Mountain Security (Mont Blanc Rescue Book 8), page 1
ALSO BY J.R. PACE
Chimera Force Series
Book 1: Dark Soul
Book 2: Ash Storm
**
Mont Blanc Rescue Series
Book 1: Mountain Struggle
Book 2: Mountain Impact
Book 3: Mountain Trial
Book 4: Mountain Shadow
Book 5: Mountain Deadpoint
Book 6: Mountain Secret
Book 7: Mountain Target
Book 8: Mountain Security
**
Sharp’s Cove Series
Book 1: One Night Years Ago
Book 2: Two Favors Repaid
Book 3: Three Times Ablaze
Book 4: Four Cards Exposed
**
Standalone Novella
Cold and Bitter Snow
MOUNTAIN SECURITY
MONT BLANC RESCUE BOOK 8
J.R. PACE
Mountain Security
Published by J.R. Pace
Copyright 2023 by J.R. Pace
Cover design by Maria Spada
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form.
Note to readers: This book contains adult scenes and language, and is intended for adult readers.
Mountains know secrets we need to learn.
-- Tyler Knott
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Preview: Mont Blanc Rescue Book 9
Also by J.R. Pace
Acknowledgments
1
Alex
The office was alive and buzzing when Alex strode inside. He stopped short as he noticed the tray of cupcakes on the empty desk.
His desk.
“What’s going on? The day I leave the office, you decide to bring in food? Do you have any idea how much I love cupcakes?”
“Relax, Alex. Don’t get your panties in a wad,” Ry said, clapping him hard on the back. “The Commandant’s fiancée and her niece baked cupcakes and brought us the extras.”
“So I can take one?”
“Help yourself,” Beau said, “and then please explain what you’re doing here, Alex. I thought I made myself clear when I explained you were expected at the mayor’s office this morning.”
Alex took his time choosing a cupcake. He knew Valentina’s niece, Ren, was thirteen years old, but these cupcakes looked like they’d been frosted by a toddler in the throes of a temper tantrum.
Clearly, this isn’t Valentina’s area of expertise.
Which made sense, since she was an ER doctor, and had only recently become guardian to her niece.
Alex’s mom loved baking more than anything else in the world, except perhaps her husband and her children, so Alex didn’t remember many weekends without cake when he was growing up. He could teach Valentina and Ren a thing or two, though looking at Beau, and at the way the big man was pinching the bridge of his nose, now might not be the time to suggest it.
“Relax, Commandant,” Alex said, finally making his selection and taking a bite.
It was chocolatey and gooey, and surprisingly good.
Now if only he had a cup of coffee to go with it. But his boss was still staring at him and losing patience fast.
“I was actually on my way there when I got a call from—“
“’Morning,” a deep voice said from the doorway. Alex looked up to see Damien Gray and Drake Jacobs, from their sibling PGHM unit.
“Damien,” Beau said. “Thanks for coming. We’re down one man this week. Or we will be as soon as the man in question gets his ass to the mayor’s office.”
Alex didn’t take offense. He and Beau had worked together for years. As well as his boss, the man was one of Alex's closest friends.
“If you’ll let me explain, Commandant,” Alex said, taking one last bite of cupcake. “I got a call from someone at the mayor’s office this morning telling me to meet her and the mayor for lunch at Chez Joséphine. They’ll brief me there.”
“Chez Joséphine!” Ry piped up, laughing. “Fancy!”
“What? Is that where you take your dates?” Alex retorted.
“I wish! I can’t afford Chez Joséphine on my salary.”
“Maybe you can bring us some leftovers for dinner,” Hugo said.
Hugo, Alex and Ry shared a house right outside the city center, behind the ice rink.
“Do you ever think of something that’s not food, Hugo?” Tristan, their pilot, asked.
“Was Yvette Legrand the one who called you?” Drake asked. He and Damien were still standing by the door.
Alex nodded. He thought back to the husky, throaty voice on the phone. He wondered if the woman was as beautiful as her name and voice implied.
Then he laughed.
She's probably a ninety-year-old hag.
“Careful with her,” Drake drawled, his Canadian accent coming to the fore. “She’s a ball-breaker.”
“Drake,” Damien admonished.
“What? She is. That's not a bad thing,” the man added quickly. “She’s the mayor’s chief of staff. The youngest person ever to hold the role. Absolutely committed to her job, but I’ve seen her drive grown men to tears in meetings. I’m just warning Alex, so he’ll know not to get on her bad side.”
Great.
This assignment keeps getting better and better.
