a buy link: Necromancing Nim)

When I first started writing with intent to publish, I focused on science fiction and fantasy because that was what I loved the most. Later, after some failures in that area, I moved to romance because it was a big market and I discovered I liked reading it far more than I’d expected. These interests became a big mish-mash that eventually turned into paranormal and futuristic romance.

I don’t think I’d heard the term Urban Fantasy back then. I’m not sure it was a term that was being bandied about much at the time. But I knew I liked books that mixed contemporary settings with paranormal elements, which was what I found myself writing with my paranormal romance.

When Urban Fantasy started becoming a “thing,” I decided I wanted to write one. I’d had a character name knocking around my head for a while, but I wasn’t sure what she would be up to once I started writing about her. Finally, one afternoon at work when I was bored, I put pen to paper and started fiddling with a first person perspective to see what would come out. I remember it was a red pen. I even remember exactly what kind of pen. I won’t go into detail because you probably don’t care, but this just demonstrates that my brain is weird.

I wrote a couple of pages and quit. First person is hard, yo! Especially when you’ve never really written that way. But I picked it up again later. People kept posting writing challenges on Live Journal, and I’d go back to the book and use it to meet the challenge criteria. I joined NaNoWriMo and managed to add about 30,000 words during that November. Then it languished until the next November, when I added another 20 or 30K. I think I went through three NaNoWriMos with the same manuscript before I finally finished it.

(Here, have another buy link: Necromancing Nim at Amazon. I'm trying to be subtle. Is it working?)

Then I started rewriting. I rewrote the first third I don’t know how many times trying to get the voice to work. Because I wrote it over such an extended period of time, the pieces didn’t always fit together right. Something I set up in the first section would be completely contradicted in the second. So I tore out a lot and put in new stuff. My best friend and critique partner informed me she hated a big chunk, so I redid that bit, too. (She was right. She almost always is.)

I submitted it. I got rejections. I got a request for a full from two different places. I was happy. Then I got more rejections. I put it away for a while again.

Finally I resurrected the story and sent it to my editor at Samhain. I’d done still more revisions between the last rejection and this submission, trying to address some of the issues the rejectors in question had brought up. And finally, Nim found a home. We changed the title, added quite a few scenes, cleared up some inconsistencies, buffed and polished and all that jazz. I’m pretty happy with the final result.

(Have a Nook? Here, try this link: Necromancing Nim.)

I do have to warn my readers, though, that this book is very different from previous books I’ve published. I think it has a lot of similarities to the Vampire Apocalypse series, but it’s not a sweet-ish romance. The heroine has hard edges on her. There are two heroes. There are ménage shenanigans. There are vampire shenanigans. There’s a hell of a lot of swearing (sorry, Mom). But there’s a lot of emotion and humor and action and Nim is pretty kickass, in my overly biased opinion. So I hope you’ll give it a look, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

EXCERPT:

Fangs-deep in debt? Visit Bernstein & Carter for full-service financial management, structured with the modern vampire in mind. Visit us today at our convenient Lower-Lower Downtown location. Vampire-Owned and Registered in Denver, Colorado since 1972.—from the Bernstein & Carter Financial Services brochure.

Chapter One

Working for a vampire is fun. Vampires are cool, and the coolness rubs off. People are scared of you because they think your boss might bite them if they piss you off. At parties, you can tell people you work for a vampire, and their eyes get big and they take a step back, and for a few seconds, they can’t quite eat their crab puffs. And the vampire boss is always rich and hot, with a nice car and a penchant for cute human girls.

At least, that’s the way it always is on TV. But my vampire boss is an asshole, and I, the cute human girl, work in collections, because I suck as a receptionist.

Tonight, collections meant standing in the middle of the sidewalk at eleven-thirty p.m., under a shot-out streetlight, staring at the looming, gloomy house that was the target of my current appointment. The neighborhood, about five miles south of Denver, wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either; one of those odd residential pockets in Englewood that had never settled into all-human or all-vamp dwellings. Cute, cheery little ranch homes sat cheek by jowl with narrow, windowless vamp townhouses. This house was among the latter. I was beginning to think flipping burgers for humans would have been a better option than approaching whatever organizationally challenged vamp lived behind that decidedly unwelcoming front door. Hell, if it was all about working for vampires, serving blood shots at the local fang bar would be better than this.

But Colin, my asshole vampire boss of two years, had put this address on the top of my list of stops for tonight, so knocking on the door was my job.

“Mitch totally fucked this one up,” he’d said. “Pissed his pants and ran away like a little girl. You take it tonight—I want it done.”

I decided not to point out that, unlike Mitch, I actually was a girl. And little. “Why?”

“You make more than Mitch. If you get eaten, or I have to fire you for rabbitting, it’ll be financially advantageous.” He gave me a look that wasn’t that much different from his usual dissatisfied glare and so was open for interpretation. “Plus, you won’t screw it up.”

Hard to argue with that. It was the closest he’d ever come to complimenting me. So I’d taken the clipboard and headed out to find out why Mitch—who was, in all honesty, kind of a natural fuck-up—had pissed himself.

