Love Under Two Wildcatters (2 page)

Chapter 1

Present Day

Colt Evans wandered over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that offered an expansive view of downtown Houston at midday. From high up on the twentieth floor, he could see as much of the city that lay in that direction, stretched toward the gulf to the south.
City as far as the eye can see
.
Reckon some people would actually enjoy this view
. Houston’s particularly flat topography lent itself to spectacular panoramas, more than any city he’d ever been in.

“Now that’s just too much town for this Texas boy.” His best friend since childhood and partner these last twelve years, Ryder Magee, joined him in his window gazing.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Colt agreed.

“Likely, since the Benedicts called us here, they’re fixin’ to toss in with us,” Ryder said. He kept his voice quiet, and Colt understood the inclination. They were here in the boardroom of Benedict Oil & Minerals, invited guests, and, hopefully, soon-to-be business partners. However, they stood on Benedict turf, not their own, and so, caution seemed prudent.

Colt and Ryder had proven themselves to be no slouches in the corporate arena themselves. They’d formed
Dos Hombres Wildcatters
on the heels of the collapse of
Tres
Hombres Wildcatters
, just after Morton Barnes ditched them, taking the balance of their bank account with him. They’d built a solid reputation as Wildcatters who knew where to drill. The company had gone from being only two strays from El Paso with a portable rig behind an old Ford half ton to a corporation with more than two hundred employees and a half dozen drills in operation at any given time.

Of course, over the last couple of years, business had slowed, as it had all over the country. Which made the possibility of going into business with the Benedicts a sweet deal as far as Colt could see. The Benedicts had a history of not only staying afloat during tough times, but prospering. More than a century of business success didn’t lie. That was the kind of history Colt could get behind.

The door opened, and both he and Ryder turned to face their hosts.

They’d met both Joshua and Alex Benedict long before they’d ever begun negotiations for this deal. The world of oil and minerals in even as cosmopolitan a city as Houston was a small one. The Benedicts were Texas born and bred, same as he and Ryder. The major difference between them was that, while Benedicts generally came into the world complete with engraved silver spoons, both Colt and Ryder had scrambled in the dust of the streets of El Paso for their living—and before either had even reached the age of twelve.

“Thanks for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice,” Joshua Benedict said. He stepped forward, offering his hand. Colt and Ryder moved away from the windows to greet the two men. Both Benedicts had solid handshakes.

Colt thought there was nothing worse than shaking hands with a man whose palm put him in mind of wet noodles.

“Our pleasure.” Invited to sit by gesture, Colt took a seat adjacent to the chair Joshua stood behind. Ryder sat next to him, and they waited for the Benedicts to make the next move.

“We’ve vetted your company and run the proposed contract past our board of directors,” Alex said. “The vote was unanimous. Gentlemen, we’re in business.”

“That’s good news,” Colt said.

“You won’t be disappointed,” Ryder added.

“Our legal department will courier copies of the contract back to your legal department this afternoon,” Joshua said. Then he looked at his brother. When Alex nodded, he said, “We’d like to discuss another matter with you, if you don’t mind. A matter that is both confidential and personal.”

Colt had sat in enough business meetings to understand
this
was the real reason they’d been called to meet face to face. He met Ryder’s gaze. They’d been best friends long enough that some communication could often be carried out with just a look between them.

“You can rest assured we’ll respect your confidence,” Ryder said.

“We understand the two of you sometimes still like to go out on a site yourselves and drill,” Joshua said. “I overheard you lamenting days spent in the office instead of on the rig.”

Colt recalled the party they’d been at where Joshua overheard that comment. Since both Benedicts seemed nervous, Colt smiled, hoping to put them at ease. “No secret there. We’re wildcatters down to the bone. Business is good, and we couldn’t be happier about that. But we do miss the actual work.”

“Matter of fact,” Ryder said, “we still have our original rig, and though it looks a sight, it performs better than some of our newer stuff.”

“Uncle Carson often moans that most of the newer equipment we buy is junk,” Joshua said.

Carson Benedict had retired a couple of years before, turning the company over to his nephews. “I’d say I have to agree with your Uncle Carson,” Colt said.

“Is it true that when you started out you drilled as many wells for water as you did oil?” Alex asked.

“When we started out, we took any job we could get,” Ryder said. “Drilling for water isn’t all that much different than drilling for oil, except you don’t usually have to go down as far.”

Joshua and Alex again traded a look. Then Alex leaned forward. “We have one more question for you. And I’m afraid it’s very personal.”

Colt couldn’t say he’d actually seen a grown man blush before. To say he was intrigued by this entire conversation would be putting it mildly.

“We’ve known each other for years, and now, we’re going to be business partners,” Ryder said. “So ask away.”

“At the Carstairs’ party, around Christmastime last year, we chatted for a bit, if you’ll recall. Then, later, we couldn’t help but notice you
both
left with Melissa Simms. Would we be wrong in assuming that the three of you were very pleasantly occupied together for at least the rest of the night?”

Colt fought his own blush. He shot Ryder a quick glance and could see his best friend was in the same boat. “We don’t generally kiss and tell, but since we are being all confidential here and everything, then no, you wouldn’t be wrong in that assumption.”

“Actually,” Ryder’s voice sounded just a tad strained, “we were all three pleasantly occupied for several days.”

Colt didn’t know what he expected, but the relieved smiles both Benedicts wore surprised him.

