This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
SHOPPING WITH MRS. BLAKEMORE
First edition. October 14, 2013.
Copyright © 2013 Olivia Gaines.
ISBN: 978-1502262660
Written by Olivia Gaines.
Olivia Gaines
Davonshire House Publishing
PO Box 9716
Augusta, GA 30916
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events are locales or persons, living or dead, are entirely a coincidence.
© 2013 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin
Editor: Patriotic Poodle Productions, Summerville, SC
Proofreader: Amanda Beaty Chambers, http://bit.ly/NdyHOs
Translations: Michelle Paola Pacheco
Cover: http://koougraphics.net/
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.
ASIN: B00FXAGR2M
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8
First Davonshire House Publishing October 2013.
DEDICATION
For Marecus, thank you for being a fan.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.
Write On!
Easy reading is damn hard writing."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Let us begin the adventure....
Table of Contents
Chapter One- Breakfast with the Blakemores
Chapter Two- Here Are Your Orders
Chapter 3 – Meet the Blakemores
Chapter 4- Houston, I See a Problem
Chapter 5 – Snakes on the Plane
Chapter 6 – Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore
Chapter 7- Who’s Following Whom?
Chapter 8 – Follow the White Lion
Chapter 9- It’s Not What You Think......
Chapter 10- The Arms Race
Chapter 11 – Lions, and Tigers, and Smugglers, Oh My
Chapter 12 – Say Goodnight, Mrs. Blakemore
Chapter One- Breakfast with the Blakemores
Saxton Blakemore awoke feeling rather light. It was odd to awaken and not find his wife, Odessa, asleep atop his chest. The first few months of marriage he had found her habit to be a bit odd, and sometimes rather uncomfortable, but a year later, he relished in the morning ritual. His head lolled to the left as he checked the alarm clock; it was 7:15 on a Saturday morning and she was not up. His hand crept to the right to feel her side of the bed and came in contact with the familiar warmth of her body. Saxton did a slight roll to his side while his head rested on his forearm as he watched her sleep. My Lord, she was a beautiful thing; smart, protective, loads of energy, and all his.
He stared at Odessa who was sprawled out on the mattress, legs spread, mouth agape and a small string of drool running from her tongue down the corner of her mouth. Yes sir, all that sexy belonged to him. Saxton needed that sexy to wake up; he was in dire need of some breakfast. Several times it had crossed his mind to roll on top of her and reverse the morning ceremony, but she was all of 115 pounds and he was topping out at nearly two hundred. This required some finesse; his appetite was growing.
A calloused hand was placed upon her firm, taut abdomen as he thought of the not so near future when her belly would swell with a beautiful brown-eyed little angel he wanted to name Sahara. A bigger grin spread across his face when the image was replaced by a little guy, with dark hair, lots of attitude, and a tiny version of himself; that one should be a junior. He and Odessa had spoken briefly about children, both realizing they wanted some, but neither had set a definitive start time. If he had his way, they would start right now, but first, he needed his feast.
Slowly, he pulled the fabric of her pajama top open to reveal one perfect cocoa covered mound. He slipped his index and middle finger in his mouth to moisten the tips allowing his hand to venture lower from her abdomen until his fingers connected to, “Hmmmm.” Odessa moaned a bit in her sleep. Saxton leaned over extending his tongue until it made contact with her breast. The small circles he was making with his fingers in her nether regions, he emulated with his mouth on her nipple. Odessa’s legs started to move as she responded to his fingers. Saxton continued working until he knew the familiar sound of her body engaging and preparing for his entry. She was waking up.
Saxton closed her top, rolled to his back and pretended he was sleeping. He added some help with a slightly aggressive nudge with his foot to awaken his credit-card loving princess, causing Odessa to jump. She stretched lazily, like a cat, as she yawned, “Oh, I was having such a wonderful dream,” she said to Saxton as she reached into the nightstand for the small container of breath mints and quickly popped one in her mouth. Rolling over to face her husband, she slipped one between Saxton’s lips as she opened her pajama top and slid on top of him. “Good morning, husband, allow me to share with you what I was dreaming,” she told him as she planted a feathery light kiss upon his lips.
He imitated coming awake, “Good morning, Baby. What were you dreaming about?”
Odessa said few words as her fingers reached inside his boxers to grab a handful of her husband. Saxton’s eyes rolled back in his head as she incrementally connected their bodies. His hands gripped her hips as she began the slow dance with which to start their day. Saxton knew he was a lucky man to be married to such a beautiful woman that was also a morning person. Very few days would begin without his wife providing him what he fondly referred to as his breakfast. A grin covered Saxton’s face. A man needed his breakfast; it was the most important way to start the day, it made his life feel neat and orderly. Versus the uncertainty of being a field agent.
