by Doyle, S
“Special but not serious.”
“Jesus, Liv, give it a break already. I don’t go around asking you about your love life.”
Shit. Did Olivia have a love life?
“Like hell you don’t. You’re constantly accusing me of throwing myself at the guys at camp.”
“No, I’m accusing you of stirring them up with those damn tight skirts and high heels.”
“And we’re going to argue about this again,” she said with a deep sigh.
“No, we aren’t. I get it. You’re trying to make your point. And every man who works at the camp should be able to control himself and not lose his shit just because of what a woman wears. But reality is reality and if a man, who hasn’t been around a woman in a couple months, gets it into his head that you’re available, I’m afraid of you getting hurt. Can you at least understand that?”
“You’re afraid. Are you kidding me? I’m a female engineer. I’ve spent my entire adult life around men who typically don’t hang out around a lot of women. I come here every time knowing there is a risk. Think about that, Noah. Think about doing your job every day with the threat of sexual assault or rape hanging over your head.”
I snapped my teeth closed because she had a point.
“These are my choices,” she continued. “Leave Dyson, make myself look more like a man in the hope I will fool them, or be my damn self. The skirts I wear and the shoes I wear are business appropriate. Right now, we’re headed out to the rig, which means a boat trip, into a situation that could be potentially dangerous, so I’m dressed appropriately for that.”
I glared at her. “I’m not intentionally taking you into a dangerous situation.”
“I said potentially, and you can’t deny that there could be trouble because I know you wouldn’t have called me for any other reason.”
“Do you have a damn boyfriend or not?” I asked frustrated entirely when she was right. “I think that’s how this all started.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “No. Work doesn’t really leave a lot of time for that sort of thing.”
I snorted. “Don’t I know it.”
“Is that why you and Jenny aren’t more serious? You don’t have a lot of time to be together?”
“And now we’re back to me,” I said as a way of not answering.
“I answered your question,” she charged.
“And I think I’ve answered enough of yours,” I said.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” I barked.
All things considered it was probably one of the more low-key conversations Olivia and I had ever had.
On a positive note, she didn’t hit me, either.
* * *
Olivia
Ugh! Why did I lose my shit every time I was around him? Just once it would be nice to have a pleasant, boring conversation that didn’t leave me with a vein throbbing in my head.
Now he was driving without speaking to me, and I certainly was done speaking to him. We probably had another twenty minutes until we reached the shoreline where the boats would be docked. Which meant twenty minutes of me silently seething instead of being focused on the task at hand, which was bringing a well back under control.
I glanced at the notebook and tried to focus on the numbers he’d given me.
Did he seriously name his wells? And why Lizzie? An ex-girlfriend?
It didn’t matter. Because now he was with Jenny. Sweet Jenny who had been super polite the first time I met her. Who was pretty with hazel eyes that were super clear.
Petite, too. If you liked that sort of thing.
Which, obviously, Noah did. As for me, I was probably only about three inches shorter that Noah, who was a little over six foot. And when I wore my heels…we were nearly even.
Had he done it on purpose? The whole texting Jenny thing? Just so I would know they were still together.
Not that I cared. Noah was nothing but an obnoxious, arrogant asshole who thought he was smarter than everyone else around him.
Okay, so maybe he was smarter than most people around him but that didn’t give him the right to act like the god of engineering.
Okay, sure, having studied his work he might be on the Pantheon of Engineers someday but that didn’t mean other engineers couldn’t bring something to the table.
After all, he’d called me in, hadn’t he?
I took a quick peek at him. His jaw was clenched so I had no doubt he was still fighting me in his head. It’s what we did to each other.
I tried to imagine what Jenny saw in him. Physically it was pretty obvious. He was more than just a brain. His chin was scruffy, but he never went full-on beard like a lot of other guys at camp. And his greenish brown eyes turned this really amazing color when he was mad.
Since he was mad at me a lot, I often got to see it.
I tried to picture him with Jenny, what his eyes might look like when he was aroused, but when I did, I got this horrible feeling in my stomach.
I had a suspicion that feeling was jealousy. Since my plan was to stay in complete and total denial when it came to Noah Aikens, I wouldn’t actually give it a label.
Why him? Why?
I didn’t date guys I worked with. Period. As a woman in a predominantly male industry, I knew the drill. You were either a virgin or a whore to these guys and I took the virginal path.
It was easier just to tell any guy who asked me out that I didn’t date co-workers. Eventually, they had all stopped asking.
However, when I met Noah for the first time, there had been something about him that made it hard to look away. If I was honest with myself, it wasn’t exactly a problem that had gone away.
Which was why I was thinking about him and Jenny.
I didn’t even like Noah!
I snuck another peek at him. At his hard jaw, the high cheekbones. The fingers that laid on the top of the wheel, in control of the vehicle with barely a touch.
Did I fantasize about how those fingers might feel on me?
Maybe that one time.
