Page 2 of His Lucky Paige

“Neal, I know you’re trying to be sensitive and all but stop hesitating when you say his name alright? Joel’s down there, so is my father, my brother and my godfather. I’m getting them out and after that you can go back to not saying his name in my presence alright?” she told him. She took a walkie and headed back to the conference room to do some research on the new lines.

“Excuse me,” an official sounding voice called out to them as they crossed the area between the building and the mine.

“Can I help you?” Paige demanded impatiently.

“I’m looking for who’s in charge,” the man said.

“That’d be me,” Paige answered. “Who are you and how’d you get in here?”

“I think that’s my line miss,” the guy stated as Jerry walked over towards them.

“Gus,” Jerry said shaking his hand.

“You know him?” Paige inquired.

“Gus Stanton,” the man said holding out his hand to her. “And you are?”

“PaigeBrighton,” she replied ignoring the hand. “What are you doing here?”

“Gus is the regional safety manager for the government,” Jerry explained. “Gus, Paige is…”

“The infamous Brighton daughter, your father’s spoken of you before,” Gus said in a dismissive way. “I’m sorry about your brother and father being trapped in this accident but there’s really nothing you can do to help, perhaps it would be best if you went home and waited.”

“Like hell I will,” Paige raged. “If anyone leaves, it’ll be you Mr. Safety Man. Maybe you don’t understand but ask any of the men out there waiting for the plan of action and they’ll tell you who’s in charge, and it won’t be you. So either, get out of my way so I can figure out how to get my family out of there, or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing, and yes, I can do it. You may be a government employee but you have no control over this place during an emergency.”

“I’d listen to her,” Jerry said trying to soothe Gus’ darkening gaze. “Paige knows what she’s doing.”

“I don’t feel comfortable letting a woman who knows nothing and doesn’t even work for the company be in charge of a rescue operation,” Gus stated boldly.

“Then how about letting the best rescue coordinator in the world have a shot at it,” Douglas suggested as some of the men approached.

“Tell me their name and I’ll get them here,” Gus said.

“Won’t take too long,” Lenny chuckled.

“What’s the name?” Gus inquired.

“Paige Brighton,” Bobby grinned as they enveloped her in a hug that nearly suffocated her.

“Damned shame it took a cave-in to get you home little girl,” Doug chided.

“I know,” she said letting his strength flow to her. “WellGus, are you going to get out of my way now?”

“I’ll be watching,” he stated.

“Of course, you’ll be watching,” she sneered, adding as he moved away taking out his phone and making a call, “Watching my ass that is.”

“Your daddy would tan your hide if he heard you say that,” Bobby told her.

“If he wants to try after I get him out of there I’ll gladly let him,” she said with a smile that was only mildly real. Her worries were too high to hold it for long and she let out a silent sigh, shaking her head a bit. “Come on boys, we’ve got work to do.”

When they arrived back in the conference room, she began compiling the information that her father had been going over when the second cave-in happened.

“Okay who knows what caused the first accident?” she inquired of the men she trusted the most. “Dad barely put anything on here before they went in.”

“Honestly Paige we don’t know,” Doug said. “We went off shift and things were fine, we got the call after dinner that there’d been a problem and then Neal’s saying there’d been another problem.”

“So the only ones who know what happened are stuck more than three hundred feet below ground…” she said mostly to herself. “Guess I’ll have to get it from the horses’ mouth then.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com