Fielding Her SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 1)
Fielding Her
SECRET
Book #1 of Corrigan & Co.
By Crystal Perkins
Copyright © 2015 by Crystal Perkins
Cover Design by Helen Williams
http://www.allbookedout.com/
Ebook formatting by Jesse Gordon
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
About Fielding Her SECRET
Other books by Crystal Perkins
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About Fielding Her SECRET
She’s always been one of the guys.
Ainsley Martin grew up beating boys at sports, and resigned herself to the fate of always being a girl friend, and not a girlfriend. Transforming from a jock to a computer nerd didn’t help her win guys, but it did get her a job with the Corrigan & Co. Foundation. As the head of computers and technology for the foundation and its secret society, she normally works behind the scenes, overseeing the rescue of women and children. But this time, Jane Corrigan needs her to be on the front lines, and it may just be her undoing. Yes, she knows football, but she doesn’t know how to handle falling in love.
He’s never had trouble getting girls into his bed.
Zack Taylor learned early on that women only wanted him for his fame. Going home with them has allowed him to take his own pleasure, while knowing his heart will never be involved. Until he mistakes a beautiful woman for a groupie and tells her to get on her knees. When she stands up to him, he knows that he has to have her. All of her. He pursues Ainsley, trying to show her he’s more than what she sees on the football field.
Someone’s trying to sabotage the Las Vegas Legions football team, and Ainsley and Zack may just become collateral damage if they’re not careful. Can they learn to trust each other or will the biggest SECRET of all destroy them both?
Other books by Crystal Perkins
The Griffin Brothers series
Gaming For Love (The Griffin Brothers #1)
Building Our Love (The Griffin Brothers #2)
Creating A Love (The Griffin Brothers #3)
Learning To Love (The Griffin Brothers #4)
Designing The Love (The Griffin Brothers #5)
Working On Love (The Griffin Brothers #6)
Publicly, The Corrigan & Co. Foundation has been supporting women for years. Secretly, five powerful women led by Jane Corrigan have recruited ten agents, sending them to rescue women and children in need, and take down those who exploit the weak. This secret society of women all have unique skills they’ve brought to the foundation. Additionally, they’ve all had training in weapons, etiquette, martial arts, technology, and languages. Helping out friends and family of their five mentors from time to time is something they were told to expect. What they didn’t plan for is falling in love.
About the Corrigan & Co. Foundation and the Society:
• Mitchell Corrigan created the Corrigan & Co. Foundation for his wife as part of his company ten years ago. He stipulated that the foundation would continue as long as there is a Corrigan woman to oversee it.
• Jane Corrigan, Cyndi Evans, Maggie Griffin, Mallory Daniels, and Helen Wilson are the founders of the secret society within the foundation. They focus on helping women and children, but take on other missions from time to time.
• While they assist government and private organizations on a regular basis, they only take referrals for private missions.
• Each founder has recruited, and mentors, two agents.
• The company was founded in Chicago, but has now moved to Las Vegas, where Mitchell was born. On his deathbed, he asked his grandson to move the company headquarters to help revive the economy in his hometown. There are satellite offices all over the world.
• Jane’s grandson, Matt, who is President and CEO of Corrigan & Co., knows of the society. His friends Nathan and Aiden, who he brought in when they all left the military, know as well. This was a decision by the five women when they needed help on a mission that went bad. They do not know all mission details, but help when they are asked.
This series is dedicated to Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Diana Prince, Kelly Garrett, Jill Munroe, Sabrina Duncan, Kris Munroe, Tiffany Welles, Julie Rogers, Pepper Anderson, Jane Marple, Laura Holt, Christine Cagney, Mary Beth Lacey, Jessica Fletcher, Buffy Summers, Sydney Bristow, Kinsey Millhone, Stephanie Plum, Josie Marcus, Veronica Mars, Kate Beckett, and all the other kick-ass women I’ve read or watched throughout my life. I thank their creators for bringing these inspiring characters to life for me, and everyone else!
Chapter 1
Ainsley
I just got called into the conference room. I know what this means—I’m being assigned to a mission. I’ve done a few over the past four years, but not as many as the other women. My expertise is computers, so I usually just support everyone else while working in my office downstairs and overseeing my team. I’m not girly or glamorous, at all, which limits what I can do on the outside.
