by Radclyffe
“It’s more than that, it’s the law. We have to accept regulations that aren’t always to our benefit, and we ought to be able to use those that are.”
“The public doesn’t care about the law, Eloise, it’s all about perception.”
“And that’s your job, isn’t it?”
Austin watched Gem walking back toward her. Manipulating perception, yes. That was her job, that was her skill. That was her. “I have to go.”
❖
Maybe it was the wine or the night closing in around the vehicle that sent Gem to sleep, but the deceleration of the SUV was what roused her. She jolted awake, discovered her head leaning at an awkward angle against the side window, and straightened with a nearly inaudible groan. “Sorry, I flaked out on you.”
“Not a problem,” Austin said.
“I wasn’t snoring, was I?”
“Um…no?”
“Good answer.” Gem blinked and peered through the windshield. Fog had rolled in again, but that wasn’t uncommon along the shore. It didn’t necessarily harbinger another storm, although she estimated this time it did. The town of Rock Hill, more a village really, encompassed barely a mile in length, the main street hugging the shoreline and the residential areas extending from it like tiny bristles on one of those spindly brushes used to clean test tubes. There were no hotels, merely a few dozen bed-and-breakfasts situated along the main drag, and at this time of year, they would be empty except for seasonal events like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and of course, the great migration. No Vacancy signs abounded. Fortunately, she didn’t have to worry about that. She had a car waiting for her at the tiny airport at the far end of the island. By midnight, she ought to be in her own quiet cabin, warm and dry and…alone. Usually she looked forward to solitude. Tonight her feelings were mixed.
She hadn’t spent so many continuous hours with one single person in weeks—possibly months. She didn’t really count dinner and an evening spent watching television and then sleeping with Kim in the same way. They talked, of course, shared the events of their recent days, discussed books or movies they’d read or were interested in seeing, and slept companionably until they enacted their choreographed morning routine of moving around one another in the bathroom—hers or Kim’s, depending on whose residence they’d spent the night at, before going off to work.
Those nights were pleasant, but not intense. Not like the day she’d just spent with Austin. An exhausting day, an exhilarating day, a day fraught with emotion and excitement. A night alone would be welcome. She needed to think about what had happened, perhaps even make sense of it if she was lucky. Still, she didn’t want to say good night. She didn’t want to let go of the feeling of being so alive. She never knew where the next conversation would take them, when casual contact would morph into something more, when she’d look across the space between them and be struck by the sensual angle of Austin’s jaw or the erotic promise in her hands.
“Which way to the airport?” Austin asked.
“Actually, there’s only one way to and from anything in this place. Just keep driving straight and you’ll eventually end up at the airport. It’s at the very end of the island. I’m sorry to make you play chauffeur now. I’m sure you’re beat.”
Austin smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine, really. I’m used to crazy travel schedules with no sleep.”
Gem frowned. “Really? I got the impression you didn’t get out all that much—that you tended to hibernate with your work.”
Austin’s jaw tightened. “I don’t really have any set schedule.”
“Okay.” Gem sensed the issue was closed although she couldn’t quite see why. They rode in silence until Austin turned into the access road to the airport. Five or six small planes, dimly illuminated in the diffuse glow of the halogen lights penetrating the fog, were tied down at the end of the runway beside the small single-story terminal. “It looks like all the flights have been grounded. I’m not surprised.”
“I’m sure there were plenty of people who didn’t get off the island today if they’d planned on flying.” Austin pulled up in front of the terminal. “I’ll wait until you get your car so you can transfer your luggage.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that.”
Austin leaned closer and squeezed her hand. “I want to. It’s no trouble.”
“Thanks,” Gem said. “It shouldn’t be long.”
She hurried inside and wasn’t surprised to find the waiting room empty. Clearly, no flights were leaving here anytime soon. No one was behind the counter, but an open door spilled light from an office in the rear.
“Hello?”
