Texas Curves (3 page)

The grunt he gave didn't sound anything like those sexy little hybrid purrs he seemed prone to.

"Ginny, I don't take a woman to bed unless I can picture sharing a child with her, if it comes down to it." He jabbed his finger in Cherry's direction. "I can't imagine sharing so much as a rabid honey badger with that woman."

I would have laughed my ass off if I wasn't so ready to cry. I pushed away from him. "You're getting up and walking away from this table, Hawk McKinley." I drew a shuddering breath in, my voice trembling and the tears building to the point I couldn't contain them much longer. "If you really, really meant what you just said, you'll leave me alone right now--"

Hawk had no intention of relenting. A hand around my elbow kept me from retreating any further. "If I meant what I said, and I do, walking away is the last thing you can expect from me. Just not happening, baby girl."

I stared at him, all my words and fury abandoning me. My lips started to quiver and I felt the first slide of a tear falling hot and fat down my cheek.

"Ginny…"

Hawk tried rubbing his palm along my arm to calm me. I shrank inward, refusing to look at him any longer. He looked sincere. Bobby Jackson had looked sincere, too. I could still hear the cow bells ringing if I cut out all the noise from the crowd around McKinley and me.

"I'll go, for now." Hawk jumped up from the table. "If it'll settle you, I'll go. But we're not done discussing this, Ginny. We'll take this at whatever pace you're comfortable…"

His hand brushed my shoulder. My whole body stiffened at his touch.

"Just go," I whispered and he did.

**********************

Telling Beau I needed to talk to Roy first and that the offer wasn't as good as it sounded because I had to factor in lost tips, too, I managed to keep my big brother mostly off the topic of my accepting Hawk McKinley's job offer the rest of the weekend. He still tried to argue McKinley's case, assuring me there was room for a bigger salary because Red Addams, the site foreman, had sent all of his former clerks home to their mommas crying like little girls, and every last one of them was a man. But Beau didn't bring the job up with momma and daddy or offer me more than the occasional, quizzical look.

Certain I could handle Beau without having to take a job with McKinley, I walked into the steakhouse Monday morning to find myself unemployed.

All thanks to Hawk McKinley if I understood Roy correctly.

"I hate to lose you, Ginny, but he was real convincing." Roy had tossed an arm around my shoulder and gave me a paternal squeeze as I stared at him, my mouth working like a guppy freshly pulled from its fish bowl. "I can't hope to pay you that kind of money and he's right when he says the office job will look better on your resume once you finish classes up."

Roy stuck a fat, padded envelope in my hand. "He said you'd need this before heading out to the site."

Thus ended the job I'd held since high school, one that had helped keep the utilities on while daddy was laid up and helped get them turned on in the first place when the Kelly family's world had been turned upside down eighteen months ago. Pulling into the H-E-B Foods parking lot to sit and mull things over for a spell, I tried not to think about the storm that had knocked out the power at the garage daddy worked at, short circuiting the car lift he was working under. Tearing open the envelope, I tried not to think of how, ten miles away from where daddy was trapped for six hours under a car that day, a tornado blew through the Kelly homestead, obliterating the building and every last stick of furniture and personal articles in it. Good-bye to my parents' wedding photos, the baby blankets Gran had quilted for me and Beau, the china daddy's great-great grandmother had brought over from Ireland. Good-bye everything.

Money spilled from the envelope, a thick wad of hundreds with a piece of paper wrapped around it. Bracing myself for another Hawk McKinley negotiating tactic, I unfolded the paper and started to read.

Ginny,

I know you're pissed as hell at me right now. I also know if I let you have your way, you'll run and hide. So understand this -- I don't plan on leaving you anywhere to hide, sweet tea. The finance office at Midland shows your next semester is paid in full as of eight this morning. Enclosed is every dollar for every hour you will work at the McKinley site. If you still choose to run, fine. But I'll keep chasing. I don't stop until I get what I want, and I want you.

Hawk

Certain I was going to pass out, I let the money fall to the floor and wrapped my hands around the steering wheel. I bent my neck until my forehead rested against the wheel then I closed my eyes.

