Texas Fire

by Gerry Bartlett

  “You can’t put your things in there. We have to load the groceries. We’ll be going places where we’ll need to cook for ourselves.” Rowdy stepped next to Megan and pulled her pile of T-shirts out of the cabinet above the microwave.

  “Cook? You’re kidding.” She tossed the shirts on the small dinette table. “And where the hell am I supposed to sleep? I only see one bed.”

  “Which is mine.” Rowdy grinned. The reason he’d been given this size trailer was because the bed was long enough for his six-foot-five frame. “The table pushes down and you throw a cushion on top of it. Stretch out on top. That’s your bed. From seat to seat. See?” He swept her shirts off the table, reached under the table, and lowered it until it was even with the built-in seats, then rearranged the cushions. “Should be okay. There are linens in the drawer under my bed. We may have to buy a couple of extra blankets. There’s air-conditioning if it gets too hot, but usually it’s the opposite problem. Cold at night.”

  Megan eyed what Rowdy knew was a pretty comfortable double bed in the forward section of the rig.

  “I’m not sharing.” He grinned at her.

  “And I’m not interested, even if you were.” She picked up her shirts and refolded them. “This is ridiculous. I looked in the so-called bathroom. Where do we brush our teeth, wash our faces?”

  “In the sink next to the stove. And you shower right there next to the toilet. You’re lucky we get hot water. Let’s just hope it doesn’t break down. That’s happened.” Rowdy waved the stack of papers he’d gotten at the check-in. “You’re going to earn your keep. I’ve decided to let you be my navigator. Can you read a map?”

  “Of course.” Megan left the shirts on the cushion and took the papers. “Are we leaving now?”

  “Yep. We have four hundred miles to go before we get to our stop for tonight. And we’ve got to get out of Houston first. Let’s go.” Rowdy looked around. “Make sure there’s nothing loose that will fly around if I make a sudden stop or turn. Put those shirts away, Megan. And that bag. Makeup?”

  “Yes.” She set it in the sink. “Give me a minute. And I’d like to stop for coffee before we go too much farther. I didn’t have time to have any before I got here this morning.”

  “I’m not sure about that. Coffee, then you’ll want a restroom break. We’ll never make any progress like that.” Rowdy shook his head. She was starting to wind up for a comeback when he took pity on her.

  “Relax, Megan. I could use coffee, too. I’m not the enemy. Let’s get out of town and then we’ll make a stop. Okay?” He picked up her shirts and stuffed them back in the cabinet where she’d had them in the first place. “And we’ll hit a grocery store, too. One in the suburbs. Better choices here than in the boonies.”

  “Great.” Her smile made her glow, and Rowdy looked away from it. Tempting. Curvy figure and shiny blond hair that looked like she’d just run a comb through it and didn’t do much else. It was an easy look. The kind he liked. Damn it. He turned when he was on the ground and automatically held out his hand to help her down. She was a little thing and had to jump out. There was a step he could pull out for her. He should have . . . Shoot.

  They’d have to work on a routine when they set up camp each night. Use the step, figure out shower schedules . . . He double-checked the trailer hitch to keep from staring at the tight fit of her jeans as she headed to the passenger side of the truck. This was going to be one long year.

  By the time they were settled in the cab of the truck, he had made a decision. He couldn’t live with a woman like Megan Calhoun and treat her like an enemy. But he wasn’t going to jump her, either. No, they’d have to work out a friendship. So he told her where they were going, showing her their destination and the best route on the map. He even let her pick the place to stop for coffee. He was going to make this work somehow. And the best way to do that was to not ever touch her. Not even by accident.

  Because, damn it, he liked women. Loved everything about them, except the way they could turn him inside out when they broke his heart. So he was going to be careful here. His heart was not going to be involved, that was for damn sure. But his body . . . it was way too interested in the way Megan Calhoun smelled—so freaking sweet and clean. Just standing next to her in that trailer, brushing up against her when he’d put her shirts away, had reminded him how all woman she was. Which was wrong on so many levels he couldn’t count that high. Shit. Those close quarters were going to kill him.

