Galen's Gemma - Dale Mayer

Prologue

When Galen Alrick walked into the kitchen of Ice and Levi’s compound, he felt pretty decent. As Harrison looked up at him with a grumble, Galen’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, I thought it was a good day,” he said with a laugh.

“While you guys solved your problem,” Harrison said, “we got the brakes put on ours.”

“Yeah, you were supposed to give us a hand, weren’t you?” Just enough gentle rivalry existed between the two groups—Bullard’s crew versus Levi’s crew—for Galen to rib Harrison a little bit over this one. Galen originally had worked for Bullard for a good seven years, but now Galen was in an exchange program here, and he wasn’t exactly sure what his future held. He’d already talked to Bullard about it prior to leaving, wondering if it were time to move on and to do something else.

Bullard had shrugged and smiled. “You let me know if you want more work,” he said. “You’re always welcome here.”

But the two teams had heard about Johan’s decision to come work for Ice, and Galen had jumped on board with that, wondering if the change would be enough for him. But now he was here and had completed the first job—and damn fast too. Not at all the type of job he was used to, but it had been kind of fun. In fact, being here at Levi’s compound was the same but different—and a great experience. He was glad he came.

“Did Johan come back with you?” Harrison asked.

Galen snorted. “No, he and Joy will stay and pack up her stuff.” Johan had met Joy on the last case, and they had hit it off in a big way. Galen was happy for them. The job had been an instant lesson on how, no matter where you were in the world, the problems were the same: people would be people.

“Did Joy quit?” Harrison asked.

“She got a nice little paycheck to disappear,” he said. “Kai would have stayed for a couple extra days to give them a hand, but everything in Joy’s sublet apartment got trashed, so not much left to pack up. Joy had some banking and whatnot she wanted to do, plus some meetings to wrap up.”

“And did Joy want to leave? She at least had a job there.”

“Exactly. She had a job. It wasn’t exactly a great job, but it was something that paid the rent. That’s part of the reason why we were there a bit longer. We had to talk with the guy she had subleased the apartment from and the building manager. She and Johan are in Houston looking for a place for her now.”

“You know that she could probably move in here at the compound in the meantime.”

“I don’t think she’d be too comfortable with that kind of arrangement,” Galen said. He walked over, poured himself a cup of coffee, put it down beside Harrison, then walked back to the coffee server. “The thing about living here is that it’s got some serious side benefits.” He looked at the pan of fresh warm cinnamon buns, with the icing still melted all over the top.

“That’s the second tray already,” Harrison said good-naturedly. “I don’t know how Bailey and Albert do it, but they just keep the food coming.”

“And it’s a divine system.” Galen gently eased a cinnamon bun off the big tray, put it on his plate, and returned to the table, sitting down. “Working here isn’t exactly what I thought it would be.”

“That’s because you had a simple job,” Harrison said with a snort. “Some of the jobs are pretty ugly.”

“I can do ugly,” Galen said comfortably.

“I’m glad to hear that,” a woman said, her sharp voice coming from the other side of the room.

Galen looked up to see Ice walking toward him with a clipboard. He grinned. “Do you ever run out of work for us?”

“No.” She sat down somewhat awkwardly, given the slight belly she now sported. The fact that she was pregnant in the middle of all this chaos, yet she handled it all so well, was amazing. It also showed just how messed up the world was, given she was as busy as she was.

“Isn’t it time for you to get an assistant?”

“I have at least two or three of them now, but it’s never enough,” she complained good-naturedly. “This will ground me for a few months, but it shouldn’t be too bad after that.”

“The payoff will be worth it,” Galen said.

She beamed at him. “It certainly is in my case,”