Torrid Nights
Authors: Lindsay McKenna
Lindsay McKenna
Mackenna Scott has built roads and bridges throughout wild, lush Indonesia, proving unquestionably her ability as an engineer. But when her new project lags, her boss, Brock Hampton, dares to challenge her as a professional-and as a woman.
They clash inevitably and repeatedly. Yet Brock’s raw power inflames Mackenna’s senses. His work-roughened hands sear her flesh. As they forge a tempestuous union in teeming Asian jungles and, later, on dazzling Australian beaches, Mackenna strives to tame this tiger of a man. Then, abruptly, Brock vanishes from her life, leaving her angry and bereft. Is his departure the betrayal it seems…or a final proof of his love?
To Patti Marchetti
My wonderful hairdresser,
and to her husband, Mike.
Thanks for your friendship.
“What do ya think, Mac?” Sully asked, peering into the engine of the D-9 bulldozer.
“Dunno yet,” Mackenna Scott replied, bending over into another contorted position. The Indonesian sun was hot. Hotter than usual, she thought, if that was possible. Muffling a choice word and removing her white hard hat, which had “Construction Engineer” printed on it, she studied the cantankerous piece of equipment. Sweat was running in small rivulets down beneath her bra, soaking into the waistband of her belted jeans. She lifted the carburetor bowl off its snapped hinges, then extricated herself from the huge engine and placed the bowl in her master mechanic’s gnarled hands. Rubbing her greasy fingers on a rag, Mackenna dropped the hard hat back on her short auburn hair.
“Well?” she prompted, watching Sully’s weather-beaten features screw up in concentration. “What’s the problem, Sully? Moisture or dirt?”
The mechanic grinned, the gap between his two front teeth making him look like a schoolboy even though he was in his mid-fifties. “You missed your calling, Mac. Damn, what I’d give to have you in the union ranks as a mechanic. Yeah, it’s dust. Gotta replace a fuel filter on ole Miss Knobby Knees here before she’ll push another yard of this godforsaken dirt.”
Mackenna wiped her brow, unknowingly smearing a streak of grease in place of the sweat. A knot of construction workers had gathered around them, taking a break from the hundred-and-ten-degree heat combined with the ninety-eight-percent humidity. Their round faces were darkened to a mahogany color by the tropical Indonesian sun. Mackenna swung her gaze around to survey them closely. They were good men, she thought with no small amount of pride. A year ago, they had been village farmers. Now they drove the road-building construction equipment like the professionals they had become. Thanks to her tutelage. Her friendly green eyes sparkled. “Okay, guys, let’s saddle up and get back to work on this road.” She put her arm around the driver of Miss Knobby Knees. “Team up with Kepi,” she ordered. “Act as relief operator until we get your girl fixed.” “Yes, boss,” the driver said, making a small bow. Mackenna sighed, wiping another film of perspiration from her brow. Not even the tropical climate had erased the obvious evidence of her Irish heritage. The sun merely accented the spattering of freckles across her nose. She followed Sully back to the D-9 Cat bulldozer, climbing up on the huge tire of the gargantuan beast to assist him.
“You ain’t got nothing better to do than help me?” he asked, his brown eyes twinkling.
“I’m taking a break,” she explained. Smiling, she reached back into the morass of hoses and wires.
Sully chortled. “You’ve never taken a break that I can remember, Mac. It’s a damn good thing the union stewards look the other way when you wield a ratchet or crescent wrench.”
She nodded, gazing intently into the bulldozer’s carburetor assembly.
Sully leaned forward, his long, bony fingers seeming to work magic on the mechanical heart of the Cat. Mackenna enjoyed watching this true master at work on the steel guts of the machine. She frowned, her slightly arched eyebrows forming a V. “Well, the way I hear it, we’re going to have more to worry about than union stewards,” she murmured, holding up several wires for Sully.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “We’ve got a new boss, you mean. Understand we’ve been sold.”
“So I’m told. Do you know him?” she prompted. All Mackenna knew about the new owner was that Hampton Development Corporation was one of the biggest construction outfits in Southeast Asia and that its founder was reputed to be very rich and somewhat eccentric. But her mechanic had been in international construction for thirty years, and there weren’t many people he didn’t know.
In fact, Mackenna had relied heavily on Sully’s abilities during the past eight months, as the mammoth road-building project undertaken by Benson Construction had begun to lag behind schedule. The equipment had not been designed to function in the tropical climate, and rust accumulated with frightening regularity, causing more breakdowns than anyone had anticipated. But worse, there had been serious problems with the gravel supply. The new owner at Hampton Development was bound to be displeased.
