Page 137 of Nobody's Girl

“Are we going off-roading now, Phoenix?” Cait asked as she grabbed the bar above the passenger side window. “Now I know why this was installed.”

Phoenix laughed as he shook his head. “This isn’t off-roading, Caity-cat. This is one of the many roads the oil company put down when they were drilling the wells.”

“This is not a road!” she said as she hung on for dear life to the bar and pressed her feet against the floorboard in a vain attempt to steady herself. “This is worse than driving on the dirt, Phoenix!”

Rounding another curve, he pulled to a stop in front of a giant see-saw like structure. “This is the Nelson number one. The first oil well they drilled on this property. It makes roughly 40 barrels of oil a day for me.”

“I can see why you like the land for that purpose, but for any other purpose, it’s more than fairly undesirable. You sure you want to make a home for yourself here?” she asked him as she looked around, desperately trying to find anything of beauty at all to make her understand what he saw in the place.

Phoenix was happy with her dislike of the scenery. He was set on showing her that if she was looking for a husband, he wasn’t going to be the man for her. But if she wanted to play, he was game for that.

“This is where it all started, Cait. I want to make a home for myself and a family right here, where it all began,” he said, then pulled away from the pump and headed down the bumpy road again.

Cait clung to the bar as she thought about why in the world he or anyone else would want to live in the middle of nowhere with only a bunch of machinery as their neighbors. And when he pulled up at a small, white house with the paint peeling, exposing old, gray boards underneath, she was thoroughly confused by the man. “What’s this?” she asked.

“This is the house the property came with. I stayed here a lot when I was first given the property. I want to make this place into a home. Come on, Cait. Let me show you around,” he said, then jumped out of the truck.

When he opened the door for her, the most awful smell hit her like a brick. “Oh, Lord! What’s that smell?”

“That’s the smell of money, Cait,” he told her as he helped her out of the tall truck.

“It’s more like rotten eggs and tar.” Cait looked around to try to find out exactly where the odor was coming from and couldn’t pinpoint it at all. “It seems to be coming from everywhere.”

“Well, that’s because it is,” he told her as he led her into the ramshackle dump of a house. “That’s the gases that come up with the oil. He pointed to a row of tan painted huge tanks that were not too far away. “That’s where the oil is pumped to. So, that’s why the smell is so strong here. You get used to it. You’ll see. Now, let’s go inside so I can show you the house and get your take on it.”

Cait pinched her nose shut as she went with him. She was pretty positive she’d never get used to that stench. And when he opened the door, she was met by three scurrying mice and let out a scream. “Rats!”

“Nah, those aren’t rats,” he said as he pulled her inside. “Rats are a lot bigger. Those are just mice. Once we move in here, they’ll move out.”

“We?” she asked as she looked at him, her fingers still holding her nose closed, making her sound stuffed up. “Phoenix, what the hell are you talking about?”

“You and me, of course. That’d be the next logical step, wouldn’t it? Moving in together?” he asked her as he watched her eyes get big.

“We’re not anywhere near that place yet,” she said.

And he had to wonder, if they weren’t near that place, then why was she talking to her sisters about marrying him?

Taking her into his arms, he pulled her close and kissed her on the forehead. “Maybe soon you’ll be closer to wanting us to be a thing. A real thing. A lasting thing.”

“Not here,” she said as she looked at the empty house. “And to be perfectly honest, this place needs to be torn down. Bulldoze it. And don’t start over anywhere near here. I’m pretty sure breathing in this air is not good for us.”

Phoenix was pretty sure it wasn’t either, but he said, “You really can’t see yourself living here, Caity-cat?” He rocked her back and forth as he looked into her eyes.

“I really can’t. We should go see that beach house you have.” She let her nose go and gave him a smile and then a kiss to see if she could get him to take her away from the horrible place. “I know I’ll feel a lot better with the salty air blowing around, instead of this.”

“You don’t even wanna spend one night here?” he asked. “Just to see what it’d be like?”

She shook her head. “No, and you shouldn’t either. This isn’t a place to build a home and raise a family. This place looks like rattlesnake heaven. A terrible place to raise kids.”

Cait wasn’t wrong about the snakes. Phoenix knew that each year the oil field workers killed five to ten of the poisonous creatures on his place, alone. Her instincts were right.

Everything about the girl was right, except the conniving part of her, Phoenix thought. “I tell you what. You and I are going to the little town that’s just a piece down the road and have some dinner, then maybe get a room in town for the night. I really do want you to get to know this place. This is where my future will be. Maybe I could buy a house in town. Maybe that’d be more your style.”

“You keep talking like I’m about to move down here with you. I’m not,” she told him. “I’m still in school, and that’s my top priority.”

With her words, he let her out of his hold. “About school. I suppose you’ve gotten into a real financial pickle with all those student loans. I’d like to help you out with them.” Phoenix eyed her to see if she’d accept his help and let the marriage thing go.

He wanted them to stop the playing against the other thing they’d been secretly doing. Phoenix wanted things to be real between them. A thing they were far from at that moment.