by Sandra Brown
As soon as the office door closed behind Harlan, Lucky asked, "What's up?"
Since time was of the essence, Sage saw no point in beating around the bush. "I want a career."
The two stunned men looked at her for a moment, then at each other, then at her again. "A career?" Chase repeated.
"I didn't stutter."
"You've got a career," Lucky said. "You'll soon be getting married."
"Marriage isn't a career!"
"Being married to Travis Belcher will be the most demanding job anybody could ask for."
"Lucky." Chase sighed retiringly.
Sage gripped the back of the nearest chair in an effort to control her temper. It would serve no purpose now to spar with Lucky. She had to plead her case convincingly. Flying off the handle would accomplish nothing except make her look immature and unprofessional.
"I'm not sure when I'll be getting married," she said, evading a bald lie yet skirting the truth. "In the meantime, I need a job, something challenging to keep me occupied and interested. I want to earn my own living."
"Well, hey, I'm sure there are lots of jobs to be had in Houston," Lucky said, breaking into the charming grin that had earned him a reputation with women. "Or do you plan to stay in Austin until you and Travis tie the knot?"
"I … I thought I'd stay in Milton Point for a while. That is, if it won't be too much of an imposition on you and Devon for me to live at home."
"Hell, no. That's your house, too, Sage. It belongs to all of us. What the hell do you mean about being an imposition?"
"Lucky," Chase said, intervening again, "let's hear her out first, okay? Then open it up for discussion."
"Wasn't that what I was doing?"
Chase, ignoring his brother, turned his intense gray eyes onto Sage. "Are you asking us to run interference for you, Sage? Grease the skids? Put in a good word with a prospective employer? Write you a letter of recommendation? We'd be glad to, wouldn't we, Lucky? Give us a name, we'll do what we can. Where would you like to work?"
They still didn't get it. To them she was their kid sister, useless except as an object to play practical jokes on. It crushed her to know that what she wanted to do would never have even occurred to them.
She couldn't afford the time to indulge her disappointment, however. So much more than hurt feelings was at stake. Squaring her shoulders and holding her head up proudly, she stated, "Here. I want to work for Tyler Drilling."
Again, they stared back at her with stupefaction. Chase managed to speak first. "Here? Well, hey, Sage, that's, uh, that's terrific."
"What the hell are you—" Lucky clamped his jaws shut when Chase shot him a warning glance. "Uh, yeah, Sage, that's great."
She released a deep breath. The band of tension around her ribcage relaxed. A soft laugh erupted from her mouth. "Really? You mean it?"
"Sure," Lucky drawled expansively. "Why not? There's always something to do around here. We're always behind on our filing. Even in these hard times, bookkeeping is a bitch that Chase and I both hate dealing with. Neither one of us is very good at it. And, as you can see, we're not very good housekeepers either."
Sage, seeing red, turned on her heels and marched toward the door. Chase went after her and caught her wrist. "Let me go." She struggled to be released.
"No, and if you bite me the way you did when you were a kid, I'll slug you. Now, be still." He rounded on Lucky. "The next time you're tempted to shoot off your big, dumb mouth, do the world a favor and keep it shut."
Lucky spread his arms wide in a gesture of total confusion. "What'd I do? What'd I say?"
Sage managed to wrest her arm free. Rather than leaving, however, she forgot about her resolve to control her temper and confronted them with the ferocity of a brave, young lioness, fangs bared, claws extended. She was, after all, fighting for her life.
"I wasn't looking for work as a file clerk, or a gofer, or a maid, Lucky," she shouted. "When it comes right down to it, I'm as qualified as either of you to operate a business. Maybe not in practical, hands-on experience, but I've got more education.
"I was weaned on discussions about the oil industry, every single aspect of it. By osmosis, I've absorbed a lot of knowledge. This business is currently failing. I'm not blaming that on either of you, but it sure as hell can't hurt to bring another person into the company. A member of the family, that is," she added, thinking of Harlan.
"No one has thought to ask, but I just might have some fresh ideas. Besides, even if I don't, I've got as much right to be here as the two of you. The only difference between us is that I've got ovaries instead of balls. If I had been born male, you would have expected me to join the company straight out of college.
"And before you go labeling me an aggressive feminist, let me set you straight on that. I love being a woman. I wouldn't want to be anything else. But I want to be treated fairly and equally when it comes to a career, the way both your wives are treated in their professional fields. I don't think either of you doubts their femininity.
"I want you to start thinking of me as an intelligent adult and not the child in pigtails you used to torment for recreation. I'm not merely precocious, I'm intelligent. I've been grown up for a long time, though obviously you haven't noticed.
"Well, it's time you did. I refuse to be patted on the head and then pushed aside and overlooked as though I were invisible. I won't be shut out any longer."
A long silence followed her speech. Her breasts heaved with indignation and her golden brown eyes flashed with remnant anger.
Finally Lucky said, "Whew! That was some lecture, br … uh, Sage."
"Thanks."
"Did Devon coach you?"
"I did it all myself."
