by Radclyffe
Of course Austin was going to say that, but Gem couldn’t help imagining the risk. A frisson of fear skittered down her spine. “I suppose you have to be out there during all of this.”
Austin lifted a shoulder. “As you said, I’m not just a mouthpiece.”
Gem pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I’m a little off balance. Things have been moving so quickly.”
“I know,” Austin murmured, aching to touch her, aching even more to know she wasn’t welcome. “In more ways than one. Gem, I’m sorry you found all this out this way.”
Gem leaned back in her chair and let out a long breath. Austin didn’t deserve her bitterness, not when a big part of her anger was directed at herself. She’d gone willingly into Austin’s arms, and looking at her now, so close, so damn electrifying, she wanted to again. “Why don’t we agree to set our personal issues aside. I don’t want you out there thinking about anything except what you’re doing. And Lord knows, I’m going to have enough to think about here.”
“I’d agree with you,” Austin said, “but I don’t really think I can do that. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the minute we met.”
“Don’t,” Gem said softly.
“Don’t what? Tell you the truth? Isn’t that why you’re angry, because you think I didn’t?”
“Partly,” Gem admitted. “But only partly. I’m just as angry at myself for falling into something for completely irrational reasons.”
“Don’t you mean falling into bed with me?”
“Not just falling into bed,” Gem murmured, afraid to admit and unable to deny her feelings were much more than just sexual attraction. She couldn’t use chemistry as an excuse. Her attraction to Austin had always been more than physical, and time didn’t seem to be of any consequence. Their connection had been deep and terribly, wonderfully personal from the beginning. Heaven help her, she’d been falling in love with her since the minute she’d met her. “This isn’t the time for this.”
“It’s never been time—it’s just been right,” Austin said, finally taking a chance. She slid her hand across the table and rested her fingertips on the top of Gem’s balled fist. “I know you’re angry and you don’t trust me. But just believe this one thing—when I touched you, when you touched me, it was real. Everything you felt and you sensed from me was real.”
“I can’t think about that right now,” Gem whispered.
Austin nodded, rewarded by the softening in Gem’s eyes. “All right, then we’ll work.”
“Let me see your maps,” Gem said, slowly pulling her hand away.
Austin turned her laptop toward Gem and pulled up the aerials of the coastline. “We don’t have a lot of time, so I want to optimize our positioning of the booms.” She pointed a finger. “These show the projected direction of currents and the way the oil is likely to flow if it escapes the burn. Where are the key areas we need to blockade?”
Gem pointed to several places on the map. “These are estuaries leading into the sanctuary. They feed much of the salt marsh, which is critical as both habitat and feeding ground. Contamination here is likely to destroy much of the essential vegetation and trap a great many of the birds.”
“Where will you stage the recovery operations, if necessary?”
“Initially at the sanctuary, until we can set up mobile decontamination stations.”
“How many people?”
Gem winced. “As many as we can muster. It takes about an hour per bird to wash the oil clear, get them rehydrated and fed, prior to relocation.”
“That’s a lot of man-hours.”
“We lose a lot because we just can’t get to them in time.”
Austin would do anything to drive the clouds from Gem’s eyes. “We’ll seed the water between the booms and the shoreline with emulsifiers and chemical solvents if anything gets past the blockades. With the storm surge, though, our best hope is for the oil never to get this far.”
“So we’re back to the burn again,” Gem said.
Austin nodded. “Best case. I need to get back out to the rig.”
Gem’s stomach tightened. “I’m going to be busy organizing the ground teams, but you’ll…keep in touch?”
“Of course.”
Gem struggled with the line between personal and professional, a line she’d crossed unwittingly once. She knew better now, crossing it willingly as she reached for Austin’s hand. “You’ll be careful, won’t you.”
Austin closed her fingers around Gem’s, the link easing the pain in her chest. “I will. You too.”
“I’m not the one sitting on top of the powder keg.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Gem found Emily where she expected her to be, kneeling in the sand on the beach, a baseball cap pulled low over her brow, her red hair flying in the wind, gently applying tiny tracking sensors with acrylic compound to the shells of the baby turtles breaking free of their eggs. The rain held off, but the sky was an angry blanket of gray. She imagined she could feel the storm at her back, thought of the oil rig bobbing on the vast sea, isolated and vulnerable, and how small and defenseless its human inhabitants. Pushing worries about Austin to the back of her mind did nothing to quell the twist of anxiety that coiled in her middle. Gritting her teeth, she knelt in the sand next to Emily. “What can I do?”
“Keep an eye out for stragglers and try to direct them toward the water.” Emily’s face was fierce, the muscles along her jaw tight and strained. “We’re going to lose a lot of them if I can’t get the unhatched eggs out in time.”
“Can you incubate them in the center?”
“For a while, if we hold power and the whole damn place doesn’t blow away.” She pushed a strand of damp hair away from her cheek. “Damn it, why now?”
