Here Comes Trouble (4 page)

***

Jenny wobbled a little on her feet and Joel
ran across the room to put his arm around her. "Sugar, you don't
need to be in these fumes," he chastised then led her toward the
front door and outside onto the porch to a rocker.

"You sound like Chase," she said and slapped
him on the arm.

"He's right, you need to take it easy. You've
done the hard part, I'll get the rest done," he told her and sat in
the rocker beside hers. "Chase will help me finish, he's my partner
now."

"But you're opening in two weeks! You have
guests coming and no beds to put them in!" his beautiful
sister-in-law protested.

"Stop worrying, you worry too much," Joel
grumbled. "It's all going to be fine, I called and the furniture
will be here on Monday."

She huffed out a breath and collapsed against
the back of the chair, holding the sides of her huge belly. Panic
surged through Joel and he vaulted up from the chair.

"Are you hurting, Jen?" Chase would kill him
if he sent her into early labor because of the fumes. He hadn't
wanted her to come over to begin with, he had a meeting in Dallas,
but Jenny had come on her own because she was worried about the
decorator getting finished on time.

She opened one eye and glared at him. "Will
you take a chill? Now, who's a worrywart?"

Joel swallowed thickly and asked again, "Are
you in labor?"

"No, Joel, I'm not in labor, I'm worn out from
carrying around this baby. I
wish
I was in labor!" she told
him with a snort.

"You're two weeks from your due date,
shouldn't you be in bed resting?" Joel chastised.

"No, I should be doing what I normally do.
You, Chase and your mama are driving me insane!" she said and
shoved up to her feet, wobbling again, before she found her
balance.

A dust cloud at the end of the long driveway
caught Joel's attention and he turned that way and shaded his eyes.
A smaller sports car was creating the dust, not the pickups and
dump trucks he was used to seeing from the contractors. It wasn't
Gigi, his marketing person either. She drove an SUV.

"Wonder who that could be?" he said
offhandedly to Jenny.

When the car got closer, all of a sudden Jenny
squealed and his heart almost stopped.

"Good, God, Jen--
don't do that
!" he
hissed when she wobbled down the steps toward the car. Joel quickly
figured out what she'd been squealing about when a familiar petite
brunette slid out of the small red sports car and ran into her
outstretched arms.

Flavor number one was back in Amarillo, and
from the looks of her tear-streaked face when she got out of the
car, she was bringing trouble with her.

With a groan, he walked down the steps toward
the car, that was all he needed right now. Halfway to the car, he
thought better of greeting her, thinking maybe she and Jenny would
leave and go to Jenny's house. She hadn't seen him yet, so he
wouldn't seem rude if he could get away before she did see him.
Joel did an about face and crept back toward the house. Soft sobs
drifted to his ear, and Joel stopped in his tracks to glance back.
Jenny was holding Terri tightly while the smaller woman's shoulders
shook violently.

Something inside of Joel did a little jiggle
near his heart and he commanded it to be still. Emotionally strung
out women gave him the hives. He didn't know how to deal with them.
Joel had always headed for the hills when his mother or sister had
a meltdown. So what the hell was keeping him on the porch now, his
feet itching to go over there and comfort her?

A flash of them in Chase's guest room the
night they'd moved Jenny to Amarillo flashed through his mind and
he felt beads of sweat pop out on his forehead. That night, she'd
been anything but vanilla. The woman was a flavor all her
own...sweet and spicy. Involuntarily, his body hardened at the
memory of how sweet she'd been on his lips.

Every surface in that room had been fair game
that night, even the adjacent bath, when he thought they were
through.

When Jenny turned toward the house, his feet
unglued from the porch and he scrambled around the side of the
house. He hoped Jenny didn't take her inside the house, because
Jenny would be exposed to those fumes again. Joel wasn't sticking
around to remind her though.

Like the coward he was, Joel snuck around the
corner of the house, and put his back against the wall near the
corner of the house, waiting for the door to close behind them. The
squeak of the rockers as they sat on the porch told him they
weren't going inside, and he was stuck where he was until she left.
Unless he wanted to see her, or her to see him.

"Six weeks, can you believe it?" Terri said in
a nasally high-pitched voice.

"No, I can't believe any of it. That guy has a
lot of nerve, and so do the men on that board...you could sue their
asses off. The other nurses he harassed wouldn't back you?" Jenny
asked with anger and disgust in her tone.

What guy?
Joel wondered what they were
talking about. He knew he was being an eavesdropper, but he
couldn't help himself, curiosity had him by the balls
now.

"No, the board supposedly interviewed them
all, and not a one would speak up. They basically called me a
liar...said I was out for revenge, because of the situation with
that kid and the dog bite."

"I can't believe they took that stance in this
day and age. Most workplaces take a hard line against sexual
harassment," Jenny told her.

"Oh, the good ole boys on the board took a
hard line stance alright...it was just against me," Terri told her
with a tremble in her voice.

"You should sue them," Jenny told
her.

"His word against mine, it'll wind up the
same, and I'll spend a ton of money in the process."

Joel could hear the defeat in Terri's voice
and it made him angry. A lot of things about the situation made him
angry. From the pieces and parts of the conversation he overheard,
he gathered some asshole had tried to come on to her at work, and
now she was paying the price for trying to make things
right.

Jenny huffed a frustrated breath then said,
"God, this sucks bad."

"Tell me about it," Terri replied then added
with forced brightness, "But the good thing is now I can be here
when the baby is born!"

"What are you going to do?" Jenny
asked.

Terri groaned before she responded. Joel felt
it all the way in his toes.

"I have to find another job before the
suspension is over. Maybe I'll try the hospital in
Amarillo."