A few seconds later a trim, middle-aged sandy-haired woman in a long-sleeve navy-blue shirt and dark pants emerged. Her name tag read Peg. “Hi. Can I help you?”
“Yes,” Gem said. “I was supposed to arrive early this morning from Baltimore, but my flight was canceled.”
Peg made a face. “Everything’s been canceled. I’m not sure we’ll fly tomorrow.”
“Yes, well, I reserved a car. Can I pick it up here?”
“Sure can.” Peg pulled a folder out from under the counter, flipped it open, and scanned a page. “We won’t have much of a choice for you, I’m afraid. When news of the storm came in and the weather started turning bad, a lot of folks who were supposed to fly out rented cars. Name?”
Gem told her. “Anything with four wheels and an engine will be perfect.”
Peg smiled, gave her some paperwork to fill out, and handed her the keys. “I hope you’re not headed too far tonight.”
“No, just out to Kramer Point.”
“Not tonight you won’t be.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Not by car. Part of the causeway’s washed out. I don’t know how bad it is, but last I heard, they’ve stopped all traffic out to the Point in both directions.”
“And the pontoon boats?”
“You mean from Flyers?” Peg chuckled. “Even if you could find someone around to rent you one, only a crazy person would try that at night, and in this weather?” She cocked her head. “You don’t exactly look crazy to me.”
“Right at this moment, you’d be surprised.” Gem sighed and picked up the keys. “Thanks.”
As she approached the car, she could see Austin behind the wheel, her head tipped back against the seat. She had to be tired, but she wouldn’t admit it. Gem smiled to herself. She understood priding oneself on independence, even sometimes when it wasn’t completely to her benefit. She opened the car door as quietly as she could, but Austin was already sitting upright and gazing in her direction when she slid in.
“All set?” Austin asked.
“Yes and no. I’ve got a car, but I can’t get to my cabin tonight. Apparently the road is underwater.”
Austin frowned. “You’re going to have trouble finding anyplace to stay in town.”
“There’s got to be one room. I’ll make some calls. You should get going. I can’t imagine you want anything more than to crawl into bed right now.”
Austin grinned. “Well, now that you mention it…”
Gem’s face heated. “I guess you’re not so tired you can’t make trouble.”
Austin’s grin widened. “Never am.”
“I’ll just get my bags.”
“Wait.” Austin grabbed her hand. “Why don’t you call around from here, and then I’ll follow you to your place. The roads are really bad tonight.”
Gem should say no, but she didn’t really want to. The parking lot was empty and a little creepy in the fog. Visibility was no more than a few feet. The interior of the SUV was warm, and Austin was there. Gem flicked on the dash light and perused the town’s weekly magazine she’d picked up inside that listed all the restaurants, motels, B and Bs, and other businesses. Twenty minutes later, she closed her phone. “Other than going door to door, I think I’m out of options.”
“Nothing?”
Gem shook her head. “Well, it won’t be the first ti
me I’ve slept in my car.”
Austin laughed. “It’s hardly going to come to that.”
“I don’t plan on sleeping in the airport.”
“Of course not. You’ll sleep with me.”
Chapter Nine
“I appreciate the offer,” Gem said, “but I’m afraid I can’t take you up on it.”
“I was kidding about the with me part,” Austin said. “But not about sharing quarters. I’ve got a room and you don’t. Not much different than me having a car and you being stranded.”
“I agree with the logic,” Gem said, “but the reality is a little bit different. I know what the rooms are like in these places where space is worth more than gold—if there’s three square feet to move around between the bed and the door, I’d be surprised. Which means there’s no extra room for an extra body.” She took a deep breath. After all, she had been the one to open this particular door, and Austin couldn’t be faulted for testing the waters. “And as appealing as the thought might be, I’m not sleeping with you.”