After sparing another minute to frown and sulk, I headed up the sidewalk to the house that had been Mitch’s undoing. With the streetlight gone and the porch light off, it was dark and disturbing. Yeah, I have night-vision goggles—it’s a necessity in my line of work—but they make everything green, and they don’t quite fit right. Tonight’s full moon and clear sky made them optional, so I’d opted against.

In any case, it was up to me—all five feet nothing and a hundred and mumble pounds of me—to go to the door and tell the vampire who lived there that we were going to impound his HDTV if he didn’t cough up four months’ worth of back payments, interest and administrative charges. Something told me he wasn’t going to be happy.

I gave my jacket pockets a last check—Taser, pepper spray, garlic, squirt gun full of holy water, properly licensed, thank you very much—and stepped through the gloomy dark to the gloomy front door of the gloomy, windowless house.

I knocked. And waited. Knocked again. Finally, HDTV Guy answered his door. His shirt buttons were askew, and he had a drip of blood at the corner of his mouth. God, I didn’t even want to know.

“Good evening. I’m Nimuë Taylor, from Bernstein & Carter,” I announced. “I regret to inform you—”

“I talked to you assholes last night,” TV Guy interrupted. “Told that little shit not to come back.”

I pressed my lips together and gave him an annoyed head-tilt, eyes narrowed. Not that I managed to be intimidating, since I resemble a shaggy-headed anime character. “In deference to your request, my company has thoughtfully provided a different little shit. Now, I have paperwork here with a breakdown of all funds currently in arrears. You can contact our office tonight to let us know how you’d like to handle the situation. Otherwise, we’ll have to impound your TV.”

Apparently, he and his TV had developed a serious relationship in their brief acquaintance. “You are not taking my fucking TV.” He flashed his fangs, as if the sight of moonlight glittering off sharp, pointy teeth would send me gibbering off to mind my own business.

Fangs didn’t faze me much these days. I blinked at him blandly, ready to squirt-gun his ass if necessary. I had my clipboard in one hand, so I could hand it to him for his signature, but my other hand was inside my jacket pocket, finger on the trigger of the squirt gun.

“You’re correct, Mr. Smith.” What a lame name. Like I couldn’t figure out it was fake. “If you fail to contact our office, someone will drop by tomorrow, and he will take your fucking TV.” I held out the clipboard, a business card clamped under the clip on top of my paperwork. “The phone number’s right here.”

He snarled. My hand tightened on the squirt gun. He was going to get a face full if he didn’t watch it.

I took a loose, cocky stance, refusing to show fear, though I could feel it curling in my stomach, and he could probably smell it. Vamps are gross that way. “If you could just sign here, to verify I made this stop—”

He knocked the clipboard out of my hand. I pulled the pistol and pointed it at him. “Pick up the clipboard and sign it.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me with your little purple gun?”

“My little purple gun full of holy water,” I said calmly.

His sneer faded, and he eyed the gun. “I can take that out of your hand before you have a chance to pull the trigger.”

Nice piece of vampire posturing. I pulled the trigger. The stream of water hit him right in the eye—I’m a good shot, and, lame as it sounds, my squirt gun is souped up.

“Shit!” He lurched back as his eye began to smoke. While he was still off-balance, I squirted him again, then grabbed my clipboard and ran. Colin would bitch that I hadn’t gotten the signature. Let him. I wasn’t going to hang around to get chewed on.

I still heard Mr. Smith swearing behind me, then issuing threats. “You fucking bitch! I’m gonna tear your throat out!”

Not if I got to my car first. From the sound of it, he was still scrambling behind me, and from the smell, the holy water had done some serious damage. My car was only a few yards away—

And someone was leaning against it. Not just any someone, but a vampire someone. He grinned at me, flashing fangs, and this time, the sight of sharp, pointy teeth in the moonlight did make me want to cut and run.

In no way could this be construed as good, regardless of how much you tried to stretch the definition of the term. In fact, I was willing to go out on a limb and say it was just plain bad. I dropped the clipboard, leaving both hands free. One still held the squirt gun; I shoved the other into my jeans pocket, where I’d stowed my car keys.

The new vamp pushed away from the car, giving me a feral, fangy smile.

“You upset my friend,” he said, his voice oily. The performance was almost too over the top to be scary. Almost. “I don’t like that.”

“It’s just a TV, for God’s sake,” I said. There wasn’t much I could do at this point to get away—he was between me and the car, and I could hear Mr. Smith staggering up behind me. Could smell him too. There’s nothing quite like the reek of burnt vampire.

“He likes his TV.” The vamp took a menacing step toward me. This was my only advantage—it appeared the newcomer liked to play with his food. “I like his TV too.”

“Well, I’m sorry your boyfriend can’t remember to pay his bills.” My fingers found my keys in my pocket and hit the alarm button. My car began to wail, and I groped into my hoodie pocket again, searching out another weapon.

