Drilled: (Hard 'n Dirty Book 7)

by Ava Sinclair

  Motion in my rear view mirror catches my attention, pulling me out of my thoughts. A vehicle is approaching fast from behind, lights flashing. It’s a police car. I check my speedometer. I’m going ten miles over the speed limit. Great. A ticket is all I need. But the cop isn’t interested in me. He flies around me, and I hear sirens as more police cars speed after the first one, as well as ambulances and fire trucks. They blow me as if I’m standing still. The final vehicle has HAZMAT written on the side.

  I immediately forget all about my self-pity. Something’s happened. Something bad. I search the horizon for smoke, but don’t see any. I gun the accelerator, following the lights through dust stirred as the emergency vehicles turn off the main road and head toward the oil field.

  I don’t stop at the office. The lights are condensed now in a tight grouping by one of the wells. A crowd of men is gathering as I pull up. Police have already erected barriers, keeping everyone else away from the site of a newly drilled well. Only first responders have been allowed past. I can see from here that they are clad in protective gear as they offload stretchers and medical equipment.

  I exit the truck, desperately looking for my father. I don’t see him.

  Yesterday, all eyes were on me. Today, I move through the crowd as if I were invisible. Men are pushing and craning their necks to see who’s being brought out on stretchers. I can’t see much, but all the workers being ferried to waiting ambulances are wearing oxygen masks. A light breeze is blowing in the direction of the barriers. It carries a sour, pungent odor.

  “What happened?” I grab the man nearest to me, a skinny young blonde who looks like he’s not old enough to be out of high school. “Were you on that crew?”

  “Iris!” A booming voice diverts my attention. My father is pushing his way through the crowd. He takes me by the arm. “Come with me.”

  “Daddy, what happened?” He pulls me along as if I’m an errant toddler. His face is grim, his jaw set with tension.

  He’s about to answer when he looks back toward the road and mutters a swear. Two news vans are barreling down the road. No doubt they picked up on scanner traffic when the emergency calls came in. My father grips my arm tighter and turns me to him.

  “Handle this!”

  “Handle this?” I hear the panic in my own voice. I don’t even feel capable of handling a press conference over a safety fine. “What am I handling? I don’t even know what happened!”

  “Gas leak.” He looks back, his brow furrowed. “It’s a minor one. That’s what you tell them. You tell them we followed all safety protocols, that it was unavoidable.” My father is speaking faster than he normally does, and there’s an uncharacteristic worried edge to his tone that makes me nervous.

  “But were we?” I ask.

  “Iris, do what I say. I’ve already told the other foreman to keep a lid on this. I don’t want to see a soul drawing a check from this company talking to the press. If they do, they lose their jobs. You’re the only one authorized to speak for Tremaine Oil & Gas. Understand?”

  “Daddy…”

  “Iris, don’t argue. You speak for the company. Not them. Got it?”

  As the news crews exit the vans, my father jumps into his truck and leaves, heading back to the office. My heart is pounding.

  “Miss Tremaine…” Two cameramen are approaching with reporters at their sides. The cameramen hang back, their lenses trained on me. “Can you tell us what happened here?”

  “A gas leak. A minor one.” I parrot my father’s words, not knowing what else to say.

  “Minor?” A woman in a red suit pushes a mike in front of my face. “The police scanner indicated over a dozen injured, some in serious condition. How can you call this minor?” She shouts the question over the wail of an ambulance. On the other side of the barrier, in the distance, they’re loading two more men onto stretchers as another ambulance approaches and is waved toward the well.

  I feel like a deer in the headlights.

  “What kind of gas, Miss Tremaine? What caused the leak?”

  “I don’t know, but I can assure you all safety protocols have been followed.”

  I tell myself this has to be true. I have to assume that the breaches we’ve been cited for had nothing to do with this. He’s my father. He wouldn’t ask me to lie over something this serious.

