DrillingDownDeep (5 page)

Clutching her hat with both hands, she knew what she had to
do. “I’m sorry, Mr. Reynolds. I didn’t mean to sound so disrespectful. Mick was
right about us being rough around the edges out here. You’re the boss. We all
know that and you won’t have any trouble from me.”

He continued to stare at her and then his eyes flicked down.
Shit, he wasn’t going to insist she take the jumpsuit off too, was he? She had
just the briefest tee and shorts on underneath. He was probably the kind of guy
who remembered a body better than a face.

A knock at the open door took their attention. “Everything
all right?” Mick asked, holding a steaming cup out to Reynolds. “I thought you
could use some coffee before you get started.”

Reynolds took it. “Thanks.” After a sip, he glanced at her.
“We’re fine. I’m going to bunk in here with Miss Donald.”

Mick turned a panicked face to her and she shrugged.

Michael had only been half-needling Miss Donald by
threatening to bunk with her. Hell, he hadn’t even been certain he was going to
stay the night on the rig. But now that he had seen her, he found himself very
serious indeed.

Which just did not happen. Michael Reynolds did not date
employees. No matter what. Had never even contemplated it, no matter how lovely
the woman. Miss Prentiss, his assistant, was a prime example. Besides being
calm and efficient, Miss Prentiss was a plush, polished brunette whom Michael’s
friends were always hitting on whenever they visited him in the office. But
he’d never even entertained the notion of making overtures to Miss Prentiss.
Workplace sex was…messy. And in any event, unnecessary. He got all the sex he
needed outside the office. And he most certainly didn’t need the hassle.

But here disrespectful, resentful Miss Donald took off her
hard hat and revealed that tousled head of golden curls and the tanned, perfect
set of her cheeks, and he was suddenly contemplating messy indeed. She looked
familiar as well, but he supposed that merely meant he liked a certain type.
Classic bone structure, flawless skin, wide sensual lips.

He found himself more annoyed by how lovely she was than he
had been when she mouthed off to him. He took another sip of the too-hot
coffee, burning his tongue. Maybe that would help. Or maybe a tour of the oil
rig, what he was supposed to be here for anyway, would help. He set the cup
down on the compact vanity beside the closet.

“Shall we get started, Miss Donald?”

“Sure.” Without her hard hat, she seemed to take off some of
that attitude as well. Maybe they could play nice and forget about their original
rough start. Or the fact he wanted to jump her bones.

They did, however, need to set one thing straight. “While I
have you both in here, though, perhaps this is the time to talk about what
happened up in the control room.”

“The kid just got over-eager,” O’Malley explained. “He read
a gauge wrong. It was nothing.”

“It better be. Because whether you say it out loud or not,
the oil spill that must not be named—”

“I’m surprised you’ve even heard of Voldemort,” Miss Donald
snapped. “Studying up on his techniques, were you?”

“And here you were not two minutes ago acknowledging that I
was the boss, Miss Donald. What happened to that?”

She thinned her lips. In fact, she appeared to be sucking
them in, over her little white teeth, probably in an effort to stay silent. She
succeeded. O’Malley looked resigned. And scared.

Good. That was something he was used to dealing with.

“I don’t intend to have what happened on the
Deepwater
Horizon
happen here or on any of the other rigs Transcoastal owns. Now I’m
aware you’ve had a few accidents—”

“Oh please,” she muttered. “Like you can compare a few loose
valves to the Gulf oil spill. Besides, you got your scapegoat, didn’t you?”

Her silence hadn’t lasted long.

“It’s precisely that kind of attitude, Miss Donald, that I
need to make sure we don’t take at Transcoastal. And if that means slowing down
the pumping, or slowing down the time before you get to your
off-time
or
whatever, so be it.”

“As long as it doesn’t cost more money, I assume.”

“Oil spills are the ultimate waste of money and should be
avoided at all costs.”

“Eleven people died in that incident, in case you’re
interested.”

“Additional incentive for safety I would imagine.”

He did know eleven people had died. And he had felt as bad
about that as the rest of the country did. In some bizarre way, he almost
wondered if he was subconsciously trying to help, to do what he could, by
having Reynolds Industries buy Transcoastal.

