“Hi, Adrian,” she replied in a hushed tone.
Morgan dropped his hands. “Where are we?”
“We shut down all the oil heating units and locked down the fuel storage tanks. We’re in the process of storing the diesel heaters, drilling equipment and everything else on the checklist,” Adrian assured him.
“Make sure the mobile gas pumping systems are drained,” Kathleen advised.
“Yes, of course,” Adrian replied, smiling.
A smart and beautiful liar. Bonnie 2.0. “Good. What about the staff?” Morgan asked, trying to keep his focus on Adrian, but in his peripheral vision, he could see sadness cloud Kathleen’s face. While there was a part of him that wanted to hear Kathleen out, his hurt and anger wouldn’t let him.
“All nonessential staff are being evacuated now.” Adrian checked his ringing phone.
“And the bunker?”
“It’s ready. Excuse me. I got to take this, boss.” Adrian stepped out of the room.
“What’s the bunker?” Kathleen asked timidly.
Morgan went poker-faced. “It’s a ten-thousand-square-foot steel underground storm and bomb shelter.”
“Do you really think it’ll be necessary to send everyone down there?” Her forehead creased.
“It depends on the category of the storm when it hits land and whether or not we’ll take a direct hit. See how that works. You ask me a direct question, I answer it.” Morgan checked his watch. “You really should leave now. Get back on the road before the weather turns too bad.”
* * *
Kathleen remembered Victoria’s words. She loved Morgan, and there was no way she was going to walk away from him without a fight. Kathleen stood with her right hand on her hip. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Excuse me.” Morgan came from around his desk, placed his hands in his pockets and stared down at Kathleen.
Kathleen could see how angry and hurt he was, but she also saw something else. She saw love and desire, and that gave her the additional courage she needed to get through the next few moments. “You heard me. I’m not leaving. I love you, and you love me. We’re going to talk about this. Maybe not right now, but we will discuss everything. You say you know everything, or at least you think you do? Then you know what I’m capable of doing. Now put me to work. How can I help?”
“Fine. Stay. You can help Ms. Monica from the cafeteria. We sent most of her support staff home.”
Kathleen felt hopeful when Morgan didn’t dispute the fact that he loved her. “If that’s where you want me.” They stood staring at each other in silence. With a racing heartbeat, Kathleen conjured up a bit more courage and reached for Morgan’s hand. She placed it over her heart and her hand over his heart. “I know you can feel my heart beating just as I feel yours. For as long as our hearts pump blood throughout our bodies, we will love each other. I know I have a lot to explain and account for and I will. Just know that I’m still yours and you’re still mine.”
Thunder roared, and Kathleen jumped. Morgan lowered his hands and snaked them around her waist. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
Kathleen buried her face in his chest and cried. Not out of fear but sadness for what she could have lost. Morgan held her and rubbed her back but gave Kathleen no assurances that they would be fine. He was comforting her as he would anyone else, and that just made things worse.
“Excuse me...again,” Adrian announced.
Kathleen stepped out of Morgan’s arms and turned her back on both men. She needed to pull herself together. She reached in her purse, pulled out a Kleenex and wiped her face.
“What’s up?” Morgan asked.
“Everyone’s in place. I’m headed to the watch center.”
“Good, but first I need you to take Kathleen to the lounge,” he ordered.
Kathleen swirled around so fast it made her dizzy. “What? I thought I was helping Ms. Monica in the cafeteria.”
“You are, only the cafeteria is closed. We moved everything we need to another location. It’s an enclosed area where we’ll wait out the storm while we decide if it’s necessary to move into the bunker,” Morgan explained, his tone flat.
“Oh.” Kathleen appreciated Morgan’s explanation, only she wished it wasn’t so professional.
“Where will you be?” Adrian asked Morgan.
“I’ll make rounds and meet you at the watch center after.”
“Cool. You ready, Kathleen?”
“Give me a minute please.” Kathleen was talking to Adrian but looking up at Morgan. Morgan gave Adrian a quick nod and stepped out the door. Kathleen closed the distance between them, cupped his face with shaking hands, rose up on tippy toes, hoping he wouldn’t push her away and kissed him gently on the lips. While Morgan didn’t stop Kathleen and even returned her kiss, it wasn’t quite the response she was hoping for either.
“You should go,” Morgan murmured, his tone having softened.
Kathleen picked up her purse and walked to the door. She placed her hand on the knob, looked over her shoulder and said, “We’re not over. We love each other too much.”
Kathleen spent the next several hours reminding herself of that fact as she helped Ms. Monica prepare the lounge for what could potentially be a long stay. The large room with cocoa-colored walls and gray Berber-carpeted floors was warm and inviting. Half the room offered leather-style sofas, lounge chairs, a dining table that seated fifteen and an entertainment center with a 262-inch TV in its center. The other half of the space was being set up for sleeping; thirty cots were actively being assembled.
“Wow, this place is something else,” Kathleen stated as she helped unpack boxes of prepackaged meals.
