Wild and Wonderful (2 page)

"Communing with Mother Nature," Glenna replied.

Her gray green eyes swept his straw-colored hair and square-jawed face. Bruce was good-looking, intelligent, and ambitious. Since her father's first attack more than two years ago, he had assumed more and more responsibility for the operation of the Reynoldses' coal mine.

It was really only after her father's first heart attack that Glenna had become acquainted with him. The relationship between them had grown slowly until it had reached its present point where they were more than friends but not quite lovers.

Glenna was fully aware that she was the one unwilling to let their relationship progress any further. Her hesitancy was something that confused Glenna. Bruce appeared to represent all that she desired in a man, yet some vital ingredient seemed to be missing. Its lack kept her from making any firm commitment.

Sometimes she thought it was a loyalty to her father that made her hold back. Other times, like now, Glenna simply didn't, know why she was reluctant. One word from her, one indication of acceptance, and she knew Bruce would propose.

"Communing with nature," Bruce repeated her answer. "With your eye on the plan to write a series of articles, I'll wager."

"You guessed right," Glenna agreed, leaving the uncertainty of her feelings toward Bruce to be examined at a later time. "That's one thing about free-lancing; I can slant an article so many different ways that I can sell the same story line to several different periodicals."

"And your head is buzzing with all of the ideas," her father surmised.

The softness of her throaty laugh was an affirmative answer, because it had been true when she entered the study although a whole new set of thoughts had subsequently supplanted the ideas for the nature-oriented articles.

"There's some coffee in the pot yet. Would you like a cup?" Bruce offered, moving to the china coffee service sitting on the oblong coffee table in front of the sofa.

Briefly, Glenna resented this extension of hospitality in her own home, but she quelled it. Bruce's familiarity was something both she and her father had invited. Besides, there was a certain thoughtfulness in his request. She wondered at her sudden sensitivity to the situation.

"I'd love some, thank you." She took a seat on the sofa while he poured a cup and handed it to her. Black, with no sugar, the way she liked it. Bruce sank his lean frame onto the cushion beside her, an arm automatically seeking the backrest of the sofa behind her head, but he didn't touch her.

"How are things at the mine?" The question from Glenna was an absent one, issued automatically, a polite inquiry because it was Bruce's province.

Glenna glanced over the rim of her coffee cup in time to see Bruce dart a sharp look at her father. Then he replied, too blandly, "Fine."

Instantly she knew there was a problem. A serious one. She sipped at her coffee, using the action to hide her knowledge while her mind raced back to the anxious expression on her father's face when she had entered the room.

"I invited Bruce to dinner this evening," her father informed her with a subtle change of subject. "Hannah assured me the main dish would stretch to feed four. The way she cooks I can never decide whether she is trying to fatten us up or trying to feed an army. The woman always cooks enough for ten people."

"Heaven knows you need some fattening up," Glenna observed, commenting on his weight loss that had made his usually brawny frame appear gaunt. But she knew he disliked any discussion of his health and turned to Bruce. "You are staying?" The lilt of her voice changed the statement into a question.

"I never turn down an invitation for a home-cooked meal or the company of a lovely young woman." His casually worded answer was at war with the flattering intensity of his look.

Glenna teased him deliberately. "I shall have to warn Hannah that you have designs on her, as well as her cooking."

Bruce chuckled, amused by her response. The movement of her father's hand distracted her attention. He was reaching automatically into the breast pocket of his shirt for a cigarette. Orin Reynolds had quit smoking after his first heart attack. Only in moments of severe stress did the habit reassert itself. His shirt pocket no longer held a pack of cigarettes. Glenna noticed the faint tremor of his hand when it was lowered to the armrest. It was not a withdrawal symptom from smoking.

"After two years, you can't still want a cigarette, dad," she chided to make him aware she had seen his action. It didn't prompt the reaction she wanted.

Just for a second the facade of well-being slipped to reveal an expression that appeared supremely tired and defeated. A chill raced down Glenna's spine at the sullenness in his gray eyes before he laughed gruffly. Something was very wrong. Glenna only wished that she knew what it was.

"After two years I am craving the taste of tobacco. There are times when heaven to me is a smoke-filled poker room with whiskey and cigarettes amid a raucous backdrop of fiddle music instead of fluffy clouds, halos, and harps," he joked. "There are times when the quality of life outweighs the quantity."

"That is a rather morbid observation, dad." Glenna forced a smile, but she was aware that there was very little color in her cheeks. She saw the grain of truth in his words, but her father had always been a fighter, battling the odds stacked against him. His remark had smacked of surrender. It wasn't something she could understand, even issued in jest.

"I suppose it is, but sometimes I…" He stopped and breathed out a sigh. His mouth twitched into a rueful smile, vitality dancing back to glitter in his eyes. "I guess I'm tired."

"Why don't you lie down for a few minutes before dinner?" Glenna suggested. "I'll keep Bruce company."

"Did you hear that, Bruce?" her father mocked. "She sounds so concerned about me, doesn't she? But a father knows when his daughter doesn't want him around."

Her fingers tightened on the curved handle of her coffee cup. It was action designed to keep Glenna from leaping to her feet to help her father out of the chair. He hated any acknowledgment of the weakness of his muscles. It was a slow process, but he rose, unaided, to walk stiffly from the room.

Her throat was hurting by the time she heard the study door slide shut behind him. She stared at the coffee in the china cup she, was holding so tightly. There was a stony clarity to her eyes—eyes that had become strangers to tears.

"What is wrong at the mine, Bruce?" she demanded without looking up.

A second of pregnant silence was followed by a hollow laugh. "I don't know what you are talking about. Nothing is wrong at the mine."

