“And you didn’t say something to me?”
“Absolutely not. I wasn’t willing to let you find out the penalty for getting caught. I wanted more kisses.” Mac swung back to skate beside her.
The noise she made fell someplace between outrage and amusement. “Anywhere else we almost got banned from?”
He began ticking places off on his fingers: “The skating rink. The movie theater. The city pool. The church basement.”
“No.” Clara slapped his hand down, laughing too hard to speak clearly. “Why did I not know any of this?”
Mac’s eyes grew round and serious. “I wasn’t about to tell you that we were almost in trouble all over town. Where would we have gone?”
Even now, Clara’s face heated with remembered embarrassment. “Oh, my God. No wonder you started looking for the most private spot possible as soon as you got your driver’s license.”
Mac’s expression, on the other hand, remained perfectly smug. “Exactly.”
*
It’s working.
At least, Mac’s plan was working on himself. He was absolutely reminded of everything he loved about Clara, from her sense of humor, to the way she dove into situations without considering them, and even to the way she piled jalapeño peppers on top of what she called the “plastic nachos” the rink sold.
“Did you notice the kid working the concessions?” he asked.
She glanced over at the stand. “Him?”
“Yeah. That’s Nate. His mom is Lisa Windall. She does the payroll for Aerio every month, and keeps track of invoices for us.”
“Office manager?”
Mac shrugged. “Basically, though the office is a single room in a trailer. She’s only there twice a week. I’ll take you by to meet her tomorrow.”
“So this really is a small operation.”
That wasn’t the direction he wanted her to be thinking. “With a big impact, locally,” he said. “Our waitress at Maryann’s yesterday? Shiloh Philips. Her husband runs the work-over rig crew—the men who do the work on top of the pump jack. They have three kids under the age of four. And the clerk at the gas station this afternoon was Josie, Kurt Zimmerman’s sister. He works for us, and he and Josie support their mother, who has been ill and out of work for months now.”
Mac could almost see Clara taking in the information and filing it with everything else she had learned today.
That’s enough. Don’t overwhelm her.
Now he just had to keep her interested in the company, the people—the whole town, really—for a while longer.
For the rest of the week.
Pretty much the opposite of what he had done a decade ago.
Plus convince her that she should let him keep Aerio running in her absence.
Unfortunately for Mac, he wasn’t as certain of his ability to keep her interested as he was in his ability to run her off.
For one thing, he couldn’t seem to keep the conversation from turning to his job—and although the final goal was to keep the job, he wanted to distract her from it for a while now that she had some information to process.
Even now she was asking him how he got started working for Gavin—and staring at him incredulously when he answered. “You began work in the oil industry as a pumper?” she asked. “Seriously? That was your job title?”
“Yep.” A grin flashed across his face. From outside, he heard thunder rolling past the rink, and rain began pounding down on the metal roof.
Tomorrow’s going to be muddy.
Scooping up another cheese-covered chip, she added peppers until the whole thing was almost too big for her mouth. After she popped it in, she covered her mouth with her hand as she spoke. “You realize that your entire job is like one giant sex joke waiting to happen, right?”
“Remind me to show you a pig-launcher tomorrow.” Mac tossed her an exaggerated wink and stole a pepper from her nachos to add to his own.
“I’m not even sure I want to know.” The tilt of her head suggested otherwise, though.
As he started to explain, his work phone rang.
Bobby was on call tonight, not him.
Oh, hell. This is not a good sign.
Chapter Ten
Clara watched as all the good cheer drained away from Mitch’s face. He didn’t say much beyond “Okay,” but he started unlacing his skates as he listened to the person on the other end of the line. Clara followed suit, then put on her shoes, and gathered up their skates to take to the front counter.
By the time she returned to the table, Mitch had cleared away the food trays. Still on the other line, he handed her a drink and she moved toward the exit, all without ever speaking to each other.
As she got ready to dash out to the truck in the pounding rain, she marveled, for just an instant, at how smoothly they still worked together, without even speaking. All these years later, they each seemed to anticipate the other’s needs.
The thought made her heart pound, but she pushed it down as Mitch ended the call. “There’s a problem out at the Rittman One.”
Clara nodded. “Let’s go.”
The dash to the truck soaked her t-shirt through, but once she was in the vehicle, she simply wrung out the bottom onto the floorboard and turned off the air conditioner.
“Let me drop you off at home.” Mitch glanced at her, then went back to peering through the growing darkness and whipping rain.
“Absolutely not. I am, at least for now, the owner of this company. I’m going with you.” A shiver undermined her comment, though, and Mitch shook his head.
“At least get a jacket out of the back.” Reaching one hand behind him, he felt around in the over-stuffed back seat.
“Watch the road. I’ll find something.” Within seconds, she found one of several jackets, and began tugging the sodden t-shirt off over her head. “Don’t look.” She felt ridiculous as soon as she said it, but she didn’t take it back, either.
The jacket engulfed her, but she zipped it up and rolled up the sleeves, trying to ignore the fact that it completely wrapped her in Mitch’s scent.
