by Christa Wick
All I knew for the first few minutes was that the person was quiet and male -- and tall by the look of his shadow falling across the table. Gender I knew by the scent of him, engine grease, a squirt of citrus and sandalwood blended together with a few deeper, masculine spices I couldn't name. He had a nice smell, the kind a girl could snuggle up to at the end of a long day.
Before my curiosity could get the better of me, I heard that noise -- that small, short sound only one man I knew made and that had the power to turn my world upside down in a heartbeat. Already scowling, I turned to look at my driver. His deep, drowning blue eyes crinkled at the corners like I was supposed to be pleasantly surprised at his appearance.
I felt my face pucker into something unpleasant but couldn't unscrew it any better than I could get my heart to slow down.
His hand moved to fill the small of my back as his voice rumbled low across my lap. "You're not going to run away on me again, are you? I don't think my ego could take it a third time."
"Mister, I don't think anything could make a dent in that ego of yours!" I started to grab my tea and plate to leave.
His hand moved lassoed my hip as his big body leaned in. "Are you going to at least tell me why you keep running away from me, Virginia Kelly?"
"Right after you tell me why you're so intent on being cruel." I sucked more air between my teeth. Biscuits and gravy! Now I had all but admitted my hurt feelings. With all my years of being the fat girl in class and at work, I knew nothing got a bully going like seeing blood, and I'd just shown this stranger my open wounds.
His brow crinkled, mouth drawing down as his blue eyes grew shaded. "What do you mean?"
I felt something brush along my side, realized it was his thumb moving slow and sweet like a caress, one that zipped all helter skelter to tease my nipples and down between my legs, my clit swelling all big and achy as I caught the warm smell of spices rising up from his skin as he flushed lightly.
"Same thing you're trying to do right now!" I tried to stop my mouth, failed miserably. "Pretending at flirting with me!"
Chewing my bottom lip, I worked hard to hold my tears back. I was twenty-four, a grown woman even if I did still live with momma and daddy. Grown -- g-r-o-w-n. Not some stupid high school girl waiting on my doorstep in a prom dress because Bobby Jackson pretended he liked me just so he and Cherry Thompson and a bunch of their juvenile friends could drive by the house ringing cow bells.
Glaring at my driver, I wrenched his hand from my side and scooted down the table. To hell with him! It was time to put my big girl panties on because I wasn't going anywhere. And I sure as hell wouldn't let him see how badly he had gotten to me. If he saw, Beau would see, too, and Beau had kicked Bobby Jackson's ass to the county line and back. That's not exactly the impression my big brother wanted to make at a company picnic.
"Little girl, you've got things all--"
Beau's big, booming baritone interrupted him. "Mr. McKinley, I see you found her."
Confused as all get out, I looked from my brother's smiling face to the man sitting next to me. His cheeks had flushed a little darker but he forced an easygoing grin to his face.
"Yep, now I'm just trying to get her to say yes."
I kept looking between the two men, my mouth open wide enough to pop a baseball into it. What in blazes was going on? And was I sitting next to Hawk McKinley -- the second in command of McKinley Oil Company until his daddy Harrison decided to retire or kicked the bucket?
Closing my trap, I stared at him. He still faced Beau, just giving me a view of his profile and the occasional side glance, but everything I knew about Hawk McKinley fit this man. Not that I knew a lot. I'd never seen his picture, just knew he was a good ten years older than me and that McKinley Oil was run out of offices in New York. Oh, and put all his family together and the McKinley clan had more money than the devil himself.
"My baby sister is a bunch of things, but foolish isn't one of them. And she'd be a fool to say no to working the site's office with you." Beau laughed, his knuckles giving the table top a superstitious double tap just in case a June bug had crawled up his baby sister's ass.
McKinley finally looked at me, his smile jerking slightly askew as I glared at him.
"So, you want to hire me. Why?"
"Well." He cleared his throat, his smile tightening. "After seeing Beau work this week and him talking you up, I figured the only thing better than having one Kelly on my crew is having two."
