The Consortium Series

Tara's private investigation business is failing. Bobby, an ex-cop she worked with when she was a cop, seems to be successful. He wants her, both as a woman, and to work for him — become his personal spy in an industrial espionage case. Taking the job, she finds that the target of her investigation is suspiciously unsuspicious... and deliciously sexy. Something isn't right. ~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~ Taking a hard look at the spreadsheet on her desk for what must have been the fortieth time that afternoon, Tara felt the last traces of optimism go out of her. She sighed, put her elbows on the table, and dropped her head in her hands. She was no accountant, but no matter how she twisted the figures around, the message was all too clear. Her private investigation business was in deep trouble. Having too little work and too many bills was a common enough song for a small business, but that didn't make it sound any sweeter. According to her calculations, Tara's business was in deep shit. The facts were harsh: With her current cash flow she had about two months left before she was broke. The idea of spending two months treading water before she was sucked under and drowned was not an appealing prospect. The question was what to do about it. She sighed. Although she didn't have formal business training, it shocked her how quickly things had gone wrong. She'd probably made a lot of rookie mistakes and they'd piled up. In retrospect it was clear that she had kept her secretary on too long—well after it was clear that the business wouldn't support the two of them, but the woman had needed the job. Letting her go had been painful for both of them. Besides... according to the evil numbers on the page in front of her, her biggest mistake had been the office. What a fool she'd been to sign a long-term lease. Sure, a lease kept the rent from going up, but that assumed you had some business and could use the office. Now, when she didn't need so much space, if any at all, she was still on the hook for the monthly rent on it. Without the lease, she could have cut costs by working out of her apartment. That would have made a huge difference. It would have given her breathing room to run down some new business. Hindsight sucked. The lease had seemed like a great idea at the time. Positive affirmations about success had made her want to lock the rent in, and now it had her locked in a downward spiral. Her landlord had not been receptive to negotiating a lower amount while she got through the slump either. A deal, in his opinion, was a deal. He didn't care if it meant she'd go belly up. She was stuck with owing him a monthly payment—until bankruptcy do them part, apparently. It came as a welcome relief when her phone began playing some song she had downloaded a few months ago. The tune had struck her as catchy and optimistic at the time; now that most of her calls were about overdue bills, she'd come to hate it. Still, it interrupted her angsty thoughts. She had to have hope. She had put in bids in for some surveillance and security jobs; there was always a chance she'd score one. They'd be tedious and boring but paid regularly. To actually get the job, you had to answer the damn phone even when you didn’t want to. "Tara?" The voice was a deep male voice that she found very sexy. It also sounded familiar. "Bobby Bly?" At the sound of his voice a picture of him popped into her head, and the picture that it found was one from a pleasant fantasy.

She's the woman in charge...of a construction site on the border. It's rough and bawdy and she's brought in to get the project on schedule. An incompetent contractor and a resentful secretary won't make it easy, but she still gets to work and play with the hot guys. Meeting Tom, a smoking hot nomadic worker, changes the way she sees her life—and trouble on the site changes the opportunities. ~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~ Liz walked across the construction site, trying to take it all in. A factory project was a complex and sprawling creature, but she'd worked on bigger ones. She looked for the threads that linked the pieces together. The only problem with getting a handle on this one was finding any thread at all, any organization to the flow of work. When she had reviewed the job on paper, in a nice office in Los Angeles, everything had looked good—not great, but fixable. The charts were neat and tidy. Now, watching the men worked, seeing how the job moved in starts and stops, proceeding with more jerks than flow, she wasn't so sure. By her standards, the project was a mess. Oh, sure, it would get done, but time and energy were being wasted and the work lacked rhyme or reason. She ran her fingers through her short blonde hair and put her hard hat back on, cursing herself for unconsciously showing how nervous the scene made her. "So there it is. It isn't quite right." The man standing next to her wasn't asking a question, just thinking out loud. Although his words echoed her thoughts, she knew he didn't get how bad things really were. "Seeing this has all the joy of watching a movie in a foreign language when they show it with the wrong subtitle track," she said to the man, trying to be honest without being too critical. The man's name was Matt, and he was the site boss. He had brought the project to this sad point. "Sure, a few things are screwed up. That's why you're here—to fix them. That's why I hired you," Matt said. "You've got a reputation for being able to troubleshoot sites like this." Of course, Matt hadn't wanted to hire her—the investors, the people who put up the money to build the project made him bring her in. From the look of things, she was certain that Matt wasn't thrilled to have her there. She was there to look over his shoulder and correct his mistakes. Who liked that? Despite that misconception, she didn't correct him. Regardless of whose decision it was, now they were supposed to be on the same team and working toward the goal of getting the project on schedule and on budget. Still, she could see that, from his point of view, she was an intruder. Everything she fixed was a reminder that he'd screwed up. Inevitably, Matt would resent Liz as a pain in the butt and an extra cost that he incurred simply to calm worried investors who were breathing down his neck. "You can't control all the elements," Matt said. "I can't do it all by myself." Liz bit her tongue. Doing it all, controlling all the elements, or compensating for elements like weather that screwed you up, was exactly what Matt got paid to do. She knew he'd never understand that. No wonder that even though he was ambitious he'd spent his career in these border jobs that were marginal. He'd never get a high-profile job with his attitude, but that was no concern of hers. "How do we go ahead?" His question surprised her. How could Matt have no idea? "Kick things into gear." "What exactly is it you are going to do?" Liz showed him her clipboard. "I'll review the scheduling, your projected timeline, and manpower. I'll identify ways to move us toward being back on schedule. I'll review the crew assignments. Some of these guys might be placed in better slots. I'll look at the material orders and ensure that everything we need to actually do the work is going to arrive in a timely fashion."

