"Leslie—don't hang up! Just listen to me for a minute—please, Les, don't hang up." She continued to stare at the receiver she held in her hand. "Leslie, are you listening?"
She closed her eyes and put the receiver to her ear. "Yes."
"Are you all right?"
"Yes."
"Leslie, please unlock the door! Let me..."
"No!" Her voice was a tormented whisper. "No, please don't. I just want to be left alone...please, John. I can't handle any more tonight."
"Leslie..." There was a long pause, then it was Steve's voice. "Unlock the door, Les—I want to talk to you."
With a helpless little moan she pressed the button on the phone and cut him off, then dropped the receiver on the bed.
She had no awareness of time as she huddled there. It seemed like hours had passed when she finally stood up, her muscles stiff and cramped, and walked to the window to stare out at the silent street.
A web of destruction had been woven through their lives. A curse...and they were all victims, even Luther.
His passionate obsession for a woman who couldn't respond to his adoration had warped his life, crippling him with jealousy, and he had become twisted and sick because of it. There could be no respite from the consuming bitterness for him. Every single day he had to endure the gut-twisting emasculation of Leslie's existence, a living breathing reminder of his wife's liaison with another man. Another man who had experienced the hot-blooded passionate response that he thirsted for, while he had been left with the remote unyielding shell.
For Luther, Vivian's personal tragedy was a destructive torment. He had lived a famished man, denied the ever present but untouchable feast, and his life had become a ceaseless hell.
Leslie felt a sudden unexpected compassion for her stepfather, whose unsatisfied passion must be fermenting inside him like poison. Her own barren life would be preferable to his tortured existence. At least she had known joy so pure, so electrifying that she would never forget it, no matter how many empty endless days she had to face.
She sighed deeply. An eternity of grief and loneliness stretched darkly before her—day after day after day. As the eastern sky lightened, heralding yet another agonizing day, Leslie longed to reach out and hold back the dawn
A knock at her door jarred her from her trance, and she glanced dully at her watch as she went to the door. It was morning. She felt totally devoid of feeling as she opened the door.
Steve was standing there, his arm braced against the doorframe, his face ashen and lined with tension. He looked away, his expression unsteady but detached. "I think it might be best if John took you back to Redwillow today."
Her daze of exhaustion was penetrated by a vague feeling of perplexity. The anger was gone from his voice. His attitude was strangely bewildering, and she felt very confused. She rubbed her forehead with an uncertain gesture.
Not looking at him, she turned around and walked back into the room. "Yes, it probably would be best."
It was only then that it registered—she was still wearing the flame-colored dress.
FEBRUARY ARRIVED and with it came milder weather. There had not been another incident at the rig since Leslie's confrontation with Luther, and now there was an air of untroubled anticipation at Redwillow. They were getting close to the geological formation that made up the beach conglomerate. Anytime now they would know—and the waiting would be over.
There had been a dramatic change in Leslie since her return from the ill-fated conference in Edmonton. She had a quiet confidence about her that had never been there before. Unfortunately, her effervescent zest for life appeared to be the price she'd paid for it. There was no brightness left in her; instead there was a dispassionate air of resignation.
She kept all her associations on a strictly professional basis, with the exception of Ted McAllister and, to a lesser degree, Frank Logan. The only time she seemed to relax her guard was when both men were in camp...and Steve was away.
She had somehow managed to tell Ted the whole painful story, then had asked him never to bring it up again. And Ted, with the compassionate insight of an old friend, complied.
Frank, on the other hand, had become her self-appointed bodyguard. On more than one occasion he had forcefully dragged nosey reporters away from the camp. His protective attitude stirred a certain amount of wry amusement in Leslie, but she had to admit to herself that she slept better knowing that no one would get within a five-mile radius of her unless she wanted it. It helped a little, having the two of them there.
So the days marched relentlessly on. And the pressure intensified for Leslie. Not only did she have the extra work load of the other two rigs that were now drilling, but she was once again experiencing the same old feeling of doubt about the project. What if she had been wrong? What if, on top of everything else, the beach conglomerate was dry? What if...?
She had asked Frank to have samples of the cuttings from the shale shaker gathered hourly, and during the day she processed them immediately. Frequently she got up at three o'clock in the morning to do an analysis of the samples gathered from midnight on. She wanted to know the minute they penetrated the Falher formation. She also monitored the mud-logging operation closely. If the gas units started to increase rapidly, she immediately wanted to know that information as well. She was nearly dropping from exhaustion, and her nerves were taxed to the limit, but she kept pushing herself on.
She found the three o'clock shifts the most difficult, and tonight was no exception. Her wretched loneliness closed in on her, suffocating her as memories of Steve seeped through her barrier of determination, haunting her with disturbing clearness.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead wearily, then with a heavy sigh squared her shoulders and placed the cuttings under her microscope. She studied the chips, then intensified the magnification. She straightened up, her face suddenly drawn as she sat transfixed, her hands clasped tightly together.
Maybe she was wrong. She looked through the microscope again and shifted the chips with a probe. The cuttings displayed a high-porosity factor. It was the beach conglomerate—the Falher zone.