There was silence and then Jenny finally
spoke. "As your best friend, I should probably say 'sure you should
do that, you're a good nurse, they'll hire you'. The only problem
is, I know firsthand how the good ole boy network operates.
Remember I had a similar problem, that's why I wound up in
Henrietta."

"Yeah, I remember," Terri told her. "Now that
I have a black mark too, I'm marked as trouble, and it's unlikely
another hospital will hire me. Thanks for not sugarcoating
things."

"Sorry, but I didn't want you to get your
hopes up."

Joel almost wished Jenny had given her some
false hope, maybe then her voice wouldn't be so sad. Terri really
was in a fix.

"Well, I'm not going to worry about it for a
couple of weeks. It's been five years since I had a vacation, and I
can't think of a better place to spend it than with you and your
new bambino."

"I'm glad you're here too. Between Chase and
his mama, and now Joel, they're driving me nuts. Maybe you can help
me run interference," Jenny told her with a chuckle.

Joel thought they were done talking, and
figured he'd slink away like the sneaky snake he was, so he started
creeping but Jenny's next words stopped him in his tracks. "You
know...we need a few more onsite medics for our rigs. It wouldn't
take much to train you. The guys are pretty rough there, but I
think you could handle them."

Not no, but
hell
no! There was no way
Joel was going to let the petite brunette work on an oil derrick.
Those guys were called roughnecks for a reason. Besides, that was a
dangerous place to be most of the time. A person could get killed
in the blink of an eye, if they weren't careful.

Joel's dad had made him work in the oil patch
as a teenager, so he knew the perils involved. Had almost been a
statistic himself, if his safety rope hadn't held when he fell from
the monkey board high up on the rig.

She wouldn't be doing that of course, would
probably be in the trailer with the company man, but well blowouts
happened, things got wild and shit happened. The thought of it
happening to her sent chills down his spine. Without thinking, Joel
spun on his heel and walked around the corner to stand before the
two women with his hands on his hips.

"She's not going to work on a rig," he told
Jenny flatly, then glared at her.

"Whoa, buster..." Terri said then pushed up to
her feet and stepped into his space. The top of her head barely
reached the center of his chest, but she faced him off and put a
finger in his chest. "What the hell were you doing listening to our
conversation?" she started then poked him again. "And who the hell
do you think you are telling me what I can and can't
do?"

Joel looked into her angry green eyes and
swallowed down the lust that punched him in the gut. "It's
dangerous, and you don't need to be around those men."

Terri rocked back on her heels and put her
hands on her hips, her beautiful lips cocked up on one side. "Your
brother is one of
those
men, isn't he?"

"Yeah, we both were, that's how I know you
don't need to be there," he grated.

"And what do you propose I do to earn a living
then, since I've shot myself in the ass at the hospital in
Henrietta?"

"That wasn't your fault, and I'd like to put
my fist through that sonofabitch's face," Joel replied
angrily.

"Doesn't matter...I've got to find another
job, because if I stay there I'll wind up getting fired, or
punching that asshole in the nose myself," she told him with
emotion choking her voice as she finished, "The job Jenny offered
sounds right up my alley, so butt out."

"I'll hire you," Joel said quickly and his
brain went into a spasm when he realized what he'd just said. Good,
god he must've lost his mind. A minute ago he'd been hiding from
her, because he didn't want to rehash their night together, which
was why he hadn't called her, and now he was
hiring
her?

Terri actually snorted, then chuckled, before
she bent over and held her sides while she laughed
hysterically.

Joel was insulted. "What the hell is so
funny?"

"You are..." she said weakly then gasped and
added, "I've never ridden a damned horse or wrangled a cow in my
life! That would be ten times more dangerous than working on an oil
rig!"

"It is dangerous, that's why I need to set up
a first-aid station for the guests. The ranch is remote, and help
would be too long coming if something happened," he told her
seriously. "There'll probably be a lot less serious injuries
though, like blisters and saddle sores, pulled muscles, headaches,
heat exhaustion, that kind of thing. Someone will have to help,
can't think of anyone better to do it than a nurse."

Her eyes darted to Jenny who had remained
silent on the subject so far, then back to him. "That might be like
jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, huh?" she asked with a
raised brow and a smirk.

Joel interpreted her words to be a nod at
their night together. She was leaving the hospital, because a man
was making advances, and by accepting his job offer here she
thought she'd be in the same situation.

Wrong...Joel was not going there again. No
way, no how was he going to start up something that could lead her
to believe he was interested in a relationship. He was a one-timer
now, one date, one romp and he was moving on. That way there was no
misunderstanding what his intentions were.

"That's not something you have to worry about,
sugar. My expectations wouldn't include anything other than you
doing a good job in taking care of my guests. Your off time and
what you do with it is your business."

"How much would you pay?" She asked with
interest sparkling in her eyes.

He huffed out a breath and mentally calculated
what he could afford, and what she'd probably expect. "It will
probably be less than what you're making now, but you can have a
room in the employee bunkhouse for free, and your meals would be
free as well."

"I'd have to
live
here?" Terri
hooted.

"Yep, that's the deal...I want somebody who's
available at all times in case the guests need
treatment."

"Terri that sounds like a good deal to me,"
Jenny said and pushed up from her chair.

Joel saw her gnawing her lip, while she
thought his offer through, and he wanted to put his mouth on hers
and see if she tasted as good as he remembered. He dragged his eyes
from her mouth and pinned his sister-in-law with his gaze. "It is a
good deal, and it would solve her problem, and buy her time for
things to settle down. She could work here a couple of years, then
if she wanted to go back to work at a hospital, she
could."