“It’s that bad?” he asked as he headed west for home.
“Looks that way. We ducked the last disaster, but there’s more coming. I can feel it. I’d hoped you could cover it yourself, maybe work out of this office for a few weeks.”
Rafe hesitated, knowing that at any other time he would have rejected that idea out of hand. But he didn’t this time. The fact was, he didn’t need to get out and date and meet women to get on with his life. He needed to get out, period. Out of Fort Worth and out of the office. He’d go to Houston, and he’d take a break. The boys weren’t in school yet, and it wouldn’t be too hard to take them with him once he opened the house he had down there. They could even have their horses if they wanted to.
“I’ll have to make arrangements for the boys and—”
“If you bring them along, why not use our day care center at the head office? It’s top-notch and right in the building. Walker loves it there, and you’d be close if the boys needed you.”
Rafe had met Walker, Zane’s two-year-old son, shortly after Zane and Lindsey had married. Now Zane was going to be a father again. Strange how people you never thought of as parent material took to having kids like ducks to water.
The traffic slowed a lot and Rafe eased along the street at a snail’s crawl, then made his decision. “Okay, I’ll give it a shot. I’m not sure when I can get there.”
“Just let me know. I’ll set up a board meeting and—”
“No, don’t do that.” If he was going to handle this, he knew exactly how he’d work it. “I think I want to go in quietly and get the lay of the land. My men are already on your payroll for security, so I’ll go in as one of them. No one would know the difference, and no one at LynTech would know me, except you and Lindsey. I can slip in easily.”
Zane didn’t argue. “Okay, when?”
“I’ll get myself hired as soon as I hang up now. I can be in Houston in a couple of days, start working at LynTech and get everything set for Carmella to bring the boys down later.”
He heard Zane exhale with undisguised relief. “Do you need me to do anything on this end?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know.”
“Okay, but I’ll be in and out. Use my cell number. There’s a huge charity ball LynTech is sponsoring to help the children’s wing at the hospital and to fund the day care center. Lindsey’s in the middle of it, and she’s been so sick that I’m doing some of the footwork for her, anything to ease the burden on her. It’s going to be huge.”
That gave Rafe another idea. “When’s the ball?”
“Next Saturday. It’s at the E. J. Sommers’s estate outside the city.”
“Who’s doing security?”
“As a matter of fact, Dagget Security is donating their services. You’re getting a huge tax write-off.”
Rafe hadn’t been told about this charity donation, but he was glad someone in his company had thought of it. This would work perfectly. “Are your people going to be at it?”
“It’s practically a command performance for all departments and their heads, along with the rich and generous in the city.”
Rafe didn’t know too many people in Houston, and if he was in a guard uniform, even the people who might know him wouldn’t look at him twice. He outlined his idea to go in as one of the security staff and work the ball to get the lay of the land and to see the people firsthand. “But I’ll need personnel files on the top people in each department, along with their clearances, especially in Legal, Contracts, and anyone you think has access to the material that’s being leaked. Throw in any computer gurus, and try to get pictures with each file.”
“It’s done. You’ll have it when you get here.”
“I’ll fly in Monday.”
“That’s great,” Zane said. “How long do you think you can hang out around here?”
Rafe took a breath and slowed as he neared the fork in the road that headed south to Houston or west to his ranch. He swung toward the ranch. “As long as it takes,” he murmured, not sure if he meant as long as it took to figure out what was going on with LynTech or as long as it took him to want to come back to Fort Worth.
Chapter One
Houston, a week later
Megan Gallagher adjusted the earpiece for her cell phone as she drove away from Houston in her rental car. She clicked a button on the microphone and said two words: “Ryan. Home.”
“Calling Ryan home,” a computerized voice said in her ear.
There were two rings, then Ryan Prescott Baron answered the phone in his usual way. “Baron here.”
“Well, hello, Baron. Gallagher here,” she said as she drove up the on-ramp and into freeway traffic heading west.
“You landed okay?”
“Sure. Some security breach held up takeoff for three hours, but I got some work done at the airport, and I finally arrived here.” She settled back in the seat, barely taking in her surroundings as she drove.
“Are you at the hotel?”
“No, I’m on my way to a charity ball.”
“A what?”
“When I got in, I received a message from Wayne Lawrence, the head of Legal for LynTech. A command to appear at this ball, wearing something fancy. It’s black-tie, so I had to get a dress at the boutique at the hotel.” A shimmering silver cocktail dress falling to just above her knees, with a low neck, deep back and narrow straps. The bill would go into her business expense folder when she got back to San Francisco. “The ball’s a big event, and apparently everyone who’s anyone at LynTech is going to be there. From the sound of it, I don’t think anyone was given a choice. Mr. Lawrence didn’t give me a choice, that’s for sure.”
“Did he fix you up with an escort, too?”
Ryan and she had known each other for three years, almost from the time she’d been recruited by LynTech out of law school into their San Francisco branch offices. She and Ryan had been engaged for the past month. They understood each other, and he understood what she had to do. He knew the rules of business. He played by them every day as the vice president of a large import-export company in the city. He knew that if this was a command performance by a superior, chances were she’d be paired up with someone else who was in the same boat. Thank goodness that hadn’t happened.
“No, he didn’t fix me up,” she said, and scanned the signs coming into view.
The last time she’d been “fixed up” had been in law school, when her roommate had decided that she needed a social life and matched her with a recent graduate. Morris, she thought his name had been. No, Norris. And Norris had been divorced with three kids, and after the first excruciatingly boring hour, she’d finally realized that he was frantically looking for a woman to take the pressure off of him with his kids so he could further his career. She hadn’t let herself be talked into a blind date again and never would. “I figure I’ll get there, meet whomever I need to, memorize some names, then plead jet lag and leave.”
“Now, that sounds like a plan,” Ryan murmured. “Too bad I couldn’t get away, or I could be your excuse to leave.”
They played well off of each other at business functions. Another way they were well-matched. “I’ll do this on my own,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.” She’d been “doing” it on her own most of her life. Her parents had been middle-aged by the time Megan made her appearance. And her only brother headed out for college before she even got home from the hospital. She was