She pushed the microscope aside and rested her head on her arms as the reality of what lay on the slide washed over her. This was it—and she was scared.
She didn't move for a long time, then she pushed herself to her feet and picked up her parka aNd put it on. Once outside, she never noticed the clearness of the night sky or the brightness of the stars. She walked directly to Ted's trailer, her mind oblivious to anything except that in the next few hours the waiting would finally be over.
She had to knock several times before Ted finally came to the door, his hair rumpled, his eyes cloudy with sleep. She stepped in and shut the door behind her.
"Leslie, what—"
"Do we core now, or do we wait until morning?"
He stared at her dumbly for a split second, then a look of alertness swept across his face. His voice was decisive. "We core now. Go get Frank up and I'll meet you at the rig." He started to turn away, then he grasped her shoulders, his voice laced with humor as he reassured her. "Don't look so scared, girl. If it's a duster, what the hell! It's your money we're spending, and you never wanted the damned stuff in the first place."
For the first time in weeks, Leslie's grin was spontaneous and genuine. "Your logic might be weird, but it certainly does take the edge off things."
He grinned back at her. "Go get Frank."
Coring was a long drawn-out affair. They had to trip out to change the bit for the core barrel, then trip in and drill sixty feet, then trip out again to retrieve the sample. It would be a very long night.
Frank and Ted were in the doghouse, calmly playing a game of crib. Leslie shook her head and smiled ruefully as she went in. They were old hands at this waiting game, and she envied them their seeming unconcern. She was anything but calm. God, but she wished it didn't take so long!
Ted looked up at her and grinned. "Damn it, girl, quit your fi
dgeting and pacing—you'll give us all ulcers." He nodded toward the electric kettle on the folding table. "Why don't you make us an instant coffee?"
"Okay." Leslie plugged the kettle in, then opened the door of the little cabinet behind the table to get the jar of coffee and the powered cream. She winced as a powerful smell hit her, and she warily looked inside. The cupboard was revolting. There was an open can of pineapple juice that was fermenting away in undisturbed splendor, the top of it an unhealthy green; a dried-up wedge of cheddar cheese that was measled with mold; a jar of mustard without a top, the contents dried and cracked. The object that intrigued her most, however, was a plastic bag that contained some black oozing mush. It looked and smelled suspiciously like rotten onions.
Her expression was one of amused aversion as she looked at Frank. "Would you mind if I cleaned this out?"
He nodded his head in assent. "Was hopin' you'd volunteer. It's beginnin' to smell a mite."
A mite! That was an understatement.
Leslie dragged the metal garbage container over, opened up the green garbage bag inside and started pitching. At the very back of the cupboard she found a coffee cup filled with a spectacular growth of blue furry mold. A chemistry teacher would sell his soul for a culture like that, she thought. With a grimace she tossed cup and all into the garbage can. She wiped out the inside of the cupboard with a questionable rag, then placed everything that was usable back inside. She tied the top of the garbage bag firmly in a vain attempt to contain the host of smells, then straightened up and brushed her hands off on her jeans.
When she turned around, her stomach dropped like a rock. Steve was leaning against the first-aid cabinet, watching her through narrowed eyes. She felt like a butterfly impaled by his piercing stare; she was trapped by it, unable to move, unable to look away. She saw the muscle twitching in his jaw, and she desperately wanted to reach out and smooth away the stern lines around his senuous mouth.
He seemed to read her thoughts, and he sucked in his breath, then jerked away. She heard him swear as he yanked open the door and strode out onto the rig floor.
She felt like her whole body had been immersed in freezing water. With trembling hands she picked up her parka and bolted for the door.
"Hey, what about our coffee?''
She never answered as she fled into the night. She couldn't.
She had never expected that. She had expected anger, loathing, cold remoteness, but she had not been prepared to see the pain. It had been in his eyes—that awful, unrelenting agony that twisted one's insides into an aching knot. She had never meant to hurt him, but she had. She had hurt him to the core.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WAITING. It seemed to stretch on forever. Leslie felt like there was a big coiled spring inside her that was driving her on like a mechanical doll.
John had said that they should have the results by midafternoon of the following day, and as that deadline drew closer, Leslie became more and more on edge. She was with Ted in his office, waiting for the phone call from John that would tell them what the lab had found. It was obvious that she had at last infected Ted with her nervous restlessness, for he was pacing back and forth. The air was blue with smoke; he had chain-smoked his way through half a pack of cigarettes.
He butted another one in the overflowing ashtray, then put on his hard hat and picked up his jacket. "Hell, Leslie, I can't stand this any longer. I'm going over to the rig for a while. Why don't you come with me? You're apt to die from smoke inhalation if you stay in here for very long."
"I think I'd more likely die from suspense if I left the phone."
"Well, if you change your mind, come on over. We can start an argument with Frank to take our minds off this damned waiting."
"You start an argument with Frank—I'm not leaving the phone."
It was about two hours later when Leslie's endurance reached its limit. She was just putting on her parka when the phone rang. The sharp sound startled her, and her heart was pounding against her ribs as she scrambled for it. She swore when she tripped over the garbage can in her haste to reach it. Sprawling across the desk, she caught it on the second ring.