Worse, she wanted to huddle down and revel in the smell of him.
At least this trip would distract her.
I never thought I would have reason to be grateful for an emergency at an oil well.
“What kind of problem is Bobby looking at?” she asked aloud.
“It’s a spill from one of the holding tanks. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue. Bobby could take care of it by himself.” Mitch peered out through the rain slamming down on the hood of the pickup. “But this storm could be a problem. It isn’t raining out there yet, but if we don’t beat the rain, it could cause the spill to overflow the containment wall. If the spill is bad enough, it could contaminate the surrounding fields.”
Clara nodded and wrung out her ponytail, then spun it around to create a bun that moved it out of the way. “Once we get out there, what can I do to help?”
Mitch glanced over at her assessingly. “It’s messy work.”
He thought she was—what? Too prissy to help? Part of her almost wanted to smile—it was the same attitude that had made him tease her about changing a tire when they were teenagers.
And she still had the same motivation to show him up.
At least this time he might actually need the help.
“I’m not afraid to get dirty.” Clara shoved an errant lock of hair out of the way.
“Somehow, I don’t think my version of messy work is the same as yours.” Mitch reached out to grab her hand and hold up her perfectly manicured nails.
Surprised by the flash of heat his touch sent up her arm, she jerked her hand away more abruptly than she intended, her fingers fisting by her face. She tried to soften the move with a smile. “I won’t melt in the rain, and everything else will wash off.”
Mitch’s slightly crooked smile suggested that he, too, had felt the spark of energy flash between them. “Eventually, anyway.”
He was joking, but if
things at the Rittman ranch were bad enough for Mitch’s relief worker—my employee—to make his way back to the road to make a phone call, Clara was certain they would be able to use all the help they could get.
Getting out to open and close the ranch gate left water dripping off the brim of Mac’s cowboy hat and his shirt plastered to his chest.
It was all Clara could do to drag her gaze away from him. In her attempt to avoid watching the way the wet shirt conformed to every muscle, she instead found herself focusing on his arm and hand on the armrest between them.
Even in the light from the dashboard, she could see the muscles that corded his forearm. Crisp hairs bleached by the sun shone golden against the dark brown of his skin. His hand looked like she remembered, with its broad palm and strong fingers, and for just an instant, she wondered how it would feel if she picked it up and turned it over. Would it look the same as it had a decade ago? Would he curl his fingers around hers like he had then, casually stroking her smaller palm with his broad-nailed thumb as they drove through the night in his pickup? How had the years shaped the boy’s hand into the man’s?
With a start, she clasped her own hands together in her lap.
Dammit. She shouldn’t think about that. Couldn’t.
“You okay over there?” Mitch asked.
“Fine,” Clara answered shortly. She wasn’t about to tell him what she was thinking.
Anyway, if she was daydreaming about his hands, it was all Mitch’s fault for taking her to the skating rink and reminding her of their younger days.
Why did he do that?
She realized he had distracted her from the question earlier, and her return to it was belated—as in, too little, too late—but if Mitch wanted her to keep the company running, he shouldn’t be reminding her of her time with him. Of the main reason she had left town.
As they bumped over the rocky dirt road toward the well site, though, she couldn’t help but steal glances at him out of the corner of her eye.
She hated to acknowledge that part of her still wanted to reach out and take his hand.
*
As they pulled up to the battery of enormous holding tanks, Mac automatically checked the fluid level behind the containment walls.
Way too high.
Bobby was running the pumps to clear it out, but if they didn’t find the source of the problem soon, it would spill over.
He walked along the outside perimeter, shining a flashlight onto the beige sides of the tanks as far up and down as he could. Clara moved along beside him, taking everything in without saying anything.
“You figured out what we have yet?” he asked as they moved up beside Bobby, who was knee-deep in oily water inside the perimeter.
“Leak,” the older man said laconically, but he threw a wink at Clara, who laughed.
Rolling his eyes, Mac made another circuit around the tank battery.
Nothing obvious was wrong.
If Duke was sabotaging the wells, he was getting better at it. Smarter. A spill onto his land could get Aerio in trouble with the Railroad Commission, and the RRC controlled all the oil and gas drilling permits in Texas.
The air around the site felt charged. He glanced up into the sky just as a crack of lightning lit the clouds off to the west.
Mac reached down and took Clara’s hand, pulling her away from the giant tanks and back toward the truck. “Bobby,” he called out. “Storm’s coming. Time to go.” Clara cast a startled glance at him, but she didn’t resist.
“I think I found the leak,” Bobby protested.
The storm was moving in more quickly than he had anticipated. Usually, he wouldn’t go out to a site at all if it was storming, but he had expected to be able to set the pumps before it hit—and had known for sure that Bobby wouldn’t leave until it was done.
Turning around to walk backwards as he spoke to his coworker, Mac increased the pull on Clara’s hand. “Now, man. We’ll deal with it when the weather clears.”
“Okay. On my way.” Bobby held up one hand as he finished checking something on the pump, then climbed the steps over the containment wall. When he hit the ground on the far side, Bobby began a sort of shuffle-jog to catch up with Mac and Clara.
