Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book Description

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  Other Books by Tina Folsom

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Tiger on the Prowl

  (Code Name Stargate #4)

  by

  Tina Folsom

  * * * * *

  Copyright © 2022 Tina Folsom

  * * * * *

  Book Description

  When her yoga teacher, Jay, doesn’t show up for his classes for over two weeks, sci-fi novelist Olivia Morikawa, who has a crush on her handsome teacher, is worried.

  Meanwhile, Jay “Tiger” Garner, ex-CIA agent of the now-defunct Code Name Stargate program, is recovering from his ordeal at the hands of Mr. Smith, when he has a vision of his arch enemy in Olivia’s house. Suspecting Olivia is somehow involved with Smith, Jay has no choice but to get close to her to find out where Smith is hiding, even if that means he has to take the gorgeous Olivia to his bed. Not that it’s a hardship…

  However, nothing ever goes as planned when emotions are involved…

  THE SERIES SO FAR:

  Ace on the Run (Code Name Stargate #1): Click here to purchase

  Fox in plain Sight (Code Name Stargate #2): Click here to purchase

  Yankee in the Wind (Code Name Stargate #3): Click here to purchase

  Tiger on the Prowl (Code Name Stargate #4): Click here to purchase

  Hawk on the Hunt (Code Name Stargate #5): Click here to purchase

  1

  Olivia Morikawa shut down her laptop and closed the lid, before getting up from her desk in her small two-bedroom cottage in Alexandria, Virginia. She used the second bedroom as an office, and had furnished it accordingly, complete with a hidden safe in the back of the closet. She placed her laptop as well as the external hard drive in the safe now, then locked it, and slid the cedar paneling over it, so nobody would even know it existed. She hung the bridesmaid’s dress for her sister’s upcoming wedding in front of it, before closing the door.

  Olivia was normally not a paranoid person, but ever since her sci-fi novels had taken off and were rivaling the great writers of the genre, unseating them from the top spots on the bestseller lists, she’d started worrying about somebody finding out who was behind the male pseudonym T.R. Harland. Her fans were anxious about the next book, and speculations were rife about which main character would get axed next by way of a spectacular death. Her publisher had informed her that two rival authors were actively trying to find out how the Galaxy Outcast series was going to continue, and would pay good money to leak spoilers in an attempt to turn her fans against her before the book was even published.

  Luckily, so far, nobody had figured out that T.R. Harland wasn’t a bearded geek who preferred the company of the people in his head to real-life people, but a somewhat shy 28-year-old woman of Hawaiian descent with a master’s degree in fine arts and a fondness for croissants and animals of all kinds. She hoped her secret would never be revealed. Even her publisher didn’t know who she was. She dealt with them only via email and text messages, and any payments she received went to the LLC she’d set up to hide her true identity. At first, she’d done it, because the sci-fi genre was dominated by male authors, and without a track record, she’d figured that no publisher would even take a look at her manuscript if they knew she was a woman. Besides, readers and other authors not knowing who T.R. Harland really was added a certain mystique. Olivia wasn’t looking for public adoration. All she wanted was to get lost in her stories and share them with the world.

  The only people who really knew what she did, were her parents and her sister, Grace. In fact, she often brainstormed with Grace, and talked to her about her writing when she got stuck, running different scenarios by her to get her feedback.

  The doorbell pulled her out of her thoughts.

  “Olivia?”

  “Coming, coming!” she called out toward the door, snatched her workout bag and her yoga mat, and hurried to the door. She opened it.

  “Hey, Claire,” she said to the woman who was only two years younger than her. “I’m not late, am I?” She waved her to step inside.

  Like Olivia, Claire was dressed in yoga pants and a tight top, a small bag slung across her torso, a yoga mat under her arm. Her long red hair was bound back in a ponytail. “No, no, we’ve still got a few minutes.”

  “I just need my keys,” Olivia said and looked around the foyer, when she spotted them on the shoe bench. “And my phone.” She ran back into the office and found her cell phone on the desk.

  When she returned to the hallway, she found Claire looking in the mirror, adjusting her hair.

  “You look great as always,” Olivia said.

  Claire chuckled. “It’s hard work.”

  “As if.” Olivia shook her head.

  “Is that a new outfit?” Claire asked.

  “Oh this old thing?” Olivia replied, pointing to the brand-new yoga pants and the pink top she’d bought only days earlier.

  Claire rolled her eyes. “Looks good on you. I’m sure Jay will like it.”

  Olivia felt herself blush.

  “Oh, come on, do you really think that no one noticed that you have a huge crush on the guy? Everybody in class knows.”

  Olivia sighed. “Yeah, everybody but Jay.”

  Claire shrugged. “Men can be so dense sometimes. Particularly the yummy ones.”

  “He is yummy, isn’t he?” Olivia said.

  Looking at the clock in the foyer, Olivia motioned to the door, and she and Claire left the house and started walking.

