by RJ Scott
“Lex said she’s not coming home forever,” Connor said between sobs. Riley had Connor, Jack crouched down by Lexie.
“I didn’t say that,” Lexie denied, “I said she’s not coming back until Christmas, and that it's forever.”
Connor sobbed louder. “I love Hayley, I don’t want her to go away.” He wriggled hard and Riley overbalanced and fell on his ass with Connor curled into his arms. Oh well, that seemed like a good idea. He sat on the ground and pulled Lexie in for a hug.
“Lexie, Christmas isn’t forever,” Riley began, but that just made Connor hide his face in Riley’s arms. Riley sent a despairing look to Jack, as if he wanted Jack to make everything better. It didn’t matter that all of a sudden Jack wanted to sit and bawl himself, in the middle of the front yard, right where anyone could see them.
“How long is Christmas?” Connor asked. Jack did some quick mental math multiplying, taking off, dividing and then hoping for the best. He knew better than to give exact counts to any of the kids, but at this moment it was important.
“One hundred and twenty-five days,” he said, because that sounded about right. Was it right? Seventeen weeks…seven days… add a few more.
Lexie tugged herself free from Jack’s grasp, suddenly determined.
“Come on Con, we’re making a chart for all the days so we can tick them off.”
She pulled at Connor, who was really uncertain, and then when she sighed and tugged again, he followed, albeit dejectedly.
Riley looked at him and shook his head. “Jack, you gave them days, actual days, you know they’ll show Max and if Hayley doesn’t come home then…do you not remember the debacle of last Halloween?”
Jack covered his eyes. The last time they’d set numbers of days, something that Max lived by, and that Connor and Lexie cajoled by, was for Halloween and it had been Riley’s turn to fuck up the numbers. His number of days was off by two and the entire ranch had to play along that Halloween was actually the 29th of October.
And then Lexie demanded a second Halloween, and sulked for an entire hour when she didn’t get it.
Way too much angst.
Jack flopped back on the dirt and Riley leaned over to kiss him before collapsing on top of him.
They lay like that for a while, but it was Riley who was the sensible one.
“Now we need to find Max and explain everything to him.”
“And then,” Jack said ruefully, “make sure Hayley is definitely back in one hundred and twenty-five days.”
Riley rolled to stand and extended his hand, and they stole a quick kiss before going in.
“I’ll get cookies,” Riley said.
“I’ll do the coffee.”
Together, with coffee, cookies, and love, they could handle it all.
Chapter 14
Riley finished his call with Hayley. Two years into her degree now, she was thriving, and she’d asked if there was room to intern at CH. He made a note to ask Kathy, his PA, as soon as he was in. Of course there would be room, hell, he’d make room. But Kathy was the goddess of scheduling, so he’d leave it to her. Riley had only just made it through the door of CH when he was caught by Kathy, and he didn’t even have a chance to ask before his morning was ruined.
“You have an online meeting at two with BOEM,” Kathy announced, without introduction.
What did the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management want him for today? He thought the next meeting, scheduled for next week would be soon enough.
Riley sighed noisily; it was tradition to appear as pissed off as possible with anything Kathy organized for him even if he didn’t mean it. He’d be lost without her and she knew it. She raised a single eyebrow and quirked a smile.
“Can’t Tom take it?” He wheedled, that was also a thing he did every time, trying to get Tom to cover the boring meetings that sent him to sleep. All Riley wanted to do was sit with his maps and plan work projects. “What’s the point of having a manager if he can’t deal with bureaucracy and ticking boxes?”
Kathy just looked at him pointedly. He grumbled a bit more, because that was what he did best. But, with coffee in hand he perched on the side of Kathy’s desk, nudging aside a framed picture of her grandchildren so he could get his ass far enough on it. She tutted, and moved the frame to the safety of the other side. From there he could see the picture, her holding two babies, a toddler cuddling her from behind. That could be him and Jack one day, their kids might wait a long time to have children, but one day…
“What?” Kathy asked again with a barely concealed smile.
