Firestorm (11 page)

Firestorm

64

“When the drilling is done. Or when I quit burning when I look at you. Or when you take yourself off to the city and start enjoying the life your oil money’s gonna bring you. What are you going to do, Kate?”

“Nothing different. This is my home. I’ve put in an application with the Calder County Schools for next year. Not that I think they’ll have any openings for primary teachers any time soon. Since the well came in, I can afford to wait until they do. I’d like to teach again.”

She sounded wistful. “I love kids. At one time, I thought by now I’d be married and have a house full of my own.”

Jake swore under his breath, mentally replaying their conversation yesterday about her neighbors leasing their land. As far as he could recall, he hadn’t said anything specific about the new wells he was planning to drill on her land. Had someone given her the impression that Black-GreenTex Number One was going to be it on Kate’s entire three hundred sixty acres?

No. He was being paranoid. The land man would have been certain to spell out exactly what rights he was asking a landowner to give over to the company. He shoved his suspicion to the back of his mind.

“Could we go back to the house and sit on the porch awhile?” Kate asked. Jake detected sadness in her expression as he watched her stare out at the charred underbrush and mud that marked where fire had licked out at the edges of the clearing around the house.

“Sure.”

He let his arms fall away, but when she turned, he took her hand. He had to touch her, to maintain contact with her soft, giving body.

* * * * *

“You know, you really should think about leaving here, going to New Orleans or Houston or Atlanta and enjoying the fruits of my labor. For the next few years, until we finish drilling wells, this isn’t going to be the most pleasant place in the world to live.”

Kate turned and looked at Jake, shifting her body but keeping it cradled snugly against his muscular frame as they sat on the creaky front-porch swing.

“I don’t mind your well,” she replied lazily. His nearness and the hot, humid summer air had lulled her into a sense of easy peace.

“I’ll grant you, it’s not too annoying to have a free-flowing well like Number One.

All it does is gush oil and wet gas out into a pipeline, nice and quietly. Until something goes wrong. Then, we’ll have to bring the heavy equipment back in so we can rework it.

Number One came in fast, too, and we didn’t have to bulldoze access roads all over the place to get equipment to the site. You may not be so lucky with the next wells.”

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

65

“The next wells?”

Surprised, Kate pulled away to look more closely at Jake.

He seemed puzzled. And a little angry, though apparently not with her. “Yeah. The next wells. You've got three hundred sixty acres here, honey, and all of it is under lease to us.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means there are between five and nine drilling units on this place, depending on how we set them up. Number One is on an eighty-acre unit, so there are two hundred eighty acres left. We already have seven permits to drill wells on your land, and I wouldn’t have a lot of trouble getting a couple more if I applied for them.

“We’re going to sink more seismic holes so I can decide where we’ll be drilling next.

From what I've seen so far, my plan will be to put in two or three shallow pumping wells next. I’ve got to look over the new geological reports before making a final decision about where to drill them.”

Kate turned away, unable to stem the flow of tears from her eyes. She wiped them off her cheeks, wishing he wasn’t there to see her cry.

“The broker who bought the leases told me there would be just one well,” she said, angry with herself when she couldn’t hold back a sob.

Jake stroked her cheek, his expression stormy.

“Are you sure? The drilling permits you signed give us access to any part of your land. And the lease is for the whole three hundred sixty acres. I have trouble believing any land man would have told you we’d be drilling one well on a property where he had to know we’d be putting at least six oil wells. Which land man did you lease to?”

“Jay Harlan. He lives over in Laurel,” she said. “I asked him how many wells there might be when I read the papers he brought for me to sign. And he told me just one, if the company who wanted the leases decided to sink a well at all. Jake, this is my home.

I want to stay here. How much worse can it be to stay here than it was when they were running that big drilling engine?”

Kate noticed Jake clenching his fists. She could tell from the tight set of his lips that he was furious now. Good thing his fury wasn't directed at her, or she’d be running for cover.