For a heartbeat, Mac tried to decide if he wished he had parked his truck closer to the tank battery or farther away. Bobby opened his mouth to say something, and got as far as forming the word Duke, when the world around them exploded.
Chapter Eleven
Afterwards, Clara remembered only two things clearly: the panicked expression on Mitch’s face as he threw himself on top of her, and the slow-motion way she noticed that the orange of the explosion backlit Bobby’s head exactly like the sunset had the silhouetted the longhorn cattle earlier in the day.
Then everything was muffled sound, burning heat, and dizzying blackness, until Mitch was hauling her to her feet and swinging her into his arms to race to his truck. Even in his hurry, he set her onto the seat gently before racing around to the driver’s side. They roared away from the blazing heat in reverse, Mitch’s arm stretched out across the back of the seat as he twisted around to watch behind them.
Clara was glad to see taillights leading away from the site—apparently Bobby had made it out okay, too.
When the second tank went up, they were still close enough to feel the rumble of it through the ground.
A curve in the road gave Mitch the chance to spin the truck around without losing much momentum.
Without looking at it, Mitch handed Clara his cell phone. “Dial 911 as soon as you can call out.”
Clara pulled her own phone out of her purse and watched the No Service signs on both cells. “Will all five tanks blow up?” Glancing behind them, she could see flames leaping into the sky.
Mitch nodded grimly. “Even the water tanks are full of gas fumes.” A muscle beside his eye twitched a little. “Plus those tanks are made of fiberglass, and it holds a charge.” As if to punctuate his words, a third and fourth explosion detonated behind them, and a fifth followed almost immediately. The sky behind them glowed almost as orange as the sunset had earlier that day.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke.
“I have a signal,” Clara said as she dialed. Mac pulled over and she handed the phone to him, listening as he gave the dispatcher directions to meet Bobby at the gate so he could guide them in, and again when he called Bobby to give him the same instructions. Watching the other oilman’s taillights disappear into the darkness made her feel more alone than it probably should have.
Nerves. It’s just nerves.
Then Mitch turned his pickup around to face the blaze, still visible in the distance.
“Are we going back?” Clara’s voice sounded both shakier and louder in the silence than she had expected.
Mitch peered at the fire and shook his head. “Not until we have a tanker truck out there with some serious water.”
Clara’s mind kept going back over the first explosion—the way that Mitch had thrown himself across her, the look of terror on his face as he sought to protect her.
She told herself that the swelling of emotion in her chest right now was only aftershock, the effect of adrenaline coursing through her system.
This is a terrible idea, Clara.
“Oh, to hell with it,” she muttered, turning to face Mitch, only to find him meeting her halfway there, his lips hot against hers, his fingers tangling in her hair at the nape of her neck as he hauled her in closer to him.
It felt like coming home.
*
When Mac finally pulled his lips away from hers, Clara held his hand up to her mouth and kissed his fingers. The touch of her lips sent a shiver through him that he tried to hide. “Do they taste like smoke and oil?” he asked, working to keep his voice steady.
She regarded his hand for a moment. “I’m not sure,” she said quietly. “I guess I’d better find out.”
Unwinding her fingers from his, she slipped her hold to his palm, turni
ng in her seat and reaching over with her other hand to take his index finger and slip it completely into her mouth. Slowly, she drew her lips up the length of his finger, the heat of her tongue sliding along the inside until she swirled it around his fingertip. “Hm. Not that one,” she murmured.
When she took his middle finger and repeated it, he dropped his head back against the seat and groaned.
Mac closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her mouth on his fingertips. “You’re killing me, Clara.”
Her low, throaty laugh nearly did him in. “Not that one, either.”
Combined with the feel of her lips on his skin, his erection pressed so hard against his jeans that he had to shift and readjust himself.
“Be still,” Clara ordered. “I’m not done yet.” Holding his gaze with hers, she slipped his ring finger into her mouth, this time circling it for a long moment with her hot, wet tongue before she drew it out of her mouth.
“I may pass out,” Mac announced.
“Pass out?” Clara’s pleased expression didn’t match her words. “But then you might miss out on the good stuff.”
Shifting in his seat again, Mac shook his head, barely able to think. “You don’t play fair, Clara Graves. You never did.”
“Quit talking, Mitch.”
Closing his eyes, he said, “Everyone else calls me Mac now.”
He couldn’t decide how he felt about it when Clara gently kissed his knuckles and settled their clasped hands on the armrest between them. “When did that happen?”
His lip quirked up. “Not long after you left Necessity.”
She made an acknowledging noise, but didn’t comment. After a moment, he spoke again, quietly. “I didn’t really kiss Sara Barnes that night, you know.”
Whatever reaction he had expected—anger, sadness, maybe even a calm acceptance after all these years—it wasn’t her loud peal of laughter.
“Of course you didn’t,” Clara said, shaking her head.
“You knew? Then why did you leave?”
Her laughter faded away, replaced by the distant sound of sirens coming closer. “Tell me why you did it.”
Leaving Necessity Page 6