“Nothing,” he lied. Riley tried for innocent but it didn’t work; Kathy had been with him too long now to fall for any kind of manipulation. “I was just here to ask how you were.”
“I’m fine and no I won’t ask Tom to call in to cover a meeting with BOEM. They want to speak to the Hayes in CH Consulting. Do you want to know what things I have found out?”
“First, what did they say they want?” A phone call with BOEM wasn’t a bad thing, he had a good working relationship with the bureau and was working closely with them on offshore ocean energy capture. He just didn’t need it today because he had new maps to look at, and that was what he liked doing.
Best case scenario, it would be a list of questions raised by hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico, worst, it could be a serious environmental issue that meant any work Riley and Tom had done was invalid.
“They didn’t say.” Kathy pulled her pad over. “Tom is down there working on site at the moment. There’s nothing that’s come up on the radar for complications, and I did a social media search to assess any possible issues. No pressure groups have made themselves known on anything we’re working on, the only thing I found was one possible issue with a tract of land that Josiah Harrold and Santone Corp are working. It’s five miles inland, oil, and there is some pressure at the state level to go for the quicker, cheaper option to support energy consumption.
“Fuck,” Riley cursed. “What the hell are Santone doing down there?”
Santone was the bane of Riley’s life. Ethics went out the window as soon as Josiah and his idiot son JJ got involved.
“I can’t find anything concrete on that yet, just rumors.”
“How does it impact us?” he asked, knowing Kathy wouldn’t have brought this up unless she felt there was something that might affect CH.
“It’s only a hunch, but I did some research, put in a few calls, and the word is that Santone is looking at a tract of land next to ours, the one Tom is working on. Possibly even wave energy.”
Riley’s chest tightened. This wouldn’t be the first time that Santone sniffed after one of the areas that CH was working on. It seemed like the Harrold family were more interested in working off CH research than their own.
They’d lost Tom a few years back to Riley, and it had hurt them. In Riley’s opinion they should have looked after Tom better; Tom had worked for them for a few years as a researcher until JJ, the younger Harrold, had made a pass at him and got a broken nose in return. Tom was small, but he was a scrappy fucker who’d walked away from Santone. Thank God Kathy had found him, because he was as good as Riley, and between them they were finding new and ethical ways to locate energy sources. Something Kathy said clicked abruptly.
“Since when did Santone have any interest in wave energy?”
She shrugged and he didn’t really need an answer; Santone saw what CH was doing and they wanted some of Riley and Tom’s magic, or luck, or whatever Kathy kept calling it.
“Can you get Tom on the phone?”
He should really go into his office, but out here in Kathy’s domain he felt way more comfortable than in his glass room with its city views. In there he felt old school; out here, perched on a desk, he was inspired by the energy from the interns and staff he could see beyond Kathy’s glass. He’d much rather have that view.
Kathy pressed speed dial and Tom answered immediately. Riley didn’t wait for niceties.
“San
tone is sniffing around your site, or as close as dammit.”
Tom cursed and then there was the noise of him moving, the shutting of a door and his voice began to echo.
“Riley, this is getting old real quick,” he said. “What the hell are they doing?”
“Following our every move it seems, just wanted to give you a heads up. Try not to break JJ’s nose again, yeah?”
Tom huffed a soft laugh, but went right back to being serious. “It’s a quicker, cheaper alternative without the sustainability. The state infrastructure budget was seriously dented with the work on the dam upstate and the hurricane.”
“We have to convince them that our option is the best one.”
Riley, or rather CH, had a lot of money riding on this, the investment in purchasing rights had been lengthy and costly. But he was committed to finding ways to power this country without damaging the environment.
“You realize Riley that one day we’ll lose, and Santone will pick up what’s left over, that is what they’re doing and this is fucking me off, freaking vultures.”
“Then we need to make sure we don’t lose, because they will go in all guns blazing ripping oil from under the parcel of land instead of working with the State for the wave energy collection.”
