Unexpected Love (White Oak-Mafia #2)

by Liza O'Connor

  Both men nodded with dead seriousness.

  She clipped in and zipped down, barely stopping before the end of the platform herself. Before she gave the okay signal, she released the bindings of the far left stack and placed the timbers horizontally, four and two feet from the end.

  If they jammed their feet against the lumber, then that should slow them enough to stop. Jack came down first, grabbed her arm, and managed to stop with the use of the lumber.

  Once he un-clicked, they put the wooden stops back into place and signaled Luke to come down.

  Luke had his hand out to grab long before he reached her. He yelled in pain as they tried to stop him. Despite digging his heels into the lumber, and Jack grabbing his back harness, Luke still went off the end. Fortunately, they both had a firm grip and pulled Luke back on the platform. Once they unlatched him, they laid him on the wood.

  “Luke, did I hurt you?” Tess asked.

  “No…I’m fine,” he insisted.

  “Okay, but just so you know, your machismo is pissing me off.”

  “Sorry. I think I broke a couple of ribs, and my head hurts like hell.”

  “Thank you for being honest. I think you’re seriously hurt, but unfortunately, I don’t have a cell phone.”

  Jack frisked his pockets and handed her his. She rewarded him with a smile and called Denny. “Hey, we have an injury. Think you can get here in twenty and set down on the wood platform with an injured man on it?”

  “No way in hell would I try that,” Denny replied. “Just setting down on the platform is challenge enough.”

  “Okay, let me try something else,” she said and hung up. She called Sam and told him her situation. He had a better idea, so he got the job.

  She petted Luke’s forehead. “Ever wanted to fly on your own?”

  He forced a smile through his pain. “Actually, I have.”

  “Well, today is your lucky day. Sam’s going to bring a rescue shift here, set it down beside you, then we’ll strap you in and Sam’s going to fly you to the hospital.”

  “I don’t need a hospital,” he assured her.

  “Yeah, but the ride sounds fun, doesn’t it?”

  He smiled through his pain. “It does.”

  “Then shut up and have a little fun. You deserve it after all you’ve suffered.”

  “I deserve the suffering. I just wanted to impress you by doing it like you did.”

  “Well, sometime when we have a free moment, I’ll teach you a tree climbing technique…on a tree, no zip-lines involved.” While they waited for his rescue, she entertained him with some of her own close calls when she was a teen.

  The thumping of a helicopter finally sounded above them. “There’s your ride.”

  With Jack’s help, they got the rescue skid down and Luke moved onto it. Once he was latched in, she signaled the helicopter, and Luke rose to the edge of the helicopter where Sam’s helper, Joe, secured it. Then they slowly moved off toward the hospital.

  “You wouldn’t by chance have any paper on you?” she asked Jack.

  He frisked himself and handed her pen and paper.

  She grinned. “You’re a useful fellow, Jack. You’ve been a great help today.”

  He glanced at his watch. “And it’s only nine.”

  She wrote out full instructions on what Frank and Sonny were to do with the first timbers and advised them to study how she secured the lumber to the trolley because they would need to send the fifth shipment up to Steel and Dan.

  Steel…he had to be going crazy up there wondering why they were taking so long. Tess had promised him he’d get his first lumber by eight o’clock.

  At the end, she added a PS that she’d sent Luke to the hospital via helicopter. She would explain why later.

  That would no doubt piss Frank off because he saw the other three men as his. However, here, they all reported to Steel.

  She added a PSS which asked Frank to send this info to Steel so he’d know as well.

  After sending the note in a pouch held by a carabiner, she and Jack began the real work. Removing the lumber they were standing on, then bundling it for safe transport, proved a little tricky. Fortunately, Jack followed directions well. Within thirty minutes, they had sent sufficient wood for the path protection at the juncture.

  By noon, they had to stretch to reach the zip-line, given the wood beneath their feet was literally disappearing.

  “I declare it lunch time,” she said and grabbed her pack.

  “We don’t have lunch. Let’s take a short break and continue—”

  She silenced him by passing him a giant sandwich, chips, and green tea. “Don’t litter,” she warned.

  “You think of everything,” Jack declared and smiled at her.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t.” She sighed and stared at the very tall zip-line. “I failed to think of the effect of a shrinking platform.”

  Having gotten her meal and drink out, she attached the pack to the zip-line with a note telling Frank to get two meals, chips, and drinks, then send the rest up to Steel. She wrote him another note on how to slacken the zip-line. Terrible things could happen if he did it wrong, but he’d proven reliable, if somewhat overzealous.

  While she and Jack ate, she smiled as the zip-line wiggled and slowly lowered so it was barely above the floor.

  “What happened?” Jack asked.

  “Well, if my instructions were clear, then Frank has just made our job a lot easier.”

  He sighed in relief. “Frank’s great with instructions. He once put together a small plane. It was a Canard. You know one of those weird looking planes. We teased him that he put the fin on the nose.”

  “Did it fly?”

  “Turned out to be too small for him to fit inside, so I think it just sits in his garage.”

  “Frank has a house?”

