Thinking of challenges—
Robert picked up the phone again.
“Hey, Boss. What’s doin’?” Gus asked from the stable phone.
“I want you to have a couple of the hands drive Sam’s car back to A&M tonight. She’s going out with me on one of the rigs tomorrow, and she won’t be able to take it back herself.”
“You got it. Where should they leave the keys?”
“At the ROTC office. With Colonel David Sasser,” Robert replied. “I’ll make sure she knows.”
“No problem, jefe,” Gus replied.
Robert hung up and sat back in his leather seat, gazing at the photo Wes had taken of his daughter.
Chapter 18
September—Sunday Night
Wyatt Ranch, Texas
S A M A N T H A
Sammy lay back on an old quilt under a sky awash in a sea of stars, Carey and Ry tucked up beside her as they joked and laughed. She had a belly full of Aunt Hannah’s pot roast, and the boys nibbled their chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven. Lying out on a clear night while looking at all the constellations had been one of her favorite pastimes growing up. Sam could still hear her granddaddy telling her about each one as they changed from season to season, his thick, knobbed fingers pointing out the ones that were becoming more bright or distinct than the others with each new season.
“Tell us about the Cygnus constellation, Sammy,” Ry asked, licking his fingers, gooey from the chocolate.
“I’ve told you boys the story about a hundred times,” she murmured, smiling.
“Yeah, but I like the way you tell it,” he replied, handing her a cookie.
Carey nudged her gently. “Please, Sammy.”
These rascals knew how to play her like a fiddle, but she loved them and she didn’t see enough of them anymore, so she figured there was no harm in spoiling them a little.
“Oh, all right,” she said on a sigh, though she felt nothing but sweetness and light as their heads lolled against her shoulders. Sam pointed up at the bright cross constellation in the sky.
“There are a lot of myths and legends around this constellation, but my favorite was always the Greek story of Phaethon, son of Helios—”
“God of the sun,” Ry finished for her, snuggling closer.
“That’s right.” Sam smiled, wrapping her arm around him. “According to the myth, Phaethon was the son of the Oceanid Clymene, but he didn’t find out until he was about your age that his father was the sun god,” she explained, looking up at the bright constellation on the sky. “When he realized who his father was, he traveled to the east to find his father’s grand palace.”
“Do you think it’s in Japan?” Ry asked.
“Well, it is called the Land of the Rising Sun,” Carey pointed out.
“I want to go there one day,” Ry told her, his voice quiet. “Just to visit.”
Sam kissed his brow. “You will.”
“And I’ll go with you,” Carey declared. “We’ll find your mama’s family and take them with us to Helios’s palace.” Ryland reached across Sam and high-fived his best friend.
Sam smiled. “Now as you can imagine, Phaethon was so excited to meet his father—one of the most powerful and influential gods, and Helios was thrilled to meet his young son as well. So when Phaethon asked for a favor, his father granted him the wish without knowing what his boy would ask.”
“He should’ve asked Phaethon what he wanted first,” Ry replied smartly. “Daddy always say you oughtta have all the facts before you make any decisions.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “So Phaethon wanted to prove to his friends that Helios was his father, and he asked to drive his father’s sun chariot across the sky for a day. His father knew it was a big risk and that it was dangerous, but he’d made a promise and he didn’t want to back out on his word.”
“I can understand that,” Carey murmured, crossing his arms behind his head. “A man’s word is his bond. Dad always says so.”
Sam ruffled his blonde hair. So much like his father. She couldn’t have picked a better brother for Ryland.
“So Phaethon leapt into the sun chariot and took hold of the reins, but those horses were powerful—”
“More powerful than a hundred Clydesdales all roped together, right?” Ry said.
“More powerful than even that,” Sam echoed. “You see, the horses were immortal, built to pull the sun across the sky. They were far too strong for little Phaethon. So they dragged him in the chariot across the sky, getting too close to the earth and burning everything up, making craters and volcanoes and melting all the ice in the snowcaps. In so doing, Phaethon caught the attention of Zeus, the most powerful god of all.”
“Do you think he knew it wasn’t Helios in the chariot?” Carey asked.
“I do. You see, Helios was a massive and powerful god,” Sam explained. “But here was a young boy, probably half his size, maybe less, and he was out of control. Zeus knew he needed to stop the earth from being burned up, so to prevent the disaster, he had to act. It was his job to be the protector of earth—his job to make sure everyone else was safe.”
“Helios shouldn’t have let his son have the chariot in the first place,” Ry huffed. “That was just stupid.”
“And if Dad told you that you couldn’t do something, how likely do you think you’d be to listen?” she asked.
Ry shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s different.”
“You want me to finish the story or are you going to go pick a fight with Helios?” she asked, poking Ry in the ribs.
“Finish the story, Sammy,” Carey urged. “Ry just doesn’t like this part ’cause it’s sad.”
Sam glanced down at Ry, saw his mouth turned down, the remnants of chocolate in one corner. She rubbed it away with her thumb. “It’s not all sad, Ry.”
“I know it,” he sighed.
