“A day off?” Sofie says the words as if they’re a foreign concept, which they pretty much are. She’s renowned for hardly taking any holiday unless Darwin actually locks her out of the lab.
“Well, we can’t do any surveying in this,” Darwin gestures out the window of her hotel room where it’s so dark you would think it was the middle of the night. “Besides, we can’t risk contaminating any of the samples. Anything we collect would just have to be double checked anyway. So yes, a day off. Go and enjoy yourself.” Darwin waves vaguely to demonstrate this ‘enjoying oneself’ that she was supposed to do. He doesn’t let her debate his suggestion, and, as if on cue, his cell starts ringing. He grabs it up irritably until he sees the caller ID and turns his back as he answers it.
“Bet you anything it’s the office.” Finn doesn’t even look up from the video game he’s been playing—using her television as a screen. He’d managed to hook up a connection from his computer to Sofie’s TV, using his phone as the remote.
“Remind me again why you’re doing this in my room?” Sofie plants her hands on her hips, wondering how long it’s going to take for the sound of the shoot ‘em up game that Finn is playing to actually drive her mad.
“Your TV’s better. The one from my room looks like it’s from the dark ages, surprised it’s even in color.” Finn doesn’t once take his eyes off of the screen, and Sofie knows that she has no hope of evicting him any time soon.
“I know, Mr. Calambor, but there’s really not much that I can do. We have to wait for the weather to turn. After what happened yesterday, I’m not prepared to risk a member of my team for the sake of waiting another day.” Darwin’s voice is firm, but the response he’s getting makes his shoulders slump—never a good sign. “Understood, sir.” He sighs heavily and hands the phone over to Sofie. “Mr. Calambor would like to speak with you. I’ll be in my room.” Darwin shakes his head, leaving Sofie with the cell in her hand.
For the first time, Finn takes his eyes off of the game and looks at Sofie with concern. She turns her back on him. It’s bad enough to have to speak to the head of the company, let alone doing it with an audience.
“Mr. Calambor, Sofie here,” she says, taking a deep breath and willing herself to keep her voice from shaking—whether from fear or anger she’s not sure.
“Sofie, it’s so good to hear your voice.” Luke Calambor’s voice is smooth as silk, but it makes Sofie feel like her skin is crawling. “Darwin just told me what happened yesterday. I’m glad that you’re alright, but I’m not sure why I had to hear about it from him instead of you.” There’s a slight admonishment in his tone, as if he were talking to a naughty child who had been hiding her report card.
“Well, I didn’t think...” Sofie trails off, not really sure what it is that she’s trying to say.
“That’s right, you didn’t think.” The coldness in Luke’s voice is chilling, but it disappears so quickly, she almost convinces herself that she had imagined it. Almost. “But that doesn’t matter now. All that’s important is that you’re alright.”
“Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for your concern, Mr. Calambor,” she answers in a tight voice. She has to bite back the sarcastic response that she’s desperate to give.
“Why so formal, my Sofie? You know it’s just Luke with you,” he coos gently. “From what Darwin’s been telling me about what you guys have found up there, it looks like I might be paying a visit.”
“You want to come here?” Sofie tries to keep her voice even, but the words come out strangled.
“Don’t sound so surprised. If the site is as promising as Darwin says it is, then I need to start drumming up some local support from the good townsfolk of Beatmont. Bet a lot of them haven’t recovered after the recession. I’m sure they could do with a little help from Shale.” Luke chuckles lightly.
“It’s Beaumont.” Sofie knows it’s not worth her time to correct her boss, but she does it anyway, rankled that he can’t even be bothered to learn the name of the town that he’s about to use to get even richer.
“Whatever,” he responds. Sofie can almost see him waving his hand dismissively in his ludicrously ostentatious office in DC.
“Besides, we still have a whole heap of samples to take and tests to run. And even after all that, an ecologist will need to sign off on the site, to make sure we’re not disturbing any habitats when we start drilling,” she says, knowing that she sounds like she’s trying to talk Luke out of what looks like the most profitable oil deposit that Shale have ever found, but she’s just trying to be thorough. At least that’s what she tells herself.
“So dedicated. That’s what I love about you, Sofie. I know I can rely on you.” There’s a suggestion that Luke is talking about more than just work, but he doesn’t voice it. That’s how it always is with him. He towed the line with her, hinting, being inappropriate, and then passing it off as a joke.
“Right. But, what I was saying about the habitats—it’s important,” she barrels on, interrupting him—although she knows that he hates to be interrupted. She turns back to Finn to find that he’s looking at her curiously, like he’s not sure what it is that he’s up to. “Yesterday, when I was in the woods, I heard howling, like wolf howling.” She shuts her eyes feeling more and more like she must sound like a raving loon.
“Wolf howling,” Luke says the words slowly, as if he’s giving Sofie the opportunity to take them back. “And you don’t think that in your state of distress it could have been an owl or something else?”
“I know what I heard, Luke,” she says in a hard voice. Finn blinks at her, as surprised as she is by her revelation. “And if there are wolves there, it means no drilling. They’re under federal protection.”