Gem gently redirected a half-dollar sized turtle down the slope toward the water and watched it make its staggering way into the frothy sea. Under ordinary circumstances, most would die before they ever reached the sanctuary of the water. Even if they did find their way to the safety of the sea with a little help from her and Emily, the majority would succumb to larger predators before they ever reached adulthood. Still, more would have a chance to survive with their help, and she didn’t feel the least bit guilty thwarting the natural cycle of things, considering how much humans had done to destroy the habitat of these creatures. She’d never be able to even the score.
“There are three more clutches in this area alone,” Emily said. “Who knows what might be elsewhere along the coast, and—”
“We can’t get to them all,” Gem said gently. “But we can look after the ones here.”
Emily blew out a breath and sat back on her heels, glancing out to sea. “I’ve never been through one up close. Have you?”
“No. Some pretty heavy tropical storms, and lots of the aftermath.” Gem watched a golf-ball-sized eggshell fracture and a miniscule head pop out. “At least we’ve got some time to prepare. Where’s the rest of your help?”
“I sent them to help Joe board up the cabin windows and lock down the center.” Emily balanced a solar-powered tracker on her fingertip and applied the glue, her attention on the emerging hatchling. “Where do you figure we’ll ride this out?”
“Once we know for sure it’s coming, and when, we’ll set up a command center in the village, on high ground. I called the town supervisor right before I came out, and he’s promised us a couple of rooms at town hall. Hopefully, we won’t need them for long.”
“I guess we can always relocate to the FEMA trailers.”
Gem grimaced. “Not my first choice. I want to get back into the center as soon as we can.”
“I’m with you.” As Emily talked, she adroitly caught, tagged, and released the turtle and sent it on its way. Answering some innate imperative, a stream of the hatchlings straggled down the beach toward the surf. An occasional gull swooped low, hoping for an easy catch, but a shout and a wave of the arm from Emily or Gem was enough to dissuade them.
Once the hatchlings reached the water and headed out to the protection of the plankton patches, they were on their own.
“I’ll grab a couple more hands for you,” Gem said, “so you can get the other clutches extracted and stored.”
“Thanks.”
“You sure you want to stay through the storm?”
“Jeremy’s not too happy about it, but he’ll cope.” Emily grinned. “The kids are really annoyed they’re missing all the fun. I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
Gem squeezed her shoulder. “Thanks.”
The thump-thump-thump of a helicopter caught her attention and she glanced up to watch it turn course out over the ocean. She wondered if Austin was aboard. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the minute we met. A dark thrill raced through her, remembering the heavy-lidded languor in Austin’s eyes when they’d lain together naked, caressing, enticing, seducing. No, she hadn’t stopped thinking about her either, even when she’d tried. And now every thought was undercut with fear.
“I guess the GOP people have headed back out,” Emily said with her uncanny ability to read Gem’s mind.
“Yes.”
“Talk about a perfect storm.”
“Ironic term for it,” Gem muttered.
“How is it, working with Austin?” Emily rose and brushed sand from the knees of her cargo pants. “Here, carry this.”
Gem grabbed the backpack filled with equipment and followed Emily down the beach. “It’s fine. We’ve both got jobs to do, and we agreed to keep things professional.”
“Aha, professional. Very mature.” Emily cut her a glance and carefully stepped over the yellow tape surrounding another square of beach. “Really, Gem? From the looks of things, the two of you were on fire. Now you’re going to be cool and professional?”
“Damn it, what choice do I have.” Gem hunkered down with her back to the rising wind. “It’s not like we’d been dating or anything, more like—hell, I don’t know what we’ve been doing.”
“Well, if it was me, I’d kick her ass.”
Gem grinned.
“Hand me that spade,” Emily said, knowing with some sixth sense exactly where the clutch was located. Gem played first assistant as Emily worked.
“It’s not as if she’s completely responsible,” Gem said. “There were two of us in that bed, you know.”
Emily looked up, quirked a brow. “Uh-huh. I got that part. Don’t tell me you’re not steamed about her keeping a whopper of a secret.”
Secrets. They’d always been her undoing. Paul’s secret fantasies, Christie’s secret desires, even her own. For years, she’d been a secret to herself, unable or unwilling to recognize her true needs. She’d promised herself never to fall victim to secrets again, and at the first surge of passion she’d fallen. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“I like the way she looks at you,” Emily said matter-of-factly.
“I’m sorry?”
“She looks at you like she’s hungry.”
Heat flashed through Gem’s chest and into her throat. For an instant, she was straddling Austin’s hips, leaning over her, face-to-face, lost in her eyes, consumed by her hunger. Desire coiled in her depths. She should’ve been embarrassed that Emily had seen that craving, but she couldn’t be, not when she hungered herself. “There’s more to life than lust.”
Emily laughed. “I can’t believe you just said that. Go ahead, keep trying to convince yourself you don’t want it, but I think it would be easier to just make her suffer. And then find a way to set things right.”
Make things right. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to, even if it was possible. She didn’t trust herself or what she felt, and right now, she wasn’t sure she wanted to trust Austin either.
❖
Benny set the bird down on the helipad, and Austin released her seat belt. “When are you and Rio taking the birds to the mainland?”
Removing her headset, Benny rifled a hand through her short-cropped hair. She cut the engine and the rotors slowed, but the sound of the wind rushing past the cockpit made it sound as if they were still flying. “No word on that yet.”