The vampire jumped, then glared at me, obviously embarrassed at his reaction to the sudden, pervasive noise. “You really think that’s going to help?”

But it had helped, because it had distracted him for that split second. I leveled the squirt gun at him. He let out a barking laugh and slapped it out of my hand. At which point I treated him to a face full of pepper spray from the other hand.

He recoiled, grimacing, eyes watering. The stuff hurt like hell, I knew, even if you were a vampire. While he made incomprehensible grunting noises, I ducked around him and jerked the car door open.

Just then, Mr. Smith descended, his right eye weeping goo onto his cheek. He reached into the car after me, and I slammed the door on his arm. He grimaced but still groped for me as I held the door shut as tight as I could. Wriggling in the car seat, I got my feet up against the doorframe for leverage and pulled harder, wondering how much pressure it would take to sever his arm.

He couldn’t quite reach me, his fingers wiggling in the air a few inches from my face. If I leaned forward, I could get one of those stupidly annoying fingers between my teeth and bite it off—

Suddenly, Mr. Smith flew backward across the grass. He landed hard on his ass and sat there, stunned. I stared back at him, at first not sure what had happened. Then the other vamp flew across the lawn as well. I recovered enough to realize I could close my car door now that the vamp’s arm was no longer in the way, so I did. I stuffed the key into the ignition and started the car.

There was a tap on my window. Startled, I met the gaze of still another vampire standing next to the driver’s-side door. They were just crawling up out of the lawns tonight. He laid my clipboard against the glass with a careful smack.

“You’re going to need this.”

I wasn’t sure what to do at first. This new vamp had just saved my ass—well maybe not saved it, per se, but he’d made things easier. Adrenaline still rushed through my system, so my first impulse was to slam him with the door, get him on the ground and spray holy water into his ear until his brain melted. I’d done that once, and it wasn’t pretty. Vamps didn’t come back from that. In fact, their families sued under those circumstances. And then lost a shitload of money if you could prove self-defense.

I didn’t do that, though. I just stared at him, heart galloping, trying to control my breathing before I hyperventilated and passed out.

He smiled. He was nice to look at. A slim face with etched cheekbones, a wide mouth not marred but enhanced by a slight overbite, and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. The rest of him appeared to be slim as well, though I couldn’t see all of him out the window.

“If you’d like to put the window down just a bit, I can slide the clipboard through for you.” And British. I hadn’t registered the accent at first.

I swallowed, adrenaline still muddling my head. Finally, I hit the button to lower the window just enough for the clipboard to slide through. He displayed my squirt gun and eased it through to me too.

“Thanks,” I said as I took the gun. “You really saved my ass.”

He shrugged, still grinning. “Seemed you were doing all right, actually.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “A little help never hurts.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

There was an awkward moment of silence. I felt like I should say something else, but I didn’t know what.

And that was when the cops showed up.

Excerpt: Dealing With David--Out Today from Samhain

Being sick and having a ton of work and lots of other things can really throw you off your blogging game... I'll be working on getting myself back into a regular gear over the next few weeks. As a result, this week you'll be getting not one but THREE excerpts! Why? Because I just had three stories--a short story, a novella and a full-length novel--release over the last week.

Today's contribution is from Dealing With David, available NOW from Samhain. Take a look, and if you grab the book and read it, a review would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

On to the excerpt... Hope you enjoy!

*****

Stranded in the mountains after a freak spring snowstorm, our intrepid heroine finds herself in David's guest bedroom trying to get to sleep. But there's something about the former high school geek that has her in knots...

The bed was cozy, with clean-smelling sheets and a heavy comforter. Tony crawled in and flipped off the light.

The absolute darkness startled her. After so long living in town, she’d forgotten the deep, dark of night in the mountains. With snow and stars obscured by snow clouds, the only light in the room came from the hall light seeping faintly in under the door. She buried herself to her neck in the blankets and stared into the darkness.

This was not how she’d planned to spend her weekend. Of course, it wasn’t what David had planned, either. She really just wanted to go home, to her own bed, get herself mentally ready for her new temp assignment, eat chocolate, watch some shows off her DVR, go shopping, maybe buy some new shoes. None of that was going to happen. Instead, apparently, she was going to lie here in David’s guest bedroom and brood.

She couldn’t figure out why she felt so strange. Just being in David’s presence seemed to drag up all the yuck she’d tried to shove under the carpet when she finally ended her marriage. Why was it rolling up its ugly underbelly again when she found herself with someone who was acting like he might be interested in her?

And what was all this nonsense about him being infatuated with her in high school? She’d never been aware of any particular interest on his part, much less a crush or infatuation. Surely she would’ve noticed.

Then again, she hadn’t paid much attention to him. She’d used him once to help her get through an algebra exam. She couldn’t characterize the interaction any more charitably; she’d been nice to him while he been tutoring her, then, when the exams were over, had snubbed him. A minor sin, maybe, but it gave her a twinge of guilt when she thought about it now. Especially when he was being nice to her.