“Are either of you men currently in a relationship?” Joshua asked.

Colt felt his left eyebrow go up. “Haven’t been for a while now, no.”

The brothers’ smiles got even wider. Then Alex sat forward. “In that case, we have a drilling job we’d like you to do for us, as a favor. You’d be drilling for water, not oil. There’s just one catch, though.”

Colt smiled. “There often is.”

* * * *

Two days later

Susan Benedict paused in the act of scraping paint off the trim of her new old house. Using the back of her hand, she wiped the sweat off her forehead then shook her hair. Tiny bits of brown paint flecks floated from her hair to the ground.
I should have worn a hat
. She’d awakened full of energy and decided today was the perfect day to tackle the job of scraping the trim. Anyone who knew her wouldn’t be the least surprised she’d neglected to don protection for her hair. Susan tended to hit the ground running, jumping in with both feet. She wasn’t a vain woman by any means, and this was never so true as when she was hip deep in a project. How she looked never entered into her thinking.

All that mattered to her at the moment was making this house as beautiful as possible and doing as much of the work on her own as she could.

She considered herself lucky that she’d been raised in a larger than average family, by parents who believed hard work was good for the soul. She’d never been one to think herself better than anyone else just because her family had been blessed with great gobs of money.

She took a moment to gaze around the property, a piece of her heritage that had come into the family sometime in the late eighteen hundreds. This house, vacant for years, had once been the domain of whichever Benedict had decided he wanted to work on this end of the family ranch.

And now, this century-old home, in the middle of nowhere, was becoming
her
home. The isolation here suited her current needs to a T. Alone, at the far corner of Benedict land, she could hunker down and not think about those nasty envy attacks she’d been having lately.

Her best friend finally healed from the trauma of watching her family murdered years before and married her two favorite brothers, and Susan should have only been weeping with joy, not crying in her beer about her own loneliness.

Embarrassment still swamped her when she thought about the way she’d behaved at the wedding reception. Not only had she gotten drunk during the party—something she never did, and thank God her brothers and Kelsey had already left on their honeymoon—but then she’d blubbered all over her other brothers’ shoulders.

Susan had believed herself resigned to the fact there were no manly men left in the world outside of family and that she would live the rest of her life as a single woman. Apparently, she wasn’t as resigned to that fate as she believed. So she’d come out here, determined to keep herself busy and build some kind of life until she got her emotional house in order.

She was a twenty-first century woman, for heaven’s sake. She was supposed to be perfectly happy with her business successes and her circle of friends and family. A twenty-first century woman did not need a man, or two or three, to make her life complete.

So get over yourself and
be
a twenty-first century woman
.

The sound of an engine bracketed by the creak of metal on metal made her turn and look toward the end of the lane. A cloud of dust rose up into the dry September Central Texas air, confirming what her ears had heard. A vehicle had turned off from the state road, heading toward her.

Shielding her eyes from the sun with her left hand, she rested her right on her hip and shook her head at the sight. The dilapidated Ford pickup truck would never see twenty again. Hitched to the back of the vehicle, looking just as rusty and reaching toward the sky, was some sort of metal equipment.

“Well, boy, howdy. What the hell…” Then, recognition of what that piece of equipment was set in, and she realized the vehicle had not turned down her lane by mistake.

Up until this very moment, she’d had the utmost faith in Alex and Joshua’s judgment. As the rickety rig headed her way, she didn’t know what to think.

She stepped out from under the overhang of her front porch so the driver of the truck could see her. She didn’t need a mirror to know what this unseen person would be seeing when she stepped into view. She’d tugged on her oldest pair of blue jeans and donned her rattiest shirt before she’d started scraping the paint off the trim. It didn’t make any sense to wear anything but rags when all she’d had on the agenda for the day was being alone with some hard, dirty work.

The truck slowed as it neared, finally coming to a screeching halt about ten feet from where she stood. Two doors swung open at the same time, and a man stepped out of each.

Susan slowly lowered her hand as she looked from one to the other of them. Tall, muscular, one with blond hair, the other with dark hair peeking out from beneath twin battered Stetsons. In a move that seemed choreographed, they each peeled dark sunglasses away from penetrating eyes and gave her the once-over, hot gazes leaving nothing unscorched.

Susan swallowed as her slit released moisture onto her panties and her nipples tightened.

The driver cocked his head to one side, his gaze zeroing in on her traitorous breasts before focusing on her eyes. “Are you the woman who’s looking for a couple of really good drillers?”

“You must be Texan.” Only Texans, in her estimation, could brag about their sexual prowess and make it sound like innocent conversation.

“Yes, ma’am, just a couple of strays from El Paso looking for a warm, willing woman to take us in.” The driver managed to say that with a straight face.

Susan could tussle with the best of them. Having four brothers meant there wasn’t much a man—or two—could toss her way that she couldn’t handle. “I don’t know. I’m seeing a lot of rust, there. I’m thinking the equipment might be past its prime, maybe doesn’t even work anymore. I’d be too afraid the intense action of nonstop drilling might prove too much and the bits might break.”

“Well, now.” The passenger spoke for the first time. Susan could see his dark eyes sparkling from where she stood. “You’ll pardon me for saying that sounded like a challenge. If you give us a chance to loosen things up a little and lube them down, we’d be pleased to give you our very best shot.”