  This was what he got for not taking advantage of those free and easy women who’d come across his path when he’d been out in the field the past few months. He’d never been into free and easy. At least not before. And what had that gotten him? A permanent hard-on and no reward for staying true to the woman he’d always thought he might eventually marry. Instead he’d been dumped on his ass.

  Enough of that whining. He and Cass were done. He’d known it even before she’d told him so. Part of their problem had been his own lazy ass. They’d been comfortable together. Yeah, how was that for a revelation? He’d liked the fact that he knew where he’d be on a Friday night. And that he had a girl to go home to on his breaks from this grind of a job. He should have moved on; they both should have, a long time ago. But it was scary out there in the dating world of online profiles and fix-ups. There were so many crazies and people with baggage. Neither of them had wanted or needed that uncertainty. So he’d been blindsided when Cass had actually found “the one” first.

  Rowdy pulled into a drive-through at Megan’s direction. At least they both liked the same kind of coffee, though she wanted special stuff in hers and he was happy with black and strong. But it was a start. When they settled on a radio station that suited them both, Rowdy relaxed even more. Okay, maybe the year wouldn’t be a total disaster. Then Megan shrieked in his ear, and he almost jackknifed the trailer.

  Chapter 2

  “Pull over! Stop the truck!” Megan gripped the door handle and looked like she was about to leap out onto the road.

  “What the hell? Are you sick?” Rowdy put on his turn signal and looked for a spot where he could maneuver out of traffic. He glanced at her. She didn’t look sick, just in a panic. Thank God, there was an abandoned gas station coming up, and he slowed enough to make the entrance. As soon as he rolled to a stop, she was out and running back along the shoulder of the road.

  “Megan! You’re going to get yourself killed!” Rowdy shut down the truck, pulled out the keys, then took off after her. She was hunkered down over something in the weeds, totally ignoring the traffic whizzing by at seventy to eighty miles an hour mere feet from her backside. He stayed as far away from the road as he could without falling into the ditch that ran along the highway. It was filled with water from recent rains, and he couldn’t tell how deep it might be.

  “Come here and help me. I can’t believe someone could be so cruel.” She was struggling to untie the string around a burlap bag. “Do you have a knife on you? Cut this.”

  Of course Rowdy had a knife in his pocket. It was a Swiss Army knife that came in handy on the road. It even had a corkscrew that he’d used . . . Never mind. He flipped it open, figuring the sooner they got off this roadside, the better. He cut the rough rope holding the bag closed. When a brown and white puppy leaped into Megan’s arms, she staggered and he grabbed her.

  “I’ll be damned.” They both had almost fallen back in front of a semi, which let them know it with a long blast of its horn. “Get back over here!” Rowdy hustled into the weeds again.

  “See? I knew it.” She cradled the dog against her, not minding at all that it was getting her wet and muddy. “Someone in a truck ahead of us just tossed it out the passenger side window. I saw the bag moving. Can you believe it?”

  “Must be the runt of the litter.” Rowdy grabbed her arm and dragged Megan and her cargo back toward their truck and trailer. “Come on. This is dangerous, and we need to talk this over.”

  “There’s nothing to say. I saved this baby’s life. I�
��m not letting it go.” She looked mulish, no surprise there. But she flinched when another big rig almost clipped them. She hurried behind him, her sigh of relief audible when they made it back to the parking lot.

  “Megan, see reason. We’re on a job. What are we going to do with a puppy?” Rowdy got a good look at the thing, which squirmed in her arms, trying to get loose. It was tiny and probably a pit bull. People weren’t looking with favor on the breed lately, which he thought was a shame. He’d known people who owned them and they made great family pets, kind and gentle, if they were raised right. But if some local had bred pits to sell, this one was too little and didn’t have the strong jaw buyers wanted. The pup licked Megan’s face, and Rowdy knew it would take more meanness than he had in him to pry that dog away from her.

  Well, hell.

