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He rested his hands on his hips. “Enough to require a sleeve.”
“That sucks.”
“An expensive pain in the ass. We don’t want that to happen here. So...given the geology of the area, we might be better off putting the well along that slight rise on the opposite side of the parcel. Could give us a better chance of avoiding the sand.”
She looked in the direction he indicated, her expression finally a bit less skeptical and more contemplative. “Want to call Jay to see if that’d be okay?”
“This is your job,” he said. “Why don’t you call him?”
He preferred Jay not know he was involved. With any luck, he could handle this quickly and quietly and be done without causing any more problems between him and his family.
She cleaned the dirt off her boots by knocking them together. “What am I going to owe you when this is over?” she asked.
He settled his hard hat more squarely on his head. “We can talk about that later.”
“I’d like to handle it up front,” she said. “I appreciate your help—if that’s what it really is. But I have to know what I’m leaping into.”
There was something about her ongoing struggle to hide or refute all vulnerability—to pretend to be so tough she couldn’t be hurt—that made him feel strange things. Empathy for her struggles. Admiration for her strength and stubborn pride. Protectiveness. Attraction.Affection.
It was the affection that scared him most. Coupled with the attraction, it could get him into a lot of trouble, which was why he attempted to ignore his own reaction. “What do you think I’m after, Ellen? What do you have that I want?”
Her gaze lowered to his mouth, tempting him to pull her up against him and kiss her again. He got the impression she was either remembering yesterday or imagining what it would feel like to kiss him again.
At least...that was what he was thinking about.
“I know you’d like to hurt me or my business in some way.”
Surprised, he blinked at her. “That’s not true.”
“You’ve stated as much,” she said simply. “I’m only taking you at your word.”
“When?” he started to say but remembered the day he’d approached her, not too long ago, at the Slemboskis’ and threatened to ruin her business. “Oh...that.” He gestured as if it was nothing. “I was mad,” he explained. “Didn’t mean it.”
“So...why are you here?” she asked again. “What do you want from me?”
“Everyone who does you a favor must be after something?” he challenged.
She didn’t look away. She was staring into his eyes so intently he suspected she was trying to peel back the layers to determine if he was being kind and sincere or something else. Something unkind and insincere... “In my experience, yes.”
What was he going to do with this strong, determined, defiant woman? He couldn’t go after the friendship and interaction he was starting to want. He knew that wouldn’t be good for either one of them.
Allowing himself to lean in close enough, he ran his lips up the side of her neck. “If I’m the devil you think I am, I must be after your soul, right?” He grinned as he pulled back to let her know he was teasing. But she didn’t look all that reassured.
Hendrix insisted she didn’t have to pay him, that he was helping her to make up for his mistake with Ben and fitting his time with her in around his other work. But Ellen couldn’t believe he’d allow the arrangement to be that favorable to her.
She’d give him as much as she could afford to out of Jay’s final check, she decided. Worse than trying to get by without that money would be feeling she owed Hendrix. That—and the gratitude his kindness would engender—would make it much harder to keep him neatly categorized as no one she’d like to associate with. Thinking of him as anything other than that would include infinitely more risk. She’d been hurt badly enough by Stuart, and Hendrix had been a large part of the reason. As she’d promised herself before, she wasn’t going to give either one of them the power to hurt her ever again.
By dinnertime, they were both dusty, dirty and tired. She’d been up since before six. The same was no doubt true for Hendrix. But he insisted he could push through until sundown. He said he wanted to finish the well as soon as possible. He was probably afraid someone would realize he was helping her.
He also needed to get back to his own jobs. So, tired though she was, she continued to watch the rig for any signs of trouble and shovel the pilings away from the hole while he took a turn welding the casing.
The confidence with which he handled the equipment showed his level of experience. He knew what he was doing; she had to give him that. Today certainly hadn’t been anything like working with Ben. She just hoped Hendrix was right about moving the well to the other side of the property. Jay had agreed. He didn’t want to pay for a sleeve to keep the sand out of his water. So they’d made the adjustments before getting started and were about two hundred feet down in their new location, hoping they would hit plenty of water but no sand.
“Aren’t you getting hungry?” she asked as her own stomach rumbled. She’d been in such a hurry this morning that she hadn’t eaten much breakfast. Then, wondering if Hendrix was really going to help her out of the jam she was in, she’d dashed out of the house at noon without grabbing lunch for fear any type of delay would blow the opportunity.
“I was hungry hours ago,” he admitted.
“Then why don’t we stop for a few minutes, and I’ll run into town to grab us a bite to eat?” She knew better than to suggest they go together. That would start too many tongues wagging around Coyote Canyon. The fewer people who saw them, the better. She hadn’t even mentioned Hendrix to Jay. She’d just explained the odds of hitting sand in that particular culvert, and he’d gone with her suggestion to move the drilling site, which was really Hendrix’s idea, of course.