“I admit, I’m a little old to be sharing a bed in a purely platonic fashion with a woman I find attractive—summer camp this isn’t,” Austin said. “But given that we are two adults, we can probably rein in our teenage hormonal impulses for one night.”
Gem laughed. Austin was hard to say no to, and what she didn’t intend to say was that she was saying no more to herself—okay, completely to herself—than to Austin. She wasn’t entirely certain she could rein in those hormones as easily as Austin seemed to think she could. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t think twice about bunking with another woman in an emergency. She’d shared close quarters plenty of times out in the field with women she liked, including women she found attractive, theoretically. Unfortunately, her attraction to Austin was already far beyond theoretical. She trusted Austin not to push—she hadn’t so far—but she didn’t trust herself. She didn’t know what her body was doing. Well, she did, she recognized desire after all, but she didn’t know why. And she needed to. She simply did not have these kind of impulses, but there they were. Even now, desire kindled deep inside. The biologist in her understood the unconscious basis of attraction, the pheromones and hormones that governed physical responses, but she hadn’t been motivated by instinct in a long time.
Aware Austin was contemplating her patiently, Gem searched for some rational plan. “Let’s do this. Let’s make sure you actually have accommodations. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the people who had planned to check out today didn’t. And in this kind of weather, when it’s unlikely that people who had reservations would actually make it, the innkeepers might simply have ignored incoming reservations. We might both be sleeping in the truck.”
“I can just about guarantee that’s not going to happen,” Austin said. “But it’s a plan, and it’s better than leaving you here at the airport sitting on your luggage. Let me MapQuest this place and you can follow—”
“What’s the name of the inn? I know the town well, and new businesses are unusual. Chances are I’ve been there or at least by it.”
Austin thumbed through her emails and found the information from Eloise. “Gulls Inn.” She laughed. “Doesn’t every town along the shore have one of those?”
“Of course. It’s on Bay Street, the main road, all the way at the other end. I’ll go first.”
“See you there.” Austin pulled out behind Gem, the muted red glow of the rental car taillights the only illumination in the fog. She didn’t know how long her cell signal would last, but she figured it would be strongest near the airport. She needed to get in touch with Ray Tatum, if only to let him know she was on-site. From what Eloise had said, they weren’t in crisis mode yet, and there was nothing she could do out at the rig even if she could get there, which wasn’t happening tonight. She’d kept the email from Eloise open and squinted at the message by the greenish light from the dash, picked out the phone number Eloise had included for Ray, and thumbed it to call. He answered on the fourth ring, his brusque, faintly Irish-accented voice staticky.
“Tatum.”
“Ray, it’s me, Austin. I finally made it to Rock Hill. What’s the situation?”
“Fucking storm is killing us,” he said.
From experience, she knew something was always killing Ray. She’d worked with him enough times to know his hyperbole masked a hard-nosed bulldog of a personality. He’d do anything necessary to protect the rig, the oil, and by extension, the company. She liked him, but sometimes he was a pain in the ass to keep on a short tether. “Looks like there’s a break for a while.”
“My fancy-pants PhD meteorologist tells me it’s a false calm. Another front will be rolling in tomorrow night or the next day. We’ve got a small window of clear air starting around ten tomorrow.”
“Can you get me out to the rig for a look around?”
“Unless something blows wide open tonight, in which case I can’t get you out here by boat or air anyhow, midmorning should be fine. I’ll have a bird at the airport for you.”
“How do things look?”
“The rig foreman, Paulie Antanole, first noticed the pressure drop at one in the morning,” he said. “His boys were right quick about getting the sealer valves engaged. Kept a lid on things, but we haven’t stopped the leak.”
“Can you plug it?”
“If we can isolate the level, maybe.” Tatum sighed. “Hate to kill the well if we don’t have to.”
Austin didn’t have the authority to order Tatum to inactivate the well, and trying to explain to him that GOP would be happier losing a few million in profits from this one rig than having a PR nightmare that would cost far more wasn’t worth her breath. Tatum was an oilman—he’d do what he was ordered to do if all else failed, but he’d want to save the well if he could. “But you’re not blooming on the surface?”