Sweet baby Jesus, what was wrong with that man?

Was it possible? Did Hawk McKinley really find me attractive? I took a few deep breaths in before I opened my eyes and stared at the money covering my shoes. I reached down, picked it up and counted through it. More than twice the five weeks left of summer shifts at Roy's. Hawk McKinley could afford it and much more, which kept the money and the offer within the realm of the cruelest practical joke I could imagine.

Could it be a cruel joke? Everything I had read, hunkered down at the computer in the library on Sunday afternoon, suggested he was a good man. He didn't just give money to charity like the rest of his family did. When McKinley Oil donated to Habitat for Humanity after the tornadoes ripped through East Texas last year, he not only signed a very big check, but went and swung the hammer, too, taking all his local crew from Beaumont for two weeks.

Was that all public relations or all Hawk?

Knowing I wasn't going to figure out what McKinley was up to while I sat in the grocery store parking lot, I stuffed the money back in the envelope and drove home to change for my new job.

**********************

On the back of Hawk McKinley's letter was a map to the site offices. I knew the building and location. It was the only concrete structure around it for a good seven miles and the only thing standing in that area after the line of tornadoes that took out our house. It had been built in the eighties to hold dairy cattle during milking, but a drought had involuntarily changed the owner's mind before the equipment could be installed. The building had been sitting empty except for cobwebs and spiders until McKinley Oil leased the land after the wells hit.

Parking along the side of the building, I was barely out of my car when I heard a string of curse words that would make a sailor blush. Then I heard something like the sound of metal striking metal. I followed the noise to the back of the building where I found a thickly mustached fifty something male still cussing up a storm as he battled a portable generator. With the way the man was swinging his wrench, I approached cautiously, letting my feet stir up the gravel so he could hear me coming.

Looking up, his scowl softened. "You my new Girl Friday?"

"If you're Red Addams, then, yes sir, I am." I could feel the heat coming off the generator.

Roy had this exact model for when storms knocked the electricity out at the steakhouse. Without asking, I opened the main panel and started poking around a bit. The thermostat was opening, but it was half choked with dust. Taking the wrench from Red, I gave the area much softer taps, trying not to laugh. The Mustang wasn't the only piece of McKinley's equipment with radiator issues.

After another minute spent checking the rest of the engine, I started it back up. "You have an air compressor on site? It could use a good blow."

"Got one I can get back here this evening." Wiping a bandana across his dirt streaked forehead, Red gave a short nod telling me I had passed at least the first part of his inspection. "If you know your way around the computer as well as an engine, little girl, I'm going to owe Hawk a bottle of scotch."

I smiled at Red. At more than twice my age, he could call me
little girl
if it suited him. Hawk could not, and I was going to let McKinley know exactly that at the first available opportunity. Still smiling, I followed Red around to the front of the building. Stepping inside, he pointed at a desk then plopped down in front of the small AC unit plugging up the window, his face all but touching the grill.

"Sweet Jesus it's hot!"

I sat down at the desk, my gaze glued to a vase of freshly cut yellow roses. Next to it, a clean coffee cup, Kelly green in color, rested upside down.

Seeing what held my attention, Red laughed. "Hawk said he might have strong armed you into working for me. I guess that's his way of apologizing."

My mouth flattened and Red laughed even harder. "Looks like the boss might have to grovel a bit. Can I watch?"

"No, I prefer to do my groveling in private." I hadn't noticed the Mustang parked near the building, but the smooth as silk voice came from the doorway behind me. The door had been closed when Red and I came in. Now Hawk McKinley filled it with his big frame. He slapped a rolled sheath of papers against his thigh then nodded at the computer in front of me. "Why don't you take a few minutes getting Ginny logged in, then we need to discuss the numbers coming out of rig eight."

Those "few minutes" lasted fifteen as Red showed me where to find the inventory lists on my computer, the crew's time sheets, purchase orders and more, made sure I knew how to work the two-way radio and then set me to sorting out some open items before he disappeared behind the door marked
Private.