"It must be very serious for both you and dad to lie to me." Glenna set the cup on the table with a briskness that rattled it against its saucer.

She rose so abruptly that she dislodged the sunglasses from their perch atop her head. Impatiently she removed them and folded the bows with a decisive snap before setting them on the table, too.

Heavily fringed with lashes, her eyes narrowed their gaze on Bruce. "I want to know what it is."

"There isn't anything you can do." He looked grim.

"You don't know that," she retorted. "I haven't heard any talk of a wildcat strike. And I can't believe the miners would walk out on dad like that, anyway. If it's a labor problem, surely dad can iron it out if you can't."

"It isn't labor." He avoided her gaze, his jaw hardening.

Glenna frowned. With that possibility eliminated, she was at a loss to guess the cause. "Then what is it? You are a mining engineer so it can't be anything technical."

"It's the government." The hint that his skill was being questioned forced Bruce into supplying the reason.

"What? Taxes?" She couldn't imagine her father getting into a position where he was delinquent in employee taxes.

"Nothing so simple," Bruce replied in a scoff-ring breath and pushed to his feet. He shoved his hands into the hip pockets of his slacks, an action that pushed his shoulders back and stretched the material of his blue shirt across the sinewed width of his chest. "The mine failed its safety inspection."

"How bad is it?
"
Glenna heard the dullness in her voice, the feeling of dread sweeping over her.

"They are issuing an injunction to shut the mine down within thirty days if the necessary steps aren't taken immediately to correct the situation," he announced in a voice as leaden as her own.

"Surely you can appeal the ruling—gain more time," she argued.

"That's what I've been doing for the last year and a half," he snapped in a sudden blaze of temper. "We ran out of time. There won't be any more postponements."

Parallel furrows ran across her forehead. "If you knew, it was coming, why didn't you take steps to correct the problem?" Glenna challenged in a spate of responding anger. "Why did you leave it until the last minute? I suppose you just dumped this all on dad this afternoon—when it's practically too late to do anything to stop it. No wonder he acted so defeated. He isn't well. He trusted you to—"

"Orin has known from the start!" Bruce interrupted sharply. "If I'd had my choice, I would have begun implementing and installing new safety measures. But I didn't have any say in the matter."

"Are you implying that my father knowingly endangered the lives of the miners?" The accusation brought a pronounced silver glitter to her eyes, making them icy and more gray than green.

"For God's sake! He had no more choice in the matter than I did."

He turned away to rest an arm on the mantle of the fireplace, bending his head to rub his hand over his mouth and chin in a gesture of exasperation and futility.

Her anger dissipated at his attitude of helplessness. "What do you mean? Why didn't he have a choice?" Glenna frowned. "You said yourself that the solution was to comply."

"That costs money, Glenna," Bruce sighed and straightened to look at her. "That's why the initial ruling was appealed to gain time to raise the capital to make the changes and install the necessary devices."

"He could borrow it. The bank would loan him the—"

"No. Orin took out second and third mortgages on everything he owned to pull the mine through the strike we had two and a half years ago. Once he could have borrowed on his reputation alone, but after these last two heart attacks he's had—" Bruce filled the pause with an expressive shrug of his shoulders "—the lending institutions regard him as an uninsurable risk with overextended credit."

Dark clouds of despair began to enfold her in their arms. Glenna felt chilled and struggled to elude their murky envelopment. Her gaze clung to Bruce's handsome features.

"Surely there has to be someone who will help dad." She tried to sound calm, and not nearly as desperate as she felt.

In her mind the thoughts kept turning over and over. If the mine was closed it would ultimately mean bankruptcy. They would lose the house and everything of any value. The effect such a situation would have on her father was something Glenna didn't want to contemplate. She barely succeeded in suppressing a shudder.

"On your father's instructions, I sent out feelers to see if Coulson Mining would be interested in a merger with your father's company—on the chance they might see some tax advantages." Bruce shook his head grimly. "Their reply was a flat 'not interested.'"

"Coulson Mining," Glenna repeated. "Jett Coulson's company? The coal magnate."

"Coal, gas, you name it and he's rolling in it—including gold," Bruce nodded.

With startling clarity Glenna recalled the mental picture of a grainy newspaper photograph she had seen of Jett Coulson when she had been reading a trade journal to her father shortly after his first heart attack. The man's hair and eyes had appeared as black as the shining coal that had built his fortune. At the time of the photograph he had been in his mid-thirties, yet his features had been lined with a toughness beyond his years.

To Glenna, Jett Coulson had seemed all rough, raw manhood. Yet her father had spoken of him with respect, she remembered. What she had viewed as ruthlessness in his features, her father had regarded as strength. Jett Coulson's lack of polish and refinement made him a man the miners could understand and believe, even when they disagreed. It was said that Jett Coulson never lied. The standing joke was that a lot of people wished he would.

"Did you talk to Jett Coulson?" she asked, clinging to the one tantalizing straw Bruce had offered.

"Are you kidding?" he laughed harshly. "I'm nothing but a manager—a mining engineer. I talked to one of his underlings."

"There wasn't even a crumb of interest," Glenna persisted.

"Be realistic, Glenna," Bruce sighed. "Why should Coulson agree to a merger when he'll probably be able to pick the mine up for nothing in a few months. Why should he bail your father out of this mess? He's never had a reputation for being a good samaritan. It's unlikely he'll have a change of heart at this late date."

"No, I suppose not." Her shoulders slumped in defeat. She turned away to walk to a front window to gaze sightlessly at the shadows gathering on the lawn. "What's going to happen to daddy?" She wasn't aware she had murmured the aching question aloud.

Approaching her from behind, Bruce rubbed his hands over her arms. "Glenna, I'm sorry. I wish there was some way I could help…something I could do to prevent this."