Sully looked up, his eyes crinkling. “Sure, I know him,” he said.
“What’s he like?”
“I ain’t gonna try and snow you, Mac. He’s an engineer’s nightmare come true. Brock Hampton is as mean as they come. You may not know it yet, but you got a tiger by the tail with that one. I don’t envy you your position as number-three man on this project.” He grinned apologetically. “Number-three person, that is. Hampton has a reputation for taking over projects that are in the red and bringing them in below cost. And on time.”
Mackenna returned Sully’s smile, ignoring his slip. She was the only woman in a management position on the project. Ten months ago, when the road construction had started, both the Indonesian workers and their American counterparts made bets she wouldn’t last a month. Well, they’d been wrong. Now thirty-two, Mackenna Scott had worked from one end of the Far East to the other. A top-flight soils specialist, she had built more roads and bridges than she cared to name. They spanned the islands of New Guinea, Philippines and now Java. She looked at her mechanic fondly. Sully had been the first to side with her. She’d won his respect by helping him solve a ticklish engine problem that had beset a cranky D-8 Cat shortly after the project began. From then on, her quick wit and ability to work as hard in the field as the rest of the men had earned their respect.
“Thanks, Sully,” she said. “It’s people who make the world go around. Not men. Not women. We’re all in the same kettle of stew, my friend.”
“So you keep tellin’ me, Mac. Sure wish I was twenty years younger. I’d come along and sweep you off your feet.”
“And we’d live happily ever after, building our man-made monuments in the jungles.”
Sully worked on a set of clamps securing a rubber hose until he had loosened the entire assembly. He handed it to her. “You can’t tell me you ain’t had men who wanted to marry you, Mac. There’s a woman lurking under those freckles and sparkling green eyes of yours.” His scruffy eyebrows drew downward as he studied Mackenna. “And I’m telling you another thing, gal. You’ve got to let that grief go. You can’t keep walking this road at night, thinking about what happened over a year ago.” He smiled in a fatherly fashion. “Now don’t go getting that hard look in your eye just because I’m telling the truth. It wouldn’t hurt you to smile a little. Laugh, even. Ain’t seen you do much of either since you started this road. ‘Bout time you did, don’t you think?”
Mackenna stared at Sully. She knew he was right. She had to forget the death of her husband and go on living. But how? Every time she allowed her grief over Ryan to surface, it nearly suffocated her. No one had helped her more than Sully. In his own gruff manner, he had sensed her inner turmoil and had tried to help her cope with the loss. Taking rein on her shaky emotions, she forced a smile, giving him a friendly jab in the ribs.
“I can be a woman without wearing a dress,” she reminded him tartly. “Femininity doesn’t require that one wear high heels and a ton of makeup.”
“Gal, you’re the only person I know who can make a T-shirt, jeans and a hard hat look good!”
Mackenna grinned, leaning close to his skinny body to help him slip the hose assembly back into place.
“What the hell is going on up there?” a deep, husky voice behind them demanded.
Mackenna frowned, exchanging a glance with Sully. She couldn’t just drop the hose. Patiently, she held it while Sully screwed it back in place.
“I said—”
“Hold your horses,” she growled, extricating herself and turning around on the massive tread.
Mackenna felt her heart suddenly plunge and then beat unevenly. A man dressed in jeans, rough-out boots, a short-sleeved chambray shirt and a white hard hat stood looking up at them. His hands rested imperiously on his hips.
It wasn’t what he wore as much as his commanding presence that took her breath away. His glacial-blue eyes captured her startled gaze. Dark hair tapered neatly around his ears and framed his tanned features. Perhaps it was the rough-hewn planes of his face or the mouth pressed into a thin line of displeasure that sent a sudden warning through her. He wasn’t handsome in a conventional sense. Instead, his face and lean, whipcord-strong body looked as if they had been fashioned out of the materials of the construction world of which he was obviously a part. Mackenna judged him to be in his middle-or late-thirties.
Her gaze came back to meet his, and Mackenna felt a chill in spite of the smoldering heat. His eyes were like chips of a tropical sky. And they were narrowed in on her like those of a tiger prepared to pounce on his helpless prey. Mackenna frowned. She resented his angry stance. Looking away, she leaped lightly to the ground.