Her heart ached a little for him. Her baby brother, who’d never known his mother, who could barely recall their granddaddy. She always wondered why he asked her to tell this story, even though he knew how it would end.
“So Zeus had a tough decision to make, but he did what was right for earth, and he threw a thunderbolt directly at Phaethon, killing him instantly. His body fell into the Eridanus river, and his brother, Cygnus, was so sad, he spent days diving into the river to gather all of Phaethon’s bones so he could give him a proper burial. The gods were so touched by Cygnus’s devotion to his brother that they turned him into a swan and placed him into the sky so his family could see him for all of eternity.”
“I looked it up—Phaethon means ‘shining one,’” Ry told her. “I like that part. That his family can always see him.”
“As long as they’re in the Northern Hemisphere,” Carey reminded him.
Ry sighed gently, a puff of air. “Why would you want to be anywhere but here?” he said softly. “I’m gonna live on the ranch all my life.” He glanced up at Sammy, then at Carey. “And you all will too. I’ll build a house for each of you.”
Sam laughed gently, wondering how long her little brother would feel that way, or if he’d start to wonder what the rest of the world looked like, the way she had.
Her father had taken her out on a few trips with him over the years. Paris, London, Amsterdam, Dubai. While he’d been sequestered away in business meetings negotiating oil deals, Sam’d been given free rein to explore, and the world had expanded before her very eyes. She’d realized immediately how much she didn’t know, understood how much she’d never experienced growing up at the insulated safety of the ranch. She discovered at a young age that the world was at her fingertips—she only needed to reach out to touch it.
But her little brother seemed to have the opposite perspective. Ryland was content to lie on his back and listen to the same stories, stargazing at the same sky he’d grown up with all his life. Sam wondered then if that’s why her father had pushed her toward running Wyatt Petroleum and not him. Because her father knew, inherently, that
Ry wasn’t suited to it. That he’d never really wanted to leave the confines of the ranch. He was exactly the type who’d happily live out his days roping steer and mending fences.
Sam dropped a kiss on her little brother’s hair and squeezed Carey in the crook of her arm.
“Time for you both to hit the hay.”
She stood up slowly, and the boys helped her fold up the quilt. It was late, but she could still make it back to campus in a couple hours. Night like this, the drive might be relaxing—a balm even.
Sam tucked the quilt under her arm and walked them back up to the house.
“You staying the night, Sammy?” Ryland asked, looking up at her.
They rounded the porch before she could answer, and Sam glanced casually at the circular driveway before doing a double take. Her Mustang was gone. Sam experienced a brief moment of panic before she realized no one could have taken it without her father’s say-so.
“Did Dad have my car moved to the garage?” she wondered aloud.
“No,” Carey answered, looking at her oddly. “He had a couple hands drive it back to school for you.”
Sam rounded on him. “How do you know?”
Carey shrugged. “I saw them and asked why they were leaving. It was right before dinner, I think.”
Dammit, there was no way she was making it home to A&M tonight. Sam blew out a frustrated sigh.
Checkmated by her father again.
*
September—Monday Morning
Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico
S A M A N T H A
The Wyatt Petroleum Sikorsky helicopter banked gently, flying low over the dark waters of the Gulf of Mexico as they headed out to their ocean oil platform. From the air, the rigs dotting the Texas coastline looked like massive, semi-submerged Tonka toys, each with slightly different formations and fixtures, some painted bold colors, others bare like the metal workhorses they were meant to be.
Sam sat in a leather captain’s seat next to her father, with two men situated opposite. A small table between them held coffees and binders stuffed with reports and findings. Mack McDevitt sat across from her father, while one of her father’s rising stars sat across from her, trying hard not to overtly check her out as Sam resolutely ignored her father. Not that her dad much cared. He was busy reviewing spec reports on the drill they were visiting anyway, engrossed in production-to-cost ratios.
They’d traded some words earlier in the morning before boarding the chopper, and Sam was still irritated that he’d forced her hand by having the ranch hands effectively steal her car so she’d have no choice but to go to the platform with him in order to get a ride back to school.
As Sam looked out the window, enjoying the feel of the sun on her skin, she caught the reflection of Travis Brandt, her father’s latest high-potential talent. Travis was a tall, good-looking guy with thick, well-cut hair the color of mink and the palest blue eyes she’d ever seen. He had the ingrained Southern charm that spoke of education and the kind of off-hand confidence that came from growing up with money. Sam also figured Travis had to be sharp as a tack and just this side of manipulative for her dad to like him, so the genial, gentlemanly behavior he exhibited around her had to be just for good show. If her dad considered Travis to be an up-and-comer, he’d would have to be well-versed in backroom deals and no stranger to bending some rules every now and then.
Sam took a sip of her coffee, catching Mack’s eye across the air-conditioned cabin. They shared the small, intimate grin of two people who knew each other well. Sam had grown up around Mack. He’d been with her father for as long as she could remember. Where Uncle Grant was her dad’s right-hand at the ranch, out here in the world of oil and shale, Mack was Robert Wyatt’s go-to guy and second-in-command.