I took a deep breath in, carefully trying to navigate this strange conversation without upsetting Beau or his plans. "Two?"
"That's right." I could hear the happiness in my big brother's voice. "You're looking at McKinley Oil's newest permanent hire."
"That's great, Beau." I smiled, my heart tucking deep inside my chest in search of a safe place. "Could you give us a few minutes, I can't negotiate if I'm getting tag teamed like this."
Beau laughed again, the sound like rolling thunder. I knew what was going through his head. Not just my fall tuition but something for his sweetheart Shelly, something with a diamond and maybe a down payment on a place of their own so he could finally ask her to marry him.
"See, I told you she was something. You willing to double her salary over Roy's and pay for next semester's school, but she's all set to bend you to another condition or two." Getting up, Beau beamed at me one last time, making me feel like McKinley had just stuck a salad fork in my chest and given it an extra twist for good measure.
I waited until my brother was out of earshot before I hissed at Hawk McKinley. "You're going to fix this. I don't know how, but you are. Tell him there's some software I've got to run but don't know or something."
"Mm-hmm." Hawk slid across the bench seat until he was right up against me once more. "Excel?"
"Puh-lease!" I nudged him with my elbow to keep him from getting any closer. "My gran is almost seventy-five and she knows how to run Excel. Don't you go insulting me with Word or Powerpoint next. You could have at least come up with something like QuickBooks."
Hawk still sat way too close, his proximity squeezing all the air from my lungs as his hand found that small valley low on my back once more. "So, you don't know QuickBooks--"
"Of course I do." I rolled my eyes at him. He must really think I was some kind of dumb West Texas hick. I may have only been picking up two classes a semester at Midland, but I'd gotten through all my General Education classes and had started on business and accounting. I wanted to stick my tongue out at him and tell him QuickBooks was so two semesters ago, but that didn't seem very mature.
"Well, little girl, it looks like you’re the perfect person to get the Tupperville office in shape."
Steam started to come out my ears, I'm sure of it.
"Look, Hawk McKinley. I'm not coming to work for you. You're going to fix this and you're going to stop calling me little girl. I'm not--" I snapped my mouth shut before I embarrassed myself anymore. It just made me mad to have him call me little girl. If I was little, I might be foolish enough to think he wasn't flirting with me just to have a little fun at my expense. Doesn't mean I'd take the job or do anything about the flirting, but it wouldn't hurt half as much.
"Mmm…" Hawk captured my hand, holding it so that it rested palm-to-palm with his much bigger hand.
Even sitting down, he towered over me by at least a foot and his broad shoulders dwarfed mine. So, yeah, he had the capacity to make me feel little, just like Beau made his sweet Shelly feel petite when she was every bit as big as me if not a little bigger. But I didn't have a smile that could melt an iceberg like Shelly did. I didn't put people at ease like she could. I was always charging in, head down, fists clenched…
Hawk leaned closer, his lips brushing my ear for a second. "I'm not fixing this. You don't want to work for me, fine, but you're going to have to come up with your own reasons and I'm nowhere close to finished negotiating with you."
I really didn't think this was part of the HR-approved McKinley recruiting
program. I sucked a breath in and told him so. "You don't really want me to go to work for you."
His mouth quirked in a smile and he blinked like a cat between naps. "You're right, I want you in my bed, but it seems like you're going to force me to take baby steps first."
Bed…baby steps?
Oh, hell no!
I scanned the other tables at the picnic site and the crowd around the volleyball net and horseshoe spikes, my eyes landing at last on Cherry Thompson. Somehow, it was entirely fitting that she had found a way to be at the McKinley company picnic, standing alongside one of the young workers and rubbing her hands up and down his muscled arms.
"There." I jabbed a finger in Cherry's direction. "If you're looking for a hole to fill, you don't need to go through all this fuss, Mr. McKinley."
The grunt he gave didn't sound anything like those sexy little hybrid purrs he seemed prone to.