A half hour of brooding broodiness later, Tony looked at the clock and discovered only five minutes had passed. With an exasperated sigh, she sat up and turned on the light. After a moment’s thought, she slipped out of bed and opened the bedroom door.

A soft murmur of music drifted down the hallway. David’s bedroom door was partly open, and a light burned beyond it. Tony padded to the door and peered around it.

Yet another computer occupied a desk in a corner of the bedroom. David sat in front of it, his back to the door. Hesitantly, she knocked.

He turned to face her. He wore glasses now, lightweight wire frames with thin lenses. They made him look bookish but not at all unattractive. Tony became suddenly, acutely aware of where she was and tried very hard not to look at the bed.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing really.” His quilt was maroon and black, she noticed, a geometric pattern that complemented the one in the guest room. “I just can’t sleep.”

David grinned and reached over to pull some paper out of the printer tray. His sweatshirt rode up when he bent over, and Tony had a hard time convincing herself she shouldn’t look at his bare skin. The shirt settled back into place as he straightened.

“Here you go,” he said, handing her the paper and a pen.

Tony shook her head, not willing to admit he’d given her exactly what she needed. But she’d always sketched when she was nervous, even in high school. He’d kidded her about it more than once.

She should just leave now, she thought, but before she could stop herself, she said, “Do you, um…wear contacts now, or did you have Lasik?”

He smiled. “Lasik. I only wear glasses now at night, when my eyes are tired, or when I’ve been on the computer a long time. It was totally worth it.”

“I’ll bet. So what are you working on? Another game?”

He rolled his chair to one side so she could see the screen. Crudely rendered stick figures stood posed in battle in front of a background of color blocks.

“Dark Princes III,” he said. “It’s a really early version. We still don’t have the artwork hashed out, so we’re just blocking out some of the major action sequences. Rich and I wrote up the plot along with one of our other programmers. The other programmer wasn’t happy about the predominately male characters in the first two games, so we took her advice, and now Dark Princes III is about Prince Aelfwyn’s sister Aethelfried.”

“Well, that’s a nice change of pace, anyway. Those adventure games always seem so sexist.” Belatedly, Tony noticed her clipped tone.

David only grinned. “Touché. Actually, I’d always intended to move into some more gender-flexible games, but the Dark Princes plot didn’t lend itself too well to that, and games with male leads are proven to sell better.”

“Why is that?” asked Tony.

“Supposedly women don’t have a problem playing games where they’re presenting themselves as a male character, but men aren’t so happy pretending they’re a female character. A few games have bucked the standard, but with Dark Princes being a new franchise, I decided to play it safe.”

“I see.” Tony paused, evaluating her tone. Had she sounded too snippy? “I guess video games are a man’s world too.” Just like everything else. Yeah, that had sounded a little snippy. She needed to work on that.

David didn’t seem offended. He turned back toward the computer and touched a button. The stick figures came to life, moving into confrontation. “The world is what you make of it.”

Maybe for you. Tony managed to quash that thought before she voiced it aloud. Some people turned everything they touched to gold. Others turned it to mud.

She started to back out of the room, then paused, watching the little stick figures bash each other with stick-figure swords. Their movements were jerky, unrefined, but even at this stage, she could tell the choreography of the battle had been carefully thought out. They just needed clothes. And skin and muscles and, well, faces would be good too. Pictures started to form in her mind of what they might look like, pictures that made the tips of her fingers long to hold a pencil, to work it all out where she could see it.

“What got you interested in this line of work?” she heard herself asking.

He glanced back over his shoulder. “I spent a lot of time in front of video game consoles in high school and college. It seemed like a natural progression.”

“I guess you always were good at math.” Lame, Tony. She really didn’t know what developing computer games involved, though, other than the obvious programming skills.

He chuckled. Even her lamest lameness didn’t seem to faze him much. “I am that. And I can barf up C++ code with both hands tied behind my back, typing with my nose.”

It was an interesting image on numerous levels. “I’d like to see that.”

“I bet you would.” He swiveled his chair so that he faced her more directly. Her eyes caught on the line of his throat, the curve of it as it disappeared behind his collar. His heartbeat pulsed in the groove along the side of his neck, and there was a small spot just under his chin where he hadn’t shaved quite cleanly. “Anyway, I studied computer science in college, where I met Rich, and we decided to take the jump and start marketing our own games.”

“Rich programs too?”

“Yeah, and he has a better eye for art than I do, so he recruited our initial graphic artists. Now we have a department for that, and he runs it. Good artists are hard to find.” His gaze seemed to narrow on her little, as if he were trying to tell her something. She didn’t know what that might be. She certainly didn’t know anything about art for computer games. Sure, she knew her way around Photoshop, but she was going to be an accountant, so it wasn’t really relevant knowledge. Uncomfortable under his attention, she lifted the hand that held the paper.

“Thanks for the paper.”

“Any time.” His smile was warm. She wanted to get away—wanted to move closer. She could almost feel his touch again, the casual, not-quite-accidental tracery of his fingers against her thigh. God, she really needed to get out of here. His gaze weighed heavy on her as she turned and headed back to the guest room.