“I appreciate your concern, Sofie, but we’ll make it work. One way or another we’ll do what we have to. How soon until you have the deposits confirmed?”
“At least a week, especially if the weather stays like this. So, are you going to send an ecologist?” Sofie insists—although she’s fairly sure that Luke is only half-listening to her.
“Yes, sure, whatever you need to get the ball rolling on this.” Luke seems to be missing the point of what she’s saying, but Sofie is at least appeased that he’s taking her advice. “Now, how about when I come up to Beatmont, as a token of my appreciation, I take you out for dinner?”
“You mean, the whole team?” Sofie asks the question although she’s already afraid that she knows the answer.
“Well, the whole team didn’t have a dangerous experience in the woods last night all in the name of Shale Corporation now did they? I think they’ll understand if it’s just the two of us.” The way that Luke says the words makes her stomach do somersaults and not in a good way.
“How’s your family, Luke?” she asks, before she has time to lose her nerve. Finn’s eyebrows shoot up, and Sofie can hear Luke’s anger in the silence on the end of the line. He keeps photographs of his beautiful wife and kids all over his office, but when he’s talking to Sofie he conveniently forgets all about them.
“They’re fine, Sofie. They’re fine,” he says, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. Sofie wonders if she’s succeeded in making him think twice about the way he behaves with her or if she’s just made him mad. “See you soon,” he says, but the words have an ominous ring to them, and Sofie is left with the dial tone as he hangs up.
“You going to tell me what that was all about?” Finn goes back to his videogame, giving Sofie a sidelong glance.
“Luke being Luke,” Sofie explains, sitting down heavily on the edge of her bed.
“He won’t do anything, not with Darwin and me here.” Finn doesn’t look at her as he says the words, sparing her the embarrassment that he knows she feels at what their boss is suggesting. When Sofie doesn’t respond, he continues. “What was all that about wolves? Anything to do with what you asked me last night?” he asks, his words punctuated by the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire coming from the television.
“
I don’t know. It’s just what I heard.” Sofie pushes herself up from the bed and starts pacing around the room. “There’s something different about this place, different from the other sites. The Geiger counter went ballistic in the woods and then nothing. My compass was all out of whack, and the mineral in those rocks, it’s…different.” She knows that she’s not making all that much sense, but she’s not even really sure what it is that she’s trying to say. She feels like since she arrived in this town, everything’s been mixed up, and nothing’s been straightforward.
“Don’t let what that hunk said to you get you questioning everything. You’re here to do your job. That’s it. You’re not the devil; you just work for him.” Finn smiles, as Sofie sticks her tongue out at him. His words make sense, but that doesn’t stop Sofie from feeling lousy.
“Don’t you ever think that this isn’t what you imagined you’d be doing with your life?” Sofie stands in front of the video game, forcing Finn to pay attention to what she’s asking him.
“Hey, I almost made it to the next level,” Finn complains, trying to look around her, giving up when he sees the expression on her face telling him that she will not be moved. “Yes, fine, this isn’t what I’d thought I’d be doing, making the big man even richer and destroying little pockets of good ol’ Mother Nature as we go. We’ve talked about this, Sofe. Idealism doesn’t get the bills paid. You do this for a few years, and you get out. That was always the plan. So what’s changed?”
“I don’t know.” She throws her hands up, frustrated that she can’t even put her finger on what’s got her so worked up. Or perhaps she just doesn’t want to admit it to herself. “There’s something about this place. It feels...I don’t know...magical.” She shrugs, wishing she had used a different word.
“Magical? Sofe, are you feeling alright?” Finn stands up and puts a hand on her forehead as if he’s checking her temperature. “You’re a scientist. You don’t believe in ‘magical.’”
“I know, and that’s not what I meant. It’s just…I feel different about what we’re doing this time. I can’t explain it.” She swipes at his hand to move it from her head. “I don’t want Shale to destroy this place.” That’s the crux of it. That’s what I’m afraid of, but I’m not sure why, she thinks.
“Well, you might get your wish if you’re right about the wolves. Doesn’t matter how much oil is under that mountain, if there are furry little mites there, the government won’t sign off on any drilling. Simple.” He shrugs his shoulders to highlight just how straightforward what he’s saying is. “Look, you’ve been working too hard. Go out and take Darwin’s advice. Do something fun.” He sits back down, picks up his controller and motions her out of the way of the television screen.
“Something fun,” she says, as if the words were an equation without an answer.
“Yeah, you remember fun, right?” Finn ducks, as she takes a swipe at his head and settles back into his game.
“Have fun killing all those brain cells,” Sofie teases, as she grabs her jacket and heads towards the door.
“I could burn half the cells in this brain of mine and still trump you in an IQ test, Braun. Don’t you worry about that. I’m a genius, after all,” he says, living up to his legendary self-belief.
“Well, genius, you’re just about to get shot,” Sofie points out, as Finn’s on-screen avatar gets blind-sided and falls to the ground.