Of course the fact that it was a good investment didn’t
hurt.

“Look, is that where all this hostility is coming from, Miss
Donald? You’re afraid Reynolds Industries doesn’t sufficiently
feel your
pain
?”

“I’m not afraid of it. I’m absolutely certain of it.”

“Then you should be doing everything you can to make sure
such an accident doesn’t occur on your watch.”

“I am, you asshole!”

O’Malley groaned and Miss Donald herself clamped her mouth
shut, as if she wished she could take the words back. She probably did. Being
surly with the boss was one thing. Calling him an asshole was another. Not that
Michael had
never
been called an asshole, but it was usually
after
he fired someone, not as a reason for it. And again, he couldn’t recall being
called one by a woman. Not in the workplace at least. Plenty of ex- or
about-to-be ex-girlfriends certainly had. But that was another matter.

He said the first thing that came into his mind. “If you
think I’m going to give you special treatment and take that kind of disrespect
from you because you’re a pretty girl, Miss Donald, you can think again.”

Unwittingly, he’d apparently chosen exactly the right thing
to say to egg her on to further depths of insubordination.

“Why, you condescending…” The swearing she started in on
made O’Malley shake his head.

For his own part, he was a little startled by the sight of
this angelic-looking young woman spewing such foul-mouthed insults. When he’d
been breaking it off with his last mistress, a post-divorce Tiffany
Fischer—admittedly after she’d just given him a perfectly competent
blowjob—he’d been subjected to some swear words he’d never heard a woman utter
before. But Tiffany had nothing on Miss Donald.

“Enough,” he finally snapped. Thankfully, she stopped. He
ran a hand through his hair and then patiently tried again. “I take it from
that extremely colorful rampage that accusing you of getting special treatment
as a woman is sort of a, ah, sore point with you, Miss Donald.”

She nodded. “I guess you could say that. And stop calling me
Miss Donald. I’m Vanny. Unless I’m already fired of course.”

“And what are you if you’re already fired?” he asked
sarcastically.

“About to knock you back on your ass, handsome.”

“Oh Vanny, for Christ’s sake, why don’t you just jump
overboard if you’re so all-fired-ready to shoot yourself here?”

Vanny glanced at O’Malley. “Don’t have a heart attack, old
man. I’m not taking you with me or anything.”

“Would you
like
me to fire you? Is that it?”

“No,” she said sullenly. “Except maybe the knocking you on
your ass part, I guess.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to counter “
As if”
.
She was tall for a woman, maybe even as tall as some of the models he’d dated
and, unlike them, she had some substance to her frame. But if she could knock
him on his ass, he’d hang up his testicles. He was six four and had about sixty
pounds on her and hard hat or no hard hat, he wasn’t going to let a woman—

He halted that train of thought abruptly. He wasn’t on the
playground here.

“Let’s take a step back. What I’m trying to say is that it’s
safety first with Reynolds Industries, with this acquisition and every
acquisition we’ve ever done. Don’t worry about
why
that is. Just take it
from me, it
is
. Now you’re the safety officer and all I’m trying to
ensure is that you’re doing your job.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I be? I’m on this rig too. Something
goes wrong, it’s my ass, literally, not yours.”

“Fine. Point taken.” For all he’d said he wasn’t going to
give her special treatment for being a girl, he wondered at his willingness to
let the argument go. All he knew was that despite her outrageous, unprecedented
really, behavior—had she actually called him
handsome
as casually and
dismissively as a guy might say
beautiful
or
babe
?—he wasn’t
inclined to fire the prickly Miss Donald.

At least not yet.

Maybe she should put her hat back on though. Those silky
curls she kept batting out of her huge green eyes were driving him crazy.

He didn’t have to glance at the bare vanity to know she
didn’t have a bit of makeup on either. Not a look he usually saw on a woman,
even on the rare occasions when he woke up next to one. That she could look so
lovely notwithstanding was disconcerting.

He retrieved his hard hat. “Okay, so how about that tour?”

“Sure. You need steel-toed boots too. What size are you?
Thirteen?” She reached into the closet at his nod. First a bunk bed and now
he’d be wearing somebody else’s boots. This trip was turning out to be quite an
experience.