  The two reporters are firing questions at me, each trying to shout above the other.

  An emergency responder pushes us back. “Clear the area! Clear the area! It’s not safe. We’ve got men here to patch the leak. Clear the area!”

  We fall back, but the reporters are between me and my vehicle, pressing in on me, pressing me for answers I don’t have. What time was the leak detected? Did an alarm sound? When was the last time the detection monitors were tested?

  “I’m not sure. I don’t know.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  “I don’t know anything more than you do at the moment.”

  “Yes, I am aware of the safety violations, but that has nothing to do with this, I’m sure.”

  I tell them I have to go, that as soon as I know more, they will. I ask them to give the injured men privacy and to speak to me if they have questions.

  “Are you afraid of having us talk to the employees of Tremaine Oil & Gas?” One of the reporters refuses to walk away. “What are you afraid of, Miss Tremaine?”

  I turn, angry. “I’m not afraid of anything. We take care of our employees. This is an accident, nothing more.”

  I’m channeling my father now, pushing back. I tell them I have nothing else to say and that they need to move their vehicles to make way for the first responders. I want them off the property.

  I head to my father’s truck and once inside put my forehead on the steering wheel. I dread going back to the office, and decide to delay the inevitable by seeing if my car is ready. If my father sent someone to pick up a new tire, it should be on by now.

  I reach the shed to find my car sitting where I left it. The tire has been fixed and I’m glad. I hate driving my father’s oversized truck. It’s too big for me, just like my situation. I’ve decided that when I get back to the office, I’ll tell my father I’m heading back to Dallas, and that’s where I’ll field questions about the accident. It still won’t be pleasant, but I’m not about to undergo direct scrutiny by a media out for blood.

  I pull the truck beside my car. The shop is quiet, probably because so many of the men headed toward the sound of sirens at the accident site. I exit the truck and open my car door, or try to. It’s locked. I peek in through the window. The keys are gone.

  “Fuck.”

  “That’s pretty salty language.” A deep, familiar voice comes from behind me. I turn to see Cal Beaumont standing there. My heart flutters in my chest, followed by a feeling of guilt. Over a dozen men who work for Tremaine are on their way to the hospital. The last thing I should be feeling now is attraction.

  “I thought it was better to lock it up,” he says. “I’ll fetch the keys.”

  “Wait…” I walk toward him. “Mr. Beaumont, right?”

  The corner of his mouth quirks slightly. “Cal.”

  “Right. Cal.” I feel the tip of my tongue dart out to touch my dry upper lip. My eyes are cast downward. I know when I look up I’ll feel a flush of heat. I’m right. “I’m kind of surprised to find anyone here. I thought you’d be with the other men…”

  “You mean the ones who headed to the accident?” Is there judgement in his expression, or am I imagining it? “It’s not going to help those men to have more people gawking.” He pauses. “How many were hurt?

  I shake my head. “I’m not sure. A dozen? The emergency vehicles passed me when I was on my way in. It was such an awful surprise to see all those lights…”

  He looks in the direction of the well. “It’s only a surprise to someone who doesn’t work here.” He turns away. “Let me get those keys.”

  “No. Wait!” I hasten after him. “What do you mean
? Are you saying there were problems?”

  He stares down at me. His back is to the sun, and he’s so big he shadows me. “I’d think as official spokesperson you would know, Miss Tremaine. I saw the news last night. Congratulations on your position.”

  He turns back to walk to the shop, leaving me standing there. Suddenly I’m fuming. He obviously sees me just as the media portrayed me, a clueless pretty face.

  A work truck pulls up before I can respond. As the driver gets out of the truck, he clicks off a cell phone in his hand.

  “Remember, guys,” he says loudly, “no talking to the media about any of this. Anything you see, or have seen, you keep your mouth shut about, understand? Orders from the main office.”

  Orders from the main office, but not from me. Anger wells in my chest. My father is lying. I’m sure of it. Cal comes back with the keys.