“Preaching to the choir, boss.”
Riley considered the implications of losing momentum when everything had been going so well in the few seconds it took to sip his coffee. Not in detail of course, but enough for his chest to remain tight and his brain to feel all twisted and full of concern. The exposure here was more than CH could handle alone; he’d underwritten a huge amount of the funds personally in a long, convoluted way that only his finance manager truly understood. This falling through would mean a loss to CH, but it would hit him as well. Not enough to destroy him, but enough to hurt. That fear, of what his life would be like if he didn’t have his millions in the bank was real.
“—think, Riley?”
He startled at Tom’s use of his name; he’d clearly gone way too far into his own head there.
“Sorry? Can you say that again?”
“We’re out on the boat with the survey teams today, you want me to hold off until we know what Santone are down here for?”
“No, carry on as normal, Kathy has feelers out, and I think I might suggest dinner with Josiah, get his intentions out of him when he’s drunk too much whiskey.”
“Okay, boss.”
The Bureau was pissed. Or at least Mick Stratten from BOEM was pissed. He was Riley’s liaison, working with Tom, and they’d gotten to know each other enough that they knew the names of each other’s kids. They’d never actually met in person, but he was a straight shooter, as committed as Riley to utilizing the ocean for energy.
“This company is offering incentives for the rights to extract oil.”
“Bribes?”
“I didn’t use that word, but incentives are on the table.” Mick cursed.
“What can I do to help?”
“Talk to him, find out what he’s doing.”
Riley had a sneaking suspicion that Santone was piggybacking off his and Tom’s research. That opened up a whole new can of worms. Who had been sharing the information? He crossed to his door and looked out. From this angle he could see past Kathy’s desk and to the main office, where staff did whatever Kathy made them do to make CH work. Someone out there was sharing information and this wasn’t the first time it had happened to him.
Sighing, he listened to Mick ranting about Santone, and investments, and what they needed to do to circumvent the crap. Riley heard himself promising to talk to Josiah on an informal basis and sound him out. Great. Just what he wanted to do. When the call ended Riley closed his eyes for a moment. Dinner with Josiah, needed to happen, but Jack was going to be a hard man to convince. He walked out to Kathy’s desk and stood in front of it, waiting for her to look up. She’d been in on the conference call to take notes so she’d heard it all.
“Riley?”
“We need to get someone in to track down who is passing on information to—”
“Done, John McMillan at the HART Agency has been highly recommended. I put a call into him.”
“Also can you—?”
“Arrange dinner, liaise with Jack and convince him he wants to wear a suit and go to a dinner with a man he dislikes intensely, oh and while I’m at it dig for some more dirt?” She tapped her notebook. “Already on the list.”
Oh Jack was really going to hate this, so much.
“Make sure its somewhere that does a good steak,” Riley reminded her.
She turned the pad so he could see, next to Jack’s name was one word. Steak.
Chapter 15
Jack straightened his tie, tugged his shirt, fiddled with his cuffs, and then held his hands out in front of him and stretched the jacket.
“You look just fine.” Riley brushed a hand across his shoulders. “More than fine, hot, sexy, I love you in a suit.”
Jack did one more pass over his tie and sighed so loudly the horses in the barn probably heard him. “I hate suits, I hate fancy dinners, and I’m not really fond of Josiah freaking Harrold, or his wife.”
Riley slipped between Jack and the mirror, blocking his view.
“I owe you one,” he said, with a soft peck of a kiss. Jack would know that was code for some kind of sexual favor if he wanted it, but he would also understand this was Riley’s way of apologizing. They sometimes had very little to say on a subject because they knew each other so well.
“For a meal with this man you owe me a hundred.” He tempered the grumpiness with a smile. Riley couldn’t resist, after all what sane man would not want to kiss Jack Campbell-Hayes dressed up in a dark suit, clean-shaven and with his hair styled just like Riley adored, all kinds of soft. He cradled Jack’s face, rubbing his thumbs across his cheekbone, inhaling the scent of the man he loved.