"Ginny, I don't take a woman to bed unless I can picture sharing a child with her, if it comes down to it." He jabbed his finger in Cherry's direction. "I can't imagine sharing so much as a rabid honey badger with that woman."
I would have laughed my ass off if I wasn't so ready to cry. I pushed away from him. "You're getting up and walking away from this table, Hawk McKinley." I drew a shuddering breath in, my voice trembling and the tears building to the point I couldn't contain them much longer. "If you really, really meant what you just said, you'll leave me alone right now--"
Hawk had no intention of relenting. A hand around my elbow kept me from retreating any further. "If I meant what I said, and I do, walking away is the last thing you can expect from me. Just not happening, baby girl."
I stared at him, all my words and fury abandoning me. My lips started to quiver and I felt the first slide of a tear falling hot and fat down my cheek.
"Ginny…"
Hawk tried rubbing his palm along my arm to calm me. I shrank inward, refusing to look at him any longer. He looked sincere. Bobby Jackson had looked sincere, too. I could still hear the cow bells ringing if I cut out all the noise from the crowd around McKinley and me.
"I'll go, for now." Hawk jumped up from the table. "If it'll settle you, I'll go. But we're not done discussing this, Ginny. We'll take this at whatever pace you're comfortable…"
His hand brushed my shoulder. My whole body stiffened at his touch.
"Just go," I whispered and he did.
**********************
Telling Beau I needed to talk to Roy first and that the offer wasn't as good as it sounded because I had to factor in lost tips, too, I managed to keep my big brother mostly off the topic of my accepting Hawk McKinley's job offer the rest of the weekend. He still tried to argue McKinley's case, assuring me there was room for a bigger salary because Red Addams, the site foreman, had sent all of his former clerks home to their mommas crying like little girls, and every last one of them was a man. But Beau didn't bring the job up with momma and daddy or offer me more than the occasional, quizzical look.
Certain I could handle Beau without having to take a job with McKinley, I walked into the steakhouse Monday morning to find myself unemployed.
All thanks to Hawk McKinley if I understood Roy correctly.
"I hate to lose you, Ginny, but he was real convincing." Roy had tossed an arm around my shoulder and gave me a paternal squeeze as I stared at him, my mouth working like a guppy freshly pulled from its fish bowl. "I can't hope to pay you that kind of money and he's right when he says the office job will look better on your resume once you finish classes up."
Roy stuck a fat, padded envelope in my hand. "He said you'd need this before heading out to the site."
Thus ended the job I'd held since high school, one that had helped keep the utilities on while daddy was laid up and helped get them turned on in the first place when the Kelly family's world had been turned upside down eighteen months ago. Pulling into the H-E-B Foods parking lot to sit and mull things over for a spell, I tried not to think about the storm that had knocked out the power at the garage daddy worked at, short circuiting the car lift he was working under. Tearing open the envelope, I tried not to think of how, ten miles away from where daddy was trapped for six hours under a car that day, a tornado blew through the Kelly homestead, obliterating the building and every last stick of furniture and personal articles in it. Good-bye to my parents' wedding photos, the baby blankets Gran had quilted for me and Beau, the china daddy's great-great grandmother had brought over from Ireland. Good-bye everything.
Money spilled from the envelope, a thick wad of hundreds with a piece of paper wrapped around it. Bracing myself for another Hawk McKinley negotiating tactic, I unfolded the paper and started to read.
Ginny,
I know you're pissed as hell at me right now. I also know if I let you have your way, you'll run and hide. So understand this -- I don't plan on leaving you anywhere to hide, sweet tea. The finance office at Midland shows your next semester is paid in full as of eight this morning. Enclosed is every dollar for every hour you will work at the McKinley site. If you still choose to run, fine. But I'll keep chasing. I don't stop until I get what I want, and I want you.
Hawk
Certain I was going to pass out, I let the money fall to the floor and wrapped my hands around the steering wheel. I bent my neck until my forehead rested against the wheel then I closed my eyes.