The bed had grown chilly in her absence, and it took a few minutes for Tony’s body heat to soak the sheets again. With the pile of paper propped in her lap—not exactly steady but steady enough for her use—she began to sketch.

She started doodling; then that mysterious something took over, and she found the lines shaping a horse, a woman on its back, dressed in war gear. She slid out of the warm bed to kneel next to the nightstand, spreading papers out under the light of the lamp. With the wider, harder surface, the picture became more intricate until she had produced something that looked more like a professionally finished product than a doodle.

She moved to another sheet and started another—a dragon in flight against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains. Discussing David’s game must have triggered something in her subconscious. She hadn’t drawn a dragon in years.

Tony finished that picture and moved to another. She could lose everything in the act of drawing: tension, insecurity, insomnia. She felt alive when she drew, as if her soul found its true purpose in the point where pen met paper.

Every time she drew, she wondered why she kept pushing this need away. It made her feel so…herself. The doubts and insecurities, the fluttery tension that made her day-to-day living so twitchy at times, disappeared when she let herself draw.

The pen moved across the paper in a flat arc, then moved downward. Along the same theme as the wedding, as the dragon, she drew a man in armor, a big, two-handed sword balanced between his hands, its tip resting on the ground. It wasn’t until she had sketched in the eyes and started to outline the long, strong nose that she realized she was drawing someone who looked very much like David.

Dealing With David--Coming Soon!

Just got the new, finalized cover for my next Samhain release, Dealing With David. Take a gander! It's pre-order-able now.

This book was previously published at Hard Shell Word Factory, but my Samhain editor had me run it through the wringer, so it's a much better book now.

*****

It’s tough to win the game of love if you don’t understand the rules.

Though Tony Mullin agreed to put on a medieval costume, complete with pointy hat, for her best friend’s marriage vow renewal, another round of wedding bells will never be in her own future. Been there, done that, still sifting through the ashes of broken dreams.

Yet she can’t take her eyes off the Armani-clad mystery man among the guests—and no one’s more surprised to learn it’s David Peterson, the erstwhile nerd who mooned over her in high school. He not only grew up to be a hunk, but a rich one as well. Pity she’s sworn off men.

Last David knew, sweet, artistic Tony married the high school quarterback. He made his fortune developing video games, but the torch he carried for her still smolders. His surprise that she’s ditched the jock quickly turns to determination to win her heart at last…though she seems just as determined to play keep-away.

David didn’t become successful by giving up easily. A freak snowstorm plays into his strategy, but debugging a few gigabytes of computer code seems easier than figuring out how to win this wary woman’s love.

This title was previously published. 

---

Product Warnings

Contains strange Colorado weather patterns and video game heroines with breasts that could put your eye out.

Earthchild: Excerpt

Earthchild is a follow-up to Starchild. It also appeared first at Dreams Unlimited, then went to Samhain. (I think LTD went out of business before I managed to arrange a reprint there.) Anyway. This one makes my mom cry.

Taken in as an infant and raised by the primitive, non-human natives of the colony planet Denahault, Noisy Girl has always known she was different. Human settlers initiating peaceful contact confirm it—her true home is a planet called Earth, millions of miles away among the stars.

Her search for her heritage leads her to the home of Harrison Fairfax and Trieka Cavendish, and their guest Jeff Anderson, Trieka’s former second-in-command.

For Jeff, Trieka’s offer to captain the legendary ship Starchild is a lifelong dream fulfilled. Then he meets Noisy Girl, an entrancing young woman who speaks only in sign language. She captures his imagination like no other woman ever has, and his efforts to teach her English deepens a relationship he never thought was possible for him.

But the claustrophobic, technology-laden atmosphere of Earth traumatizes the gentle Noisy Girl, and suddenly Jeff’s choices aren’t quite so clear.

If he accepts permanent command of Starchild, all hope of happiness with this beguiling woman will be destroyed. Unless a compromise can be found…

From Chapter One:

The Loud-Talking People had cut down trees and made houses from them. To Noisy Girl, who’d lived her whole life in the shelter of a natural cave, this seemed both bizarre and fascinating.

 

But even more bizarre and fascinating were the Loud-Talking People themselves. The noise seemed incessant, as they opened their mouths and made peculiar rhythmic sounds. Noisy Girl thought they looked strange as well, until she remembered they looked just like her. They had smooth, almost hairless skin, ranging in color from pinkish, like her own, to a black-brown nearly as dark as the skin of the White Fur People. Over it they wore garments amazingly constructed of woven cloth finer than anything she had ever seen. They were strange and beautiful and very, very noisy. They were her people, and they frightened her.

With her mother, she watched the village from a nearby ridge. They were close enough to see details of the houses and the people, close enough to hear the odd sounds that came from the Loud-Talkers’ mouths, but hidden by the forest growth that dominated the overhanging ridge. It would have been a good site from which to attack the little settlement, had they been so inclined. Noisy Girl shook her head as the thought passed through her mind, negating it. It wasn’t the kind of thing that usually occurred to her.

