“I’m a volcanologist.”
Rex’s eyebrows went up. “You think there’s a damn volcano around here?”
Suddenly her goofy part kicked in, the side of her that loved to stirred things up. “Yes.”
“What?” Jeremy asked with genuine surprise.
She didn’t even look at him. She held her hands up. “Don’t panic. There’s an extinct volcano on the next ridge. Mount Craig.”
“Holy crap.” Rex heaved a breath. “So you’re saying it hasn’t erupted for years and now it’s going to wake up and take us out?”
Cassidy was having too much fun, but she knew it wasn’t right to stoke his panic. “Sorry, I’ve confused you. That’s a dormant volcano you’re talking about. Mount Craig is extinct like the dinosaurs. It isn’t going to wake up.”
Rex relaxed visibly. “Damn-near gave me a heart attack.”
“She’s good at that,” Jeremy said with a sardonic tone.
Again, she didn’t look at Jeremy, enjoying the turmoil she’d caused in Rex. Oh, yeah. I’m going to hell for that one.
Jeremy said, “All Cassidy wants to do is figure out what’s causing the hum if it exists. Help us out here.”
Rex sat a little farther in his chair. “Have you heard it?”
“I have,” she said.
Rex looked skeptical.
“This isn’t about whether she’s heard it,” Jeremy said. “We just want to help put this nonsense to rest.”
She turned her attention to Jeremy, a bit surprised he’d helped. She immediately returned her gaze to Rex. “All I’d want to know is if they could think of any reason why an electrical power plant could cause a hum. Oh, and when was the last time this place was inspected?”
Rex’s eyes narrowed, his mouth a thinner line. “You mean a safety inspection? Just last month.”
“Before the hum?” she asked.
“Yeah. I don’t think I like the insinuation that we aren’t safe around here.”
“I’m not insinuating that,” she said.
Rex pouted, and if that didn’t look odd on a grown man. “Yeah, you are.”
She shrugged, feeling like she was running around with her pants down asking stupid questions in a dumb dream where she couldn’t awaken. Frustration built. She shouldn’t have teased him about the volcano. It hadn’t loosened him up.
“Look here,” Rex said, sitting back in his chair. “The guys around here won’t trust someone coming in that they don’t know and poking around asking questions. They don’t like women in the shop as it is.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she couldn’t help it…just couldn’t help saying, “What is this, 1912? They think its bad luck to have women in the shop? I thought that was only sailing ships.”
Rex shrugged. “Sorry, but it’s just the way they look at it. A lot of these geezers have worked here since Jesus was a baby. We had a real pretty blonde electrical engineer working here a month ago. Every time she walked through the area, the guys would drop expensive equipment and bad things started happening. We finally had to let her go.”
Cassidy couldn’t allow that to pass. “So the men couldn’t pay attention to their own work, and you fired the engineer for that?”
Rex shrugged. “My dad says we had no choice. I can’t blame him. She was a distraction.”
Cassidy shouldn’t have been surprised by what she heard, but she was. “You’re kidding me?”
Rex coughed into his hand. “Nope.”
She couldn’t stop the next thing out of her mouth either. “They don’t cotton to the little woman invading their space?” Sarcasm dripped from her tone. “Look—”
“I’ll question the men,” Jeremy said.
She threw him a hot glare, anger surging that he’d interrupted her.
Rex’s worried look cleared like someone had just wiped his face with Windex. “Well…I suppose that would be all right.”
Cassidy gritted her teeth, but managed to choke back her venom.
“Tell them it’s unofficial,” Jeremy said. “I’m not investigating as a cop. The sheriff’s department doesn’t have a position on the hum.”
Cassidy looked at the ceiling and sighed.
Jeremy threw Cassidy a quelling look. “Okay, thanks Rex for answering our questions.” He stood. “Let’s go Cassidy.”
She almost argued. Almost told him he could suck it. As Jeremy gazed at her, though, she thought she saw a hint of understanding. He had something up his sleeve.
“All right. Thanks, Rex.” She stood and departed with Jeremy, every fiber of her being wanting to get him outside and pepper him with questions.
They nodded to the receptionist at the front desk and passed a couple of men in hardhats flirting with the young receptionist. Cassidy caught intrigued looks from the hardhats, but Jeremy took her upper arm in a proprietary hold as they swept by and into daylight. Glaring sunlight hit her eyes. She’d forgotten her prescription sunglasses back at Jeremy’s house.
Once they reached the car, she squinted at Jeremy and planted her hands on her hips. “What was that all about?”
Jeremy surveyed the area as if making sure no one would overhear. “Chill out here while I go back in and grill those guys.”
“Thanks for being so supportive back there.”
He cupped her shoulders and drew her closer. Her breath hitched as his warm masculine scent teased her and sent a thrill straight to everything that made her female. But she was still pissed.
“I know Rex,” Jeremy said softly. “He’s a throwback, and so are some of the other men in there. But not all of them. Don’t paint them all with the same brush.”
She prided herself on keeping an even keel, a moderation of thought. “I’d bet almost anything it’s the power plant causing the hum.”
