“Control room, what have you got for me?”
“The whole plant is in shutdown, but there are some alarms that need checking.”
“Tell me who you need.”
The last thing she needed was an incident in another unit. When they gave her the names she sent the relevant operation technicians to check the alarms.
She had to regroup. She called each fire tender leader to her and reviewed their plan of attack. They set up one team to form a perimeter to make sure the flames didn’t spread and another team to keep the temperature of the surrounding areas cool and wet. A further team was set up for dealing with spot fires and the rest concentrated on the source of the fire.
They worked for hours. At some stage Ken radioed to say the site was clear except for the managers who were in crisis management mode and the technicians who were dealing with the alarms.
Bridget’s thoughts constantly strayed to Jack. How was he? How bad were his injuries? Was he already stabilized? She shook her head. She had a job to do. The teams had to be well hydrated and they needed to take breaks – she had to make sure they weren’t exhausting themselves.
At some time close to dusk, she was taking over a fire hose from a technician going on a break, when her radio squawked.
“The cavalry have arrived. Time for a shift change?” It was Jeremy.
Bridget closed her eyes briefly. “Haven’t you been at the competition all day?”
“No. Ken called me up when it happened. Told us to go home and rest up.”
She wanted to bless Ken for thinking of it. “How many have you got?”
“Two shifts. We can replace this shift and some of the neighbors. Where are you?”
She gave him her location, and not long after he arrived. She handed the hose to one of his men and took Jeremy some distance away to run through a handover.
When she was finished he let out a low whistle. “I’m impressed, Bridge. You handled yourself well. That’s some major shit you’ve dealt with.”
“Did you catch whether there’s any news on the injured?” She was desperate for news of Jack.
“No, didn’t ask. The crisis management team want a debrief though.”
Bridget groaned. She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d yelled at Kevin in the heat of the moment but she was not likely to be popular. “We’re going to need to send a report to the authorities too.” Had anyone thought to do that yet?
“Good luck. I’ll take over here.”
She hugged him and called to her team. “It’s home time, guys. You’ve done a great job.”
She spoke to each of her team members before they left, making sure they were all right to drive and telling them she’d call with an update. Then when there was nothing left to procrastinate over, she went into the administration building and found where the managers were holding the crisis talks.
Knocking before she entered, she went straight over to the HR officer. “How is everyone?”
“Most are under observation for another couple of hours,” he said. “Those who were unconscious are being kept overnight.”
“What about Jack?”
Before he could reply, Kevin strode over.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” he bellowed.
Bridget was too tired to deal with him. “I’m the only emergency response coordinator who was on site today. Have we notified the authorities about the incident?”
“We’ll deal with the paperwork later. Right now I want to know why you thought you had the right to shut down my plant.”
Bridget walked over to the nearest computer and brought up a document. “We have a legal obligation to inform the authorities of an incident on site within twenty-four hours.”
She pressed print, walked over to the printer, and picked up the document. Scrolling through, she found the section she was looking for, grabbed a pen and circled it.
“This is why I had the right to shut down the plant.” She handed Kevin the document, and turned back to the other managers. “You need to arrange a roster for the fire fighters. That fire is going to keep burning for a while yet. I recommend keeping everyone off site until next week. The regulators are going to be crawling all over the plant as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
“This document is ridiculous,” Kevin spluttered, having finally read the section about the emergency response coordinator taking full control in an emergency.
“Then you shouldn’t have approved it,” said Bridget.
“You don’t expect me to read everything put in front of me?” Kevin demanded.
She shrugged. “It’s entirely up to you.” She turned to the production manager. “Crude unit one is ruined. It’s not going to be up and running for months. It’s too soon to tell how much damage has been done to the second crude unit.”
“This is your fault. That damned safety project of yours must be the cause of it,” Kevin said. “I should have known better than to hire you after that last incident.”
Her fury released like a shark scenting blood. “You don’t know shit,” she cried, ignoring the gasp from someone behind her. “The previous incident wasn’t my fault and I’m damned sure this one wasn’t either.” She prayed she was right. “I don’t know what caused the initial fire but those relief valves venting to atmosphere sure added fuel to it. If you’d approved my project three months ago, they’d have already been replaced. So if it’s on anyone’s head it’s yours.” She walked toward the door. “Don’t forget to submit the report to the regulators,” she said. “I’m going home.”
The second she sat behind the wheel of her truck she started to shake. The convulsions wouldn’t stop. Her teeth clattered together and her heart pounded in her chest so hard she thought it was going to burst through. She hung on to the steering wheel to stop herself from shaking apart.
Ten men. She’d nearly lost ten men today.
It could have been a lot worse, she knew, but ten badly injured men were bad enough. There were ten men who weren’t going home in the same state as they’d left it. Ten men who had been injured on her watch.
And one of them was Jack.
* * *
Jack’s first thought when he woke was that he must have had a great night out, because his head was throbbing and he couldn’t remember a thing. As he cautiously opened one eye he heard the blip of a machine, and as he focused he realized he was in a hospital bed.