When he’d described to me how he’d planned to fuck Jenny that first day she’d landed in Hope’s Point. I should have written him up for a sexual harassment complaint. Instead, I had gone back to my room at the camp and angrily masturbated thinking about him every second.
No, I didn’t like Noah Aikens. But as I sat there in truck next to him, I had to face the hard truth.
I wanted him.
Like all my other denials when it came to him, I was just going to have to lock that one away.
Because it was never, ever going to happen.
2
Dyson North Shore Dock
Olivia
“Shit! Shit, fuck, shit!” Noah barked as soon as we pulled up to the dock.
“What?”
“That’s my crew. They abandoned the rig.”
Before I could say another word, Noah was out of the truck marching toward where Cal stood among the men. I quickly followed behind him.
“How much worse?” Noah asked of Cal.
“Bad enough that I pulled them,” Cal told Noah. The five guys were huddled together on the dock, all of them looking out over the water.
I followed their gaze to where the rig was perched practically holding my breath. As if the well might blow at any second, when really, there was no way to know without seeing the data.
“Sorry Ark, you said to call it if I thought it wasn’t safe,” a roustabout I knew was called Simmons said to Noah.
“No, you did the right thing,” Noah said, clapping him on the shoulder. Then he looked at Cal, his expression grim. “Take Liv and the guys to camp and I’ll go out and see what I can do.”
Cal nodded in agreement and it took me a second to realize what had just happened.
“I’m not going to camp,” I said. “You brought me here to look at and confirm the data to see if we need to blow the well. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Noah shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. I�
��m not risking anyone if I don’t have to.”
“Ark, do not play the hero,” Cal told him. “You get on quick. If you have to blow it, blow it. If you think for one second you’re in trouble, get off the rig. Dyson has a recovery team on standby in case she blows. Take a radio and keep me updated.”
Noah took the walkie-talkie and attached it to his back pocket. He flashed Cal a smile. “She’s not going blow. Lizzie wouldn’t do that to me.”
He turned then and started toward the end of the dock to the boat that was tied there. Again, I scrambled to keep up.
“What are you doing?” he asked when he looked over his shoulder and saw that I was right behind him.
“I told you, I’m going with you.”
He stopped and confronted me. “And I told you, you’re not.”
“So it’s too dangerous for me, but not for you? Do I have to point out how ridiculous that is?”
“Olivia, I’m not doing this with you now. This is not a game, and I don’t have time. Cal tell her she can’t come!”
Cal eyed up both of us with a scowl on his face.
“Cal, please remind Noah we stand a better chance of saving the rig if we work together. I’m not playing the damn woman card here. I’m playing the damn engineer card. You need me out there with you because I’m the only one who knows as much about that rig as you do!”
“She’s right, Ark,” Cal said. “Olivia, same rule applies. No risks out there other than necessary ones.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Fine!” Noah barked at me. “It’s your life.”
“Yes, it is.”
I untied the boat as he hopped in to the start the engine. Then I hopped in and stood next to him as he piloted the boat to the rig. It wasn’t even a half mile out, but the freezing temperatures and ice made the water difficult to navigate.
“You are so damn stubborn!” Noah shouted while maneuvering around a large, floating chunk of ice.
“I’m stubborn? Hello, pot, it’s kettle calling.”
“Yeah well, if this rig blows and we both die, I’m going to track you down wherever we end up and kick your sweet ass.”
“It’s not going to blow. Remember. Lizzie wouldn’t do that to you.”
He said nothing after that and I let him focus on piloting the boat. At some point I started to wonder if we would be able to reach the rig, the ice was so thick. But he kept pushing the throttle down and eventually the ice broke up and floated around us. There was a pole in the boat I used to try to push some of the bigger junks out of the way as we crawled our way to the rig.
Finally, we reached the dock that was connected to the rig. Ark powered down the engine, while I hopped out to secure the boat to the cleat.
“Are we going to be able to make it back to shore with that ice?” I asked when he joined me, checking the quality of my knot, of course.
“First problem, first.”
Right. The well. He climbed up the ladder leading to the first level of the rig. He moved fast, and I pushed myself to move even faster behind him. There was a warning alert that was blaring, but not the alarm that signaled fire. Together, we made our way to the main cabin that housed all the equipment to tell us the pressure levels of the wells.
It was eerie how empty the rig was. Usually the rig was loud and boisterous with drillers and workers all coordinating their efforts.
Offshore One was considered, by offshore rig standards, small. In fact, it was what made Noah’s design so unique within the industry. With directional drilling he was able to hit more wells with a smaller unit that cut costs of the rig significantly. Not to mention they could work it with smaller crews.
Currently, this rig had four wells that were producing at a fraction of the cost of our competitors.
Lizzie being one of them.
Once in the command center, Noah ran toward the main computer, bringing up the screen to see what Lizzie was currently doing.
