"I'll hire some private security for the rig too. Those assholes aren't going to blow up my property, or hurt my neighbors," Katie Tucker piped in, her bright blue eyes sparkling angrily.
"I'd be careful with that Katie," Cole told her. "You don't know what you're hiring when you bring in outsiders, sweetheart. The good thing about this town is everybody knows everybody, and if someone is here they don't know, it gets noticed. I'll put five of my men on guard there, nothing will happen," he assured her.
"Not, Elmer, right?" she asked with narrowed eyes.
"No, Elmer is still on traffic duty...it suits him," Cole told her with a grin.
"What's wrong with him?" Jenny couldn't help but ask.
Sabrina snorted, then said flatly, "He got Cole shot when he was trying to rescue me...passed out during a gunfight."
"Yeah, he kind of redeemed himself after that, but traffic duty is where he belongs," Cole said and shot her a sexy grin.
Gabe grinned at Jenny too and asked, "Ever see the Andy Griffith show?"
"Yeah, used to love those reruns when I was a kid," she admitted.
"He's Barney Fife's long lost twin," The dark-haired deputy, told her with a chuckle.
Suddenly, Papa Jack broke up the laughter, when he spoke. "You know, I have a feeling, right here in my gut," he told them and put a hand over his stomach. "They're gonna go for Katie's well...it's too coincidental that they showed up here. Good thing is, they don't know that we know they're here. I think if we're smart, and don't tip 'em off, we can catch ourselves a worm or two."
Papa Jack's words seemed to set the theme for their lives for the next two days, at least Chase thought so. Along with his five deputies, Cole, Chase, Gabe, Beau, Papa Jack, Jenny, Sabrina and Katie formed a motley lynch mob of sorts.
They all agreed, it might be a waste of time, but Papa Jack's insight seemed to be the only thing they had to go on. The feds and Rangers were still looking for the arsonists, they had sightings to check out all across Texas, so it could be a while. With the vote on the legislation coming at the end of next week, and eight of their wells down already, they didn't have a while. This had to stop now, and they needed answers. Although Chase knew he was working diligently on it, Dave Logan hadn't come up with any of those for him so far either. He had a list of about three hundred worms and roughnecks to go through.
They took shifts at Katie's property, guarding it and watching for any sign of intruders. It had been two days now, and nothing had happened, except a few mosquito bites and one near miss with a snake. Cole had made sure they were all armed and equipped in case something went down, but with every hour Chase spent hiding behind trees and bushes, his hope of catching the culprits dwindled.
To keep her safe, Chase insisted that Jenny be on shift with him. It surprised him to find out she knew how to shoot both a shotgun and a handgun. Chase hadn't even now how to do that, before Gabe and Cole had taken them out in the woods and taught them. He felt comfortable enough now that he could avoid shooting himself in the foot, or one of his group in the ass.
Chase's cell phone rang in his pocket and he cringed, then quickly reached in his pocket to silence it. Although he'd been told cell service was sketchy out here at best, Chase was evidently holding his mouth right, because his phone was working, except in a few places.
Some covert agent he was, he though. Cutting off your cell phone while trying to be sneaky was rule number one in the agent handbook, he was sure. He looked at the Caller ID and saw the call was from Sarah, his assistant, and cursed quietly, then pushed the recall button.
"Sarah, this is Chase..." he whispered when she answered.
"Hey, boss...how's it going?" she said brightly, and loudly.
"Shh...what's up," he whispered.
"That guy you asked about, I found him. Frasier is the derrickman on rig fifty-one...isn't that the rig you visited a while back?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said in a gruff whisper with the picture coming together in his mind. The memory of the man that Lathan had been reprimanding when he visited there became crystal clear to him. "I need to call Lathan...gotta go."
Chase disconnected the phone the stood. This was probably going to be a loud conversation, so he needed to go somewhere else. Joel's truck was parked a quarter mile away, and that was probably the only place he could get loud, and not attract attention. He quietly made his way through the woods, until he found where Jenny was hiding, and knelt beside her.