"Ramco Two."
"Hello, Ramco Two. What were you doing, Leslie—sitting on the desk waiting for the phone to ring?"
It was John. Leslie struggled into an upright position and brushed her hair back from her face. "You're close..." She felt like she was poised on a high pinnacle from which she was going to be pushed. There was a chance that she would fly, but there was also a chance that she would crash to the ground. Her insides churned with fearful anticipation as she asked the inevitable question. "What did the analysis say?"
There was a hair-raising silence before he answered. "What do you think?"
"John McRory, this is not the time to play guessing games. What was the report?"
He laughed, and she could hear the exhilaration in his voice. "Hell, Leslie, it's even better than we hoped for. A conservative estimate based on the results of this well and on the projected size of the field, would be fifty trillion cubic feet of natural gas. But I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it go as high as two hundred trillion. It's a humdinger of a find."
Leslie's knees caved in beneath her and she sank weakly into the chair, totally stunned by John's news. She felt such a wave of relief that it made her feel narcotized. Trillion—a thousand billion—a million million. The immensity, the volume absolutely staggered her. She could barely grasp it!
"Leslie, what happened? Did you faint?"
She took a deep breath and tried to focus her mind. "Nearly...it's a bit overwhelming."
John laughed again. "I wish I was there to help celebrate—it's so damned exciting! Have Steve call me as soon as he can.''
"I will. I wish you were here, too—it won't seem quite right without you."
"Bless you, Les. Take care and we'll talk to you later."
"You too, John. Goodbye."
Leslie hung up the phone; she was still in a trance. Two hundred trillion. Two hundred trillion...The reality finally penetrated, and Leslie sent the chair flying as she let out a shout of exuberance. She bolted from the trailer, and her feet had wings as she flew across the lease. They'd done it—they had really done it!
She had never experienced this kind of incredible high before in her life. She took the stairs up the doghouse two at a time and barged in, slamming the door open. Ted sprang to his feet the moment she burst in, and he caught her as she threw herself into his arms. She felt like her lungs were going to explode, and she gasped for air as she blurted out the news.
"Ted...John said...at least...fifty trillion...cubic feet. Trillions! I can't...believe it!"
Ted let out a shout as he gave her a mighty bear hug that nearly collapsed her laboring lungs. "Hell, that's fantastic." He gave Leslie another crushing hug, then more or less dropped her. She staggered to catch her balance as he slammed open the door to the rig floor and bellowed for Steve.
There was an outbreak of noisy jubilation. This find would put Redwillow on the map. It was the largest gas find ever in Canada.
Twenty minutes later Leslie was still flying high, her face flushed, her eyes shining with excitement. Suddenly Steve turned to her, his face expressionless, his voice like a razor. "Well, Leslie, I guess you've got what you wanted. This is going to be a very profitable venture for Kaidon Industries."
Leslie felt as if he had hit her in the stomach. With those cruel cold words, he burst her bubble of elation, and an agony of unhappiness exploded within her with a rending pain. The color drained from her face, and without uttering a word she turned and fled from the doghouse, her vision blurred by scalding tears.
She groped blindly for the handrail, but her momentum carried her forward and she missed her footing. Her last rational thought was that she was falling; then there was an excruciating ripping in her shoulder as she tumbled down the steel stairs.
She lay at the bottom, battered and stunned, as the racking pain from he
r shoulder shot through her like the red-hot blade of a knife. The pain immobilized her for several agonizing moments, but eventually she was able to struggle weakly into a sitting position, carefully cradling her right arm against her as shafts of fire pierced through her. She bit back a moan and closed her eyes against the dizzy sickening gray fog that threatened to rob her of consciousness. The pain was a familiar one—she had experienced it once before when she had taken a bad fall during a high-school gymnastics class. She had dislocated her damned shoulder again.
Struggling to her knees, she took a deep shaky breath as the mist swirled in her pounding head. Leslie reached up to touch a bruised throbbing lump in her hair, and swore under her breath when she saw that her fingers were covered in blood.
"What happened, Leslie?" She moved her head cautiously and saw Frank Logan hurrying down the steps toward her, his face creased with concern.
"I fell down the stairs.'' She swallowed hard and took several deep breaths. She still felt like she was going to faint.
He knelt down beside her and gently touched her head. "From the top?"
"Yes."
"My God—" He reached out to pick her up, but she caught his hand before he could touch her. "Frank, I...I've dislocated my shoulder "
He swore again and stood up. "I'm goin' for the stretcher—"
"No!" She closed her eyes and waited for a fierce contraction of pain to ease. "No, don't Frank—please...I don't want a scene."
He crouched down beside her and steadied her with his hand. "Can you get up?"
She nodded her head weakly. "If you'll just help me a little." He slipped his arms around her and watched her face intently as he carefully tightened his hold and lifted her up in his arms. She clenched her eyes shut and gritted her teeth together as another spasm of pain shot through her, robbing her of her breath. With infinite care Frank carried her across the windswept lease. Every jarring step he took sent the awful pain piercing through her, and she could feel beads of perspiration forming on her cold clammy skin.
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