Читать книгу The Texan's Twins - Pamela Britton - Страница 12
ОглавлениеJet felt like a kid on Christmas day....
Right up until the moment his dad strolled into the office. Okay, more like hobbled.
“There you are.” The tone of his dad’s voice was one he recognized from his youth when he’d been off riding one of his horses instead of taking out the trash. “Been looking for you.”
Jet leaned back in his chair. The thing about his dad was that you couldn’t let him see you sweat. If you did, he’d pounce. “So I heard.”
His dad clutched both his crutches in one hand before moving a chair out so he could sit.
“Here.” Jet shot up. “Let me help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” Brock gave him what Jet called the Look. He could stop a kid in his tracks with a single glance. “I’m injured, not old.”
“No one’s calling you old.” Jet slowly sank into one of the conference room chairs he’d pilfered last night. He’d discovered he had an office when he’d come back to Baron Energies after his meeting with J.C. Two side chairs and a desk had greeted him. Jet had no idea where the desk chair had gone. He’d wondered if Elizabeth had hidden it on purpose. Probably not, though. She’d turned into a regular professional businesswoman. Frankly he didn’t know if he should feel pride or pity. Lizzie had always liked to be in control. The fact that she could do so while winning Daddy’s approval was just the icing on the cake, or so he surmised.
“Where were you?”
The third degree. He should have expected that. And he should have expected a visit from his old man this morning, too. Checking up on him. “I was in a meeting.”
“With who?” Blue eyes clearly doubted his words.
“With our new engineer.” He glanced at his laptop when his email binged. Lizzie. She was warning him their dad was on the prowl. He quickly typed the words Too late before turning his attention back to his dad. “We were going over the numbers for the project.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Something about the way his dad said the words put Jet on alert. “I was.”
Silence. Brock adjusted his crutches again. Jet waited.
“She’s good-looking.”
Oh, crap. He should have expected this, too. “She’s an exceptional engineer.”
He didn’t know that for sure, not really, but he’d studied the report she’d sent him and from what he could tell, she’d covered all the bases, despite her errors. He could tell he’d surprised her with his knowledge of the industry. The fact was, he’d grown up around wells and drilling. He might not have a masters degree on paper, but he sure as heck did in experience. His father knew that. It was why he was being groomed to take over for Lizzie. The thing was, he liked his life just fine. He helped out at Baron Energies when he could, but this full-time stuff wasn’t really his thing.
“She’s going to be a distraction to the men on-site.”
Jet kept his expression neutral, but he was surprised. For someone who professed to be a man with vision, Brock sure seemed stuck in the past.
“Believe me, she’ll keep them at arm’s length.”
“Sounds like you speak from experience.”
Jet glanced at the time. He was supposed to meet J.C. in fifteen minutes but he suspected if he mentioned that to his dad, he’d be treated to another lecture.
“She’s a professional, Dad. Even if I was interested in her, which I’m not, she wouldn’t give a man like me the time of day.”
She’d made her disdain for him obvious. That might have something to do with them getting off on the wrong foot, but that wasn’t the only thing he saw in her eyes. She was wary of him. Wary of men in general, and he couldn’t help but wonder why.
“Did you know she’s the daughter of Jimmy Marks?”
No. He hadn’t known that. “She mentioned growing up in the oil fields.”
“Best wildcatter I knew. Crazy son of a bitch. Can’t believe he had such a pretty daughter. Then again, the girl’s mother was a looker.”
“She’s not my type.”
“Just keep your Johnson in your pants.”
“Dad!”
“I mean it, Jet. You need to focus. The company needs you now more than ever.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Just as long as you stay here.”
“Is that it? Is that all you wanted to say to me?”
His dad’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
Whatever was on his dad’s mind, Jet could see it bothered him. He wondered what it could be. His heart jumped. Was it his health?
“What is it, Dad?”
He saw his dad take a deep breath. “I need your opinion on something.”
Well, stop the press. Pigs must surely be flying. Snowballs were being hurled from hell. Rain fell upside down. His dad never asked for his thoughts. Never.
“Your sister Carly came to me a few weeks back asking about your mother.”
“Which one?” It wasn’t a sarcastic question. Brock had married three times. Once to his birth mom, a woman named Delia, then to Peggy, who’d died when he was fifteen and then to his current wife, Julieta. Frankly, it was Peggy that he mostly thought of as Mom. Julieta was a wonderful woman, but she was more like a friend.
“The one who gave birth to you.”
Jet leaned even farther back, placing his hands behind his head as he did so. “What’d she want to know?”
“She’s trying to find her.”
Jet’s hands dropped. “What? Why?”
“I think it has to do with Lizzie being pregnant. Or maybe it’s the whole engagement thing. It’s got the girls thinking about motherhood and having babies or something. I don’t know.”
But it bothered his old man, Jet could tell, enough that he was coming to his son and asking for...something.
“What do you want me to do?”
His dad didn’t answer for a moment, but what Jet found most telling was the way Brock’s gaze never met his own.
“Dad?” he prompted.
“Just keep an eye on the situation for me. See if you can find out what’s going on and what they know.”
“You want me to spy.”
That got his dad’s attention. “No. Nothing like that.” He reached for his crutches. “I just want to know what they know, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you just ask Carly?”
“Because you know what she’s like. Once she gets the bit between her teeth, she’s a runaway horse. If she thinks it bothers me that she’s looking for Delia, she’ll wonder why. That’ll get her dander up and, more important, her curiosity rolling. She won’t let it rest.”
“What’s wrong with her being curious?”
Was that a momentary glint of guilt he saw in his dad’s eyes? What did the old man have to feel guilty about?
“Nothing wrong with it. I just don’t want her getting hurt. That woman did enough damage to our family.”