He stood, long legs planted a foot or so apart, and stared down the hill at the well, now quiet as its oil gushed out into the pipeline. When he spoke, the picture he painted sent shivers through her despite the ninety-degree weather.

“You can stay here and put up with twice the noise and twice the dust, because we’ll be drilling two wells at once. And after those shallow wells come in, you’ll be listening to the drone of diesel pumps that bring the oil to the surface, twenty-four hours a day.”

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

66

“All the time?” Kate asked.

“All the time, until a pumpjack breaks down. Then the noise will stop for a while.

But it will get worse, because we’ll have to bring crews in with more engines and equipment to fix the well so it will start pumping out oil again.”

“Maybe the noise won’t be too bad.” After all, Kate thought, she’d lived with the drilling for months.

Jake shook his head. “Even if the noise doesn’t bother you, you probably won’t like looking at the access roads we’ll have to keep cleared so we can get our machinery in and out.”

“So to save my home, I’ve given you the right to make it so I can’t live here in peace?” She felt as though she had been run over by a steamroller.

“Don’t think of it like that. The land’s here. It isn’t going anywhere. And with the money you’ll be getting in royalties, you can live like a princess anywhere that suits your fancy.”

Kate’s heart was breaking. Jake’s nearness couldn't console her, for his feelings for her were obviously no more than simple lust. “How long will it be like you described?”

“Five, maybe ten years. That’s about as long as most shallow wells keep producing enough oil to make it worth our while to keep them in service. Sometimes we sell out marginal producing wells to smaller companies, and they operate them until all the oil runs out. Deep wells, like Number One down there, can keep producing for twenty, even thirty years.”

Jake shrugged, as if Kate's distress had hardly fazed him. Suddenly she wanted to lash out at him, although she realized he wasn’t the one who had forced her to lease her land. He had just participated in a profitable venture that was about to make her leave the only home she’d ever known.

“I have to think.” Getting up slowly from the swing, Kate paced across the wide boards of the porch floor. “Goodnight, Jake,” she said sadly.

As much as she needed him to hold her, as badly as she craved the comfort of his touch, she couldn’t seek oblivion in his arms tonight. Not when he’d just told her he planned systematically to destroy the place that was all she had left of her father—her family.

She went inside, but it was a long time before she heard the swing stop creaking.

Her body tensed. Her heart beat faster.

Was Jake going to ignore her dismissal? Would he come and offer her more of what they’d shared this afternoon? She didn't know whether she was hoping or dreading that he'd come.

But then she recognized the sound of his booted feet as he walked slowly down her front porch steps and out into the summer night.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

67

And she was lonelier than she'd ever been before she knew what she was missing by sleeping alone.

* * * * *

Jake had gone back to the trailer, but he hadn't slept. More than anything, he’d wanted to follow Kate when she’d left him on the porch. To crawl into her bed and fuck her until she forgot everything but how damn good they were together.

To drift off to sleep in the warmth of her sweet embrace. He’d been hard as a rock when he walked away. Hell, he still had a hard-on now.

The hell of it was, if sex had been the only reason he’d wanted to stay, Jake would have stayed.

But he’d wanted more. Goddamn it, he wanted to soothe her mind and heart as well as devour her tempting little body.

He swore loudly and fluently as he dabbed at a nick the razor made on his jaw. No way would he let Kate Black or any other woman get to him, he promised himself with bitter determination.

Concentrating to keep his hand steady, he finished shaving and splashed water across his face. Then he pulled on his jeans and picked up the phone.

“I know damn well what time it is. Six in the morning.” Jake held the phone away from his ear to keep Jay Harlan’s bellowed curses from deafening him.

“So you were asleep. So what? I want to talk to you, and I intend to do it now.” He paused again. “No, by God, it won’t wait until you get to the office.”

Jake stated his complaint succinctly then listened, his temper moving quickly toward its boiling point, while Harlan tried to weasel his way out of the hot seat.