“Check the PSI on the other wells,” he directed me. “There could have been some shifting of the tectonic plates that could have caused this. I need to know if anything else is spiking.”
I did as he asked and started tests on the other three wells. They looked perfectly within range.
“No issues on the other three,” I told him.
Then I joined him to look at Lizzie’s numbers. She wasn’t just in red, she was at the max level of red. The pipes wouldn’t continue to contain the oil at that level of PSI. That’s what had triggered the alarm.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I told him.
“I know,” he said grimly. “But blowing it when it’s this unstable could be dangerous, too.”
“Not if the BOP was designed right.”
He glared at me. “You questioning my work?”
“No. I’m telling you I trust your work. You designed the blow-out protection system, which means it will work when you fire it. But you have to do it now before those pipes start to crack under the pressure.”
“Sorry, Lizzie.” I watched as Noah called up the protocol.
As soon as it fired, we could feel it. The movement of the water along the rig caused a tremor. Right now, massive amounts of cement were filling the well at set points and secondary pipes were being opened to give the oil and gas multiple outlets to re-reroute.
If it worked, the pressure of the main well would start to go down.
If it didn’t, North Sea Dyson would most likely blow.
“Take the boat and leave. Now.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving you, Noah. It’s your system. Your design. It’s going to work. Check the numbers.”
“Not moving yet.”
It was like we both held our breath. Then after a few minutes, Noah checked the numbers again and let out a sigh of relief.
“Pressure is coming down.”
Then it was my turn to breathe. “I knew it.”
For another hour we watched as the oil and gas dispersed to the secondary containment units until, finally, the pressure on Lizzie was at normal levels. The cement would seal it permanently. No risk of anything blowing up today. Noah updated Cal and let him know it was safe for a crew to return.
“You shouldn’t have risked it,” he said once it was over. “Coming here. I could have done this on my own.”
I shook my head. “Together we moved faster. And if the other wells also had to be blown, you might not have been able to do it all yourself in time. Me coming was the smart decision.”
“Whatever. All right, let’s get these other wells turned down. I don’t want to take any chances without knowing what went wrong with Lizzie and not knowing how fast we can get a crew out here.”
For another hour we worked to slowly bring down the production on all three wells. Enough so the operation could run independently for a limited amount of time.
When we were done, he said nothing but moved around me out of the command control.
“Where are you going?” I called, following him to the door of the main cabin.
As soon as I opened the door, the elements hit me in the face like a punch to the nose. The cold was numbing. The wind was whipping around, the snow coming down so hard it felt like little bee stings all over my face.
“Second problem, second,” he called over his shoulder.
I had no idea what that meant until he climbed down the ladder to the dock. The ice was pushing against the boat and the dock.
“It looks thick,” I said. “What does this mean?”
“It means we have to go now.” He hopped in the boat and was moving to start the engine.
“What about the chopper?” All offshore rigs had a helicopter landing pad, and Offshore One currently had a chopper docked there. “Wouldn’t that be safer?”
As soon as I said it another nasty gust of wind hit me in the face. The storm that Noah had warned me about when he called to tell me about the well was finally here.
I untied the boat from the dock cleat and hopped inside moving to stand next to Noah.
“The winds are too high. Chopper won’t be safe.”
“What about the crew then? How will they get out here?”
“They’ll put an ice breaker on one of the boats. It’s not like it’s going to freeze solid right away. The breaker just moves all the ice chunks out of the boat’s path.”
He moved the boat away from the dock slowly. Not trying to barrel over the ice chunks but more push them out of his way.
“Maybe we should have stayed on the rig,” I said logically. “Waited the storm out there until the crew comes.”
He looked at me then, his expression hard. “Olivia, the crew is not going to be out here until the storm blows over. Definitely not tonight, maybe not tomorrow night, either. These Artic storms can go on for days.”
“So?”
“So? You want to spend a couple nights with me alone on that rig?”
I nearly gulped. That was a hard no.
“No, we need to get back to the shore. Now.”
“Like I said.”
Neither of us spoke as I watched him carefully maneuver the boat through the icy waters. And really, it wasn’t that far to go. Not even a half a mile.
Which made it really frustrating when we got stuck a quarter of mile away from shore.
3
Ark
To say this was a shit day did not do justice to the definition of shit days. I lost a productive well. I had to check my pride and call in Olivia for help. Now, because I didn’t trust myself to spend a night on the rig with her alone, I was looking at an ice cluster between here and the dock I knew I wasn’t going to be able to push through.
I turned the boat to the right where there was some open water and started out for one of the cluster of islands where I knew Zeke had a hideaway cabin. I had found it when I was using my down time to explore the area.
When I’d asked Zeke about it the one time, he said he liked to have places scattered around where he could get away from everything. Considering the man lived in Hope’s Point, Alaska, which was the very definition of getting away from everything, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. But it’s not like I was going to press Zeke on anything.