“Can I help you?” she asked, taking the rag that Sully handed her. She felt as though she were being stripped bare as the man’s eyes lingered on her small breasts and waist, her boyish hips and her long, lean legs. Suddenly, she was keenly aware that her pink T-shirt was soaked with sweat, clinging to her skin and emphasizing her breasts and flat stomach. Mackenna felt the blush rushing to her face, and her resentment toward the stranger increased tenfold. How dare he look at her that way? she thought angrily. Her eyes flashed with emerald fire. “If you’re through inspecting the merchandise, do you mind returning to the business at hand?” she growled, throwing the rag on the tread of the bulldozer.
A slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“You’re hardly a piece of merchandise.”
“You’re damn right I’m not. And I’m not standing out in this sun playing hard to get. Now, how about stepping off the road so we can get my people back to work?”
His blue eyes darkened and narrowed on her. “I’m looking for Mac Scott,” he growled.
Handing her the hard hat, Sully slipped away. Apparently he wanted no part of the confrontation. “I’m Mackenna Scott. Now, who are you?”
Surprise flared briefly across the hard planes of his face. The man consulted a sheaf of papers attached to the clipboard he gripped with long, calloused fingers. A frown of obvious vexation knotted his brow. “It says Mac Scott,” he reiterated.
“Yes, and if you look a little farther, you’ll see that it says F, for female. Who are you, anyway?”
He stepped off the road and sauntered over to the white pickup truck that had “Hampton Development Corporation” stenciled on the door. “Brock Hampton. New owner of Benson Corp., this pitiful excuse for a construction outfit.”
Mackenna suddenly grew wary, remembering Sully’s earlier description of Hampton. The tiger was certainly an apt image. There was a natural restlessness about this man. She watched as he drank in every detail around him, walking with the fluid grace that characterized all predators. He leaned against the fender, looking down at her. “So you’re the construction engineer.”
“That’s right. What can I do for you, Mr. Hampton?” She throttled the anger in her voice. As the new owner, he was undoubtedly looking for a scapegoat, someone to blame for letting the project fall behind. “If you’re management, Ms. Scott, just what the hell were you doing helping a union mechanic on that Cat?” Mackenna choked back her annoyance. “Despite what you may think of women’s abilities, I’m an excellent mechanic, Mr. Hampton. I just happened to arrive when the Cat went down and decided it would be easier to help Sully myself than to call an assistant up from base camp.”
“Unions don’t appreciate management dickering in their territory,” he droned monotonously, as if lecturing a child.
“I have a road to build, Mr. Hampton. I can’t afford to waste two hours waiting for an assistant. Given the circumstances, I made a management choice to do it myself.”
He scowled at her hard hat. Mackenna was uncomfortably aware of the disbelief and anger aimed at her. Great, she thought. She had a rule-spouting management analyst as well as a woman hater on her hands. Just what she needed.
He pushed his own hard hat back off his brow, wiping away the sweat with the back of his hand. His forearms were covered with a thick mat of black hair, and Mackenna noticed a tuft of it at the throat of his damp shirt. Despite her initial dislike, she had to admit there was an incredible aura of masculinity about this man. How he must turn women’s heads! Then she smiled to herself. He was turning her head, too, despite everything. Well, that was all right. She appreciated a man who was physically attractive and all male. Brock Hampton’s features looked as though they were chiseled from granite. And if his current display was any indication, he undoubtedly resented women who invaded his “man’s world” or filled what he regarded as a “man’s job.”
Mackenna sighed. Well, that was too bad. She preferred men who were in touch with their own feelings and emotional honesty. There was nothing in Brock Hampton to indicate that he possessed either of these qualities.
Abruptly, Mackenna pulled this train of thought to a halt, surprised at herself. Brock Hampton must have affected her more strongly than she had first realized. Armed with new awareness, she determined to behave in her most businesslike and professional manner in dealing with this tiger who now roamed her territory.
“Speaking of roads to be built, I think you ought to know, Ms. Scott, that your job is in serious jeopardy,” he said softly.
Mackenna’s heart skipped a beat, a pulse leaping crazily at the base of her slender throat. Her long fingers resting lightly on her hips, she compressed her full lips and dug the toe of one dusty boot into the red soil, studying him fearlessly, meeting his frozen glare.
“Is that a threat, Mr. Hampton?” Her husky voice was determinedly firm and professional.
“In your case, and in that of every other manager on this project, it’s damn near a reality.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’m in the process of assessing each manager’s ability on the job. I’ve already fired Chuck Thatcher. We’ll be getting a new project superintendent.”
Mackenna gasped, abandoning her businesslike air momentarily. “What?”