Chapter Two- Here Are Your Orders
Saxton hated the idea of heading back into the field to work in any aspect of the agency. Agent Marecus Roget had arrived two nights ago, out of breath, full of ideas, and a handful of bullshit that was fed to his wife with the aid of a black credit card. It truly infuriated him to no end that the agency wanted to use his wife as his cover. Adding insult to a nearly blind eye, they were using the guise of an antiquities buyer to enter Panama and spy on God knows who. Odessa didn’t know anything about antiques. She did know a lot about shopping, which nearly got her kidnapped and killed in Mexico. Shopping. Of all the cockamamie ideas that Roget had come up with, this was the lamest one yet.
It had become clear to Saxton that his wife was concerned about the lack of excitement in their lives. If one were to be totally honest, the life of a spy was very similar to that of a soldier; lots of prep, then hurry up and wait. Saxton had spent a great deal of time waiting. He had become an observer, but never truly taking part in what was happening around him. Inadvertently, he had become a watcher. A saddened voyeur, viewing other people having and enjoying a fruitful and bountiful life, while he sat back, watching, waiting, and hoping.
Odessa, to him, had become a symbol of all of the beauty in the world. She wasn’t naive by any means, but her outlook on life was refreshing. The shopping habit was scary, but she always managed to feed her addiction in a way that did not cause financial friction. The word shopping to her was a magical word that made fairies dance in her head. It wasn’t the spending that made her bananas, it was the hunt for the bargain. She could spend an entire day in a mall and come home with a monogrammed hand towel. They had a great nu
mber of monogrammed towels. Is she wasn’t buying them, then her mother would stop by with one or two. It was the damndest thing, a shopping fixation for towels.
This is what pissed him off with Roget; he approached the assignment by first appealing to his wife’s addiction. Then, rubbing salt into an unhealed wound, he gave her a credit card to go shopping in a foreign land full of cutthroats, mobsters, and the gateway to Columbia. The gnawing in his gut wasn’t solely based on Roget’s approach, but the realism that he was going to have to consistently watch Odessa’s every move, which included her extended shopping trips.
If there was one thing Saxton Blakemore hated, it was shopping.
The Blakemores arrived at the Dallas field office for the first briefing at 9:00 a.m. The majority of the morning was spent with slide shows of dilapidated buildings, dirty street children, and unseemly back-alley brothels. Odessa wasn’t sure who they wanted to venture into those; that last one she could almost smell on the screen. Suddenly, this did not feel like such a great idea, no matter how much shopping she got to do. Those people looked scary.
Agent Marecus Roget walked into the room and saw the look of concern forming across her face. As the slide show ended, his boss came into the room to collect Saxton for a more in-depth conversation, while he was left alone with Odessa. He smiled as he watched Saxton leave the room and turned to find an unsmiling, intense-faced Mrs. Blakemore staring back at him. It threw Roget off.
Agent Roget did not consider himself to be an intimidating man, but he stood at six feet, a solid two hundred and twenty five pounds, with a low haircut, dark complexion, and wire rimmed glasses. The glasses made him look more like a bookkeeper than a bad ass, but she—she was intimidating him. This little sprite of a woman who weighed no more than 115 pounds, soaking wet, with two bricks in her pocket, had shot and killed one of the meanest sons of bitches in the Nuevo Generación drug cartel. She had also maimed another and shot the leader.
“Mrs. Blakemore,” he said with some hesitation, “I have a few questions for you.”
She was still focused on his eyes, reading his body language and watching his every move. If there was one thing her Daddy, Big Sarge had taught her, it was to watch a man’s eyes. “Please, call me Odessa.” She added a moderately sincere smile to bring him to a level of comfort with her.
“Please call me Marecus,” he said as he moved around his desk to take a seat. “You know, me and some of the fellas were wondering,” he paused, and his eyes became mischievous, “why a fine-ass sister like you stayed married to that do-goodie white boy?”
She did not like his tone or his use of the word “sister”. They were not related and skin tone did not automatically put them on the same footing. It was unprofessional and out of line. “Marecus, what an unusual name,” she smiled at him with equal mischief, and saw him physically balk. “Is that African? I wondered, since you have a French last name.”
The smile left his face. It was a sore spot in his armor and she had walked right up and poked him in it. They were back on equal footing in the conversation. “Touché,” he said, but Odessa decided to answer his question.
“Years ago,” she told him, “I went on this date with this brother, who kept bugging me to take him hiking with me, so I did.” She explained the lake, the hiking trail and the natural surroundings. “We saw a water moccasin sunning itself and I told my date, leave it alone, and it will not bother you, but he decided he needed to show his manliness and kill it.” Odessa’s face contorted as she recaptured the memory, “The only thing he succeeded in doing was pissing that snake off, who of course chased him.”
Agent Roget’s eyebrows went up, “What did he do?”
“He ran and hid behind me, screaming, ‘Kill it, kill it’, like I was going to take on an angry water moc!”
Agent Roget was smiling. He knew what she had done, but asked anyway, and continued smiling when she told him, “I was in better shape, so I took off running and left him. He followed, running, out of breath, still screaming like a punk.” Odessa paused for a minute.
