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“Well, it’s not all the same to me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you ever refinished wood floors, Mr. Thurston? By yourself? Byhand?” She punctuated her question with an artful arch of her eyebrow.
“No.”
“Well, I have, and I don’t intend to undo my hard work. So take off your boots. Please.”
“I’m not staying for long.”
She laughed quietly, shaking her head. “You are exactly as bullheaded as everyone says you are, aren’t you?”
There it was. Ruby Rose Bennett was on the same side as the rest of Royal. Like everyone else, she thought his stubbornness was a flaw in his personality. When in truth, it was only out of love and a thirst for justice that he was on this crusade. “If that’s what you want to call it, then sure. I am.”
Ruby was sure of one thing—Heath wasn’t going to take off his boots no matter how hard she argued with him. She’d seen Heath’s type before. He was rich and entitled, and wound entirely too tight as a result. She had little admiration for any of those qualities, but in his case, she sure could appreciate the appealing package they came wrapped up in. He was temptingly tall, a good five or six inches on her, just enough of an advantage to make her raise her chin and take notice. His hair was touchable and thick and such a dark brown that it was like night, set off by a pair of the most intense and stormy eyes she’d ever seen. For the first time in years, her pulse quickened because of a man. Did that mean she was finally coming back to life? After the loss she’d endured, she’d had every reason to believe she never would.
Despite Heath being a serious case of eye candy, she had to wonder if it had been a mistake to take a job from him. The first whiff of trouble came the day she’d gone out to the Grandin and Lattimore properties to do his survey and she was stopped by a man she knew to be Vic Grandin. Vic had been deeply suspicious of her presence. Enough to make her uncomfortable. Days later at the Royal Diner, she overheard some chatter about a paternity saga in the Grandin family. She didn’t have many ties to Royal, but people talked, and this seemed to be a big topic of conversation. She’d heard some real mouthfuls about Heath, too, about his greed and vindictiveness. Was her assignment really about finding oil? Or was there something else at play? She didn’t like getting mixed up in other people’s affairs.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” Ruby asked as she led Heath down the hall to her living room and kitchen, an open and airy space she’d created when she knocked down the wall between the two rooms soon after buying this cottage three years ago.
“I’m good.”
“You sure? Something hot, like coffee? It’s not long before dinnertime, but I’m happy to put on a pot.”
He shook his head. “I think it’s best if we discuss business, so I can leave you to the rest of your day.”
As much as she enjoyed looking at him, perhaps this was for the best. “I don’t think the weather’s supposed to improve anytime soon, so probably a good idea. What do you want to know?”
“I don’t see how ‘inconclusive’ is an acceptable result from an oil survey. Either there’s oil or there isn’t.”
“As I said when I answered the door, it’s not that simple, especially in this part of Texas. There are trace amounts of oil almost everywhere. As for the Grandin and Lattimore properties, I did my best with the budget you provided.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I did what the fee allowed for. I examined any and all surface rock formations. Most contained shale, which can sometimes indicate the presence of oil. Then I did low-level seismic readings, which produced zero evidence of oil. Hence the term ‘inconclusive.’ It was all in my report.”
He pressed his lips together tightly. “Which is more reliable? The rocks or the readings?”
“The readings. By far.”
He grimaced. “Are they ever wrong?”
“No. But not all seismic tests are created equal.” She wandered around to the other side of her kitchen island, which acted as a natural separation in the great room, and grabbed the mug of cocoa she’d been drinking before he arrived. She took a sip. It was lukewarm, but still delicious, a recipe she’d perfected in the last few years. “If you want to know with one hundred percent confidence, we would need to bring in some serious heavy machinery and do some blasting. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars, or more, and a lot of time. I’m happy to do it if that’s what you want.” Despite her reticence, she’d take a second job from him. Or a third. Money was tight. “That is, after you convince the families to let you do it.”
“I have the deed to the oil in my possession. It gives me the right to do whatever I want on that land in order to get to what’s below the surface. And I can sell those rights to an oil company tomorrow. They can start bringing in drills right away.”
“I hate to break this to you, Mr. Thurston, but no oil company is going to buy those rights without first verifying the presence of what they’re after. And from the available evidence, I doubt you’d be able to get them interested.” She’d dealt plenty with oil companies. She knew how they worked and they most certainly did not throw their money away on useless land. “Plus, the Grandin and Lattimore homesteads are beautiful. You really want to go out there and start tearing them up? For nothing?”
He dismissed her comment with a toss of his head. “Maybe that’s what they deserve.”
Now,thatsounded like a grudge. Heath wasn’t a particularly sympathetic man. He was gruff and quick to make assumptions. Still, there was a part of her that felt for him. He seemed desperate, with a serious case of tunnel vision, both of which could make a person do unreasonable things. “I assume you know about the original survey of the land years ago. There was zero evidence of oil.”
“You saw that?”
“I did. I went back and looked up any old surveys after I completed mine. I don’t like the wordinconclusiveany more than you do. I wanted to be sure I hadn’t missed anything.”
“Well, I’m not sure I believe what it said, considering the source.”