  “Thank you,” I say, and take them before turning away. I’m still stung by his dismissiveness. But why should I care what he thinks? I glance back at him as I get into my car. He looks back at me, and for a moment, our eyes lock.

  It’s only a surprise to someone who doesn’t work here.

  Something is wrong here, and the men who know the truth have been told not to say anything. My father wants to help me lie for him. It would be easy to go back to Dallas, to hide behind press releases as I do my father’s bidding. But I’m not going. I’ve changed my mind. I’m staying until I can figure out exactly what’s going on.

  Chapter Seven

  Cal

  It could have been me. In a month, two months or three, if Ray Miller had asked me to be on his crew, I could be one of the men in the hospital fighting for his life.

  We’ve all been told by our foremen that what happened is company business and nobody else’s. The clear message is that anyone caught talking about what happened in public or to the media can hit the road.

  If I wasn’t so busy feeling sorry for Ray and the other men who got hurt, I could almost muster pity for Iris Tremaine. Eventually the truth about what’s going on at Tremaine Oil & Gas is going to leak out, just like the gas that Ray and his crew would have known about if the monitoring equipment and alarm systems had been working like they were supposed to. I was tempted to tell her what I’d heard Ray say that night at the bar, but I’m not sure I can trust her. Pretty as she is, she’s still a Tremaine.

  I wonder if she’ll tell her father what I said. Ever since Iris left, I’ve been wondering if I should pack my bags and get ready to head back to Louisiana. But it’s quitting time, and nobody’s come to fire me, so I guess I’m safe for now.

  The gas that caused so much damage was hydrogen sulfide. The leak was small, and the weather this morning had been misty after a late-night thunderstorm. If it had been dry, maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad, but the humidity had allowed a small pocket of leaking gas to settle near the pipe. When the wind had shifted, Ray had noticed the rotten odor. At first he’d not been worried; small amounts of trace gas weren’t uncommon or particularly dangerous, and no alarms had gone off. But something must have made him realize the danger, because he’d yelled to his crew, and taken off running, waving his arms to warn them back. He’d collapsed after a few steps, and a dozen other men had been overcome by the gas before the wind had shifted it away from the field. For the affected men, the damage was done. The gas, absorbed quickly by the bloodstream can be deadly. The most critically injured men—Ray among them— were flown to the hospital, where they remain in hyperbaric chambers. Nine others transported by ambulance are in serious to stable condition.

  I thought about going to see them, but I’m sure they already have friends and co-workers at the hospital. They don’t really know me anyway, but when something like this happens, you don’t have to really know someone to feel like a brother.

  I picked up burgers and beer on the way back to the hotel, although I don’t feel much like eating. The air conditioner in the room is making a sputtering noise, and even when I turn it all the way down, it barely cools the room. I pull off my shirt. My chest is slick with sweat, my arms and hands stained from grease and oil.

  Work, eat, shower, sleep. Since losing my mom and then losing Sadie, I don’t feel like I belong anywhere. I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I have to keep moving, keep working and saving money like Mama always told me to.

  “You’re gonna be somebody one day, Cal.” I still remember her final words as she laid her hand on mine and looked up with tired eyes. “I won’t be here to see it, but you’re gonna be happy. I have to believe that.”

  To be happy, to find a sense of place, a home. I look around the room I’m renting by the week. I’m wondering if I should look for something more permanent when I hear a knock at the door.

  It’s probably somebody looking for another room. I reach over on the bedside table, pop the top off a bottle of beer, and wait for them to go away. When the knock persists, I walk over with an aggravated sigh, half expecting to find a prostitute on the other side.

  It’s no prostitute.

  Iris Tremaine’s eyes are uncertain as she looks up at me before glancing back at the parking lot. I notice her car parked not in front of the hotel, but across the street in front of a thrift store.