“Yeah, well we don’t know that just from what numb nuts in there said. I can talk with them in a good, ol’ boy way and maybe get some truth.”
“But you’re law enforcement. Don’t you think that’ll make them clam up?”
“Could. Or they could open up because I’m law enforcement.”
She gritted her teeth, ready to tell him where to stick it. “Jeremy—”
“Just hear me out. Many of these guys are basically hard working men. Good guys that would give you the shirt off their back.”
“Good guys?” Her voice went high. “So do you agree with Rex and these good guys that women shouldn’t be working in the shop and all that crap? They fired the female engineer because men couldn’t keep their tongues in their mouth or their dicks in their pants. That’s ridiculous.” She could feel the ire rising higher and couldn’t seem to stop it.
“I get that. It is ridiculous. I’m just saying you’re not going to get the information you want charging in like a bull. Do you want information or not?”
She hated it. He was right, but she couldn’t speak…her own anger rose too high. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d allowed something to get under her grill like this.
“I’m sensing there’s a bigger story to all this,” he said. “You’re madder than hell.”
She took a deep breath. “Yeah, well, I’ll get over it eventually.”
She sensed he wanted to know more, but she wouldn’t fill him in now if ever.
His brow furrowed. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. The hard way is to get in their face about their male chauvinism and not get your questions answered. The easy answer is to go along with their shit and find out what you need to know. Which is it going to be?”
A little of the piss and vinegar started to mellow inside her. She didn’t want to mellow, but what choice did she have short of stomping back in there all spit and venom?
His hands caressed her shoulders lightly. “Come on. Trust me.”
She smiled…just a little. “Is this a method for getting me to agree?”
He threw her a full blown grin. “Is it working?”
She grunted. “Might be.”
“Is
it going to take more extreme measures?”
This was getting more interesting all the time. “Such as?”
“Would a kiss convince you?” he asked.
Heat coiled low in her belly. Oh. Hell. Yeah. “I dunno. It would have to be a pretty damned good kiss.”
His eyes smoldered, the heat toasting her. “I guess we should try it then.”
“Experiment?”
“Yeah. You look a little flushed,” he said. “Got a fever?”
“Could be. Maybe you should test my temperature.”
Before she could move, he eased his arms around her waist and brought her full against his chest. His mouth found hers with unerring accuracy. Unlike other quick kisses, this one went for sweet and solid rather than carnal. At least at first. She touched his chest, loving his muscles under her fingers. His mouth was urgent, warm, coaxing her lips to part. She let him in, and the first deep stroke set a spike of heat straight to her loins. She moaned softly, the swirling heat dancing in her loins making her press against his erection. He palmed her back, bringing her even closer. His wicked mouth taught hers things she’d never experienced before, his tongue flicking over hers in a way that curled her toes. There was nothing sloppy about his kiss—just pure sexual fever. She responded, stroking him back, pressing her breasts against him in a way she doubted he could ignore. When he broke the kiss and released her, she felt flushed and almost dizzy with desire. He looked floored, as if he’d learned something new as well.
“That good enough?” he asked, his chest rising and falling with quicker breaths. “I’d like to do more, but I don’t think it would look to good in my work file if we got arrested for indecent exposure.”
Her glasses sat crooked on her head, and she pushed them back in place. She smiled. “Okay. You win this time. But I’d wait here a bit before you go inside.”
“Why?”
She glanced at the solid erection pushing against his jeans. Her cheeks flushed as she dared to say, “Sure you want the guys to get an eyeful of how happy you are?”
His cheeks went a bit pink as he gave her a lopsided grin. “Damn you.”
She laughed. “Well. It’s not my fault you find me irresistible.”
His grin widened. “Huh. You’re gonna owe me for this one.”
“You volunteered to ask questions. I didn’t ask you to do it.”
“Damn woman, you’re tough. What happened to the sweet geek I used to know?”
“She’s lived on the edge for too long. No time to waste.”
“You scared the shit out of Rex back there with all that talk about Mount Craig getting ready to blow.”
“I just let him draw his own conclusions.”
He grunted. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“Hey,” she said, “ask them this question. Ask them if they all started feeling weird or felt anything strange in their personal or professional lives when the hum started.”
“You’re assuming any of them heard it.”
“No,” she said, feeling challenged again. “Even if they didn’t hear it, did they start having problems when other people began talking about hearing the hum.”
“What type of problems?”
She swallowed hard. “Sexual problems.”
“Impotency?”
“No…uh…if their sex drive went up.”
Comprehension widened his eyes. “I see. You want to know if this is all a bad case of suggestion. People want to blame their unusual proclivities…sexual issues, etcetera on the hum. They don’t have to be responsible that way.”
“Bingo.”
He cupped her face in one hand. “Has anyone ever told you how sexy you are?”
She burst into another grin. “You’d be the first.”
He shook his head, humor leaving his eyes. She loved the sensation of his hand holding her face and the amazing sensations zig-zagging through her body.
She covered his hand, not wanting him to take away his touch, but denying it with words. “Get outta here Tate.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
He shook his head, released her, and headed back to the building. She climbed in the car and rolled down the window. She unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water, ready to wait it out.
