DrillingDownDeep by Angela Claire Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
     

Chapter Two
     
    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