Mack had the rangy build of a roughneck, with the weathered face to match. Fitting, since he’d come up hard in the oil fields, working for the Wyatt’s in some way or another over the past thirty years. He had black hair, shot with silver, and the kind of deep russet tan that was burned in several layers deep from years outdoors.
“You been kicking ass and taking names this semester, little girl?” he asked teasingly in his thick Texan drawl.
“Six ways to Sunday, old man,” Sam replied with a wink. “You still keeping Daddy in line?”
“Every damn day,” Mack drawled with a twinkle in his eye as Robert grunted, not bothering to look up from his reports.
Travis glanced between them both, a little taken aback by their good-natured ribbing.
“Sammy’s a sophomore over at A&M,” Mack explained, grinning.
“Good school.” Travis shot her an indulgent smile. “You in a sorority up there, Samantha?”
She caught Mack’s lips twitching.
“Not exactly,” she answered, offhand. “How long have you been working for my father?”
“A few months now.”
Travis’s startling blue eyes ran over her. Not too slow to be untoward, but not too fast either, letting her know he liked what he saw. She saw him making assessments as he took in her neat slacks and silky button-down, saw the satisfaction in his eyes when he thought he’d figured her out.
“The oil rig we’re visiting today is a semi-submersible, Samantha,” Travis explained, like he was hosting a tour of the platform they were choppering toward at over 160 mph. “The rig floats, so we can move her from place to place, and she can be ballasted up and down by altering the buoyancy in the tanks, which we anchor when we’re drilling.”
Sam nodded politely, ignoring Mack as he covered his mouth with blunt tipped fingers, trying hard not to laugh.
“A little more than seventy percent of the oil production in the Gulf comes from drilling depths of a thousand meters or more,” Travis went on. “But the capacity of this particular platform is about two thousand meters.”
“Actually, her capacity is three thousand meters,” Sam corrected affably, crossing her hands in her lap. “She’s one of the first deep-sea rigs out in the Gulf, but you’re right in that the deepest payload she’s hit to date has been at two thousand and two hundred meters, give or take.”
Travis’s brows shot up like she’d just spoken to him in Swahili.
“You know about the Imakaly?” he asked, referring to the platform.
“She named the rig, son,” Mack answered for her. “Trav, I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but this girl knows more about the oil and gas industry than four years of college and a master’s degree in petroleum engineering could ever teach you.” Mack glanced at him with a smug grin. “Sammy’s been going out with me and her daddy since she could barely crawl.”
Travis turned wide eyes on her.
Samantha smiled serenely. “It’s Im-mo-ka-lee, by the way,” she pronounced slowly, for his benefit. “Cherokee for ‘waterfall.’”
“And with that rig’s production quantities, it’s more than fitting,” Robert chimed in for the first time in minutes as Travis sat back, duly humbled. Her father handed her a couple geological reports. “Have a look at these and tell me what you see.”
Sam reviewed the numbers slowly, digesting. When she was finished with one, she read through the other. Then she lifted both side by side, comparing both reports and running quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations in her head. Then she sat back, thinking.
“So?” her father prompted, crossing his arms as he waited. “What’s your opinion?”
“I know the logical move is to keep going farther west for this next platform, but the competition is getting awfully tight. We’ve got about four thousand rigs out there to contend with right now,” she said, thinking aloud. Sam set the reports on her lap, considering the map of the Gulf of Mexico.
“I’m thinking you should go east,” she said finally. “It’s more exploratory, and therefore more risky, but our rigs are all semi-mobile, and we’re nimble enough to move quickly if we don’t hit pay dirt in the first couple production quarters.”
“You do know
that the federal government banned production in the eastern part of the Gulf a few years ago, right?” Travis countered, eager to regain his footing and put her in her place.
Sam shrugged. “I know more than nineteen percent of US oil came out of the Gulf last year. That’s more than any single state, with the exception of Texas. I also know that more than seventy percent of those four hundred million barrels came from depths of about three hundred meters, ban or not.”
She lifted one of the reports. “This geological report tells me there’s enormous untapped potential past fifteen hundred to three thousand meters in deep-water drilling, but most of that’s in the east, past Louisiana—meaning it’s only partially protected water.”
“But the coastal drilling ban—”
Sam turned to Mack. “Mack, how far out does the federal government want to make sure platforms stay in the east part of the Gulf?”
“I reckon about a hundred and twenty five miles from shore.”
Sam nodded. “And how many miles are recognized as United States territorial wVjkaters?”
“Usually around two hundred nautical miles.”
“So that’s about two hundred and thirty miles,” Sam calculated quickly. She looked back at Travis. “You’re a petroleum engineer, right?”
“That’s correct.” He nodded.
“So based on the depth our fleet of semi-submersibles can operate at and looking at this report, where would you say the best opportunity would be to drill deep water?” she asked, handing him a geological map of the Gulf and the reports she’d been studying.
It took him half the time to see what she’d seen, but then he was a trained professional in this field, while she was just the daughter of an oil man, raised to sniff out potential where there were opportunities to be found.
Travis looked up at Sam, then Robert. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Told you, son,” Mack chuckled.
Robert’s eyes twinkled with mirth. He rubbed a hand over his mouth to hide his smile.
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