“Don't try my fucking patience anymore, you son of a bitch. You told Kate Black before she signed that stinking lease that we’d be drilling only one well on the whole damn three-sixty. And you know as well as I do that if the oil is there, any oil company that holds leases on it’s gonna sink wells on every section it can get permits for.”

Ol’ Jacob Green said to get those leases, no matter what I had to do to get 'em.

Harlan's words rang in Jake's ears. He barely heard the land man rambling on, until Harlan assured him that the lease was in order and that GreenTex could drill wherever on Kate’s land that it saw fit.

“I know she signed the agreement. And I know goddamn well what it says. I've got a copy in front of me, and I know how to read. What your ass is in a sling about, Harlan, is lying to a landowner. If you know my father, you know he meant for you to up the price as high as you had to, not to get leases signed by telling property owners bald-faced lies.”

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

68

“What are you gonna do about it?” Harlan's question came through oily and slick, despite the man's heavy drawl. “Back off drilling on Ms. Kate’s land and let your company go down the tubes?”

“I'm going to see that you never get another cent of GreenTex money, you cocksucking bastard. We don’t deal with liars and thieves. How much did you take off the top of this lease?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Harlan asked, his voice dripping sarcasm.

Jake slammed the receiver down onto its cradle. Moments later, he picked it up again when its insistent ringing intruded on his rage.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

69

Chapter Six

“Jake Green,” he growled into the offending instrument.

“Jake. Scott. How's everything going?”

Jake let out a deep breath and sat down to take his brother-in-law's call. Briefly, he recounted his conversation with the local land man and got Scott’s assurance that Harlan would no longer be representing GreenTex in Calder County, Mississippi or elsewhere. Then he passed along what information he had been able to collect about the fires and the arsonist that they’d caught trying to blow up Black-GreenTex Number One.

“You need to come home for a few days,” Scott said when Jake finished talking.

“Jacob has to go into the hospital for some tests. He wants you here.”

Jake dreaded to hear the rest. His father worked too hard and probably should have retired five years ago, but no one had been able to persuade him of his own mortality.

“Is it serious?” he asked.

“Not yet. But his doctors think his heart will start giving him some real trouble if he doesn’t have some procedure to unclog the blood vessels. Hell, if you want the details, I'll have Ben give you a call.”

Despite his worry, Jake chuckled at the thought of having Ben fill him in. His sister Leah’s husband, the cardiologist, no doubt would tell him far more than he wanted to know about the Old Man's heart. “I don’t think I’m up to digesting a medical school lecture right now. When do you need me there?”

“Day after tomorrow. Your father won’t let them do a thing until all his kids are home. It will take that long for Shana and Bear to get here from
Mina Su’ud
.”

Jake thought for a minute while Scott filled him in on the logistics of his sisters’ and nieces’ expected arrival in Houston. He didn't feel right, leaving Kate here alone, not with the trouble they'd been having. The damn bastards might burn her house next time.

Why not bring Kate with him?

Jake liked that idea, a lot. Too much, he thought as he formed his plans. “I’ll drive to New Orleans today and fly home tomorrow,” he said when Scott paused. “Are any of the company planes there?”

Jake recalled that GreenTex usually kept at least one plane at the New Orleans hangar to ferry geologists and engineers back and forth between Houston and its Louisiana offshore fields.

Ann Jacobs

Firestorm

70

“The new Learjet’s there. Roy flew three geologists over yesterday in it so they could hop a helicopter out to the offshore platforms. He's spending a few days with his mother in Metairie, but I can get him back if you need a pilot.”

Jake thought for a minute. If he brought Kate, he might just try fucking at ten thousand feet. No. It would embarrass Kate half to death to think the pilot might hear sounds of fucking from behind the closed cabin doors. Besides, Jake was certified to fly the Lear himself, and he enjoyed doing it almost as much as he liked having sex.

“Don’t spoil Roy’s time off. I’ll fly myself home. Would you mind having your secretary get somebody to go over and muck out my condo, though? I may bring Kate Black home with me.”