What the hell had happened?
Carefully he moved and pain shot through his arm. He moaned.
“Oh honey, you’re awake. Don’t move. Let me get a nurse.” His mother’s face appeared in his line of sight for a second before disappearing again.
A moment later she returned with a nurse in tow.
“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked, shining a light in his eyes.
He blinked and squinted. “I’d be better if you didn’t shine that thing at me.”
The nurse chuckled. “Good. Can you tell me your name and what day it is?”
“Jackson Gibbs.” Hell, what day was it? “Wednesday?”
“Great. Just squeeze my hands for me,” she said, holding out her hands.
He did as she asked.
“Are you feeling any pain?”
Now that he was becoming more alert, every muscle in his body ached. “My head is the worst.”
“We can give you some medication for that. Anywhere else?”
He mentally scanned his body. “My shoulder.” The rest of his body just ached.
“You’ve dislocated it, but the meds will help that as well.”
Jack turned to his mother and noticed his father behind her. “What happened?”
“You had an accident at work. They wouldn’t tell me anything more.”
Closing his eyes he tried to recall. He remembered the unit starting up again, remembered going to ask Bridget to supervise because he’d overheard the technicians sounding stressed. He’d been in her office and seen a list with his name at the top. He remem
bered the hurt when she’d told him she was only considering the new job, remembered the feeling of not being good enough for her … remembered storming out.
Then what?
Anthony had discovered some of the technicians had crammed a bed into a little hut in the plant so they could get a few hours’ sleep on night shift. He wanted it immediately removed and Jack had to make sure it was done safely. He’d gone into the crude unit with Roger, one of the technicians who had been trying to convince him there was no harm in the guys getting a bit of shut-eye on night shift. It wasn’t good for them to be working fatigued.
When Jack had seen the tiny space, right next to some of the most dangerous lines on the plant, he hadn’t believed it. As he’d turned back to Roger, there’d been a loud roar and Roger had shoved him inside. He’d hit his head on the opposite wall as the plant shook.
Shit. Something had gone seriously wrong at the plant.
Bridget! He’d sent her out to supervise. His heart raced and he tried to sit up. “Is Bridget all right?”
“I don’t know.” His mother put a hand on his shoulder. “You need to lie down.”
“I need to know she’s all right.”
“I’ll find out for you. Take the pills from the nurse.”
The nurse had returned and was holding out two white pills and a cup of water. He grabbed them and swallowed them down. “The HR manager is over there.” The nurse pointed past the partition where Anthony was talking to Mike.
“Tell him to come here,” Jack said to his mother. If anything had happened to Bridget he’d never forgive himself.
A minute later Anthony was at Jack’s bedside. He looked exhausted.
“What happened?” Jack demanded.
“We don’t know all the details yet. There was an explosion in the crude unit. We have ten injured, none killed.”
“Bridget?”
“She’s the incident controller. When I left she had everything under control.”
Jack let out the breath he’d been holding. “How bad are the injured?”
“You’re one of the worst,” Anthony said with a small smile. “It’s mostly smoke inhalation, a few broken bones, and some burns that should heal well. We’ve only got one guy with major burns. He’s in surgery now.”
Even one was bad enough. “Are all the injured here?” He nodded toward the curtains and winced at the pain. They must be in an emergency room.
“A couple have been discharged already.”
Gingerly, Jack tried to sit up. “I need to talk to them.” He wanted to check for himself they were all right.
“You shouldn’t be moving yet,” Anthony said, and Anna nodded.
He ignored them both. It wasn’t until he slowly swung his legs out of bed that he realized he was wearing a hospital gown that wasn’t done up at the back. He paused.
“Let me get that,” his mother said, and walked around behind him to tie up the gown.
When his feet touched the ground, Jack had to wait to allow the wave of dizziness to pass. With his father’s help he walked over to Mike’s bed. There was a wolf whistle behind him.
“Nice legs, Jack.” Roger was in the bed next to him, fully clothed.
Jack flipped him the bird and he chuckled.
He turned to his parents. “Why don’t you take a break? Grab a coffee.” He wasn’t sure how long they’d been there and they looked tired.
His father nodded. “All right.”
When they were gone he spoke with Mike, and then went around to each bed, slowly putting together the story of what had happened. Finally he stopped at Roger.
“What do you remember?” Roger asked him.
“Everything up until you pushed me into the hut. Why did you?”
“That hideous roar, like a damn rocket taking off, was the relief valves on top of the crude tower venting. We were about to be showered in hot crude oil. I just reacted, pushed you into the hut and then jumped in after you. There was an explosion and a piece of steel blocked the door so we couldn’t get out.”
Jack wasn’t sure how they both managed to fit in that tiny space but that didn’t matter. “What happened next?”