As I head upstairs in the elevator, I think about how I ended up here at Corrigan & Co. I was a tomboy growing up. I have four older brothers, and I followed them everywhere and wanted to do everything they did. So I played every sport imaginable; I asked for Legos and video games on my birthday instead of Barbie dolls and dresses. I took the dance classes my mom wanted me to, but only because I love her and I know it was hard for her to see her little girl wanting to be a boy.
When I got to junior high, I started noticing boys in more ways than just wanting to beat them on a sports field. It was too late, though. I was already Ainsley, the person picked first for sports teams and last for dating. I dealt with the disappointment of never getting asked out or kissed by getting lost in my video games, which lead to me taking a kids programming class at a local center. I was apparently good at it because
they offered me the chance to take the college level classes next session. I fell in love with programming and coding and that’s all I wanted to do.
My parents supported me; although, I know they were worried about my not having a social life. I still played sports, but I never hung out with anyone from the teams—male or female—because when you get to a certain age, if you’re not trying to be a girl off the field, you just don’t fit in. At least not in my schools. So I kept to myself, wearing glasses to hide my pain and baggy clothes to hide my developing curves. I got a scholarship to one of the Chicago universities and was soon tutoring other students. I still kept to myself, but it was okay then. I was accepted because being smart was cool, especially when the hottest guy on campus was a computer nerd as well.
Scott Griffin is the human equivalent of a Greek god, if gods were covered in tattoos and a couple of piercings. Every girl on campus wanted him. I wanted him. His bed was occupied by almost every woman on campus. Not me, of course. To him, I was just another person who could code. It was just like when I was younger, only now I was just one of the computer guys, instead of a sports guy. Scott was always nice to me, and I got the respect that the other girls on campus didn’t get from him, so I guess that’s something.
It was Scott who brought me here. He asked me to meet him downtown at the C&C Chicago headquarters a couple of weeks before graduation. I’d heard of the company, but I wasn’t sure what I was doing there. They don’t specialize in computers. I went because, well, he is Scott Griffin, and I wasn’t going to say no.
Scott introduced to me to his mom, Maggie, and her friend, Jane Corrigan. They talked to me in the C&C Foundation offices. Jane is in charge of the foundation, which focuses on helping women. They help people put their lives back together after they suffer something traumatic or survive domestic violence. I soon learned that they also help in the rescue of those women.
They didn’t tell me that at first, of course. They talked to me about my work and told me they knew I had a good job lined up. I listened as they described the foundation and told me they’d like me to work there instead. Scott said he thought I’d be a great fit for the company. I said I’d think about it, and I did. I weighed the pros and cons and decided that I wanted to make a difference and not just hide behind a computer screen. Little did I know how much of a difference I would really be making.
Scott met me again at the foundation offices. This time, there were three other women besides Maggie and Jane in the conference room. I was introduced to Cyndi Evans, Mallory Daniels, and Helen Wilson. I’d seen pictures of all these women at events around town, but I wasn’t sure what they were doing here. Jane started by telling me how glad they were to have me working for the foundation. She then asked me to sign a simple document stating everything I was about to be told was confidential and that I would have to pay ten million dollars to the foundation if I disclosed anything that went on there. It was a little weird to be doing that for a job at a foundation, but I signed. I can keep a secret.
It was then that I found out what the foundation really does. Ten years ago, Jane and Cyndi decided to do something more than just be socialites. They saw Maggie at functions frequently; although, they didn’t fit in as much as it looked like they did. They’d gravitated to each other as women who weren’t just looking for good husbands. They wanted to make a difference, and Maggie suggested bringing her friends Helen and Mallory on as well.
Jane convinced her husband, one of the richest men in the world, to start a foundation for her. He agreed to give a significant amount of the profits from his company every year to help women in need. Jane and her friends agreed that they needed to actually assist in getting women out of bad situations and not just help them afterwards. The first women who worked for them were policewomen and military women who were tired of dealing with the discrimination they had to face in their jobs. They had the skill set to help rescue people. Thus, the secret part of the foundation was started.
Over the years, they’ve expanded and we now always have ten women who take part in missions. Each founding woman has two recruits working at any time. We’re paid well and can leave whenever we want. Not all of us have a police or military background. We have a language expert, fashion stylist, and even a former professional chef on the team. Every one of us had something that one of the five women—or in my situation, their son—saw in me and decided to cultivate. Scott actually helped recruit me for Jane, who knew she’d need someone to oversee the computer systems daily.