Tick, tick, tick…
He put the metal casing over the
crudely constructed explosive, pleased that it blocked out the slight sound of
the timer. In this corner of the mess hall, it was unlikely to garner much
notice. Just an unspecified box, which if anybody
did
notice they would
probably assume was for tools or first aid or whatever. The guy footing the
bill for all this—whoever the hell he really was since he was just a voice on
the phone to him and a deposit in his bank account—had said to set it for a
time when he could be pretty certain there’d be nobody near when it went off.
And with where he put it, the chances were miniscule someone would open the box
before it went off and see the bomb.

Since Reynolds was still on board, the timing of this was
perfect. And the fact that this here little present had come on the very flight
that had brought the CEO out to the rig, in a package he’d sent himself, was an
added irony he figured his employer, his real employer, would get a kick out
of.

As for himself, he had nothing against Reynolds Industries
one way or the other.

His hates went deeper than that and were much, much older…

* * * * *

“Mr. Reynolds, your office is calling for you. Skyping I mean.
You can take it right in here.”

When Michael sat at the desk in the windowless room
cluttered with papers and stared at a computer screen much smaller and less
sharp than he was used to, his father barked at him, “What the hell are you
doing there?”

Nice to see you too, Father.

“I’m getting a tour of one of Transcoastal’s deep-sea oil
rigs. The
Treasure Driller
.”

“What the hell for? We got more due diligence on that
transaction than we’ve had on the past five acquisitions combined.”

“I wanted to see a rig for myself. I couldn’t get out on one
before the deal for scheduling reasons, but I promised myself I’d do it as soon
as I could once we closed. So here I am.”

His father harrumphed and abruptly changed the subject. “You
hear from your sister?”

“Why would I hear from Samantha? She’s on her honeymoon.”

“They have phones in Tahiti. You’d think she’d call once or
twice.”

“What do you want, Dad?”

The sigh on the other end was so uncharacteristic of Damien
Reynolds that Michael said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just…”

“What?”

“Too old to get married, I guess.”

Amen to that. After his father’s sixth or so attempt at the
altar, he’d stopped trying to replace Michael’s long-dead mother.

“You’ll get no argument from me there. Why? Has some lucky
girl suddenly taken it into her head that she’s in the running?”

“No. It’s not that. Are you coming back to Houston this
evening?”

He hesitated. “No,” he settled on. “I’ve decided to spend
some more time here. At least one night.”

After a few more items of business, he and his father signed
off.

Mick O’Malley was waiting right outside the door when he
opened it. Too bad. He was sort of hoping Miss Donald would have returned. She
had given him a tour of the mechanics of the rig with brisk efficiency, hard
hat firmly on. He found it surprising that a woman only in her mid-twenties or
so he’d guess would know so much about an oil rig. He remembered O’Malley’s
comment up on deck.

“Where to now, Mr. Reynolds?”

“Actually, I’d like something to eat, if you don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind at all. Lunch’s already wrapped up and it’s too
early for dinner, but I think I can scare something up from the galley for the
CEO.”

Michael looked at his watch in surprise. It was early
evening.

Reading the look, O’Malley explained, “Remember about that
shift thing. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Our times are all out of whack
because of that.”

When they got to what was apparently the cafeteria, the
tables were all empty. “I’ll be right back.”

Mick disappeared behind a swinging door.

“You shouldn’t wander around on your own. It could be
dangerous.”

At the sound of Miss Donald’s reproving voice, he swung
around with a smile to see her in the same jumpsuit, but without the hard hat.

He glanced around conspicuously at the Formica tables with
the bottles of ketchup and napkin stands. “It looks about as dangerous as a
local diner.”

“Clearly, the diners you go to aren’t in the kind of
neighborhood I grew up in or you wouldn’t be so dismissive.”

He laughed. “You got me there, I guess. So where did you
grow up?”

Before she could answer, Mick came back with two plates of
food. “Hope this measures up, Mr. Reynolds. Oh hi there, Vanny. Going to join
us?”

“No, I was just looking around for you. I thought Mr.
Reynolds was still busy talking to his office.”

