Chasing Trouble (Texas Trouble)

by McGraw, Becky

  She thought the worst of him, and it pissed him off. And it looked like no amount of convincing was going to change her mind. Chase glanced over at her solemn face then back at the road. The best thing he could do was probably stop trying to convince the hard-headed doctor, and just accept they'd be nothing more than friends. A pain shot through the middle of his chest and he rubbed it.

  They'd left the house thirty minutes ago. Not a word had passed between them since. The cab of the truck was eerily quiet, but fraught with tension as they drove to the restaurant to meet Lara Spencer, the Realtor, who also happened to be a friend. They'd dated a few times in the past, but figured out really fast that they'd be better off as friends. She was beautiful enough, and a sweetheart, but there hadn't been any spark between them. Now, he was worried about how Jenny would react and what she'd think when she met Lara.

  He pulled up in the parking lot and saw Lara's little red sports car parked by the door. There was a spot open beside it, so he swung the truck in and killed the engine. Chase leaned on the steering wheel and took a couple of deep breaths trying to rid himself of the anxious knot in his stomach.

  "You okay?" she asked not really sounding like she cared one way or the other if he was on death's door.

  "Yeah," he said shortly then pushed open his door and got out.

  Without a glance in Jenny's direction, he walked the last mile toward the door. Behind him, he heard her door open and close and held the restaurant door open for her. She swept by him in a wave of subtle perfume heated by her attitude. He followed and stood beside her at the hostess stand looking around the restaurant for Lara.

  Amid the crowded tables, Chase saw Lara's red hair, then their eyes met. She stood giving him a warm smile. Chase felt Jenny's eyes burning into him and glanced down at her.

  Her eyes were narrowed, her lips pinched. Whatever, he thought, let her believe what she wanted to believe, she would anyway. He was tired of walking on eggshells, so he smiled at Lara, then headed toward where the short curvy redhead in the blue power suit and skyscraper heels beckoned from a table in the center of the dining room.

  When he got close enough, she opened her arms wide and pushed up on her tiptoes to put her arms around his neck, then put a kiss right on his lips. She set back on her heels then stepped back. With her hands in the center of his chest, she looked up at him and said with a smile, "I swear, you get better looking every time I see you, sugar."

  He put his hands on her elbows and chuckled. "You still need those glasses, darlin?" he asked then leaned down to kiss her cheek.

  "No, I had surgery," she told him then her green eyes moved up and down his body, before she purred, "20/20 now, and I like what I see."

  Lara had more than one surgery he noticed glancing down at her enhanced cleavage showing above the deep V of her double breasted suit.

  "Yeah those are new too," she laughed and waved for him to sit in the chair beside where she had been sitting.

  Jenny, who had been standing beside him frowning, stepped around him and raised an eyebrow, her gorgeous aqua eyes shooting laser beams down at his shorter friend. Lara cast a questioning glance at Chase then stuck her hand out to Jenny and stammered, "Hi, um...I'm Lara Spencer."

  "Dr. Jenny Anderson," Jenny told her flatly and looked at Lara's hand, but she didn't take it. "So, you're our real estate agent?" she asked instead.

  "Yes, Chase called and asked me to pull some listings. I thought they were for him."

  "They're for us," Jenny corrected then put her purse down beside the chair and sat down. "Why don't you show us what you have."

  Lara glanced at him briefly, but sat down in the chair next to Jenny. Chase sat across from them, hoping the heat pouring off of Jenny didn't set Lara's hair on fire. She probably had enough hairspray in it for that to happen. The dichotomy between the women was striking. Lara was short, curvy and cute, bubbly. Jenny on the other hand was tall, lithe and so damned beautiful it hurt his eyes to look at her sometimes. What hurt worse was her opinion of him.

  Chase cleared his throat then said, "Jenny is the new Vice President of Health and Safety for Rhodes and needs to find a place to rent. I'm looking for a place to buy, I'm moving away from the family estate."

  "Your mama's gonna be upset about that, isn't she?"