"I've gotta go make a call. I got some news and need to check it out," he whispered and she nodded. Because he couldn't help himself, he leaned down and kissed her gently, then told her, "I love you, Jenny..." then punctuated that with another longer kiss. "Don't get into trouble while I'm gone."
Her eyebrows lifted and she smiled as bright as the Texas sun, her aqua eyes filled with both surprise and pleasure. The sight hit him in the solar plexus. He really did love this beautiful woman, with all his heart. It had taken him a long to finally tell her, he wanted to make sure he wasn't thinking with his dick. He didn't want to make the same mistake his brother had. The feelings he had for Jenny Anderson were all heart, the dick part was just a huge bonus.
"You have lousy timing, anyone ever told you that?" she whispered back, her breath fanning his lips, and heating other body parts.
"Guess we're a good pair then, aren't we?" he said with a quiet laugh.
"The best, baby," she told him then kissed him again. "Hurry back."
"I won't be gone long, just need to make a few calls," he said then stood and headed through the brush and brambles toward the road.
He was almost to the truck when his phone vibrated in his pocket. With a glance at the screen, he answered, "Yeah, mama...what's up?"
"Thank the Lord!" she immediately yelled, and he held the phone away from his ear, because his mama could get loud.
"Calm down, mama...what's wrong?"
"I was out riding, then went to feed the baby, and somebody was in your house!" she screeched.
Chase's whole body tensed and he growled, "Who was it?"
"Some asshole named Fraiser...I filled his ass with squirrel shot," she told him.
"You shot him?!?" Chase yelled into the phone and gripping it tightly. "Mama, are you okay?"
She snorted then said indignantly, "Of course, I'm okay...he's not okay though. What skin Chloe didn't claw off of him, the scatter shot took off. The man is full of lead and bleeding all over my marble floor!"
"Chloe attacked him?" Chase asked incredulously.
"Hell yeah, she nearly clawed his eyes out, before I shot his ass," she laughed. "He was rolling around on the floor with her when I got there, yelling like a banshee. Made aiming for him tough, let me tell you. I didn't want to hit my baby!"
"How'd you find out who he was?" Chase asked.
"Oh, he was talking. Trust me, I have my ways to get information out of men," she said with bravado.
Chase groaned, because he could just imagine what she'd done. "Mama, what else did he say?"
"That's why I'm calling. Those bastards are going to blow up that well over in Bowie today. I knew ya'll were out there, so you need to be careful," she said. Just then Chase heard a loud boom and the ground vibrated beneath his feet.
"Gotta go, mama..." he said then staggered back down the road stunned, before his feet started working together and he ran, ran like he'd never run before. Jenny was out there by herself, on that side of the field, he'd left her out there alone. Joel and Beau were on the other side of the field and Cole and Gabe were at the end, but none of them would know he was gone...and they wouldn't know to protect Jenny.
When he reached the edge of the woods, he heard a gunshot and ran blindly into the thicket, crashing like a bull elephant, his only goal to get to Jenny. Briars cut into his skin, but he didn't care, he brushed them aside and kept going. He dragged burning breaths into his lungs and prayed as he ran that she was okay. Another gunshot sounded and his heart stopped, but he didn't. Chase pushed th
rough until he neared where he thought they'd been. He wasn't sure, because he hadn't been paying attention to where he was going.
When he heard voices, he stopped, breathing hard, but trying to do it quietly and listen. What he heard had ice flowing through his veins.
"Stop fighting, or I'll put a bullet in your head right now," a man said angrily then he heard limbs and leaves rustling.
"Get your fucking hands off of me!" Jenny shouted and then he heard an oomph sound and someone running. He hoped it was Jenny, and peeled the bushes apart to see if he could see anyone. A man was getting up holding his balls, and he had a mean ass pistol in his hand. Chase pulled the pistol Cole had given him from his waist and took off the safety like he'd been shown. He chambered a round and the sound was loud in the now quiet woods. Chase flinched then leaned forward and aimed at the guy. He didn't want to kill him, just maim him, but Chase knew his aim sucked. Their target practice had driven home that point. Killing the bastard was the least of his concern though, he was not going to let him go after Jenny again, and it looked like that was just what he planned to do, once his balls dropped back in place.