  The moment Olivia had seen Jay enter the yoga room at the Namaste Studio and Gym three months earlier, her heart had started beating out of control. At first, she couldn’t even believe that Jay was the new yoga teacher. He didn’t look like the kale-eating, vegan, thin yoga instructors the studio normally employed. Jay was a tall, muscular guy, who looked more like a kickboxer or a weightlifter than a man who taught yoga to a bunch of housewives, stressed-out professionals, and retirees who tried to remain limber. In his yoga pants, Jay looked like a ballet dancer with strong thighs and slim hips. But his upper body was much bigger than a dancer’s, with a broad muscled chest, and strong arms. His skin was a deep brown, and during class she’d often seen a thin sheen of perspiration on it and wanted nothing more than to lick it off him.

  “I figure, why not. Olivia?”

  Claire’s voice pulled her out of her reverie. She hadn’t heard a word of whatever Claire had been talking about. “What?”

  “I said you have to do something about it. Clearly, he’s not gonna ask you out because you’re his student. So you have to make the first move. And if you don’t ask him out today, I’m gonna do it for you.”

  They stopped in front of the studio, and Olivia looked at her friend. “What if he says no?”

  “Then at least you know. But there’s no reason why he wouldn’t wanna go out with you. You’re pretty, you’re smart. What’s not to like? Hell, I’d go out with you if I were a lesbian.”

  “Very funny!”

  “Honestly, just put on your big girl pants and ask him,” Claire urged her and opened the door to Namaste.

  Inside the gym, they both signed in, then walked to the yoga room. Outside the door, they took off their shoes, and left their bags in one of the open lockers.

  When they entered with their yoga mats, several other students were already assembled, their yoga mats laid out in an orderly pattern. Unfortunately, the first row was already taken, so Olivia had to place her mat in the second row. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one who lusted after Jay. The middle-aged housewives in the first row weren’t immune to his charm either. When the door opened again behind her, the four women in the first row turned their heads.

  Were they wearing make-up? For a yoga class? How pathetic. Olivia sighed, but didn’t turn her head to see who’d entered, trying not to make it too obvious that she couldn’t wait for Jay to arrive.

  From her seated position, gaze downward, she caught a glimpse of the instructor’s bare feet as he walked to the front of the class. They were white. She lifted her head and stared at him. This wasn’t Jay.

  “Morning, all. I’m Mathias. I’ll be filling in for Jay today.” The pale, spindly guy who couldn’t be older than twenty-five set his drink bottle next to his yoga mat. Yep, that was definitely a kale shake.

  Disappointment swept through Olivia.

  “That’s the second week now,” Claire whispered next to her.

  Olivia glanced at her. “Do you think he’s sick?”

  Claire shrugged.

  “Let’s start with some deep breathing this morning,” Mathias said.

  The entire hour Olivia went through the motions, not really enjoying the exercises like she did when Jay taught the class. Instead of feeling relaxed and invigorated, she felt worried and str essed. She couldn’t wait for the class to end, and the moment Mathias released the class with the customary Namaste, she was already at the door. Rapidly, she put on her sneakers, grabbed her possessions, and went to the front desk.

  Amber, the owner of the studio stood behind the computer.

  “Hey, Olivia, good session?” she asked.

  “Yeah thanks, though, I’m surprised Jay wasn’t teaching. Nothing against Mathias,” she added, not wanting to let Amber think that the replacement instructor wasn’t any good. “But I just like the way Jay teaches the class. Is he sick?”

  Amber let out an annoyed huff. “Your guess is as good as mine. He hasn’t been answering his phone. Frankly, I’m so pissed at him that if he does finally call me back, he can look for another studio. I need reliable people.”

  “Oh,” Olivia said. “Maybe something happened to him?”

  Amber shrugged. Then the phone rang, and she picked it up.

  Now more worried than disappointed, Olivia went outside. A moment later, Claire caught up with her.

  “So what’s wrong with Jay?” Claire asked.

  “Amber didn’t know. Apparently he’s not answering his phone. I have a bad feeling about it. What if something happened to him?”

  “You mean like an accident?” She shook her head. “If that were the case, I’m sure somebody would have notified the studio.” Then she grimaced. “People are flakes. Better you find out now. Or do you really want a guy who’s gonna ghost you after he got what he wanted?”

  “Of course not, but he never struck me as a flake.”

  No, Jay was the serious kind of guy. Almost a little buttoned-up, and she couldn’t imagine that he would not show up for his class without an explanation. Not for two weeks in a row. Something was wrong. But how could she figure out what?

  2

  The huge contraption—which looked like an MRI machine but was something much more dangerous—made a noise like an airplane engine with Jay right in front of it, unable to escape. They’d drugged him and tied him to the gurney, his head in a helmet. He couldn’t move a muscle, not even his pinkie. His entire body was paralyzed, while he drifted in and out of consciousness. Around him, several men in lab coats were busy adjusting this or that, conversing with each other. Medical jargon drifted to him, but he didn’t need to understand the words. He knew what would happen.

  He tried to fight it. But he had no strength.

  The face of his tormentor hovered over him, goading him, laughing in that insidious way only cartoon villains did. The laugh was like an echo that bounced off the walls of the enormous hall he found himself in. Jay smelled the dust and the musty scent of something rotting. He smelled wood too, and the strong whiff of an expensive cologne. Smith’s cologne.