No matter what we specialize in, all of us are given weapons and martial arts classes as well as training in computers, languages, hair and makeup, and etiquette. It’s over a year of training before they even think about putting you in charge of a team. The instructors are both current and former team members, and I don’t think any company or government anywhere could rival the expertise we are given. I did well at languages, weapons, and martial arts. However, I barely passed the girly lessons, but I’m not surprised. I did pass, though, because you can’t be here if you fail a single one of them.
So now I work behind the scenes on many missions, offering computer support which includes hacking into security systems and banking sites. It’s not as glamorous as some of the missions the other women go on, but I know I’m still making a difference. I can’t even begin to count the number of women we’ve saved. We cover it all from domestic violence to human trafficking. We mostly find leads from trusted law enforcement contacts or even from watching the news. We can’t save everyone, but we do our best.
One of the most important things I’ve gotten from the foundation is friends. You can’t go through the training and missions without becoming close to the other women. I even let them dress me up and take me out to bars or clubs sometimes. Since meeting them, I’ve had my first kiss and my first sexual experience—neither were very exciting, but at least I won’t die a spinster. They’ve brought me out of my shell, and I would do anything for any one of those girls.
I get off the elevator and walk into the conference room, expecting to just see people from our team. I’m not expecting to see Lindsey Rivers, wife to the owner of the Las Vegas Legions football team, sitting at the table. We take on private jobs occasionally that don’t have to do with women’s issues. Usually it’s for a friend of one of the women or a referral from someone we’ve helped before. We obviously keep the “Society” as we jokingly call it, secret. The agents can tell one family member, if we want. I told my mom. And if we get married, or are close to that point, we can reveal ourselves to the person we’re involved with. The founders can tell the females in their family and one male relative. That’s how Scott helped recruit me. He knows and actually created the software we currently use. I don’t know where Mrs. Rivers fits in, but as a football junkie, I’m more than a little excited.
“Thank you for joining us, Ainsley,” Jane says with a smile. I know she knows I’m freaking out because last week I told her I couldn’t wait for the regular season, especially since I have season tickets.
“You can sit down,” Reina tells me with a chuckle. She’s the most senior of all of us and pretty much runs things. Jane’s still the one in charge, but Reins is her second in command and has authority over everything.
“Oh yeah.” I go to sit next to Stella, who is looking like she just walked off a runway. She was a fashion major when she was recruited and sighs as she takes in my baggy sweatshirt and jeans.
“Ladies, this is Lindsey Rivers. We helped one of her friends several years ago and now, she needs our help. The other women and I have agreed to take on her case. There is someone who is trying to sabotage the football team her husband owns. They’re going to have their first regular season home game in six weeks. This is important to Las Vegas, as well as Lindsey and her husband. The city has been trying to get a professional sports team for years. My husband wanted a team for his hometown and was instrumental in the creation of the Legions before he passed away.” Jane pauses for a mome
nt to collect herself. “Lindsey, can you let us know what’s been going on and where you think we can get someone in under cover?”
“Yes. Of course. Thank you again for agreeing to help. Over the past two months, things have been happening that I can no longer brush off as coincidences. There have been damaged cleats, medicines switched out, parts of our playbook ending up in the hands of other teams, and now this week, a rack of equipment was pushed onto one of our running backs, Zack Taylor. He managed to jump out of the way, but it was close.”
Zack Taylor almost got crushed? That would have been devastating for the team. And him too, of course. Plus, the few women in the city he hasn’t slept with would have missed out on that hot body of his. I’m lost in thoughts of his dark hair and sexy eyes and almost miss the rest of the conversation.
“Yes. There seems to be too much going on for it to be a coincidence,” Reina says.
“I need your help and I think the easiest way is to have someone date a player. I was thinking of Kevin Donaldson. He’s our quarterback and a complete sweetheart. I think if I told him I had a nice woman for him to meet, he’d take her out. Once they were dating, she’d have access to the players and staff. It has to be someone on the inside doing these things.”
“We’re not a dating service, Mrs. Rivers, but I think your idea has merit. Are you okay with that, Ainsley?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You know more about football than most men. You’re the perfect choice.”
I look at Jane and then to Lindsey Rivers. She looks a little horrified at the thought of it being me. I can understand why. I’m not exactly looking like someone a quarterback would date. Now I know why Stella’s here. She’s going to transform me. The thought scares me, but excites me at the same time. I’ll never admit it out loud, but I kind of liked it when I let the other women dress me up to go out. I felt powerful when I saw guys actually looking at me as something more than a teammate. A mission that involves football and being a girl—yeah, I’m totally into this one.