Chase spoke for the first time. "We didn't intentionally exclude you from the family business, Sage. But since you've been grown, you've been away at school. We assumed that you wouldn't be working at all after you got married, certainly not here in Milton Point." He frowned. "I assume you've discussed this with Travis. What does he think about it?"
"It doesn't matter. I never have been, nor will I ever be, his chattel." Never had she been more truthful. "Until I get married I want to be productive."
"What did you have in mind doing for the company?"
She looked at them uneasily, then cast her eyes downward. This was a weak link in her argument. "I'm not sure. I know that for several years you've been trying to think of ways to diversify. Maybe I could help there by providing a fresh perspective.
"Or maybe I could try to cultivate new clients, since most of our old ones are currently out of business. I think if I had access to the figures, I could put together deals that would be profitable, but provide good incentive to potential clients."
"We couldn't pay you much," Lucky said grimly.
"You don't have to pay me at all." They looked surprised. She hastened to add, "I could work on commission. You wouldn't have to pay me anything until I generated some business, and then I'd take an agreed-on percentage of the net."
"What'll you live on?"
"I didn't use all the money you gave me for that last semester of school. It's still in savings. Besides, if I'm living at home, I won't need much beyond gasoline money. I'm accustomed to making do with what clothes I've got and stretching my wardrobe."
Chase looked chagrined. "I'm sorry about that, Sage. We haven't been able to lavish material things on you the last several years. You've been damned understanding about it."
"You never asked for much either, and we appreciate that," Lucky added.
Her heart melted and she moved toward them, wrapping an arm around each. "We're all in this crisis together, aren't we? From now on, I want to do my part to get us out. Is it settled?"
"Fine with me," Lucky said.
Chase looked down at her. "Okay, you're in. But don't thank us too soon. It might only mean that you sink right along with us."
Hearing only his consent, she threw herself against him and hugged him hard before
turning to Lucky and hugging him with equal exuberance. "You won't be disappointed in me, I swear. Thank you for giving me this chance."
"You don't have to prove yourself to us, Sage," Chase said.
"Maybe not. But I have to prove myself to me."
"You know, Chase," Lucky said, "she might be able to sell Harlan's idea to somebody better than we could."
"Harlan," she muttered. Her burst of elation dissipated at the mention of his name. In her excitement, she had almost forgotten him. "Exactly what is Harlan's idea?"
Taking her arm, Chase steered her toward the door. "Come on, we'll show you."
* * *
Situated a short distance from the office, the garage was a large, cavernous building. Several years earlier, it had burned to the ground. Lucky had been accused of setting the fire, but Devon Haines, with whom he had spent that night, had provided him with an alibi. Alvin Cagney and Jack Ed Patterson, local no-accounts, were still in prison serving time for the crime.
The building had been reconstructed on its original site and all the equipment destroyed in the fire had been replaced. For all that, the garage wasn't what it had been in its heyday. Sage remembered it from her childhood as a dirty place, smelling of oil and mud and hardworking men, a place ringing with the racket of machinery and the salty language of the roughnecks.
It hadn't been a proper environment for a young lady, and for that reason it had been generally off-limits to her when she was growing up. She had envied her brothers their freedom to come and go at will, to mix with the men who worked for their father. Many times, she had wanted to visit the drilling sites and take part in the celebration when a well came in.
She was sad to note, when Chase drove his pickup through the wide double doors, that the garage had changed. It was too clean. The equipment stood silent and dusty. There were no roughnecks milling around wiping their dirty faces with grimy bandannas while cursing bad weather, rotten luck, and dry holes. The laughter and tall tales of the good ol' days in the East Texas oilfields had disappeared.
There was only one man in the garage now and he was bent over a drafting table, studying a mechanical drawing. At the sound of the pickup pulling in, he stood upright and shoved a yellow school pencil into the thick blond hair behind his ear. He looked at Sage inquiringly as she approached him with her brothers walking on each side of her.
"Any progress, Harlan?"
He shook his head. "Not much. I just don't see a way to make it any cheaper."
"Make what?" Sage asked.
Harlan stepped aside and waved his hand over the drawing. She studied it for a moment but couldn't make heads or tails out of it. She hated to show her ignorance, but had no choice.
"It's not a surrealistic still life of a bowl of fruit is it?"
The men chuckled. "You explain it to her, Harlan," Chase suggested. "It's your idea."
"Well, it's like this," he began. "I figured that with some adaptations, an oil well pump could be converted into a pump for something else, namely water."
"Sometimes water is pumped into an oil well."
"Very good," Lucky said, patting her on the head. Then, as though remembering her earlier words, drew his hand back. "Meaning no offense."
"None taken," she said automatically. Harlan was holding her attention with his dynamic blue eyes, which weren't only insolent and mocking when he wanted them to be, but clearly the windows into a clever mind as well. "What application did you have in mind?"
He hesitated. Chase said, "Sage is part of the company now. You can tell her what we've been working on."