Working uncover isn't for the faint of heart. When she takes a job clerking at an export firm, Tara finds herself in the middle of smuggling, high finance, treachery, sexual madness and outright greed. The people she works for are up to something, and they aren't all in it together. The man she is hot for isn't what he seems to be either, but his passion is honest. If only he isn't a crook. ~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~ On Monday morning Tara stared at her clean desk and empty in-basket. Most of her work assignments came directly through Barry, and he'd gone to Panama on Thursday. With him out of the office, once she finished the work he'd left her, there wasn't much to do. He'd been so busy getting ready for his trip that he hadn't bothered to reschedule their after-work get-together. After what had happened with Jake, she was just as glad. Jake was still a mystery. A sexy, amazing mystery. She wondered if her abrupt leaving that night was why she hadn't heard from him since. Of course, he was a busy person too, so there could be any number of reasons he hadn't called, hadn't suggested another meeting. When it came to that, she could have easily called him. She still had his card with his mobile number. But spending one night with him had her perilously close to compromising her investigation. When it was done, if Jake was in the clear, then she'd worry about picking up where they left off. If he had any interest, that is. "Barry is flying back this morning," Nina told her. Nina had seemed unusually chipper since Jake came around. There had to be a connection, but Tara couldn't imagine exactly what it was. Still, there was an awful lot of commotion going on over Jake's small order. She and Barry were really rolling out the red carpet. "I'm picking him up at the airport in an hour." Nina was still talking about Barry. "Juan has a checkup this morning, so he is leaving too. You'll need to answer the phones while I'm gone. Not that they are ringing off the hook. If anything important comes up, call me on my cell." Once Nina left, Tara collected her thoughts and called Barb to report. She didn't have much new to tell her, but she had a hunch that things might start happening once Barry was back and Barb needed a heads up. She made her call, then went to lunch. Shortly after she returned, Nina and Barry came in. Looking at them, Tara felt certain they'd stopped somewhere for a personal encounter of the sexual kind. They both had that languid look as they wandered back to their offices. A bit later Nina came over to Tara's desk waving some papers. "We need to modify the paperwork for that big shipment right away. Here are the notes of the changes Barry made in Panama to consolidate Jake's packages into it. It's going off shortly, so the paperwork needs updating right away." Tara gave her an appropriate worker-drone grimace as she looked through the papers. "Okay. It will take a little time to do all this." Nina shook her head and Barry came out of his office to stand behind Nina. "It has to be done today," Nina said. "The shipment has to go out on a cargo ship tomorrow afternoon and the paperwork has to be done today or it won't get loaded in time." "I'll be around if you have any questions," Barry said cheerfully. "Get this done for us and there's a bonus in it for you." "I haven't done changes like these before," Tara said. "There's not much to it with the new program I installed," Barry said. "Reship, is the name of it. It lets us access the customs database." "They let us do that?" "We are beta testing it for them. If this works, everyone will have it."