“They sound like tree-climbers,” Noisy Girl signed to her mother, thinking of the furry creatures who hung by their tails from the tree branches, chattering incessantly to each other. 

“They have fine houses,” Walks Crooked replied. She pointed. “Look. Children.”

One of the women below squatted as a small boy ran to her. A horrible noise came from his small mouth, an unarticulated sound of distress. The woman gathered him into her arms and brushed her mouth against his head, crooning against his sun-colored hair.

Something too vague to be a memory stirred in Noisy Girl’s heart. She pressed her fingers against her lips as the boy’s howling faded. Within a few moments, he laughed and ran away.

“They can be kind,” she said.

Her mother smiled. “They can be unkind, as well. But I think they will not be so to you.”

Noisy Girl frowned. “Will you come with me?”

“I will.”

The woman who caught sight of them as they slid down the ridge knew only a few words of the White Fur People’s language, but she tried. She smiled, made a great deal of noise, touched Noisy Girl as if she couldn’t believe Noisy Girl was real.

“No talk well,” she’d said, obviously uncomfortable with the hand gestures. “She talk well. Find her. You wait.”

“She wants us to wait,” Walks Crooked said, then her mouth twitched into a smile. “At least, I think that’s what she said.”

Noisy Girl recognized the nervousness behind Walks Crooked’s smile. She herself swallowed to calm the jumpy nausea caused by her own nerves.

“I don’t want to go,” she said suddenly, a desperate sound straining at the back of her throat. The Loud-Talking woman turned and looked at her, concern on her face. What did that sound mean to these people who used sounds as a matter of course?

“These are your people,” Walks Crooked said.

“You are my people.”

Walks Crooked cupped Noisy Girl’s face in a white-furred hand. “Learn about them. You can always change your mind later, if things don’t go well.”

Noisy Girl nodded, blinking back tears. She couldn’t help the sounds in the back of her throat. Until this moment, she hadn’t been certain the White Fur People would want her back. She’d been loved and cared for among them, but she couldn’t help the doubt—the fear that they’d jumped on the chance to introduce her to her own people so her strangeness would no longer disturb their world. She’d lived with that fear all her life.

“Thank you,” Noisy Girl said.

Several hours later, with the sun now past its zenith, they still waited.

Noisy Girl couldn’t fault the Loud-Talkers’ hospitality, though. They’d provided comfortable places to sit, on wooden constructs unlike anything Noisy Girl had ever seen, in a small room of one of the remarkable wooden houses. The woman brought them warm sweet drinks and hot bread with fruit spread. She sat with them and they all tried very hard to converse. The visitors didn’t get much beyond asking for more drinks and indicating appreciation of the food, but it gave Noisy Girl hope. If she could feel some measure of acceptance already, maybe she could find a place among these people that she’d never quite been able to make among the White Fur People. But everything here was so different. The sounds they made fascinated her. Could she learn to do that?

All her life, she’d been defined by the sounds she could make. In this world, those sounds would become commonplace. That realization suddenly clarified the enormity of the changes she faced.

A shift in the voices in the next room told her something had changed. Their companion, the woman who’d met them on the ridge, quickly left the room, following the sounds.

Noisy Girl sat straighter. Next to her, Walks Crooked laid a hand on her knee. She laid her hand on top of her mother’s and clutched at it, grasping at any link to familiarity. Her other hand fingered the string of amber beads she always wore. The texture of the smoothly polished stones had always calmed her. They helped now, but at the same time felt alien and strange. What would these people think of her?

From the other room came two more people, a man and a woman, accompanied by the woman who’d kept them company over the past few hours. The man was tall and slim, the hair on his head a dark brown touched with red. The woman was small, her hair a shocking orange.

The woman smiled, and her hands danced.

“Hello. My name is Fire Hair, and this is my mate, called Long Nose by the People Who Live at the Edge of the Mountain. We were asked to come here to talk to you.”

Noisy Girl glanced at her mother, shocked by the small woman’s identity. The stories of Fire Hair and Long Nose, who’d made possible the present interaction between the Loud-Talking People and the White Fur People, had traveled even to Noisy Girl’s isolated village. Those stories, in fact, were why she had come here.

Walks Crooked lifted her hands. “I am Walks Crooked, from the People by the Shores of the West Sea. This is my daughter, Noisy Girl. She came to our tribe as a very small child. When we heard of you and the peace that had begun between your people and ours, we knew we should come here so Noisy Girl might learn of her true people.”

Fire Hair nodded. “From the West Sea to here is a journey of many miles and much danger. You have come alone?”

“The dangers are not great for those who know these forests. Our village is small, and now is the best time for fish, so no one else could be spared for this journey.” Walks Crooked didn’t mention the other reasons. There’d been great debate about whether the journey was worth the risk. The West Sea tribe was distant and isolated, and fear still reigned when it came to dealing with the strange Loud-Talkers.

“May I speak to your daughter and call her by her name?”

“You may.”