"Oh, I'm sure she can keep a secret," he remarked with just a trace of laughter behind his words. "The application would be irrigation, Sage. With a little ingenuity, and some working capital," he added, giving Chase and Lucky a grim smile, "we could adapt the drilling equipment into an irrigation system."
She digested that a moment. "For whom?"
"That's where you might enter in, Sage," Lucky told her. "Once we get a prototype, we'll need to do some marketing."
"Farmers," she said.
"That would be a good start."
"And the citrus growers down in the valley." The wheels of her mind began turning, but before she carried her ideas too far, she saw the immediate and pressing problem. "You said you needed working capital."
Chase sighed. "Harlan's almost finished with the prototype, but we had to stop him because we haven't got any cash to invest."
"But you can't let that stop you!" she cried. "Before you can do anything, you've got to have a prototype."
"Tell us about it," Lucky muttered.
"Surely you could borrow—"
"Forget it. There isn't a bank in Texas that's loaning any money to anyone in the oil business."
"Outside the state," she suggested.
"Once they hear your Texas twang, they all but hang up on you. Being from the Lone Star State is the kiss of death if you're looking for financing," Lucky said.
"We're dead in the water," Chase told her.
"No pun intended," Harlan said.
"We've got literally miles of pipe stacked up behind this building ready to be put to use," Chase said. "But for right now, we have to leave it there."
"What do you need?" she asked Harlan.
"Minicomputer," he told her.
"What for?"
"Automatic timing."
"I see. It wouldn't work without one?"
"It would, but it wouldn't be state of the art."
"And we need it to be high tech."
"Right."
For a moment they silently considered their frustrating situation, then Lucky glanced at his wristwatch. "I need to get back to the office, Chase. Even though this is the week between the holidays, some people are still doing business, and I've got some calls out. I should be there if they call back."
"Sage, why don't you stay here with Harlan till suppertime," Chase suggested. "He can bring you home. Let him explain how this thing is going to work. If you're going to be selling it, you've got to know all the answers."
"A-all right," she faltered.
She would rather be strung up by her thumbs than pass the rest of the afternoon in Harlan's company, but she couldn't very well refuse her first official assignment as an employee of Tyler Drilling Company.
* * *
Chapter 8
After her brothers had departed, she glanced around the silent building, folding her arms across her chest against the chill.
"Cold?" Harlan asked.
"A little."
"Scoot over here closer to the heater."
There was a small, electric space-heater on the floor near his feet. She moved toward its directional heat rays and extended her hands to capitalize on the warmth. The fisherman's sweater she was wearing over her slacks had been sufficient outside, but the building seemed colder.
"I guess I owe you my thanks for not telling them about Travis's engagement."
Their eyes connected and held for a moment. He looked vaguely disappointed in her. "You don't owe me anything. Hand me that ruler, please."
She reached behind her into the tray of drafting tools he indicated. He took the narrow metal ruler from her and used it to add a line to his drawing.
She leaned forward for a closer inspection, but the schematic still looked to her like nothing more than an odd arrangement of lines and arcs. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"I've got an engineering degree from Texas A&M that says I do."
"You have a college degree?"
Her incredulity didn't insult him, as it might have. Instead, he grinned and turned his head toward her. "If he pays his tuition and completes the required courses, they'll give a degree to just about anybody."
"I'm sorry I sounded … well, I'm surprised, that's all. Where'd you graduate from high school?"
"I didn't." He made an erasure and readjusted the length of a line, measuring it precisely. "I got my high school diploma by correspondence."<
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"Why, for heaven's sake?"
"I was working in a refinery. That was the only way I could get an education and earn a living at the same time."
"You were working full time while you were in high school?"
"That's right."
"Supporting yourself?"
"Hmm. No football games, no homecoming pep rallies, no proms. I worked the graveyard shift and studied during the day when I wasn't sleeping."
Sage felt incredibly sad for him and had to stop herself from laying a consoling hand on his shoulder. "What about your parents?"
He dropped his pencil and faced her again. "You sure ask a lot of questions, you know that?"
"If we're going to be working together, we should know something about each other."
"I don't think that's necessary."
"I do."
He studied the stubborn angle of her jaw and apparently saw the advisability of humoring her. "What do you want to know?"
"What about your family? Why were you working in a refinery to support yourself when you should have been enjoying high school?"
"I left home when I was fifteen."
"Why?"
"I just split, okay? I've been on my own ever since. As soon as I got my high school diploma, I enrolled at A&M and went through in three years. By the time I was twenty, I was educated and accountable to no one except myself." He tapped her chin with his fingertip. "That includes you."
"I can't imagine being so adrift."
He shrugged laconically. "You get used to it. Wanna see this thing or not?"
Whether she liked it or not, he had brought the discussion to a close. She regretted not having learned more about him. What little he had told her had left her more intrigued than pacified. For the time being, it seemed, he would remain an enigma.
He ushered her toward a large tarpaulin and pulled it back, uncovering a piece of machinery that looked to her like any other oil well pump. "This is as far as we've got," he said. "It still needs—"