Chase aimed at what he thought was the man's leg and squeezed the trigger. Fire belched from the end of the weapon and Chase was set back a few steps. There was a scream, then a moan and Chase scrambled back to make sure he'd at least disabled the guy. Right then Beau Bowman crashed through the trees, his gun pointed at the man's head.
"Don't move..." he said in a voice that would turn just about anyone to stone. Chase had to admire that, even though he still thought the guy was an asshole.
"Don't shoot me...it's Chase," he shouted then stood up.
Beau glanced over at him, but then turned his attention back to the man on the ground. "Nice shot," Beau told him sarcastically then laughed loudly.
"Where'd I hit him?" Chase asked and made his way over there. The man was moaning and whining, and clutching his ass, but he wasn't moving. Smart guy.
"You hit him in the ass, but you stopped him, so it's all good, " Beau informed with a broad grin.
The brush rustled between the trees to the left and both Chase and Beau swung their guns in that direction.
"Don't shoot," Papa Jack yelled, before he and Cole stepped out of the trees.
Chase groaned, when the adrenaline pumping through his system took a break. Jenny was out there in the woods...alone. He had to find her, before someone accidentally shot her, or someone else got to her. Tensions were high, and people were probably not thinking straight.
"I'm going to find Jenny," he said and left them there to deal with the man he'd shot.
While he pushed through the trees, Chase heard distant sirens and figured the fire department was on the way to deal with the well fire. It wasn't the Bowie Sheriff's department, most of their deputies were already here.
"Jenny!" Chase yelled, and made his way further into the woods. He repeated his calls, until he was nearly hoarse. She didn't answer, and the more he yelled the more worried he became.
Suddenly he felt cold metal press into the back of his neck, and he stopped walking, standing perfectly still like a deer caught in a hunter's site. Because that was what he was.
"Don't move asshat...drop the gun," a gravelly voice said behind him. Chase looked around for a clear spot to throw the gun so he could find it if he somehow managed to get out of this, but the only thing he saw was brush. He was completely surrounded by it and briars and brambles. That meant he was also limited on moving, or trying to fight the guy.
Reluctantly, Chase threw the weapon into the brush to the right then put his hands up.
"Move," the guy told him with a shove.
Chase stumbled, but pushed through the briars, with the man right behind him. When he got to the other side of the thick brush, the briars thinned and it was mostly trees, so he could move a little easier. Discreetly, he surveyed the area trying to figure out how he was going to save himself, so he could save Jenny.
Chase sucked in a surprised breath when his foot caught on a tree root, and he saw the ground coming up to meet him. A shotgun blast echoed through the trees, then he heard a grunt and something heavy fell on top of him, knocking the breath out of him. No matter how he tried, he couldn't drag in a breath. He tried to push the weight off of him, but couldn't do that either. He was trapped, pinned and stars swam before his eyes, until they closed together to form a black curtain and his body relaxed.
Stinging slaps on his cheek woke him up and he sucked in a deep breath, and opened his eyes. "Oh, good god, Chase...don't tell me you're hurt again. Your mama is gonna kill me!" Jenny shouted frantically. "C'mon baby wake up!"
His breathing evened out, then Chase smiled. His mama would kill him if he got hurt again. She had nothing but praise for Jenny, who was always patching him up. He took a mental survey of his body from limb to limb and realized that nothing hurt this time. It looked like he'd been lucky and he'd just lost his wind. "I'm fine, baby...where's the guy who--"
"Dead," she told him bluntly, then added with a grin, "My aim was better than yours."
Chase felt blood rush to his face and went to sit up. She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Are you hurt?"
"Yeah, my butt kinda hurts, you wanna rub it?" he said with a snort.
"Only rubbing you're gonna get after this performance is the kind you don't want," she told him. "You know they're not going to let you live it down that you shot that guy in the butt."
Chase groaned and asked, "You saw that?"