“It took about twenty minutes for the emergency response team to find us. I thought we were going to roast before they did. They had to get a crane to lift the steelwork. By the time they got it off, the whole damned unit was like a furnace. It wouldn’t have taken much more for the oil to ignite. I pulled you out of the hut and Bridget picked you up in a fucking fireman’s lift and carried you all the way out to the cold zone. She was amazing. There were spot fires igniting the whole time we were running out.”
Jack blinked. Bridget had saved his life.
“We’re both lucky to be here.”
Jack nodded, his legs a little unsteady.
“You need to get back into bed,” the nurse ordered.
He did as she said without arguing. Fatigue suddenly swept over him as he laid down.
“Go to sleep,” the nurse said. “It will help you heal.”
Jack closed his eyes, and almost instantly fell asleep.
* * *
Bridget took a deep breath, swiping at the tears pouring down her face. She had to see Jack, she had to see for herself he was all right. She’d asked the security guard for the details of the hospital where the injured had been taken, and getting her shakes under control, she drove straight there.
When she arrived, she was directed to his cubicle in the emergency room. She slowly pushed the curtain back to find Jack’s parents beside the bed.
Anna’s mouth dropped open. “Bridget? You look like you’ve been in a war.”
Bridget hadn’t considered how she looked, or smelled. “It’s been a rough day.” She glanced over at Jack. His eyes were closed, his head was bandaged, and his arm was in a sling.
“How is he?”
“He’s just gone to sleep,” Eric said. “He dislocated his shoulder and got knocked on the head. The doctor’s confident he’ll make a full recovery.”
The relief washed over Bridget, almost drowning her. She stumbled under the weight, and then straightened again. “That’s good. When we couldn’t find him …” She broke off as his mother paled. Of course she hadn’t been told the full details.
“You were out there?” Anna said. “What happened? They didn’t tell us anything aside from he’d been injured at work.”
Bridget shook her head. “I can’t give you details yet. I don’t know Jack’s side of the story. There was an incident, and when we did the head count we had ten missing. Jack was one of them.”
“And you searched for him?”
She nodded. “I was the incident controller. When we found him he was unconscious so I carried him out.”
Before Bridget could say anything else, Anna hugged her tightly. “Thank you. Thank you for saving my son.”
Uncomfortable, she pried herself away. “It was nothing. Just doing my job.”
And if she’d done her job properly and been able to convince management of the importance of the project sooner, none of this would have happened. She’d almost killed Jack. She couldn’t look at him. She needed to get out of there before she broke down. “I’d better get home.”
She turned and left immediately.
* * *
As Bridget drove home news of the incident was all over the radio, so she switched it off. Pulling into her driveway she found Carly on her doorstep. Her sister raced down the path to her car and the moment Bridget climbed out, she flung her arms around her.
“Thank God you’re all right. We didn’t know where you were.”
It was enough for all of Bridget’s walls to come crumbling down. Her body shook and her vision blurred as the tears she’d been holding back came thick and fast.
“I almost lost him,” she sobbed.
Carly pulled back. “Lost who?”
“Jack. He was missing after the explosion. We couldn’t find him.”
“Oh, mi niñita. Let’s g
et you inside.”
She took the keys from Bridget’s numb hands and opened the front door, leading her into the living room. Bridget collapsed onto the couch, buried her head into her sister’s chest, and cried.
* * *
Sometime later when she’d cried herself dry, Bridget sat up. Carly brushed her hair off her face. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Bridget nodded. Slowly she recounted what she remembered from when the alarms had first sounded.
“You risked your life to save him,” Carly said, her tone a little angry.
“Of course I did! I’d risk my life to save anyone I love.” She shut her mouth with a snap.
She did love him.
She loved him, and to hell what anyone thought. She’d been so stupid, so caught up in worrying about what people would say. But that didn’t matter. She’d been foolish to let anyone stand in the way of admitting her feelings for Jack.
Carly gave her a small smile. “You look a little dazed.”
“I didn’t realize. I’ve been so blind, and he’s so mad at me right now.” She could understand why he was so hurt. “I’m not sure if he’ll forgive me.”
“I’m pretty sure saving his life will earn you some brownie points.” Carly patted her arm. “If you’re feeling a little better, you need to call Mama. She was frantic until I told her I’d spoken to someone at your work and you were fine.”
Her conscience pricked. “Of course.” She hadn’t considered her family’s reaction, she’d been too focused on the plant. “It must be just like Papa for her. I should have thought.” Bridget reached for her phone.
Carly frowned. “What do you mean, like Papa?”
“An accident at work. Papa not coming home.”
Her sister shook her head. “Papa didn’t die at work. He was murdered on the way home.”
Bridget froze, staring at her sister.
“I thought you knew.”
She shook her head. “Mama never spoke about it. I just assumed … Who murdered him?”
“No one knows. He got caught in the tensions in the aftermath of the civil war. Mama always blamed herself for not leaving El Salvador sooner.”
Break the Rules (The Flanagan Sisters Book 1) Page 21