  “Get in the truck. We’ll sort this out later. We’ve got to get moving if we’re going to get to the first site by nightfall.” He opened his door. “Set the little guy down in the grass and see if he’ll do his business before we take off. I won’t have the cab smelling like pee.”

  “Right.” Megan’s smile lit up her face. “He needs a name.” She held him up and looked at his tummy. “Yes, he is a boy.” She trotted over to a patch of grass, whooping with glee when the dog went straight to a bush and peed on command. “What a good boy!”

  Back on the move, Rowdy knew he was doomed. Megan had crawled between the seats and fashioned a bed from an old towel he kept back there. She was trying out names and clearly not giving a thought to the reason they were on the road in the first place.

  “He’s a survivor. I don’t care if he is a runt.” She faced the front again and took a pull on the diet soda she had left over from their fast-food lunch.

  “Fasten that seat belt.” How had this gotten so out of control? Rowdy let the miles go by while she chattered about dogs and names until he’d had enough.

  “Damn it, Megan, don’t you realize how impractical this is? He should go to a vet. Be checked out and get his shots. Can you afford that?” Rowdy the bad guy threw that at her.

  “I have no idea what that costs, but surely I can after my first paycheck. And maybe you could go in on it? Don’t you like dogs?” She turned on him, squinting those big blue eyes. Like she was daring him to be a dog hater. Maybe he’d also admit he liked to kick babies and cut the tops off of pretty flowers.

  “Hey, I love dogs. Had one as a kid. But now I’m on the road too much. It’s not practical.” Rowdy concentrated on driving. The traffic had thinned out as they’d gotten farther from the big city. The speed limit had jacked up to eighty-five out here, but he couldn’t do that with the trailer behind him. So he stayed in the right lane and got passed by people who shot him the finger or honked. He ignored them, uneasy at the look of the clouds ahead. He tried the piece-of-crap radio for a weather report, but just got static. They were moving into the part of Texas that was sparsely populated and mostly desert. The area could use rain, but it would be hell driving in it.

  “We’ll make it practical.” Megan wasn’t dropping the subject. “He can be good company and maybe turn out to be a guard dog. You did say we were going to some pretty isolated places.”

  “We don’t need a guard dog, especially one smaller than my left foot. Besides, I have a gun in the glove compartment.” Rowdy knew he was talking to himself when Megan turned to look back between the seats again.

  “He’s so sweet, and you know he’ll grow, Rowdy. Why, it’s a miracle that bag landed short, in the grass instead of in the ditch. He would have drowned.” She sighed and settled back, facing the front again. “You’re not talking me out of this, you know.”

  “It is a kind of miracle that you saw him tossed out of that truck.” Rowdy knew when he was beaten. “That dog’s lucky to be alive.”

  “Lucky. That’s what I’ll call him. It’s not very original, but easy to say and it fits.” She didn’t gloat exactly, but gave Rowdy a pat on the arm, as if to say he was a good boy.

  Hell, and he hadn’t even peed on a bush.

  * * *

  Megan knew she was pushing Rowdy with the dog thing. She was impulsive. Always had been. But this time she’d saved Lucky’s life. The idea that someone could kill an innocent little thing like that made her blood boil. And a dog! She remembered the dogs she’d had growing up. Unconditional love. She could really use some of that now, and she wasn’t about to let Rowdy talk her out of keeping this tiny scrap of furry affection.

  Lucky would be a comfort. Because inside she was scared to death of what was ahead. She didn’t have clue one about the oil business or this engineering gig. That one summer with her father was a distant memory. Instead of learning about the rigs they’d visited, she’d been busy calling her friends and looking for a way to escape from what she’d considered a punishment because she’d flunked out of college. For the second time.

  Now here she was on her way to that noisy, filthy hell again. She glanced upward, hoping her father’s sins hadn’t kept him out of the pearly gates. Daddy, do you really think I can cut it in the field? No answer. She refused to look down at her feet and ask again.

  All she could do was try. At least now she looked the part of Rowdy’s assistant in ugly clothes. She could trail along after him and hand him a tool at the right time, but how was that really going to help save her daddy’s company? That was the three-hundred-million-dollar question.