“One thing the currents are good for in this fucking storm,” he growled, “is they’re dispersing it before it reaches the surface.”
Austin wasn’t assured. Dispersion that far from shore was safe, if it was really dispersing. When Deepwater Horizon blew in the Gulf of Mexico, underwater plumes of oil rode the currents as far as the Florida coast, fouling beaches and poisoning sea life. They couldn’t let that happen here. “Who’s watching currents?”
“Ali Farr.”
“He’s sure we don’t have a collection that’s going to get loose?”
“Fuck me if I know. He says we’re good so far.”
“What’s your gut feeling on this, Ray?”
“I don’t like it. If we can get the remote underwater vehicles down there and get a seal, we’ve got a chance. If the fucking storm doesn’t hit. Otherwise, my guess is we’ll see surface oil in the next thirty-six hours.”
So they needed some luck, and hers had been running pretty bad so far. Austin watched Gem’s taillights wink in the fog. Less than forty-eight hours and Gem would know the rest of her story. The fragile link between them would be broken.
She blinked the fatigue from her eyes. “I’ll check in first thing in the morning if I don’t hear anything from you tonight. For now I guess we sit on our hands.”
“Been doing that all fucking day,” Tatum said. “I hope we dragged your ass out here for nothing.”
Austin thought of the hours with Gem that felt more like days, Gem and the scant time left to them. “Not for nothing, Ray. Definitely not for nothing.”
❖
Gem kept an eye on her rearview mirror, checking to make sure she didn’t lose Austin. Every few seconds, she caught a glimpse of headlights flickering through the soup. Ahead of her, her headlights disappeared in a blurry cone, giving her about twenty feet of visibility. Fortunately, they only had a mile or so to go, and at a cautious crawl, she spotted the sign for Gulls Inn fifteen minutes later. She pulled in to a miniscule parking lot nearly filled with cars. Not a good sign. She found a free space at the end and wedged in with enough room for Austin to park a few seconds later.
“Doesn�
�t look promising,” Gem said when Austin joined her. “The place looks full.”
The Gulls Inn, a three-story sprawling Victorian with ornate trim, a wraparound porch, and an extension off the back, appeared to have once been a private residence, now converted into a B and B. Most windows were dark. A small lighted sign over a side door read Office.
“Let’s go find out,” Austin said.
The office was little more than a converted foyer bisected by a short, waist-high counter. A door behind that presumably led into the rest of the building. Wall shelves held tourist brochures and maps, a printer, and the usual office accouterments. An old-fashioned bell sat on the counter with a handwritten sign that said Ring Me. Austin did. A minute later the interior door opened and an older man in a loose gray cardigan buttoned over a crisp white shirt and baggy black pants walked in. His thinning gray hair matched the color of his sweater. His blue eyes were friendly. “How are you folks doing? Bad night to be out and about.”
“Glad to be here. We’re about ready to stop driving,” Austin said. “I have a reservation under Germaine.”
His eyebrows rose. “I’d about given up on you. That reservation came in from—”
“Flights were canceled,” Austin said before he could elaborate on whichever of Eloise’s minions had made the reservation, probably on the company’s account. “We ended up needing to drive.”
He’d already pulled a card from a stack in an old-fashioned index box he’d set on top of the counter. “I’ve got you in the Harbor Room—got a nice view of the bay and a small private balcony.” He glanced at Gem. “It says here reservation for one, and it’s only got the one bed and bath.”
“That’ll be fine,” Austin said.
“Well then, I’ll get you the key and you’ll be all set. You’re on the third floor, at the back. You can get to it from the outside staircase. You’ll see it from the lot. Number five.”
When he turned to pull a key off a pegboard, Gem murmured, “I don’t think—”
“We’ll work it out,” Austin said.