"Glanced back and saw him grab his ass as I was running. Didn't stick around to make sure," she told him with a snort.
"I just wanted to be your hero, baby...I was worried about you," he told her with a smile that went from ear to ear.
Jenny smiled softly, her eyes filled with tears, then she said, "You are my hero, sugar...you saved my heart."
EPILOGUE
Jenny waited nervously on the bench outside the courtroom. Absently, she twisted the two-carat engagement ring on her left hand in circles and chewed her lip.
Chase was inside testifying to the Federal Grand Jury assembled to decide whether the owner of Pinion Drilling, Slim Watkins, was going to go on trial for the multiple offenses against him. He must be saying a lot, because he'd been in there nearly two hours.
He had a lot to say. Pinion had not only ruined eight of his drilling derricks, they'd tried to destroy his company's safety record and reputation, ignored federal safety mandates, and hired people to do their dirty work, killing someone in the process. Chase's main concern was his employees.
Pinion's actions had resulted in one death and four serious injuries.
Jenny didn't know much about the law, she was a doctor, but she did know the charges against him were serious. Capital murder was serious business.
Slim Watkins claimed not to know about what was going on, that his wife's brother was a vice president in the company, and he was basically handling operations, according to him. The feds didn't believe him, so they charged both him and his brother-in-law. It was their position that if he didn't know what was going on, he should have. It was his company.
Jenny didn't think Watkins or his brother-in-law had a snowball's chance in hell of getting off, and that made her happy. The case against them was strong, according to Chase.
The idiots Watkins had hired to sabotage the Rhodes Drilling wells were more than happy to talk, when they realized what they faced. The prosecutor didn't pull any punches, or cut them deals to talk either. He didn't have to, because they sang like birds. One had already spilled the beans to Curly Rhodes, before the police arrived at the mansion to arrest him.
She heard shoe heels clicking on the shiny tile floor and looked to see who was coming. Papa Jack walked toward her dressed in a suit. He looked good, but uncomfortable in the fancy attire. She loved that crotchety old man, almost as much as she loved his grandson.
She smiled at him and he gave her one back, then sat down beside her. He n
udged her with his elbow, "Hey, pretty lady...wanna make an old man's day and give me a kiss?"
She snorted, "You know Chase is gonna kick your butt for making time with his woman right? That is one possessive man..." she told him playfully shaking her head.
His face sobered and he told her, "He takes care of what's important to him, sugar...and you're important."
Tears burned her eyes and she looked away. "Dammit, old man don't do that...you know I'm not far from the watershed these days."
"Could be a reason for that, darlin'," he told her with a glance at her stomach.
"Yeah, I guess there is," she said smiling softly and rubbing her still flat tummy.
"You've made Curly the happiest woman in Texas, I know that." He chuckled and patted her knee, then added, "That boy is damned lucky, and he knows it...so do we, darlin'...he's accident prone and he's going to marry a doctor. A match made in heaven, I'd say."
"Or hell," she told him then clarified, "I worry so much about him, it makes me sick. He climbs up on those damned rigs like a monkey. He fell from a tree trying to save my cat, how can he think he can do that and not break his neck?"
"The only place in the world he's not clumsy is on a derrick, so that's the perfect place for him," Papa Jack told her.
"Yeah, isn't that the damndest thing?" Jenny said shaking her head.
The door of the jury room opened and Chase walked out looking harassed and tired. When his eyes met hers, he smiled that smile, and she felt the warmth of the sun travel through her body.
She stood and asked with concern, "How'd it go?"
"They're toast," he replied with a grin, excitement and happiness sparkling in his blue eyes. "Prosecutor just has to put a fork in 'em."
Jenny jumped up and down clapping her hands and he put his hands on her shoulders to stop her. "Don't do that, baby..." he cleared his throat and looked unsure. "Jostling around like that can't be good, right?"
"I'm fine, Chase," she said with a frustrated huff. Not only was he the most possessive man in Texas, he was also the most over-protective. It was taking some getting used to.
Chasing Trouble (Texas Trouble) Page 22