  “Mr. Beaumont?” She sounds as nervous as she looks. “Could I have a minute to talk to you?” She glances toward the lot again. It’s clear that she’s worried about being seen. “Please?”

  I’m too surprised to say no. I step aside so she can come in. The hot air follows her, displacing what little effect the air conditioner was having.

  She’s wearing a light blue sleeveless dress and matching pumps. Despite the heat she’s feeling – both here and at work – she manages to look cool.

  I don’t know what to say, so I offer her a beer.

  “No. No thanks.” Her mouth twitches in a smile that fades. “I came to talk to you.”

  “How’d you find me?” I take a swig of my beer and walk over to the AC as I wait for her to answer. I switch it off and switch it back on, hoping that will help. It doesn’t. The air coming out is lukewarm at best.

  When I turn back, I realize she’s staring, and remember I don’t have a shirt on. She sees me looking and flushes deeply before lowering her gaze. I wonder if I should put my shirt back on, but it’s too damn hot.

  “There was a detour back to the hotel because of road work. It took me past this motel. I recognized your truck.” She pauses. “Mr. Beaumont…”

  “Cal,” I say.

  “Cal…”

  My name sounds smooth coming from between those pink lips. I think of the photo of her posing on the boat in the skimpy bikini. Those long legs, that narrow waist, the perfect breasts. Standing here in her prim, fitted dress, she’s just as attractive. I feel the blood rush to my cock, stirring it to life. Now I’m the one who has to look away.

  “I’m sorry to stop by unannounced. The receptionist gave me your room number.” She looks at a chair. “May I sit down?”

  There’s only one chair. I nod toward it and Iris sits down as I take a seat on the edge of the bed.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the accident at the oilfield. I want to find out exactly what happened.”

  I put the beer down on the rickety table in front of me. “There were about fifty men on that crew. I wasn’t one of them. So why show up at my door, Miss Tremaine?”

  She looks down at the hands folded in her lap. “Iris,” she says, then looks up at me. “Call me Iris.”

  “Okay. So why come here, Iris?”

  “No one will talk to me.”

  “No one will talk to you?” I repeat her words back to her. “I saw you on the news. Your father hired you as the communications director. So make them to talk to you.”

  “You don’t understand.” I see motion in her slim throat as she swallows. “My father won’t let the men talk. He wants to control the message. He wants to…control everything. The men are afraid to talk to anyone, even me.”
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  “What do you want from me, then?” I rise from my chair. It’s growing warmer by the minute, and even if she won’t take a beer, I feel like I should offer her something. I walk to the alcove by the bathroom, where there’s an unused coffee maker and plastic pitcher full of melting ice. I run water from the tap into the pitcher, unwrap a stack of plastic cups, and fill one. I can feel her eyes on me. I walk back over and hand her the cup.

  “Drink it. It’s warm in here.”

  Her hand closes around the cup.

  “Yes, it is. Thank you.”

  “Look, Miss Tremaine…Iris.” I sigh as I sit back down on the bed. “I haven’t been with working on the oil field that long. I keep to myself, don’t mingle. If you’re asking if I’ve heard or seen things that make me believe it’s not the safest place to work, the answer is yes.”

  “If you feel that way, why do you stay?”

  I can’t help but smirk. “Not all of us find working to be an option,” I say. “You might be surprised at what people do to survive.”

  “I think I may have a better understanding of such things than you think. But I also know that sometimes it’s worth the sacrifice to do the right thing. I’m not comfortable giving the press misinformation. I need someone on the inside who’s willing to talk to me.”

  “You want me to put my neck out?” I lean back in the chair.

  “No.” She sighs. “I want to put mine out. My father expects me to push back against the media.” She falls quiet, running her finger around the rim of the glass. “Can I speak frankly to you? I know I don’t know you, but…”

  “You do what makes you feel comfortable,” I say.

  She gives me a trusting little smile. There’s something innocent about her face. It does nothing to diminish my attraction to her.