  Jack scrunched his face as if in pain. “He’s forbidden us to talk about his private life.”

  “I’ll have to let him know he’s not required to live in my house. That’s just an option.”

  “Mr. Barkman made that very clear.”

  “Well, is his house close enough to commute from?”

  Jack sighed. “Okay, you cannot tell him I told you this. His ex-wife lives in his house. He divorced her a long time ago, but she had nowhere to go, so he let her live in the house while he rented a dump in Harper’s Ferry. The only thing he kept was the garage. Only, she gives him shit because he’s padlocked the garage so she can’t get into his stuff.” Jack released a long sigh. “Women.”

  Tess chuckled.

  “Oh sorry! I forgot you were—I mean you are like—Oh, crap…and my day was going so well.” He covered his face with his hands.

  She patted his head and rose to grab her backpack coming down the zip-line. Grabbing it before it smacked into the platform of lumber, she opened it and found a note inside. Both Steel and Frank had written her. She read Steel’s first.

  This zip-line technique is hard on the arms but far more effective than our other alternative. I assume you will stop sending wood when you have enough to build the shed. Thanks for the food. We were famished.

  Steel

  And Frank had added:

  Sorry, I hadn’t realized Luke was seriously hurt. He kept telling me he was fine. If you find out how he’s doing, please let me know.

  Thanks for the lunch. Hope I followed your instructions appropriately. They seemed very clear.

  Frank

  “Can I borrow your phone again?”

  Jack handed it over. She called Sam. “Sorry to bother you, but do you have a name of someone at the hospital I might be able to ask about Luke?”

  “In fact, I do. My wife is a nurse there. She helped arrange his rooftop admission.”

  Tess wrote down the phone number for Sam’s wife, Nancy. “When did you get married again?”

  Sam answered with a heavy sigh. “During a moment of stupidity. Loneliness will do that to a fellow.”

  Tess had no id
ea how to respond.

  Sam saved her the trouble. “Sorry, you didn’t need to know that, and when you talk to Nancy, please don’t mention it.”

  “Didn’t hear a thing,” she promised and hung up. When she called his wife, an overly sweet southern belle voice spoke on the phone. “Oh, Miss Campbell. It’s so nice to finally speak to you. Sam thinks the world of you and Helen.”

  Her words were an unexpected blow of pain. “Um…Grams died a few days ago.”

  “Does Sam know?”

  “I…maybe not. She didn’t want a fuss. Things have been rather crazy.”

  “Oh, you poor thing. Lordy, and now you’re up there in those woods all by yourself? That won’t do at all. You come stay with us.”

  Tess grimaced at her odd friendliness. “I’m not alone. I have a whole crew of rangers staying at the house. We have a ton of work to get this place up and running.”

  “Well, you know, Sam is always ready to help.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t mean to be pushy, but we are barely making ends meet. You will be paying Sam for his rescue today, won’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, excuse me for asking, but I had to. To my understanding, you don’t pay Mr. Drenner when he does things for you.”

  Tess was stunned by her words. “Did he say that?”

  “Oh, my… Can we just forget I said anything? Sam wouldn’t want me getting in the middle of something that’s none of my business.”

  “Fine, can you tell me how Luke is?”

  “Do you have a last name?”

  “It’s the guy Sam brought in.” Tess’s tone sounded less than friendly even to her own ears. Jack stared up at her in worry.

  She rolled her eyes and looked to Jack. “What’s Luke’s last name?”

  “Cannon.”

  Tess gave Nancy his last name.

  “And are you family?” Nancy asked.

  “No,” Tess growled. “I’m his boss.”

  “Oh…well, that don’t count.”

  Tess hung up before she yelled at the woman. After a deep, calming breath, she called Sam. “Make certain you send me a bill for today’s flight.”

  “Helping to rescue some guy, no way. My honor to do it.”

  “No, I will pay you, Sam. That’s not up for discussion. But I am having trouble getting any information on how the young man we saved is doing. Can you see if Nancy will tell you anything?”

  “Sure. Could you not get through?”

  “I did, but she refused to tell me how he was doing because I wasn’t ‘family’.”

  “What? I’ll call her,” Sam growled and hung up.

  “Trouble?” Jack asked.

  “Hopefully for Nancy,” she muttered then explained the situation to him. “The nurse on the phone wouldn’t give me any information. I’m hoping Sam might have better luck.”

  Now agitated and angry, not just at Nancy but at Mr. Drenner who ran the Rescue and Fire Service and was evidently distorting the truth to make her look bad. Tess had a great desire to throw the phone into the marsh. Grams donated two-hundred thousand dollars a year, and yes, on occasion they asked for assistance, but without question, Mr. Drenner came out better in the exchange. And to tell other people she didn’t pay for his services really pissed her off.

  No! Manhandling lumber was a better way to exorcise her anger, especially since the phone was Jack’s.

  The zip-line came down with a note from Steel.

  How big of a shed are you planning to build?

  She looked down at the platform and cursed.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing, other than I’m an idiot,” she said.

  “Not in my eyes,” he muttered in return.

  She smiled at him. Jack was okay.