  It was hard to believe that Calhoun Petroleum, the company that had given her an extravagant lifestyle her entire life, was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It was up to her, her sisters, and brother to do something about that. Yes, the price of oil had been the start of their troubles, but then Daddy’s death had come at the worst possible time.

  Maybe the company could have weathered all of that, but then they’d found out a dirty little secret. Conrad Calhoun, the man she’d always idolized, who’d come up from nothing and built a billion-dollar company, had used fraud to get the company started. No one else knew. Yet. Her sister Cass was on top of it, trying to make things right. The big question was, whether once she did, there would be anything left for any of them to inherit after this year.

  Megan glanced at Rowdy. She’d picked him before the ugly details of her father’s double dealing had become apparent to the family. None of the people who’d been cheated knew yet that they probably had big money coming to them. Including . . . She looked away as the barren landscape whizzed past the truck window, sifting through what she knew about Rowdy Baker. He’d managed a football scholarship to college, served in the army in Afghanistan, where he was wounded so his dreams of playing professional football came to nothing. His single mother still held down a low-paying job in the small town where he and Cassidy had grown up. How different Rowdy’s life might have been if...

  “Hey, you ever think about what you’d do if you’d been the one to inherit a boatload of money like Cassidy just did?” Megan slurped the last of her diet soda and realized she’d have to find a bathroom soon. Too bad Rowdy seemed to have the bladder of a camel.

  “What’s the point?” Rowdy didn’t look her way, his eyes on the road.

  “Oh, come on. Play the ‘What If’ game.” He was serious about his driving. She’d thought about offering to take the wheel, but figured keeping a heavy-duty truck pulling a trailer on the road with semis blowing past them couldn’t be easy.

  His mouth quirked. “You mean, like what if I were cruising along alone now, enjoying my favorite CD without you here complicating my life?”

  “I’ll put in your favorite CD, whatever it is, and shut up if you’ll play along.” Tough promise. She’d gone through his music collection in its zippered case already. It was heavy with traditional country. She liked it, but a variety would be better.

  He tapped a finger on the wheel. “You’d shut up? Promise?”

  “At least until the next bathroom break. Deal?” She unzipped the CD case. “Pick your poison.”

  He named an artist,
and she pulled out a disc. Great. She’d be crying in her cola when this went on. “All right. So here’s the game: What if you came into a million dollars tomorrow? What would you do?” She eyed the empty landscape. At last a billboard promised clean restrooms twenty miles ahead. Thank God.

  “A million? Put it in the bank and live off the interest. Should be a nice income. Quit this miserable job, that’s for sure. I’m sick of traveling.” He grinned. “Of course, I never had a woman with me before. Might make the trip easier. We’ll see how it goes tonight. More action, less talk.”

  Megan’s jaw dropped. Was he flirting? Ha! No way. He was pulling her chain. She knew she looked like hell—hair windblown and paw prints on her shirt. And he’d been pissed at her from the get-go. This sudden charming grin and innuendo was just to throw her off her stride. It was working.

  “How it goes?” Megan raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m doing all the driving, so I figure you could do the cooking, cleaning. Woman’s work.”

  Oh, he was so going to pay for that. “It goes like this, buddy. I’m nobody’s little woman. I don’t cook, clean, or take care of you.” She leaned toward him and gave him a poke on his bicep. “In any way.” Damn, but he was ripped. Didn’t matter. Megan backed off. “We’re traveling companions and coworkers. That’s it.” She heard the dog whine and unbuckled her seat belt to reach for him. “We need a pit stop.”

  “Defensive, aren’t you?” Rowdy nodded toward the next billboard they whizzed past. “I’m all for a stop myself. But you don’t issue the orders around here, Megan. Coworkers? Not exactly. I’m your boss. Or have you forgotten that?”

  Megan cuddled the dog. “You hear that, Lucky? He’s our boss. Let me see. How does that work? Should I ask permission for a potty break? Get a list of my duties?” She turned to him. “Or remind Mr. Macho Pants that my family owns the company he works for?”