Fire Hair’s attention turned to Noisy Girl, and her apprehension grew again. It was tempered, though, by Fire Hair’s attitude—her respect for Walks Crooked and her obvious knowledge of the customs of the White Fur People.

“Noisy Girl, I greet you with happiness. You are welcome to come with us and visit the tribe of the Loud-Talking People. If you wish to learn more of us, we will gladly teach you.”

“I’ve never been away from my village,” said Noisy Girl, feeling strangely at ease with this new acquaintance. “All of this is so strange.”

Behind Fire Hair, the man—Long Nose—joined the conversation with equally flawless gestures. “Perhaps your mother would wish to come and stay for a time, until you decide if you wish to remain with us or return to your village.”

“Yes,” said Walks Crooked. “I would do that, if it would be accepted.”

“It is accepted,” said Fire Hair. “You both may come and be welcome among us.”

And so it began.

EXCERPT: Starchild

Starchild was my second published book at Dreams Unlimited. It moved to LTD after DU, then LTD went out of business. Then I bought an ad to publicize it at a magazine and the magazine promptly went out of business. I was beginning to think the book was a curse. Then it landed at Samhain, and they seem fairly solvent still, so hopefully that little string of weirdness has ended.

When billionaire financier Harrison Fairfax boards the EarthFed starship Starchild, Captain Trieka Cavendish knows he’ll bring trouble.  Earthlubbers always do.  But she has no idea “trouble” will come in the form of a vast government conspiracy that will turn her whole world upside down.

Harrison Fairfax has spent the past seven years trying to find out what happened to his wife, an investigative journalist.  But his wife’s disappearance is only the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath is bigger—and much, much worse. It’s a conspiracy reaching to the highest echelons of EarthFed.

Government strongmen, who are on to Fairfax’s meddling, drive him and Cavendish into the wilds of the colony planet Denahault, where they discover even more secrets—and a passion that may be the only thing that can save them.

From Chapter Three

The annoying buzz that was supposed to be a chime jarred Trieka out of a more restful sleep eight hours later. Bleary, she looked at the clock on the shelf by her berth: 0459. As she stared, eyes barely focused, it clicked over to 0500 and began to beep.

Whoever was outside her door activated the buzzer again.

The situation should have made sense, but in her semi-unconscious state, Trieka couldn’t fit the pieces together.

“Captain!” That was Jeff’s voice. “Breakfast.”

“I’m coming,” Trieka replied reflexively.

She swung out of the bed as she gradually remembered she’d set her alarm a half hour later than usual. She didn’t go on duty until 0600, and had figured the extra sleep would do her some good. Quickly, she shed her pajamas and stepped into her uniform. She folded the pajamas and laid them on the bed, shoved a hand through her hair to put the riotous curls into some semblance of order, then went to the door.

Jeff and Lieutenant Wu stood outside. Jeff, as always, was pressed and pleated within an inch of his life, his dark blond hair crisply combed, boots so shiny you could touch up your mascara in the reflection. Robin at least looked like she’d recently been asleep, her fine, dark hair entertaining a not-quite tamable cowlick.

“Rough night, Captain?” Robin asked.

“No rougher than usual on the first night out.”

“Weird dreams?”

“Very.” She had no desire to go into detail, especially with her crew, but Fairfax had continued to haunt her dreams, naked and otherwise. She didn’t make a habit of using sleep enhancers, though it was fairly common for crews on long voyages, but she was beginning to wonder if it might not be a bad idea.

Although crew and passengers had been scheduled to eat in shifts, the small mess was filled to capacity. Ensign Rico had held their table while Jeff and Robin went to fetch Trieka. Trieka helped herself to the food at the counter, then joined her crew.

“How did it go last night?” Trieka asked Rico.

Rico shrugged. “Smooth. No catastrophes.”

“That’s always a good sign. How about you, Jeff? How was Fairfax’s preboard? He give you any trouble?”

“No, not really. Asked a lot of questions.”

“Good. I think Admiral Derocher would appreciate it if we were nice to him. The government wants his money.”

“Is that why he’s here?” Robin looked as if she had just solved a particularly annoying puzzle.

“That’s right. So kiss his ass as much as possible.”

Robin grinned slyly. “May I take that literally?”

“Only with his permission.”

Jeff cocked an eyebrow at Robin. “Best be careful, Lieutenant. We don’t want any lawsuits.”

Robin shrugged it off. “Not likely. I just think he’s cute, that’s all. And being rich doesn’t hurt anything, either. What do you think, Captain?”

Trieka had her mouth full of toast, which was fortuitous since the question caught her off guard. She chewed and swallowed, trying not to think about the dreams.

“I think he’s skinny and he has a big nose.”

Jeff looked at Trieka in amazement. “I think that if I were talking about a woman like that, you’d write me up.”

“Oh, please—” Robin protested, but Trieka interrupted her.

“No, Jeff’s right. It’s highly inappropriate. Lieutenant, write yourself up for unbecoming conduct.”

“Write myself up?” Robin gaped, only half-serious.