  The gurney Jay was shackled to moved underneath him, and the sound of the machine became even louder, as his head approached the center of the machine. He could only imagine what it would do to him. But he knew he wouldn’t survive it. He felt it the instant the huge circular machine started spinning around his head. It felt like a magnet was trying to suck every last cell from his brain.

  He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. His vocal cords were paralyzed too. But inside his head, he was screaming, screaming for them to let him out, screaming for somebody to free him. But the pain only magnified, until he could take it no longer, and everything exploded.

  Jay shot up to sit and realized that he was in a bed. He was bathed in sweat, and it took him a few seconds to remember where he was. Safe. Rescued by his fellow Stargate agents. They’d freed him in the eleventh hour. A moment longer in the machine, and he would have ended up like Thomas, a Stargate agent Smith had captured before Jay: his brain fried, his other organs unable to function any longer. With a trembling hand, Jay stroked over his head. The indentations from the probes they’d attached after shaving his already short hair, were gone now, but the nightmares remained. He hadn’t mentioned them to Ace, Fox, or Yankee, his three rescuers. They couldn’t help him with that part of his recovery, though they’d helped him with everything else.

  Ace and his fiancée, Phoebe, had offered him a room in their large mansion on the outskirts of Washington D.C. It had once belonged to Henry Sheppard, the CIA agent, who’d created and overseen the top-secret Stargate program. His own cover as a yoga instructor in a small gym in Alexandria with all likelihood blown, Jay had nowhere else to go, and had accepted the generous offer. Yankee and his girlfriend, Lilly, also lived under Ace’s roof; only Fox and his girlfriend, Michelle, lived in a safe house in D.C., but spent most of their days in the mansion working on setting up surveillance operations and anything else that would help the ex-agents find the people responsible for the destruction of the Stargate program and the murder of their leader.

  Jay got out of bed and showered. He felt better after it. But he still hadn’t found his inner peace. The nightmare of what he’d been through had been disturbing his sleep every night since his rescue ten days earlier. He grabbed the yoga mat Michelle had ordered for him and made his way downstairs. He heard voices and the sound of dishes clanging in the kitchen, but turned toward the back of the house instead. He opened the French doors to the terrace and stepped outside. The air was still fresh, but in a few hours, heat and humidity would engulf all of Washington D.C.

  Jay spread out his yoga mat on the terrace and stood in mountain pose, his eyes closed, as he collected his thoughts. In the last three years, ever since he’d had to go on the run after Henry Sheppard’s murder so he wouldn’t become the next victim, he’d turned to yoga to help him cope. His training as a CIA agent had helped him with all physical aspects of evading capture for so long, but practicing yoga had helped him mentally. It had centered him, and kept him sane, so much so that he’d taken jobs as a yoga instructor in different cities all over the US, never staying too long in one place.

  But in Alexandria, he’d stayed for longer than he’d planned. He should have left after his customary six weeks, but a young woman who’d attended each and every class he taught at the Namaste Studio and Gym, had captivated him more than he’d expected. Olivia Morikawa was a beautiful Japanese woman at least ten years his junior. Too young and too innocent for him. Yet, for the few words they exchanged during each class, he’d risked his life and nearly lost it. He could never allow that to happen again. Next time a pretty woman caught his eye, he would simply fuck her and leave town posthaste. And to think that he’d never even kissed Olivia, yet she’d had such a draw on him that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave.

  Jay brought his thoughts back to his yoga practice and started with a sun salutation, but he didn’t get far. Before his eyes, everything suddenly blurred. This wasn’t a nightmare, but a premonition, the very reason why he and his fellow Stargate agents were being hunted. They all had a preternatural gift. They had visions of future events. And somebody wanted to exploit this gift.

  Before his eyes, a scene played out. He saw the back of a man who entered a small single-story house on a narrow street. The man glanced around the foyer, before stepping through a small archway into the open-plan living and dining area. There, he stopped, and Jay’s field of vision widened, and the angle from which he watched the scene changed, so that he could now see the man’s face. There was no doubt in his mind who he was. He would never forget that face. It was Smith, the man who’d captured him and nearly killed him, though Smith was obviously not his real name.

  Was this Smith’s home? Jay focused on the interior of the home, trying to find any clues as to where it was located. The living room was cozy and had a feminine touch. The kitchen was small, but tidy, and didn’t look like anybody used it much. Maybe this was one of Smith’s safehouses? He probably had several of them where he could hide out whenever he needed to.

  Smith looked around and disappeared in the hallway that presumably led to the bedroom and bathroom. Smith opened a door, and behind it was an office. He entered and the vision focused on the desk. There was no computer, only a monitor and a keyboard. Next to the monitor, there were several photos. Jay jolted. The photo he now saw showed two young Japanese women laughing at the camera. He recognized one of them instantly. It was Olivia Morikawa, the woman from his yoga class in Alexandria. This was undoubtedly her home. Before Jay could grasp anything else helpful, the vision blurred, and was gone.

 

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