Alex glared at his boss, who’d agreed to lend him out to the mayor’s office to help with an undisclosed IT problem. It made no sense to Alex. The mayor probably had an IT team bigger than the entire PGHM at his disposal.
Why can’t he just ask one of them for help?
Beau met his gaze evenly. “Focus on whatever the mayor needs, Alex. Please. I don’t need any complaints from the colonel this week.”
“You don’t know what it’s about?” Damien asked.
Alex sighed and ran a hand through his thick, reddish-blond hair. “This Legrand woman didn’t say much. Just that I should meet them at the restaurant. I assume they’ll explain then. Whatever it is, I hope it’s quick.”
Alex loved his job with the Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne. It combined the two things he loved most in life: time outdoors and computers.
From the time he was a little boy, Alex had always loved things that beeped and buzzed. Time and time again, people had used the word genius to refer to him, but Alex knew he wasn’t a genius. He just happened to understand the way most things worked.
When the time had come to go to university, he’d chosen to study Computer Science at Edinburgh University, but he’d already known he wouldn’t be very good in an office. Nine to five wasn’t for him. He loved skiing, extreme sports, and time spent outdoors too much.
He’d come to France straight after university. The plan had been to spend a year skiing and snowboarding before deciding what to do with the rest of his life.
And then one day he’d witnessed a PGHM-led rescue, a single moment that had changed everything for him. He’d known immediately that was what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. That had been nine years earlier. It’d taken him three years to complete the physical and academic trainings, and even then he hadn’t been sure the PGHM would find space for a British IT specialist who didn't speak French particularly well.
But he'd been lucky, and persistent.
Eventually, he'd interviewed with two team leaders in different regions of France. The first one, in Alsace, had been openly hostile and had ended the interview early, saying he couldn’t be sure Alex wouldn’t get tired and head back into IT. The second interview, however, had been with Beau Fontaine, back then a newly appointed commander of the Annecy team. The big, gruff man had accepted Alex into his team with no reservations.
Yeah. Luck had definitely been one of the recurring themes in Alex’s life. He had a lot to be grateful for.
Now, at age thirty-two, Alex was exactly where he wanted to be. Or at least, he had been, until this stupid assignment had come his way. For once, he regretted his ease with computers.
“We’re going to miss you, man,” Ry said, miming goodbye.
“Smart-ass. You do remember we live together, right? I’ll see you tonight.”
“See you then,” Ry said, smiling widely. “And good luck!”
2
Yvette
Yvette Legrand straightened the neck of her black turtle-neck and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror.
The purple color of her suit brought out the bronze in her skin and contrasted beautifully with her dark, curly hair, which today she’d pulled up into a high ponytail. The tailored suit was a power outfit—the kind that was designed to make space for the wearer. Yvette wore it proudly.
Most of the clothes in Yvette’s extensive wardrobe were like that—clothes that showcased her strength, making her feel like the confident professional she was. She had suits in almost every color, to match her mood, the day’s agenda, and, sometimes, her boss’s tie color.
Her clothes weren’t what made her an excellent chief of staff to Chamonix’s mayor, but they were an important part of her image. They told everyone she met that she meant business. Which she did.
She looked down at her polished L.K Bennett black leather heels. At five-seven, she was tall enough that she could comfortably have worn flats or boots with the suit, and perhaps with the snow outside that would have made the most sense, but she liked the way the three-inch heels put her at eye-level with most men. In her profession, she’d always found it useful to be able to stare men in the eye.
Plus, the heels completed the outfit.
Yvette hadn’t always been interested in fashion. She’d grown up in a poor household—she didn’t remember a time when they hadn’t been poor, but after her father’s unexpected death at the construction site where he worked, when Yvette was six, her mother’s concern had been about what to feed Yvette and her sister. The two girls lived off hand-me-downs for many, many years.
Yvette’s life was very different now.
She’d been lucky enough to be accepted at a good university, and luckier still to have a support network ensuring she graduated. She’d discovered a passion for politics. It was the perfect career for her—the job where she could make the difference she wanted to make in the world. And she was good at it—over the last years she’d developed a reputation for always being cool under pressure.
She sighed.
She didn’t feel so cool today.
The events of the previous week had left her feeling unsteady. Someone had been copying files from their office—confidential files that should never have left their secure server, but were now in some unknown person’s hands.
It had been Yvette who’d discovered the file theft, but it’d been her boss’s idea to bring in somebody from outside to help.