“Well, it would save me the trouble.”

Jeff, on the other hand, had worked up a snit. “I’m offended you’re not taking this seriously.”

Trieka laid a conciliatory hand on Jeff’s arm. He’d been a good friend since academy days, so she hated to chastise him. In fact, she’d requested him as her second-in-command because he was smart and dependable and maybe a little cute. But his too-proper attitude didn’t fit in with her concept of a colony ship. She wanted things more relaxed. On the other hand, he’d probably make a great admiral someday.

“I wouldn’t write you up for talking about a passenger, Jeff. After all, I didn’t even reprimand you for what you said about me at the holiday party last winter.”

Jeff slid from self-righteous to uncomfortable. “I was drunk.”

“Even so, I think you were responsible for your own actions.”

“I apologized once, and I’ll apologize again.”

Trieka grinned. She’d gotten quite a bit of mileage out of that little indiscretion. “It’s all right. Though I have to say it’s the first time I’ve ever heard my breasts compared to any kind of fruit, much less—”

Jeff waved surrender. “All right, all right. Fairfax is cute and he has a big nose. Can we please change the subject?”

“Sure. How are the passengers settling in?”

Apparently the passengers were settling in fine. Trieka listened as Jeff related the mild fiasco of the boarding procedure, half her attention focused on her own thoughts.

She had a great deal to accomplish today, with only the usual twenty-four hours to work with. She arranged her schedule in her head, Jeff’s words sinking in just far enough for comprehension.

She wasn’t sure what made her look toward the door, but when she did, Fairfax walked through it. Inexplicably, Trieka’s heart sped up, then settled into a slow, very hard rhythm that left her breathless.

He was bleary-eyed and mussed, the dark red-brown hair standing up at his crown. From the pattern of the wrinkles in his shirt, she could tell it was silk. It looked like he’d slept in it. He collected his breakfast, then sat down at a table with a group of passengers, greeting them with a weary smile.

No, Trieka wouldn’t call him cute, though the long nose gave him a bit of a sad puppy look. Not cute, but definitely not ugly. Unable to stop the thought, she wondered how accurate her dreams had been once the clothes had started coming off.

“Captain?” Jeff said.

Trieka realized he’d asked her a question. Quickly, she cast back, trying to remember what it was. Funny how she could arrange her schedule and listen to Jeff at the same time, while Fairfax’s presence seemed to crowd everything else out of her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said to hide the hesitation while her mind filled in the gaps. “I was thinking.” She considered a moment. “There are a couple of empty passenger cabins. We had some last-minute pullouts. If these people really can’t stand each other, you could separate them.”

Jeff nodded decisively. “Good. That gives me some flexibility.”

Trieka returned an equally firm nod, hiding her amazement that she’d supplied a relevant answer. Jeff returned his attention to his meal, and a comfortable silence settled over the table.

Trieka’s coffee had gone cold, and she wrinkled her nose at the tepid, bitter taste. She enjoyed strong black coffee when it was hot—cold, it needed sugar. She reached across the table for a sugar packet, looking up as she did so.

Fairfax’s gaze riveted to hers from across the room. He smiled a little, and Trieka found herself staring at his mouth. His jaw was wider than his temple. His smile broadened, showing a flash of teeth. Automatically, Trieka smiled back, then, suddenly self-conscious, looked away.

A surreptitious glance a few moments later found him involved in his breakfast and the conversation of the woman sitting next to him. Resolutely, Trieka put him out of her mind and resumed planning her day.

* * *

Fairfax was exhausted. Even five cups of black coffee couldn’t keep his eyes open. He should have tried to exchange his early breakfast shift with someone else. It had occurred to him, but it had also occurred to him that Captain Cavendish would probably eat at the early shift. For whatever reason, it had seemed worth the loss of sleep to exchange that smile with her across the room and see her look away as if it had affected her.

But he was paying for it now. Finally, after drifting into semi-unconsciousness one too many times, he excused himself from the breakfast table and returned to his room.

The berth in the small cabin barely allowed him to stretch out to his full six foot one inch frame. He lay very still on his back for a time, trying to let his mind drift. Unfortunately, the drifting kept finding a target. He opened one eye to look at the computer pad sitting on the small desk. If he reached out, he could pick it up without even stretching…

No. He’d been up all night struggling with the encrypted files he’d snagged from Derocher’s logs. It wouldn’t do him any good to struggle more with them today. The little pad just didn’t have the processing power to break the encryption. He’d have to access the shipboard computers to take advantage of their power.

He needed to get into Cavendish’s logs as well. He had to know if she carried orders from Derocher—something other than the simple delivery of a few colonists to their destination. He had to know, and not just because it would add to the pile of evidence if she did. In fact, he hoped she didn’t.

Madison had taught him a lot about ship’s computers, too. Fairfax began to run the most common configurations through his head, theorizing where the weakest points might be in the system’s security. The theoretical networks became pictures—spinning, mesmerizing webs. He wasn’t certain when they caught him, but they did, and he fell into sleep.