Michael took one of the plates, a surprisingly aromatic slab
of what looked like steak and potatoes.

“Food’s the best part of life on a rig,” Mick said, ushering
him to a table and handing him his set of utensils before taking a seat
opposite. “Go on, Vanny. Get yourself something.”

“No thanks,” Vanny said. “I’m not hungry. Just find me when
you have a minute.”

“Will do, hon.”

Mick cut into his steak as Michael did the same, watching
the tall, slender figure depart.

“So what’s the deal with Miss Donald?”

“Vanny?” Mick glanced at the door she’d gone out in. “She’s
all right.”

“No, I mean you referred to her as practically growing up on
a rig. What was that all about?”

“Her daddy was a roughneck from way back. A real cowboy. Big
Quinn we called him. You see all this fancy safety stuff now. Well, it wasn’t
always like that. Back then, in the late seventies and eighties I’m talking
about, Big Quinn and his gang would be out pumping with no shirts and in shorts
and sometimes not even a hard hat. It was the wild, wild west back then, Mr.
Reynolds.”

Michael took his first bite of the slightly rare steak.
Delicious and almost as tender as he liked it. “I’m surprised there weren’t
more accidents.”

“Oh there were a few of ’em, let me tell you. But there
weren’t all these environmentalists and politicians around to make such a
stink. Mostly, something went wrong, drillers just went on about their
business.”

“No matter the effect on the environment, I assume.”

O’Malley raised a bushy eyebrow, dumping a load of ketchup
onto the side of his plate and dipping a forkful of the baked potato in it.
“Pardon me for saying, Mr. Reynolds, but I wouldn’t think you’d be falling for
what all those do-gooders are always spouting about poor little birdies got oil
in their beaks or hurting fish or some other such thing. If you were on their
side, buying an oil company’s a funny way to show it.”

Michael shrugged. “It’s not an either-or thing these days,
Mick. Being pro-environment is good business sense. We’re all citizens of the
world, no matter whether we like it or not.”

“Well, I don’t see what the fuss is about.” Mick got up and
went to a refrigerator Michael hadn’t noticed in the corner. “Beer?” At his
nod, Mick brought him one, taking a long swig of his own as he sat back down.
“Men died, and I’m sorry for that, but if it weren’t for twenty-four-hour news
coverage of the, er, the accident, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal.”

Michael made a mental note to check O’Malley’s file when he
got back to the office. This conversation wasn’t exactly reassuring him on the
safety front. But that wasn’t what he was interested in exploring further now.
“So Miss Donald’s father was a driller, you say.”

“One of the best.”

“She learned a lot about oil drilling from him?”

“And all the rest of us too. Now, this may seem funny these
days, but remember what I was saying about not having all these rules back
then. Well, the fact of it is when Quinn was on a rig, he brought Vanny with
him.”

Michael practically choked on the beer going down his
throat. “You’re kidding? What did her mother have to say about that?”

“Her ma, Vanessa, died right after Vanny was born,” he said
shortly.

“He brought a baby on the rig?”

“No, not quite that early. But by the time Vanny could talk
and twirl those long yellow curls around her fingers, she had her daddy just
about wrapped around them as well. So she bunked in a cabin with him and
wandered around the rig while he was working. Soaked up about everything, she
was so darn smart. And pretty as could be too.”

The mental picture of a little girl wandering around an oil
rig was disturbing. Not letting a kid play with Legos was one thing, but this
was on a whole other level. The things some parents would do in the name of
what they considered love.

“What about school?”

“Yeah, well, Vanny likes to say she was homeschooled before
they even had homeschooling. Eventually the state of Texas caught on to them
and made Quinn send her to a real school during the year—she stayed with an
aunt I think—but every summer she was back on the rig. The fellas all treated
her like she was their own.”