That wasn’t it. Jet could tell there was far more to the story than that.
His father stood up. Jet watched, wondered, pondered a bit, but in the end, he admitted now he was curious. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”
And now gratitude. Would wonders never cease?
His dad put his crutches beneath his arm. “And stay away from that J.C. woman.”
“Her name’s Jasmine and she’s the engineer on the project I’m managing. I can’t exactly ignore her.”
His dad paused by the door to his office, his reflection projected back to Jet thanks to the glass wall along the front of his office. “You know what I mean.”
He did, indeed, know what he meant. Didn’t mean he would listen to him, but he knew.
* * *
TEN MINUTES LATER, Jet couldn’t keep the smile from his face as he exited the elevator amid a crowd of fellow office dwellers. It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and if he were honest with himself, he itched to get on a horse.
Those days are over.
No, he silently promised himself. He wasn’t going to give up rodeo. And he was getting to do something he loved today. Fly.
But as Jet waited for Jasmine to arrive in front of Baron Energies’ corporate offices, he knew he kidded himself. It wasn’t just the thought of flying, it was the thought of spending time with Jasmine.
Showing off.
Well, yes, there was that, too.
She was as prickly as a pear cactus, but as his father had noted, as pretty as a Texas bluebonnet, and she sure looked as if she needed a little fun. As it happened, fun was his middle name.
“Let’s get this over with.”
He hadn’t seen her approach. When he turned, he admitted she didn’t appear too pleased to be getting away from the office. For half a second he debated whether or not he should let her off the hook. Something stopped him, something that had to do with the exhaustion he saw in her eyes. She struck him as the type who would keep going and going until she dropped, or ended up in the hospital. Twins. That couldn’t be easy.
“No need to sound so enthusiastic.” He smiled to take the sting out of his words. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail. She’d changed, too, though he had no idea where she’d gotten the jeans and white button-down shirt. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t admit he liked the dress better, and her long, sexy legs.
“How long is this going to take?” she asked as he held the door of his truck open for her. He’d parked outside their corporate headquarters situated in downtown Dallas and conveniently located just a few blocks from a DART station. They occupied the uppermost floors, and Jet had the oddest sensation of being watched as he stood there.
Dad?
He glanced up, wondering if both Brock and Lizzie stared down at him. He wouldn’t be surprised. He’d sent her an email about his outing today, and while it was a task he undertook regularly, the inspection wasn’t due for another month. She hadn’t replied. Then again, she’d probably been hijacked by their father the moment Brock had left Jet’s office.
“Not more than an hour or two. Our holdings aren’t that extensive.”
He closed the door before she could form some kind of protest or express her displeasure at being taken away from her work. He had to wait a moment for traffic to pass on the busy street in front of their offices. When he pulled open the driver’s door a moment later she appeared to be checking messages on her phone. Probably their corporate email.
“Do you ever, I don’t know, relax?”
The glare she shot him was like that of an impatient wife, one who’d just been told by her husband to sit down and take a break from chores when she had a million things to do, all of which were being done by her and not her husband. He’d seen that look a time or two before on his own stepmother’s face when dealing with Brock.
“I have two kids and a full-time job in a demanding field. When, exactly, would I find time to relax?”
He drew back at the sharpness of her tone. She must have seen his reaction because she closed her eyes, sank back against the seat and let out a sigh.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “I’m a little sleep deprived. Makes me cranky.”
“Me, too.”
She opened her eyes again, staring out at the high-rise buildings they passed between, some made of concrete, others made of glass, all of them with people walking out in front. He heard her sigh.
Inside the cab, sunlight flickered through the trees that sprouted up from the sidewalk here and there. The streets were wide, some of the sidewalks made of red brick, but he doubted she noticed such details. Honestly, he would bet what she was really thinking about was a nap.
“Do you have any help at home?”
It was the closest he could come to asking if she was seeing anybody without sounding nosy, or like he was trying to pick her up. Contrary to what his dad might think, he had no intention of getting involved with a woman who had twins. No thanks. Not his cup of tea. Still, he felt sorry for her, watched her closely to see if she would bristle, but she didn’t. Instead, she just shook her head, her ponytail shifting over one shoulder and from nowhere came the urge to brush it back, to soothe her brow.
Jet abruptly faced forward.
“I used to have some help.”
Her words surprised him because he figured she’d clam up like she always did.
“The twins’ grandparents are still alive and they’ve been a big support, but engineering jobs don’t grow on trees and so when I was offered the position at Baron Energies, I took it.”
The twins’ grandparents, meaning her girls’ father’s parents. He knew her own dad was dead. Her mother, too. Or so he surmised from the way his dad had made it sound. Did that mean she was all alone? What had happened to the twins’ dad?
“I take it the father isn’t in the picture.”
They were at a stoplight and so he happened to glance at her just in time to see her flinch, almost as if she’d just had a sharp pain, and maybe she had.
“No,” was all she said.
Something in her past caused her pain, and he had a feeling it was grief. Sure, he knew some men were irresponsible jerks and that it was completely plausible that she’d been ditched by the father of her twins, but he didn’t think so. There’d been something in her eyes, her remarkable eyes, that he suddenly realized were tinged by a perpetual sadness.
“So who watches your twins when you’re at work?”
She seemed to snap out of a momentary trance. He noticed how long her lashes were when she blinked.
“I hired someone. A woman in my condominium complex. She was looking to make some extra money and I didn’t want to be shuffling my girls between their home and a day-care center. She comes to my place every morning.”
“I bet you wish she would come in the middle of the night sometimes, too.”
She glanced at him in surprise, but then something remarkable happened, something that left him feeling as if he’d been kicked in the gut.
She smiled.
“You have no idea.”
