This morning, we’d made tender, passionate love again. Gone was the desperation of last night, the deep need he seemed to feel replaced by something else. Never had I felt closer to a man than I did to Colt. He hadn’t turned to drink, drugs, or violence to deal with his grief. He hadn’t pushed me away, but had drawn me close, and I loved how that made me feel.
I adjusted our path as the rig came into sight. Colt continued to hold my hand until I had to pull it back to place the truck into park. As we opened our doors, Enrique approached, his arm supported in a sling with a sticker of the Larke Oil logo, a stylized bird perched on an oil drop, stuck to it.
“How’s your shoulder?” I asked when Enrique joined us at the truck. I’d parked far enough away, among the crew trailers out of caution, so that the truck wouldn’t be in the way and we didn’t have to shout over the noise of the drill rig.
“It hurts like a bitch if I try to raise my arm, but other than that, not too bad.”
“Why aren’t you in Houston?” Colt asked with a nod at the sling.
“Behind a desk for sixteen weeks? No thanks.” He flapped his arm slightly. “It’s kind of nice, actually. It gives me an excuse to not do any work, and these jokers are finally treating me with the respect I deserve.” His grin spread. “I’ll think I’ll keep wearing it even after I’m healed up.” He turned his attention to me. “What are you doing way out here… and are you sure it’s safe?”
“I came to attend the funerals of Tom Fisher, Chuck Grace, and Rich Whatt.” I ignored the rest of his question. I was being as careful as I could be, but I couldn’t live the rest of my life in an underground bunker somewhere. Colt had approved the trip, and I trusted him to keep me safe.
“That’s the three guys who died in that gun fight?”
“You heard about that?”
“Heard about it? You can’t not hear about it. It’s all anyone’s talking about.” Enrique glanced at Colt. “Did you really kill four cartel guys with machine guns, and drive through two roadblocks?”
“Two roadblocks, yes. I don’t know if we killed anybody, though. They had us pretty well pinned down in the RV. There wasn’t a lot we could do except run,” Colt explained.
Enrique shook his head. “Still, you held off four guys with machine guns? Remind me not to piss you guys off.”
Colt smiled, but it was a sad smile. I was pretty sure there’s been only two automatic pistols, but I said nothing, not wanting to diminish in the least what these brave men had done.
“I was just the driver.” He nodded at me. “While all that was going on, she was cool as a cucumber while patching up Goose and Big Dick. She probably saved Big Dick’s life.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. I’ve known her since she was this high,” Enrique said while holding his hand out at knee level. “She used to come out in the field with her dad, and she wasn’t scared of nothing. Speaking of which, why are you here?”
“You should have four or five core samples by now. I figured since I was here, I might as well take them back with me.”
“I only have three ready to send. We’re a little behind because we shut the rig down that day, then we broke a bit.”
“Okay, I’ll take the three.”
Enrique nodded, then looked at Colt. “Can you load them, or do you want me to get a couple of the guys to do it?”
“How big and heavy?”
“Three feet by one foot, and about a hundred and twenty pounds.”
He paused for a moment before speaking. “Yeah, I think I can manage it.”
Enrique jerked his head toward the rig. “Bring the truck.”
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COLT
The three plastic cases were lined up in the back of the pickup, each one sitting on its own rubber feet to keep them from sliding around and to protect the contents from vibration. Getting the cases to the truck hadn’t been difficult because the site had a sled with big, air-filled, off-road tires for moving them around. Getting them into the back of the truck, however, had been a pain in the ass. They were too heavy and awkward to deadlift into the truck, so I had to put one end on the tailgate and then side it as far up as I could until the weight caused it to crash into the bed. Because the container wouldn’t slid on its rubber feet, I then had to twist the box around, so it was sitting sideways on the tailgate, before climbing into the bed and crab walking it into position using the large rope handles on each end. I didn’t bother tying them down because nothing short of a major accident would move those heavy bastards. After the first one, I regretted not accepting the offered help, but I was too prideful and stubborn to admit I couldn’t do it alone.
I hopped out of the pickup and slammed the tailgate shut. “You’re a hell of a lot stronger than you look if you muscle those things around,” I said, panting slightly from my efforts.
“The boxes are delivered to the lab. There are actually four samples in each case, so I only have to handle about a quarter of the weight at a time.”
“I assume you have a cart I can put them on when we get back to Houston?”
“Nope. You have to carry them all the way into the lab.” I held her gaze, waiting for the punch line, before she grinned. “Okay, yeah, I think we can find something.”