“Thank you,” he said.
“What’s the code word to escape?” Jack asked, tongue-in-cheek.
“Aliens?”
“How the hell would I fit aliens into a conversation?”
“I don’t know, like, Connor says he saw an alien yesterday, or Lexie was abducted by aliens, or you could ask them what they thought of aliens in general.”
Jack bit his lip but couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Then they’ll think we’re not right in the head, talking about our kids being abducted by aliens.”
They kissed then, both minty fresh from having brushed their teeth, and Riley wanted to kiss that taste away, until it was just him and Jack. They had to separate, the restaurant was in the city, near Love Field, where Josiah had flown into, and it was a good hour from there.
Riley did a mental head count as he left the house. Max was in his room, had vanished there after dinner, clutching a glazed donut and with Toby trailing right behind him. Riley doubted that Max would actually eat the donut and that one sneaky black lab wouldn’t get to it first but Carol, super nanny, promised to keep an eye on things. Connor and Lexie were both at the kitchen table doing homework; a worksheet on Canada that Connor was meticulously coloring in, and Lexie was doodling on. The twins were so different; Connor quiet, careful and considered, Lexie a firebrand who couldn’t be held back. They were like the two sides of Jack, the quiet part that watched and learned, and the fiery side that had burned his way into Riley’s life.
He filed away that thought, alongside other things he’d noticed about the children, like how Max’s love for mac ‘n cheese seemed to be waning in favor of tomatoes, and how Hayley looked so grown up when she FaceTimed them from college. Jack drove them, singing along with the music on the radio, a mix of music that the kids liked, probably on a station from when they’d last gone out as a family. Lexie was in love with all things Justin Bieber, Connor pretended he hated that sort of thing, but Riley had caught him on more than one occasion singing along.
“You realize you know all the words to that Bieber song,” Riley commented as they drew
closer to the airfield.
“It’s burned into my brain, I think we listened to it ten times in a row on the way to ballet.”
Riley glanced sideways at his smiling husband. Jack would listen to Bieber over and over if it meant Lexie was happy. He’d do anything for the children, including being face-painted like a rabbit, playing games with Connor, and braiding Lexie’s hair. He knew that Jack found it difficult to connect to Max all the time, but Max was a complicated kid, and the two of them spent most of their alone time with the horses. In fact, Max had stopped calling Jack anything but Horsy a few weeks back.
His cell vibrated and he checked it, saw a text from Kathy with the contact details for a John McMillan at the HART agency, and sighed.
“What is it?”
“Someone at CH is passing on the research we’re doing, seems as if every time we work a project Santone is there all up in our faces. I need to be really grown up and stop this.”
“Adulting is hard,” Jack said, supportively, but with humor in his voice. “Maybe we could get Josiah to tell us who is passing it over.”
“Yeah, right, like he’d tell us to our faces. That was why we need to get someone in who can track them down and I can shut down that communication.”
“You have over a hundred people working for you now, surely…” Jack shrugged.
“Yeah, I don’t want to think that any of them would want to fuck CH over.”
They made it to the restaurant twenty minutes early and Jack decided he really needed the bar, way more than Riley needed it.
“I don’t have to be sober to look pretty as your trophy wife,” Jack said as he ordered a whiskey.
“I’m not arguing, but you look pretty all the time.” Riley tried to keep his voice down, but the girl organizing the drinks sent them a look that spoke volumes, like how cute that was. He and Jack got that a lot, alongside the infrequent but nasty comments. Sue them all, Jack was his and if he wanted to kiss the man in public then he damn well would. When Josiah Harrold arrived the whole restaurant knew about it, he was just one of those men who demanded everyone see him. He laughed loudly, he talked fast and about subjects he held dear, like who he was, what he did and who he’d destroyed to get there. He was old guard and Riley had several run-ins with him on record already.