“Victoria Kingsley doesn’t believe in doing anything halfway, trust me,” Ms. Monica confirmed.
“I’m beginning to see that.” Kathleen nodded in agreement.
“So how are things going with you and Morgan?”
“Umm...excuse me?”
“Child, please. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder are still arguing over who saw the feelings developing between you two first.”
Kathleen laughed, something she hadn’t done since before she walked into her office that morning. So much for keeping our relationship a secret. “It’s fine. I guess.”
“You guess. What did you do?” Ms. Monica questioned, giving her the side-eye.
“What makes you think I did something wrong?”
Ms. Monica took Kathleen’s empty box and slid her another one to unpack. “Because I’ve watched the Kingsleys’ boys grow into men. I know everything about every one of them. The one thing I know for certain about Morgan is that if he decides to entrust his heart to someone else again, that’s it. She’s it. Once he makes that decision, that woman can count on two things.” She held up two fingers. “He’ll never hurt her, and he’ll love her forever. If I have to guess if everything is all right between you two, it’s not. So I’ll ask again, what did you do?”
Kathleen knew Ms. Monica was just trying to help, but she didn’t feel right about sharing so much with a virtual stranger to her. “Everything is fine...at least it will be. I hope.”
Monica offered a supportive smile. “If it’s meant to be, it sometimes might take a lot of work to make it so.”
The corners of Kathleen’s mouth rose. “I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.”
“That’s because it’s not a saying. It’s a fact. Now get busy. We’ll have several people piling in here soon and we need to be ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, Morgan was sitting in the office watching weather reports on three different TVs, monitoring his production boards and gauges while reading production reports when Adrian jumped up and said, “That’s enough. Put your shoes on and let’s go to the lounge and hang out with everyone else.”
<
br /> “You go right ahead,” Morgan replied, keeping his eyes on the center TV.
“There’s a TV in the lounge, several in fact, if you must keep watching, but we both know the storm is going to miss us. We’ll get hit with a lot of hard rain for several hours, but as long as our pumps hold up we’ll be just fine. Just like always.”
“What’s your point?” Morgan asked, his annoyance taking a stand.
“My point is, you need to go find Kathleen and work this thing out.”
Morgan scowled at his friend. “Aren’t you the one who busted her in the first place?”
“No, that would be whoever sent me that information on her. I just thought you needed to know so you could find out what was going on. Not just end things with her. That woman loves you, and we both know she doesn’t need your money. Hell, I think she may be richer than you are.”
“Do you have any idea who sent it to you?”
“No. Maybe someone’s upset that she picked you over them, but does it really matter? The truth is out and the question is, what are you going to do now that you know?”
Morgan tossed his pen on the table and sat back in his chair. “I don’t know who I’m having a relationship with, a down-to-earth OSHA trainer or a rich OSHA investigator trying to... I don’t even know. I don’t know who the hell she is, man.”
“She’s the only woman I’ve ever seen you fall for in years. She’s the real deal, and you know it.”
Morgan heaved a big sigh. “How can I trust anything she says?”
Adrian shrugged. “Just follow your heart, man.”
“I did. I asked Kathleen to move in with me before this.”
Adrian’s eyes got wide as saucers. “That’s big for you, dude. What did she say?”
“That she’d think about it.” Morgan reached for his ringing phone, half hoping it was Kathleen. Recognizing the number, he rolled his eyes skyward.
“She didn’t say no. What’s up?”
“I’m not sure. Bonnie Ford’s been calling lately.”
“Dude, don’t do it,” Adrian said, shaking his head.
“Don’t what?”
“Go backward.”
“Hell, no. I wouldn’t do that to Kathleen or myself,” Morgan declared.
“Good. Did Kathleen tell you she loves you?”
“Yes.” Morgan’s heart skipped a beat just remembering the moment.
“Do you believe her?”
“Absolutely,” Morgan murmured. The emotions that he’d been keeping at bay started hovering around the edge of his sanity.
A sudden loud crash that sounded like thunder startled both men. “What the hell was that?” Adrian asked, looking around the room.
Kathleen. “What the...” Morgan stood and stared out the window before checking the board. “A transformer blew.”
Adrian joined Morgan at the window. “Looks like there’s a live wire dangling too.”
Morgan grabbed his jacket and pulled on his rubber boots. “Call the on-site fire department, and I’ll radio Jim and his team. They’re in the area.”
Morgan called Jim, one of their longtime production managers, as he quickly made it out of the building and into his truck. His first instinct was to go and check on Kathleen, but he knew she was in a safe place and he needed to check on his people and the situation. He drove through a treacherous downpour and flooded streets to get to the other side of the plant. The rain made a trip that would have normally only taken him five minutes take him nearly ten, during which his mind kept wandering to Kathleen. Morgan knew she’d heard what he had and was probably scared to death. Morgan’s first thought was her, and that scared the hell out of him too. What if the woman he’d fallen in love with really wasn’t the woman he fell in love with? He knew he couldn’t go through that pain again.