  “Let’s just move these loose timbers to the side so if we need a helicopter to land, it will have a place.”

  “Wasn’t one supposed to arrive with our stuff today?” Jack asked.

  Tess huffed and stared up at the sky. “Yes, but there’s evidently a glitch with their service.” Since there was nothing she could do about Drenner just now, she focused on Jack and the problem at hand. “We need to walk up the trail without ruining it. So watch where I step and try to do the same. As much as possible we want to use rocks and healthy grass lumps to walk on.”

  She was glad she’d sent Luke to the hospital because carrying him up the trail would have done some serious damage. When they reached where Frank and Sonny were stationed, both men were rubbing their arms as they watched Steel descend from the third zip-line.

  Tess saw no way this would end other than Steel crashing hard against a tree. She headed up the hill in a full-out run. When she reached him, she wrapped her arms around Steel’s waist. His momentum downhill caused her to slam backward onto the ground, knocking the wind out of her. But she’d managed to slow Steel enough he could bring himself to a halt.

  A minute later, Steel was lifting her up. “Bloody hell! Tess, are you okay?”

  She righted herself with his help. “I feared you’d smack into a tree,” she whispered.

  He chuckled and pulled her into his arms. “So did I. Thanks for the slowdown.”

  “I advised him against it,” Dan stated as he stomped through the woods and met up with them. “The angle’s too steep.”

  Tess nodded. “I didn’t mean for you two to go down it. It was just for bringing the lumber up the hill.”

  Dan rubbed his arm. “Yeah, well it was a bitch going up, too.”

  Tess approached and rubbed Dan’s arm. “Should I kiss it and make it feel better?”

  He grinned. “Later when I get this shirt off, a kiss would be nice.”

  She sensed anger behind her and expected it to be Steel, but oddly the glares radiated from Jack and Frank. What was that about?

  “It’s very early for you to quit working,” Tess observed.

  “Nothing more to do until you build the shed and we bring the equipment over,” Steel snapped. “We’ll catch up tomorrow.”

  The frustration in his voice was loud and clear, and she understood. Neither of them accomplished their objectives today.

  Getting home exhausted them all. Everyone bee-lined for the showers. Tess remained in the living room, intending to call Mr. Drenner, only the phone rang before she had a chance.

  “Tess, this is Tom. Did someone get hurt today?”

  Man, did bad news travel fast.

  Tess ran her hand through her hair. “I sent the guy to the hospital. He said his ribs and head hurt.”

  “Sent him how?”

  “I had Sam take him by helicopter. The guy was at the marsh platform. It was easier, safer, and faster to call for the helicopter than carry him uphill to the house and then drive him down a barely passable road. Why?”

  “I just got reamed by the governor for wasting taxpayers’ money.”

  “Not sure how he got that idea. For one thing, I intend to pay Sam myself, but honestly, I don’t think the bill will be big enough to justify a governor’s attention. And finally, taxpayers aren’t paying any costs on this park, so even had I not planned to pay it myself—”

  “Did this accident happen on the job?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No ‘buts’. The bill will be paid by the trust fund created to cover employee expenses. Can you tell me what happened?”

  She sighed heavily and explained first why she had put up zip-lines and then what happened.

  That earned her a long lecture on the necessity of safety precautions. “If this guy sues, it could cost Steel his job.”

  “Why? This was my decision!”

  “For one, Steel is responsible for anything that goes on, and two, you can’t be fired, so the guilt will land somewhere else.”

  “That’s—” She stopped before “bullshit” came out of her mouth.

  “Which of the guys got hurt?”

  “Luke.”

  A heavy
sigh blew through the phone. “Well, you’ve probably scraped by, but you have to start thinking like an adult. Did Steel know about this zip-line?”

  “Tom, we’ve had a really hard day, and tempers are probably short right now, so maybe you can hold this discussion until tomorrow. I know I’m about to lose it, and honestly I don’t think Steel will do better. We did an amazing amount of work today despite difficult terrain.”

  “Great. What?”

  She knew better than to go down that road. He’d just respond, ‘Big deal if they moved enough lumber to build a shed at the mound site. There was no shed planned. Why were they off schedule so early?

  Such a response would cause her to say something she’d regret. “I need to get off the phone. Please wait to call back until tomorrow.” She hung up before he could respond and then picked it back up before he could redial.

  She called Sam. “Any luck?” she asked when he answered.

  “The young man has a mild concussion and can be released. Would you like me to pick him up for you?”

  She’d love to say yes, but she didn’t dare. “Sam, any idea how the governor would know you took Luke to the hospital? He called my boss yelling about wasting the taxpayers’ money.”

  “Shit,” Sam cursed. “I’ve no proof, but my money is on Drenner. He’s bad mouthing you everywhere he can. I remember someone saying he had connections with the current governor. And to that, I want to apologize for anything my wife said to you. She’s been convinced by Dina Drenner that you are the reason I’m nearly bankrupt.”

  “Am I?” Tess asked softly.

  “Hell no! You and Helen are the only reason I didn’t go bankrupt eight years ago. The problem is Nancy. Never met a bauble she didn’t have to have.”