Red returned an hour later, checked on my progress then told me he was heading out for rig eight. There was a map on the wall, small pins sticking into it with little tags hanging from them marked with the names of the crew members at each location. He moved a red-tipped pin from the office we were sitting in and pushed it into a big number eight about five miles away.

"Normally, the boys check in with their cell phones and it's logged automatically on the server, even in Iraq, but we've had to go old school out here." He grabbed a baseball cap and smoothed it over his gray hair. "I'll bring that air compressor back with me."

I nodded, my insides jumping at the thought of being left alone in the building with Hawk McKinley. I spent the next fifteen minutes fidgeting with inventory lists at my desk, my ears sensitive to the slightest sounds within the building. Hearing the doorknob behind me start to rotate, I straightened at my desk and stared a little harder at the open spreadsheet. I was here to earn back every damn dollar in that envelope, and not a penny of it would be spent socializing with Hawk McKinley.

"Red show you where the coffee maker is at?"

My brows popped up. "Am I supposed to make coffee?"

"No." He stopped in front of my desk and turned the cup over. "You're supposed to drink it. Of course, if you can brew a better pot than Red, please do."

"I don't drink coffee." I nodded at the water dispenser with its inverted five gallon jug. "But I can brew it well enough."

"Mm-hmm." Hawk grabbed the little green cup on my desk and proceeded to fill it with water.

He brought it back, leaned close to place it next to me, then straightened and continued to stand in front of my desk as I worked. I lasted three minutes pretending he didn't exist before I lifted my eyes to glare at him. "Is there something else Mr. McK--"

There was nothing professional in the face staring down at me. Hawk's mouth had formed a sultry pout, like he was holding a plump strawberry between his lips and trying hard not to dent the skin with his teeth. His eyes had gone soft, his gaze floating against my neck and the swell of my breasts. His hands danced along the top of my desk, the strong, deft fingers stroking its edge like a man might stroke the folds of his lover's sex.

"Look here, Hawk McKinley." I pointed at my eyes then wagged my finger at him. "Thanks to your little heart-to-heart with the man who was my employer for the last eight years, I don't have a job any more. That's the only reason I'm here and you're not getting anything out of me you didn't get out of Red's last four clerks. And I hear they were all men. So unless you have some real interesting stories to spin about that, you just need to keep your hands in your pockets and your eyes in their sockets and let me work!"

With a naughty grin lighting his face, Hawk shoved his hands in his pockets. Fat bit of good his compliance did me -- the gesture pulled the front panel of fabric tight, removing any mystery of just how long and thick Hawk McKinley got when he was hard.

I choked a little air in and swallowed. Biscuits and gravy, the man was packing a mighty big load.

"No promises on where I keep my eyes, sweet tea." The smile in his voice told me he knew exactly what I was thinking and where I was looking. One hand left its pocket long enough to stroke a finger under my chin and lift my gaze until it met his. "Maybe you better throw on a parka or something tomorrow if you're really worried about me drinking in every curve of that sweet body."

He finished with a wink and walked back into his office, shutting the door behind him.

Alone in the reception area, I nodded and grabbed a small memo pad and pen from the side of my computer.

Buy parka!

**********************

The work week passed quickly. Hawk was out of the office more than he was in attendance, or he was hours deep into phone calls around the globe. Red remarked more than once how the boss had overstayed his visit a good week, which was why he had to spend so much time on the phone. If every nerve ending in my body hadn't been acutely aware of Hawk's placement, I'd have barely known he was there.

Until late Friday afternoon, that is, when he started purring around the office five minutes after Red headed out to rig eight, the site's official problem child. It started with chit chat -- like him asking me if I was looking forward to a real weekend off and did I have any plans. I kept my nose buried in my work, giving him single syllable replies.

"You almost sound disinterested, Ginny." Hawk stood in front of the filing cabinet with his back to me. He'd been there a good three minutes doing nothing that looked like real work and everything that looked like a big, fat pretense.