  A smirk formed on Jenny's full lips and Chase held back a groan to reply, "Yeah, probably, but I need some space."

  "I'd like to purchase a home as well," Jenny informed her.

  That was news to Chase. Her contract stipulated a rent subsidy, not a down payment. "Really?"

  "Yes, Really," she told him smugly. "I'd like to use the rent allowance to purchase a home."

  They hadn't agreed to that, and at this point he wasn't sure he wanted to agree to it. That would mean putting out more money up front on the contract. As mad as she seemed to be, she could leave tomorrow, putting him in the position of having to answer to his dad. Even though his dad had helped him work out the details of her contract, he knew if things went south, he'd get the blame. He'd already put out a bundle to pay off her student loans. From a business standpoint, giving her the money now wasn't a good idea.

  "We need to talk about that later, Jenny," he told her and watched a slow freeze move over her face, as her shoulders tensed.

  Daggers shot from her eyes, then she said dismissively, "Nothing to talk about," before her gaze swung back to Lara. "If you can't show me homes to purchase, I'm sure I can find another agent who can."

  A flush spread up Lara's neck and settled on her cheeks. She held up a hand and said, "Whoa, I didn't say I wouldn't show you homes. I'd be happy to show you homes, the rest you need to work out with Chase."

  "Actually, I think it would be better if I give you a call and set up another appointment. You can help Chase today, I just remembered I have other things to take care of. Do you have a card?" she asked then stood up and reached down for her purse.

  "Um, yes, one second," Lara told her, then pulled a card out of her pocket and handed it to Jenny. "My cell phone number's on the back, but if you lose it, Chase has it," she said with a tight smile.

  "I'm sure he does," Jenny replied in a sarcastic tone then snatched the card from her hand. "It was nice meeting you, Lara."

  Without a backward glance, Jenny walked out of the restaurant.

  When she got out of the front door, Jenny stopped and breathed deeply trying to get herself under some semblance of control. Thoughts of running somewhere far, far away from Amarillo, Texas crossed her mind.

  Chase Rhodes was a philandering asshole, and he was her boss. Short of going to Africa to get away from him, she was stuck with him on a professional level. The salary he'd given her couldn't be matched anywhere else, not at another hospital, or a private practice...not even in Africa. Besides, she'd made a commitment to work for them for two years, and Jenny wasn't a quitter.

  She was not going to let Chase Rhodes, or his women, run her off.

  Although at this point, Jenny felt like she had signed a deal with the devil, she was going to fulfill the contract she'd signed. She was going to let him know though, that he hadn't bought her soul in the terms of that contract. There wouldn't be anymore Sunday morning breakfasts with dessert. She would deal with him on a professional basis, but her personal life was her own. He was not going to tell her what to do or how to spend her money.

  His bimbos, like the one she'd just met, might be impressed with his money and good looks, but she was not. Well, that wasn't entirely true, she had been impressed enough to agree to go to work for him, and to sleep with him. The blinders were off now though, and she wouldn't be repeating her mistake.

  Jenny would learn the oil and gas business, she'd train his medics, but she was going to steer clear of her new boss, starting now. Pulling her phone out of her purse, Jenny dialed the only person in Amarillo who would help her, who she would ask for help, Ben Bowman.

  He was surprised to hear from her, and next to stunned that she was moving back to
town. Like she expected though, he was more than happy to offer her a place to stay at his ranch until she found a place of her own. She told him she'd be there in a little while.

  Jenny tried to convince herself that she was not running again, but fell a little short. The last time, when she left Amarillo, that had been running. This was merely removing herself from the devil's den to protect herself from screwing up her life again.

  She was smarter now, so she knew when she was on that precipice. She was on the verge of letting her heart get involved with another man who would stomp on it. The jealousy and anger that she felt when she watched that woman kiss him told her so. What she'd felt when he got those calls at her apartment, when she realized he kept a stock of condoms in the pool house, and when he'd flirted with Lara Spencer was ten times what she'd felt when she left Beau and that scared the hell out of her. Jenny needed some space to get her head screwed on right again.