Austin frowned. If the storm came up quickly, the helicopters would be stranded on the rig. Benny and Rio were the last two pilots remaining, since they had the most experience flying in bad weather. All the same, they needed to leave while it was still safe to do so. “Dr. Spencer will need a lift back later today. You and Rio should plan on evac-ing all nonessentials then and grounding your birds until the weather clears.”
Benny jumped out and came around to join her as they trotted across the platform. “How do the rest of you plan to get off of here?”
“We’ll grab a lift with one of the ships after they deploy the booms.”
“Roger that. I’ll give Rio the word,” Benny said and angled off in the direction of the pilots’ ready room.
Tatum was just coming into the command center when Austin arrived. Claudia was packing up some of her equipment.
“Any new developments?” Austin said.
“Good news and bad,” Tatum said, but for the first time, his expression was slightly less than sour.
“Progress?” They were about at the eleventh hour, but at this point, Austin would take any scrap of good news.
“We got the fucking leak isolated, and Reddy thinks his boys can plug it just above, slowing it down to a manageable trickle until we can get the remotes down there to patch it.”
Austin frowned. “The remotes won’t function in these kinds of seas.”
“You’re fucking right about that,” Tatum said. “So we need to buy some time.”
“That puts us about where we’ve been all along,” Austin said, the bubble of optimism shrinking.
“Not exactly,” Tatum said. “Reddy thinks he can get a container shaft down the outside and funnel the oil up the shaft.”
“They tried that on Deepwater Horizon,” Austin said.
“Yeah, and it didn’t work,” Tatum said, “but that was then and this is now. We’re way ahead of the game.” He grinned. “And we’re better.”
“How long?”
“Too long. We’ll have to feed the exterior shaft down in sections and hook them together, which wouldn’t take all that long if we had a full crew under perfect conditions, but we fucking don’t have any of those things working for us. A couple of days, at least.”
Claudia moved over to join the conversation. “But if you can do it, you can contain the leak?”
“That’s the idea, and keep the well functioning.” Tatum’s eyes sparkled as he spoke.
“What about the oil that’s leaking now?” Claudia asked, looking from Austin to Tatum.
“We’ll burn it,” Austin said. “If and when it surfaces.”
“We’ll start sliding the sheath down now, but it will be slow going with a small crew,” Tatum said. “Given a day or two and if the creek don’t rise, we got a chance.”
Claudia sighed. “I hate to tell you this, but the creek’s about to rise. The latest projections have the storm making landfall by midday tomorrow.”
“Twenty-four hours,” Austin murmured. Her phone rang and she grimaced. She really didn’t want to have to tell Eloise they’d have to abandon the rig, ride out the storm, and hope the spill didn’t get worse before it was over. “Germaine.”
“Linda Kane and NBC News are headed your way.”
“How did that happen so quickly? We don’t even have oil on the surface yet,” Austin said.
“I think she slept with everyone at FEMA down in New Orleans,” Eloise snarled. “Someone tipped her off.”
“Okay.” Austin grabbed her jacket. “I’ll head her off before she finds someone to fly her out here.”
“That’s all we need is her on the rig. Don’t let that happen.”
“Believe me, I won’t.”
❖
Gem’s phone rang just as Emily was uncovering the third and next to the last clutch. The readout indicated an unknown caller. “
This is Gillian Martin.”
“Bill Peabody with FEMA. We got ten people in your parking lot right now, and a half dozen trucks of sand coming in behind us pretty quick. Where do you want us?”
“Stay right there. I’m ten minutes away.” She disconnected and turned to Emily. “I’ll get a couple of interns out here to help you finish up. FEMA is here.”
“Time to start sandbagging. Oh, what fun.” Emily grinned. “Keep the interns. I can handle this myself. If you see Joe, send him out and he can help me carry the clutches back.”
“I’ll find him for you.”
As Gem jogged back, she called Joe’s number and gave him Emily’s location. “As soon as you’re done securing the buildings, can you give her a hand?”
“Sure. You know there’s a bunch of people out front, right?”
“I’m on it.”
“All right then,” he said, sounding a little skeptical. “Good luck.”
Gem tucked her phone back into her pants pocket. She came around the back of the center and realized she had more company than she expected. A news van with antennae bristling and a satellite dish mounted to the rear sat idling in the middle of the parking lot. A gaggle of people with equipment surrounded another group with microphones out thrust. Great, the press had arrived.
As Gem strode toward the congregation, Austin pulled in, hopped out of her SUV, and cut into their midst ahead of her. Gem edged up to the group, close enough to hear.
“Linda,” Austin said with a friendly smile as she extended her hand. “Austin Germaine. We met in Port Arthur after the last big blow down there.”
The busty redhead smiled and tilted her head at what Gem figured was a perfect camera-worthy angle. She practically preened, and Gem had an urge to ruffle her own feathers more than a little bit. She pushed a little closer.
“Austin, yes,” the reporter purred, “how can I possibly forget? You certainly got here in a hurry, or have you been here for a while?”