When Morgan arrived on-site, everything was under control. He pulled his vehicle next to several others as well as a small fire truck. The transformer was dead, and the loose wire was being removed. “Jim, is everything all right?” Morgan called out, exiting the truck as he walked to where Jim stood in a nearby covered area with several of his men nearby.
“Yeah, that damn transformer was brand-new too. It looks like it got hit by lightning.”
“You got the wire down pretty quick,” Morgan said, looking up at the pole.
“We were already over here when it blew.”
“Here?” Morgan pointed at the ground.
“Yep, we came to check this storage unit.” He used his thumb to point at the structure they were standing in front of. “We heard it pop, and before I knew it, Bubba was dressed, up that pole and had ripped that sucker down in no time.”
Morgan looked over to Bubba, who was smiling so wide Morgan could see all the teeth in his head. He walked over to the young man. “Good job. I assume you took all the safety precautions.”
“Yes, sir, especially the ones Ms. Kathleen taught us.”
Morgan frowned. “Kathleen?” He looked at Jim.
“Yeah, she taught the team how to control the adrenaline they were sure to feel in moments like these. It helped them stay calm so they could think. She also showed them the safest and fastest way to deal with live wires.”
“I must have missed that class,” he murmured to himself, scratching his beard.
“She added it to the computer-based program you already had in place,” Jim explained.
“That’s good,” Morgan acknowledged.
“Now, David, your other fearless leader over there, jumped in the back of the truck like a cat,” Jim teased, laughing.
“And Jim nearly peed his pants,” David replied as he approached both men.
“Sure did,” Jim admitted, laughing.
“Anyway, Ms. Kathleen told us to be aware of our surroundings. I didn’t know where I was standing.”
Kathleen...
David shook Morgan’s hand as he put his phone away. “I have to check on the wife. She hates this weather, and she worries if she doesn’t hear from me every five seconds.”
Morgan knew how much David and his wife adored each other. He thought about Kathleen, and his heart sank because his love and anger were at an impasse. Morgan thanked everyone and ordered his men to the lounge and their firemen back to their station. He reminded everyone to stay vigilant but to get some much-needed rest. Morgan needed to follow his own advice, but before he could do that he needed answers. Other than Kathleen, Morgan figured he knew the one person who just might have a few.
Chapter 21
Morgan returned to the office and pulled out his cell phone. “Damn,” he said as he noticed his battery was low and placed it on the quick charger. Morgan placed his iPad on its cradle as he sat, dialed the number and nervously waited for his video call to connect.
“Morgan, darling, you look stressed. Is everything all right?” Victoria asked, frowning.
“Not even a little bit.”
Victoria nodded slowly and sat back in her chair. “So Kathleen told you.”
“Wait, what?” Morgan sat forward and stared into the screen. “You knew?”
“That Kathleen Winston, heiress to the Winston Construction fortune, is an investigator for OSHA? Yes, I just found out.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he yelled.
Victoria tilted her head to the right but remained quiet. Morgan took a deep breath and released it slowly. “My apologies, Mother. Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” he asked, his voice calmer.
“Remember when you came to me all excited and said that you were marrying Bonnie?”
“What does that—”
Victoria presented her right palm to the screen, stopping Morgan in his tracks. “Do you remember?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do.”
“Do you remember what I told you?”
Morgan went blank-faced. He was in no mood for games, but he knew if he didn’t go along he would never get the answers he needed. Morgan nodded. “That Bonnie was my mistake to make.”
“Do you know why I said that?”
Morgan shrugged, not interested in the past but knowing he had to listen if he wanted her help. “Not really.”
“Because you’re just like me. I know everyone seems to think Alexander takes after me the most but in reality, it’s you. If I told you what a silly little thing I thought Bonnie Ford was, you would’ve ignored me and married her that much faster. Fortunately, she showed her true colors before I had to intervene.”
“So you let me fall for someone out to destroy our family instead?” he asked, feeling his anger rising.
“I didn’t let you do anything, son, and you started falling for Kathleen before I even met her.”
Morgan ran his hands down his face and shook his head. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Mother.”
“I knew something special was happening between you two the day I walked in, and you were arguing over the training programs. The way she held her own with you, I knew she was something special.”
“She was something special, all right...she’s a liar.” The words stung his throat as he spat them out and he felt like he was betraying Kathleen even thinking such a thing.
“Morgan, she was doing her job.”
“And you’re okay with how she went about it?” His brows snapped together.
“No, but I understand now why she did it.”
“This coming from a woman who would threaten to banish us from the house if she ever caught us lying to her.” Morgan threw up his hands in frustration. “You’ll need to explain that one to me, Mother.”
Victoria spent the next thirty minutes explaining to Morgan everything she knew about Kathleen and her situation, from the specifics of the complaint against the Kingsleys, her motivations and zeal to seek justice for those she believed were being mistreated, to the remorse she felt for being wrong after confirming that the accusations were baseless and hurting people, specifically the man she loved.
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