Four
“You didn’t find out a thing?” Joanna asked.
As Cassidy sat sipping iced-tea at the restaurant counter, Joanna slipped onto the seat next to her. Late afternoon and the place was almost empty.
“Not a thing. Jeremy walked around the plant with Rex, questioned a lot of the guys,” Cassidy said.
Joanna refilled Cassidy’s glass of tea from a pitcher on the counter.
“I hated that I couldn’t accomplish what he did,” Cassidy said. She didn’t spend a ton of time vocalizing doubts on a normal day, but Joanna was a trusted friend. “That because I’m a woman I couldn’t get the results.”
Joanna sighed. “I hear ya. I hate when that happens, too. But at least you know the hum doesn’t come from the plant.”
Cassidy couldn’t shove aside the doubt. “Jeremy asked Rex if the men started acting like jerks around the female engineer about the time the hum was heard in town.”
“And?”
“They did. I guess they’re Neanderthals in general, but the day they started acting like jerks was the first day some of them heard the hum.”
“Wow. Really?”
Cassidy warmed to the topic. “Really. Almost as if they weren’t in control. Some of them said they weren’t in control. But maybe they used the hum as an excuse for their jerky behavior with the engineer.”
“Maybe.”
Rex then confessed to Jeremy that he was afraid for the plant because the men were so twitchy and anxious or they’re angry and lazy. A whole host of problems he claims started the day the hum was reported. He told Jeremy that, but then quickly repeated he hadn’t heard the hum himself, nor did he notice any strange personality changes in himself.”
“It seems weird that most of the workers would report feeling weird and Rex wouldn’t.”
“True.”
Cassidy stared at the floor in thought. “That guy did that held the gun on the woman in motel room used the hum as an excuse, too.”
Joanna sighed and they went silent for a short while.
Cassidy glanced up at her friend. “I don’t know about this whole Jeremy thing. Where it’s going. I’m not sure it should go anywhere.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re two totally different people.”
“Opposites attract? You haven’t known him again for long enough to say that. You do like him, right?”
Cassidy reflected for a moment, then let out a laugh. “A little too much I think.”
Joanna looked serious. “And that worries you?”
“Yes.”
Joanna cocked her head to the side. “Wait a minute. You said you didn’t have any serious relationships all this time while you’ve been living in Costa Rica.”
Cassidy felt a twinge of guilt for telling a white lie. “I didn’t. Not really.”
Joanna leaned forward a little and lowered her voice. “All that time sending me emails, you never once said anything about even dating anyone.”
Cassidy didn’t want to confess. “I didn’t. I was too absorbed in my work.”
Joanna’s doubtful expression grew stronger. “Right. There’s something you’re not telling me.”
A twinge of embarrassment and impatience started within Cassidy. “I didn’t date anyone.”
“So that’s what is making you feel awkward with Jeremy?”
“Yes.” Go ahead and let her think that.
“When are you seeing Jeremy again?”
“We’re meeting up at that country and western club down the street in about an hour. He went in to work to do something. Secret squirrel stuff I guess.”
Joanna smiled. “You should go over early and stake out a table. It gets really busy on a Friday night.”
After J
oanna went back to work, Cassidy decided to take her advice and head straight to the club.
Gold Diggers Country and Western Club and Restaurant reeked with old fashioned from the outside. When Cassidy stepped inside, she didn’t know whether she should run or stay. When she was a kid she’d disliked country music, and the twang of a Conway Twitty song hit her ears. She showed her I.D. At the front and paid the nominal cover charge. Conway’s voice finished out and a few seconds later Rascal Flats started a mellow love song. She actually liked Rascal Flats. She entered the club, her cross-body purse secure over her chest. The low lights and the love song gave a romantic ambiance for couples slow dancing in the middle of the huge room. Men and women of all ages attired in western-style clothing moved around the club. She got a few glances, most likely because she wore casual khaki pants, flats, and a short-sleeved turquoise top. She hadn’t come to Bristol Peak ready to party, not even in a casual western club. She hadn’t packed a cowboy hat, spurs or a bolo-tie. She smiled at the people who gawked at her, and they smiled back. Okay, so they were curious, not hostile about her attire. She found the last open circular booth and sank into it. A waitress descended and Cassidy ordered a merlot.
The waitress delivered the drink in short order, and Cassidy settled back to watch the people. She hadn’t spent much time people watching, usually content to sense things about people more from what they said and did than appearances. Couples of all ages packed the floor, with several of the younger plastered against each other as if glued together. Before she could do much observing, though, gorgeous guy strode up and planted himself in front of her table. Unlike most of the people in here, he wore a navy polo shirt with jeans and boots and no cowboy hat. He was built and very tall. His corn-yellow blond hair was clipped short. Only the freckles over his good-looking face ruined the effect—he looked too down-to-earth to be anything but harmless farm boy. At least on first glance.
“Hi. Aren’t you Cassidy Harwood?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He reached out a hand to shake hers. “I’m Bud Rankin. I’ll bet you don’t remember me.”
She snatched her hand back like he was a viper.
Because he was a snake. The worst snake she’d had the misfortune to know.
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