GAME OVER appears in big letters, and Sofie does nothing to hide her smug smile. She walks out of the motel, trying to remember what she used to like to do when she had free time. It has been a while.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Darwin had invited Sofie along with him to check out the Native American museum in the town. But, it was clear that his impending divorce was on his mind, and she figured he could use the time alone. Besides, she wasn’t really in the mood for seeing anything more about outsiders taking over land that wasn’t theirs and causing destruction and mayhem. The thought of it just left a bitter taste in her mouth. So, she made her excuses and that’s how she found herself wandering around the town of Beaumont without any real plan.
She could feel herself starting to get antsy since she has never been a person who just to goes with the flow. She’s always needed to know what she’s doing, needed to be focused on the endgame. But right now, all she could think was how conflicted she felt about what she and the rest of the team were doing in this town. The expression on Ashton’s face when he’d heard they were from Shale made her heart clench in her chest. Although she tried to be rational about it all—reminding herself that he doesn’t know her—she can’t help but feel like somehow he does.
She wanders down the main street of the town feeling a little captivated by this charming place. It seems like a kind of oasis in the midst of a busy world. People actually smile and say hello as they pass each other on the street. If that happened to her in DC, she would probably have figured they were crazy. With the rain still hammering down, it’s really not the kind of weather that encourages time outdoors, but she’s not ready to go back to the motel yet. She needs some more time to get whatever is going on with her out of her system. All of a sudden, she catches sight of the furniture store where she’d seen Ashton the first day they drove into town. She convinces herself that she’s only going inside because her ‘new’ apartment in Washington is virtually empty.
She rushes through the rain, managing to get soaked to the skin in the process. She yanks open the door and stands at the entrance, wishing that she’d chosen a t-shirt that didn’t leave so little to the imagination, especially when completely plastered against her slick, wet body. She looks up to see that there are only two other people in the shop, Ashton and another man, and they’re both staring at her like she’d just landed in a space ship.
“I come in peace,” she jokes weakly and then wonders when exactly it was that she became such a dork in social situations.
The way that the broad, dark-haired guy with Ashton looks at her makes her glad that looks can’t kill. There’s a sense of violence about him, as if he might spring into action at any moment. He and Ashton exchange a look that seems to be an entire conversation, and Ashton nods as if in agreement. His friend stalks towards the door that Sofie is still hovering around. As he stares at her pointedly, she steps to one side to allow him to pass.
Although he moves with the same easy grace as Ashton, there’s a ferocity about him that makes her take a step away from him as he passes her. She tries to avoid eye contact, not wanting to make this guy any angrier than he already seems to be, but she sees a flash, and she has to blink to make sure that she wasn’t dreaming. It looked there was a shine in his eyes, like they turned gold, but when she’d blinked they were back to dark brown.
As the door closes behind the angry-looking man, the silence between Ashton and Sofie stretches out. She scrambles around for something to say.
“Your friend seems...interesting,” she notes cautiously, running her fingers through her wet hair in a vain effort to dry it.
But, instead of replying, Ashton turns around and walks towards the back of the shop, disappearing through a door.
“Guess that means you’re not in the mood for small talk,” she says under her breath, as she prepares to go out into the unforgiving weather again.
“You’re dripping on the floor.” Ashton’s deep voice comes from behind her, and she spins around, wondering how he’d managed to move without her hearing him. He hands her a small hand towel. “It’s all I have,” he says simply, shrugging and looking mildly apologetic.
“Thanks.” Sofie takes the towel and starts patting her face and drying out her hair.
Ashton watches her with a hungry look that immediately makes her fumble and blush to the roots of her hair. “Don’t worry about Gus. He’s not so good around new people.” He nods in the direction that his friend left in.
“I’m getting the sense that might be a recurring theme round here.” Sofie hands the damp towel back to Ashton, c
ollecting herself together and giving him a questioning glance.
His face immediately hardens. “We don’t like being played.”
His words hit their mark, and Sofie winces despite herself. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to play you. But there are rules that we have to follow. It’s just business.” The explanation sounds lame, even to her own ears.
“So, your company makes you lie for them. Doesn’t sound like a great way to do business.” Ashton folds his arms over his broad chest and looks down at Sofie, assessing her reaction.
“It’s just the way it is.” Sofie shrugs, not wanting to betray her employer; but likewise, not wanting to let them off the hook completely either.
Ashton looks at her, like he’s waiting for her to say something else—perhaps something a little more satisfying. She can’t help it; but, whenever he looks at her, she feels like he’s seeing right into the depths of her soul. There’s something about his blue eyes, an intensity that she has never experienced before. It touches her in ways she couldn’t have expected.
Sofie squirms under his gaze, wondering what he’s seeing as he looks at her and hoping that it’s something more than just a girl who appears to have enrolled in a wet t-shirt competition. She says the first thing that comes to mind, “So you seem to have a habit of showing up wherever I am. If I didn’t know better, I would think that you were following me.” She crosses her arms over her chest, mimicking Ashton’s body language, and she’s glad to see that there’s a shadow of mild embarrassment that passes over his face, but it disappears almost instantly and is replaced with the sexiest smile she’s ever seen.
“Well, running girl, this is my town, that’s my canyon, and this is my store. So technically it’s you that seems to be following me.” There’s a challenge in his look, but also amusement. He clearly enjoys having her off-balance.
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