“What Saxton showed me about his character in three days, told me who he was as a man. I respect it. I honor it. I honor him, which is why he is still my husband.”
“But, honestly, you didn’t marry him for love....” Odessa held up her hand.
“I have seen people do some nasty things to their fellow man in the name of love. Love is an improperly used word to describe everything from feelings about a pair of shoes to spending time with Nana.” She crossed her legs and waited for his next dumb question.
“Marriage should be based on love, Odessa,” he was emphatic. She had already sized up his ringless hand and his idealism; besides her marriage was none of his damned business.
“So how did it work out for you with your first marriage, or your second?” He looked around the room for clues as to how she would know those things. His kids. She spotted the photos of his children. His first wife had been Korean and the second wife was black. The two separate photos in his office were of him with his son and daughter. The two pictures indicated to her that he was no longer with either child’s mother.
Odessa Blakemore was sharp, but her shopping addiction could be a point of contention and could get her and her husband killed. “Odessa,” he asked as he stood and came around the desk to sit next to her, hoping to shift his position from the point of authority behind the desk, to an equal who sat next to her. “I, as well as many others, are curious as to why you were on a cruise alone and decided to venture into a rough part of town to go shopping. Please,” he said adding some softness to his eyes as if he were her big brother, “help me understand.”
Odessa explained with some animation, that she was traveling with a tour group on the ship, and had heard about the market that was a block over from the cantina in Mexico where she had first met Saxton. “It was barely a mile from the cruise ship, I assumed others would be heading there, so I thought I could just pop over, get a few items for my patio and come right back.”
Agent Roget was still fixated, “But why were you traveling without a man, or a girl pal or something?”
“Did you know Agent Roget, that only 67% of Americans have a passport?”
It was a silly question, he worked for the CIA, of course he knew, but he would humor her, “Yes, I am aware.”
“Then you are also aware of the number of African Americans who hold a passport. When you separate it by gender, it leaves very few brothers who hold one, or who aren’t a felon, or behind on child support, and are able to even apply for one, let alone leave the country, legally.” Agent Roget’s mouth got tight, but she continued.
“When you look at the number of black women who have a passport, many purchased them just to say they have one, but have never used it.” He was looking at her with some chagrin, but she went on, “Most of my friends, when I asked them to go with me, hit me with a litany of excuses from not having enough vacation days, to no one to watch their kids for a week, or my favorite: My man said if I am going out of the country, he is going to be the one to take me.” She looked at him without any emotion on her face, “The sad thing is, their man barely takes them out to dinner, and they sit there waiting, like he is going to suddenly change his character.”
The agent was looking at her with new appreciation, “Agent Roget, I have traveled with friends and have had to pay their way, just so I didn’t travel alone. Those days are gone. There are plenty of us ‘sisters’ who have decided we want to travel and we are getting up off our butts and getting out there to see the world. I don’t want to be one of those women who were only lucky enough to see the world because I wore a military uniform. I want to do it as a woman who enjoys taking a real live vacation.”
He understood. Inside of his left breast coat pocket were their round trip tickets. It was a thing with Saxton that he always flew out of Houston, so he could spend time with his parents before any assignment, just in case he never made it back. “Here are your tickets
. You leave from Houston in 3 days.”
Odessa took the tickets and rose slowly, still uncertain of why she had agreed to this, but she had to know. She had to know if her husband missed this life of espionage and intrigue. It would plague her to no end if she felt she were playing second fiddle to his mistress named Adventure.
As she walked down the hall, Saxton was coming from the Director’s office. Although the director was still speaking, his gazed was focused solely upon her. The idea of nearly losing him again put a lump in the pit of her stomach. Shopping was secondary; their safety was first. It had taken her six months to understand the depth of her love for that man. It took another six months to relish in its bounty. She was not ashamed to tell anyone that she was in love with her husband, and she would take out anyone who threatened his life.
Saxton watched his wife walk towards him with such confidence and grace. It still befuddled him to no end that she loved him and shared his life. He was taking this assignment to prove to her he no longer wanted that lifestyle—his life was now with her. He would keep them safe. But first, they had to survive two days at his parents’ home with his family. God help them.
Chapter 3 – Meet the Blakemores
In America, there is old money, new money, and then there is Texas oil money. Ever since Abraham Gesner distilled kerosene from petroleum in 1850, alongside the Lucases, the Guffeys, and the Sterlings, oil was big business in the great state. The Blakemores were the third oldest oil family in the state, right behind the Sterlings who were the equivalent of the Ewings of Southfork. It only strengthened the family’s power when Lucille Sterling married one Bobby Ray Blakemore. Bobby Ray liked to call her Lucy, so everyone else did as well. Thirty-seven years later, they were still married and making out like school children every single chance they got. Bobby Ray’s hands on approach had resulted in the creation of four beautiful children: Robert Jr., Saxton, Belva, and Connard. Robert Jr. had passed away as a child making Saxton the eldest by default.
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