Sweet baby Jesus, what was wrong with that man?
Was it possible? Did Hawk McKinley really find me attractive? I took a few deep breaths in before I opened my eyes and stared at the money covering my shoes. I reached down, picked it up and counted through it. More than twice the five weeks left of summer shifts at Roy's. Hawk McKinley could afford it and much more, which kept the money and the offer within the realm of the cruelest practical joke I could imagine.
Could it be a cruel joke? Everything I had read, hunkered down at the computer in the library on Sunday afternoon, suggested he was a good man. He didn't just give money to charity like the rest of his family did. When McKinley Oil donated to Habitat for Humanity after the tornadoes ripped through East Texas last year, he not only signed a very big check, but went and swung the hammer, too, taking all his local crew from Beaumont for two weeks.
Was that all public relations or all Hawk?
Knowing I wasn't going to figure out what McKinley was up to while I sat in the grocery store parking lot, I stuffed the money back in the envelope and drove home to change for my new job.
**********************
On the back of Hawk McKinley's letter was a map to the site offices. I knew the building and location. It was the only concrete structure around it for a good seven miles and the only thing standing in that area after the line of tornadoes that took out our house. It had been built in the eighties to hold dairy cattle during milking, but a drought had involuntarily changed the owner's mind before the equipment could be installed. The building had been sitting empty except for cobwebs and spiders until McKinley Oil leased the land after the wells hit.
Parking along the side of the building, I was barely out of my car when I heard a string of curse words that would make a sailor blush. Then I heard something like the sound of metal striking metal. I followed the noise to the back of the building where I found a thickly mustached fifty something male still cussing up a storm as he battled a portable generator. With the way the man was swinging his wrench, I approached cautiously, letting my feet stir up the gravel so he could hear me coming.
Looking up, his scowl softened. "You my new Girl Friday?"
"If you're Red Addams, then, yes sir, I am." I could feel the heat coming off the generator.
Roy had this exact model for when storms knocked the electricity out at the steakhouse. Without asking, I opened the main panel and started poking around a bit. The thermostat was opening, but it was half choked with dust. Taking the wrench from Red, I gave the area much softer taps, trying not to laugh. The Mustang wasn't the only piece of McKinley's equipment with radiator i
ssues.
After another minute spent checking the rest of the engine, I started it back up. "You have an air compressor on site? It could use a good blow."
"Got one I can get back here this evening." Wiping a bandana across his dirt streaked forehead, Red gave a short nod telling me I had passed at least the first part of his inspection. "If you know your way around the computer as well as an engine, little girl, I'm going to owe Hawk a bottle of scotch."
I smiled at Red. At more than twice my age, he could call me little girl if it suited him. Hawk could not, and I was going to let McKinley know exactly that at the first available opportunity. Still smiling, I followed Red around to the front of the building. Stepping inside, he pointed at a desk then plopped down in front of the small AC unit plugging up the window, his face all but touching the grill.
"Sweet Jesus it's hot!"
I sat down at the desk, my gaze glued to a vase of freshly cut yellow roses. Next to it, a clean coffee cup, Kelly green in color, rested upside down.
Seeing what held my attention, Red laughed. "Hawk said he might have strong armed you into working for me. I guess that's his way of apologizing."
My mouth flattened and Red laughed even harder. "Looks like the boss might have to grovel a bit. Can I watch?"
"No, I prefer to do my groveling in private." I hadn't noticed the Mustang parked near the building, but the smooth as silk voice came from the doorway behind me. The door had been closed when Red and I came in. Now Hawk McKinley filled it with his big frame. He slapped a rolled sheath of papers against his thigh then nodded at the computer in front of me. "Why don't you take a few minutes getting Ginny logged in, then we need to discuss the numbers coming out of rig eight."
Those "few minutes" lasted fifteen as Red showed me where to find the inventory lists on my computer, the crew's time sheets, purchase orders and more, made sure I knew how to work the two-way radio and then set me to sorting out some open items before he disappeared behind the door marked Private.