  Since they hadn't unloaded any of her things from the moving truck, it would be easy for her to leave quickly. All she had to do was pick up Chloe and drive the truck to Ben's ranch. How she was going to get back to the Rhodes mansion was the only issue now.

  Jenny chewed her lip and then dialed her brother's cell phone number.

  Luck was on her side and her brother wasn't far from the restaurant, so a few minutes later, she opened the creaky door on the rattletrap Honda he'd had for ten years and slid onto the duct taped seat.

  Jenny glanced over at her brother and forced a smile. His fingers tightened on the wheel, then he said, "Hey, Sis...this is a surprise. You here slumming?"

  When she called him, Jenny hadn't told Nick she'd moved back to town, she'd only asked him to come and pick her up. "I'm not slumming, I'm back," she told him. She looked back over her shoulder when the restaurant door opened and saw Chase and Lara Spencer walk out arm in arm. Her stomach jolted and she swallowed hard.

  "Just drive..." she instructed then slid down in the seat not wanting Chase to see her. He hadn't bothered to come outside after her, so that pretty much told her he didn't care if she was upset. Obviously he was too preoccupied with Lara Spencer. She could have him, Jenny thought, and slid a little further down when her brother put his foot to the gas.

  ***

  Chase was as mad as he could ever remember being. He was a pretty laidback kind of guy, not much upset him. Jenny Anderson was the exception. He'd spent a fruitless four hours looking at houses with Lara, not really seeing anything through the red haze surrounding him. Now, he was back at the mansion expecting to be able to have a showdown with Jenny and release some of the tension that was boiling in his gut, and she was gone. For all he knew she was headed back to Henrietta.

  The moving truck, Chloe and all of her possessions were gone. Maria said that she hadn't come into the house, but that she'd seen an old brown Honda drop her off earlier. As far as he knew, the only people she knew in Amarillo were members of her family and Beau Bowman. Even thinking that man's name made him want to put his fist through something. He wondered if Jazzie had seen how cold the asshole was yet and moved on to greener pastures. Probably not, because women were stupid. They preferred the assholes who treated them like crap. Even smart women like Jenny Anderson.

  As far as he knew, there were only a few places she could have gone. Terri's house in Henrietta, her parents house in Amarillo, or Beau Bowman's ranch. Chase didn't know where her family lived, or even her dad's name, he had no idea where the Bowman ranch was either, so he had no way of finding her. He did have Terri's cell phone number and called her to find out if she'd heard from Jenny...she hadn't.

  If he wanted to find her, he'd have to have help. He knew who could help him find her, Dave Logan. Quickly he called Dave and gave him a rundown on the situation. Dave said he'd get right on it and promised to call as soon as he had any information. All Chase could do now was wait and stew.

  He tried calling Jenny's cell phone one more time and got her voice mail...again. Huffing out a breath, he left the pool house and headed to his own for a drink...or ten. Even if she had taken off to Africa, Chase would find her, because, like his dad, in business he wasn't one to be messed with. Jenny Anderson owed him, and he was going to collect.

  The first three days of his work week were a blur of meetings, phone calls, reports and problems. Chase was in an uncommon funk, and people were steering clear of him, even his dad had decided he needed to fly to South Texas to look at some land. Somehow he'd made it through the week without killing anyone. There had been a couple of close calls.

  He was grouchy, he knew it, but there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it. He hadn't heard from Dave Logan yet, and he was worried as hell that Jenny Anderson had taken off where he wasn't going to find her. It was Thursday now, and he was pretty sure she wasn't going to honor her contract with them. He hadn't heard a word from her. She wouldn't take his calls.

  Chase had put out over a quarter million dollars to hire her, and if she didn't show up for work on Monday, his dad was going to peel his skin off inch by inch.

  Life went on though, and today Chase had to fly out to a remote rig to interview a new tool pusher for the rig. The guy was local, and Chase needed to check out the operation anyway, so he decided to fly there for the interview instead of bringing the pusher to Amarillo. Chase was replacing the guy he'd had to fire from that position three months ago, because his derrick hands and roughnecks were sloppy, production was down and he'd had two lost-time accidents in the month before he left.