Yvette trusted Mayor Pierre Chevalier implicitly—he’d been her boss for six years, and together they’d done important work.
And we have so much work left ahead of us.
But she knew how fragile political well-being was. If it came out that their office wasn’t able to keep city files safe, it could jeopardize everything they were working towards. It could mean losing the election next spring.
For the hundredth time, she wondered if bringing somebody from outside was a good idea, or if they might simply be making a bad thing worse.
She’d done her research on the man in question, of course. Alex Wright. One didn’t get to be where she was today by being careless or stupid. On the surface, Wright looked okay. He’d been a member of the Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne, or PGHM, for the last seven years, always under the leadership of Commandant Beau Fontaine.
Yvette knew Fontaine. He was a gruff, difficult man, but a straight shooter. The fact that he vouched for Wright spoke well of him. Wright was also a computer expert. If anybody could help them figure out what was happening, it would probably be him.
But it still pissed her off that it was necessary. She wasn’t used to airing her dirty laundry in public.
No, she really wasn’t looking forward to today’s lunch.
Relax.
Pierre trusts this man.
You should trust him, too.
At least until he gives you a reason not to.
Yvette knew her ability to trust was not one of her talents. That was probably one of the reasons she and the mayor worked so well together. Pierre Chevalier’s instinct was always to trust people, and Yvette worked tirelessly beside him to make sure he knew who he could and couldn’t trust.
As for her, excluding her mother and her sister, she could count the number of people she trusted on her fingers, with space left over.
And most of them happen to be under suspicion now.
That made her angry, too. She knew her team hadn’t stolen the files—she trusted them, dammit, and they would have had no reason to. But there was still that niggling tiny doubt in her mind, and she wouldn’t sleep easy until she’d put it to rest.
Yvette pinched her cheeks, looking to bring some color back to them, and applied some lip gloss to her full lips, then a layer of thick mascara to her dark eyes. Like her power suit, make-up was part of her armor.
She took a deep, steadying breath before pulling the bathroom door open.
“You okay, Yvette?” Pierre asked when she walked into the small private dining room they’d reserved so they’d be able to speak candidly with Wright.
“Fine,” she said, distractedly. Out of the window, she saw a man step out of a dark green SUV and stride towards the restaurant’s entrance.
A sixth sense told her she was staring at Alex Wright. And the thought struck her, that she shouldn’t have bothered with the heels. He was going to tower over her, anyway.
She’d done her research on him, but that research hadn't included any details on the man's physical attributes. And there was clearly lots to say on the topic, since Alex Wright was six-foot-two of absolute hotness, with reddish-blond hair, deep blue eyes, a strong jaw and lips that seemed made for kissing. Or maybe—
Kissing?
Where the hell did that thought come from?
She prayed she hadn’t spoken the thought out loud. She sneaked a look at her boss, but he was busy staring at the menu, not at her. She forced herself to relax her shoulders.
“I wish I could eat one of everything,” Pierre told her, patting his light paunch ruefully. Yvette considered him thoughtfully. Her boss looked good for a fifty-five-year-old, but she knew staying fit wasn’t as easy for him now as it’d been in the past.
Although he wasn’t fat by any means—and in his profession, it behooved him to remain slim—Pierre Chevalier loved to eat. More specifically, he loved to eat what he referred to as great food.
He’d often told her he preferred to eat one delicious meal and then go hungry the rest of the day, than to spend all day munching on carrots and celery, as his wife, Vivienne, did. Yvette smiled. She liked Vivienne a lot.
There was a knock on the door, and the obsequious ma”tre d’ poked his head inside.
“Monsieur le Maire,” he said, loud enough for other patrons outside to be able to hear, before ushering Alex Wright inside and closing the door behind him.
Yvette sighed, reining in her impatience.
At least he closed the door.
“Ah, Mr. Wright,” the mayor said, smiling one of those broad smiles that only professional politicians seem to be able to pull at will. Yvette smiled as well, though her smile was more subdued.
“Mayor Chevalier,” the newcomer said, speaking in English but inclining his head in a quick sign of respect. “Please call me Alex.” His attention was on the mayor for now, which gave Yvette the chance to study him. Up close, he was taller and even more good-looking than she’d thought when she’d seen him through the window.
It wasn’t just his face, either. His body was also spectacular. Under the light blue shirt he was wearing, he had a swimmer’s shoulders. Her eyes moved further down to see slim hips and strong legs encased in a dark blue pair of jeans. Yvette had never before felt jealous of a pair of jeans before, but apparently there was a first time for everything.