Michael thought of the exchange he’d witnessed between Vanny
and Kenny in the control room. “Maybe while she was a child. But when she got
old enough, I imagine that must have changed. She’s, ah, well, she’s very, er…”

They were both eating as they talked and Mick was mid-chew
at Michael’s observation. When he was done, he finished it for him. “One hot
babe.” Mick laughed. “Yeah, roustabouts started giving her the eye when she was
no more than a teenager. So about that time, Quinn tried to keep her off the
rig, and when that didn’t work, he beat the shit out of more guys than I could
count. After a while, it just sorted itself out. Vanny may have looked like her
ma, but she was all Quinn when it came to taking care of herself. Nobody gives
Vanny shit, I tell you that. And after a while, Quinn calmed down about it.”

“Is her father still alive?”

“Yeah. He’s in a wheelchair now, but he lives on a little
ranch outside Houston.”

Michael nodded. “And Vanny’s still on the rig.”

“It’s all the girl knows.”

The
girl
showed up again at the doorway.

“Still need a few minutes here, hon.”

“Actually, Mick, what I wanted to talk to you about can wait
till tomorrow. I’m beat. If Mr. Reynolds doesn’t need me anymore, maybe you
could shepherd him around and I’ll turn in.”

Michael stood up, even though he hadn’t made much headway on
his steak, good as it was. “Don’t go to any trouble on my account,” he told
Mick. “I’ll go back to the cabin with Miss Donald and turn in myself.”

She looked at him blankly. “Vanny,” she finally said,
turning her back.

When he followed her to the cabin and she shut the door
behind them, he finally acknowledged uncomfortably how very small the quarters
were. He didn’t think he even had a bathroom in any of his apartments or houses
that was this small. At the level of the rig they were on, there were no
windows either.

And he didn’t really want to sleep on a bunk bed. One look
at it and he should have been calling for the helicopter. Surprisingly, the
plaid-covered surface didn’t even look long enough for him. There were some
tall guys on board—that Kenny from the control room for one—what did they do?

He glanced at her, aware she was watching him.

“Need some help getting up on that?”

“Look, I may have been born to money—”

“But, don’t tell me, let me guess, you’re really a simple
guy. Simple tastes.”

He considered it. “No. I guess not.”

She laughed. “Jim comes back all time of night and day. You
want somebody to send for him?”

“Jim? The helicopter pilot?”
All night and day.
He
remembered the smile she’d shared with
Jim.
“No, that won’t be
necessary.”

She kicked off her boots and started to unsnap her jumpsuit.

Whatever look he had on his face, watching her fingers on
the snaps, made her mutter, “Don’t get all put out. I got clothes on
underneath.”

Don’t go to any trouble on my account,
he wanted to
respond, but stopped himself. He was aware enough of her as a woman as it was.
No need to throw flirting into the mix.

When she stepped out of the jumpsuit and threw it in some
hamper thing, he saw she had on a T-shirt and shorts.

And not much of a bra by the looks of it. Full, perky
breasts tested the fairly thin navy-blue cotton, and he could see the outline
of her nipples through the shirt. Man, that was sure to inspire some fantasies.

He swallowed and looked away. Christ. What the hell was he
doing here?

Turning to his bag, he rummaged around for the pajama
bottoms he’d brought. Luckily, he had thrown some in, although he generally
slept naked.

“I’ll change in the, ah…” He gestured toward the small,
attached closet.

“The head,” she supplied. “The rig is sort of considered
like a ship so we use nautical terminology more often than not.”

“Yes, I believe I read that.”

“Do you want to take a shower first or should I? As I said,
we usually don’t run into this because bunkmates aren’t in the cabin at the
same time.”

Good thing in her case too. If he was having trouble not
noticing she was a gorgeous girl, he wondered what a bunch of drillers would do
when confronted with the prospect of her taking a shower two feet from them and
sleeping so close.

“Actually, you go ahead,” she urged while he was trying to
not look at her tits. “I’m going to go up top for a breath of air first.”

In that?
He stopped himself from saying it and just
nodded as she pulled her boots back on.

When she was gone he stripped and stepped into the shower,
finding it every bit as small and utilitarian as the rest of the cabin. Turning
on the nozzle, he almost felt as if he were taking a shower in a coffin. At least
it was well lit and the door to it was glass and the hard spray hot and
soothing to his muscles. He ran the soap across his chest and dipped his head
to take the water face-on. Closing his eyes, a sudden picture of Vanny
Donald—well, her tits anyway—flashed through his mind.