  The driller was filling in and that is who he was going to interview for the job first. Lathan had been with them for five years, and knew the ins and outs of that well better than anyone, he deserved a shot at the lead job. Moving from a floor job to a supervisor job though wasn't always easy. The man he hired had to have the right personality and mentality. His company man at the job site had recommended him, but he was new too and Chase didn't trust him a hundred percent yet.

  When his pilot sat the helicopter down at the small rural airport nearest the rig, that's who was waiting to give him a ride. The winds were too rough and weather conditions too spotty for him to take him directly to the rig. Chase gave the pilot a thumbs up and removed his headset then eased out of his seat and slid to the ground. Ducking and shielding his eyes from the dust and debris stirred up by the rotors, he ran toward the truck.

  On the way to the site, Chase grilled Will Johnson, the new company man, on why he thought Lathan would be a good man for the tool pusher job. His answers seemed legitimate, but not once did the man mention the driller's stance on safety issues. There were shortcuts any driller or toolpusher knew to speed up production and increase their paychecks, but those shortcuts meant injuries a lot of the time.

  To prevent the problem, Chase had considered restructuring the pay so his rig workers got a higher hourly rate without the added bonuses for meeting production goals, but decided against it. Not only would he not be able to attract and keep the best men to work their rigs, the ones he had would become lazy and the company would suffer huge production losses.

  He knew with proper supervision, there was a happy medium to be found. Hiring the right people in key positions was the first step, which is why he hired Jenny Anderson. After the way she acted yesterday though, he was seriously reconsidering.

  To work with or around the men on these rigs, to train the medics, she needed a certain amount of grit. But she also needed tact and good sense. Yesterday, she'd been missing both. She'd been rude to both him and Lara and acted snotty and supercilious. If that attitude reared its head around these men, she was going to be in for a rough go of it.

  A thick cloud of dust floated around the truck when Will pulled the truck onto the service road to the rig. Chase coughed then shielded his face as he rolled up the window. Will clicked off the air conditioner in the truck and smiled over at him. "It gets pretty dusty around here. Hasn't rained much," he told Chase conversationally.

  This guy didn't know that Chase knew
all about the dust, grime and other nasty shit that a man could be overwhelmed with by working here. More years than he could count, he went home with six inches of the crap covering his body. None of the workers here knew that he had worked every position there was on an oil derrick. His dad made sure of it, and also made sure he didn't get preferential treatment while he did.

  By the time he was twenty-two he had worked his way up to driller, and worked that position, twelve hour shifts, while he went to college full-time. Sleep hadn't been very important to him back then, and it was a good thing, because he hadn't gotten much.

  Now, because of the time he'd put in, he had an advantage most company big wigs didn't. He knew when someone was feeding him bullshit, without them realizing it. He could discreetly watch how things were being done on a rig, and know if it was being run properly.

  Chase would bet that Will had never worked in the mud a day in his life. He had some experience with another exploration company working as the company man. Most company men didn't work for the same company as the drillers. They were usually two separate entities, but Rhodes was different. Their wells were mostly wildcatted, drilled and supervised by them. His dad liked it that way so they could control things, and Chase agreed.

  "Is it always this dusty," Chase asked holding back a smirk. He thought he'd have a little fun with the man.

  "Has been since I got here two months ago. Wish it would rain," he said.

  Rain was not something a driller prayed for. Too much rain mean the pits took on water and the mud concentration got screwed up, which could cause major problems with drilling. "Yeah, maybe they'd have enough mud if it rained some, huh?"

  He smiled over at Chase then looked back at the road and leaned closer over the steering wheel. "Yeah, they sure use a lot of it."

  They used a lot of drilling fluid, also known as mud, but it didn't come from rainwater and dirt. Drilling mud was usually made from bentonite clay and other chemicals, which either thickened or thinned it. The Mud Man watched over the pit and drilling to make sure the mud was right for the conditions. It had to be right so the drill bit was lubricated and the bore stabilized.