Forrest, Dawn - Sweet Water Wedding: Sharing Shannon (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (35 page)

“Sorry, this isn’t exactly turning into a stealth operation is it?”

James rolled his eyes good-naturedly and then turned his attention to peering under the netting.

“Son of a bitch,” he cursed quietly.

“What?” She was desperate to know.

He pulled back and turned to face her. “It looks as if Crossling has drilled an oil well and I know that he doesn’t have a license and I didn’t think that there was any oil here. The rock is fractured at about eight to fifteen thousand feet down, and the oil isn’t on this side.” James looked again. “I think the bastard has deviated into our concession.”

Shannon understood what deviation drilling meant. Not all rigs consisted of a single well going straight down vertically. It was possible to drill multiple wells from one rig and to drill at an angle. It had been described to her as being like an upside down inverted umbrella. James was suggesting that the Crosslings had drilled at an angle to the oil under the land that the Rydens leased and owned the mineral rights to. It looked as if they were stealing the oil.

“Why would he do that?”

“It’s a long story, but many years ago the Crosslings were about to lose the Sweet River ranch. Neil Crossling, Roy’s dad, has a gambling and drinking problem. It cost him his wife and it nearly cost him his ranch. The bank had finally decided to threaten foreclosure if he couldn’t repay at least the interest on money owed. He came to my daddies to ask for help. At that time they could barely afford to lend him the cash outright. They knew it would just go quickly to waste at the bottom of a bottle. He would still lose his ranch and they would take a financial hit, so they came up with an alternative plan to help him.” He paused for a second, scanning around.

“What did they do?” she prompted.

He turned his attention back to her. “They offered to rent five hundred acres of Crossling’s land for fifty years at a fair price that kept up with inflation, and they bought the mineral rights for that ground. The bank was happy as long as the rent money went directly to them and Neil Crossling was able to repay the interest debt. No one knew for sure that there would be oil under that land, but my daddies suspected that there might be and they took a risk.” He turned to look at her as he explained. “It cost them a lot in time and money. They had to do a lot of work surveying the land before they finally found the reservoir five years later. That was thirty years ago. Of course Roy and Neil Crossling are worried that all the oil will be gone by the time the lease expires. That might happen although we suspect that there are some deeper reserves. Anyway there is nothing they can do about it, and it was a fair deal. Roy had been real pissed about it for most of his life.”

James lifted the net to let Shannon have a look. On the other side of the netting the land sloped downwards. It was the perfect place to hide a drilling rig. The natural dip in the ground meant that the overall height would have been no taller than the nearby trees. Now all that was visible on the site was a Christmas tree and five storage tanks. The camouflage netting ran in a crescent shape around most of the perimeter. It was clearly aimed at disguising the well from the most likely direction of approach by someone like Rachael or the Rydens. A channel had been dug around the Christmas tree to an open pit in the ground. Oil could easily have seeped from this pit and through the earth into the stream. The five squat storage tanks were located closer to the water and also didn’t have concrete oil catchment bunds. It was obvious there had recently been a leak from one of the tanks.

“It appears as if there was a one major leak incident but additional spills may also have occurred when the storage tanks were emptied. What a bloody cowboy operation—oh, sorry, no offense.” She shrugged and grimaced at James.

“None taken. Look, I think that’s Roy’s truck over there.” He indicated to a gap in the boundary. “I don’t want a confrontation out here. We’d better head back to the ranch quickly.”

They wriggled quickly back under the netting, stood up and brushed themselves off.

“This makes things more complicated. The Railroad Commission will get involved as petroleum matters are in their jurisdiction and of course we’ll have to notify the sheriff.” James spoke, keeping his voice low.

They started to walk quickly back toward the horses.

“Can we keep this from Josh and Rachael? It’s only five days until the wedding and then their honeymoon.” Shannon didn’t want Rachael’s wedding to be marred.

“In this place? Not a chance. Once the investigation and clean-up start then the whole County will know.”

“Bugger.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, on the bright side, a clean-up should be straightforward and relatively easy to implement, although without an investigation it isn’t possible to know the full scale of the problem.” She felt saddened by the effects of the spill that she could see, and worried about what she couldn’t see.

“That will be Crossling’s and The Sweet River Authority’s problem to deal with. We’ll be involved with them both in a whole other legal issue with Crossling and the Railroad Commission concerning the deviation drilling and the theft of our oil.”

“Don’t you care about the spill?” She was disappointed with him.

“Of course I do, and not only because it’s my land that’ll be affected if this continues. It’s just that the reaction to this incident is not within our jurisdiction; it’s a matter for the appropriate authorities. M&R Engineering can help with the clean-up. If we get the go-ahead from the River Authority we can move quickly with that.”

Shannon nodded. She understood that there were procedures to follow and that Sweet Oil wasn’t responsible. “I just hope that they’ll act quickly.”

“They won’t delay; they’re strict when it comes to things like this. It’s gonna be a major problem for Roy Crossling and his father though. There’ll be a hefty financial cost attached to the clean-up and then possible prosecution, at the very least a huge fine. I think it may break them because, as far as I’m aware, they don’t have the cash assets and the drilling must have cost a small fortune. They’ll probably be forced to sell their ranch. That’s not even considering the oil theft issue. They could be looking at prison time.” He sighed, and sadly shook his head.

They reached the horses and were too preoccupied untying the reigns that they didn’t notice the man behind them until it was too late.

“Stop right there and put yer hands where I can see ’em.”

Shannon went to automatically turn around.

“I said stop and put yer hands up,” he shouted viciously.

“Stay still, Shannon,” James calmly instructed, “and do as he says.

“Now turn around real slow and don’t drop yer hands.”

Crap. This was surreal. She felt as if she were suddenly in a Western, and turned to find herself looking at the business end of a pump action shotgun. Shannon had seen enough movies to recognize the weapon.

“I ain’t goin’ to jail and I ain’t losin’ the ranch.”

So this sweating, mean looking individual was Roy Crossling. He must have been hiding behind a tree, waiting for them, and overheard their conversation. Not good. The sympathy she had felt toward him on hearing James’s story was dwindling fast.

James gave a whistle then shouted aggressively, “What the fuck are you doing, Roy? You can’t be serious.”

Shannon didn’t think it was a good idea to whistle and shout angrily at a man holding a gun on you. Maybe it was how they did things here, but from the surprised and irritated look on Roy’s face she didn’t think so.

“Shut up, pretty boy, and undo your gun belt, real slow with one hand. That’s it, now throw it over there.”

“Roy, don’t be stupid, put down the gun and face the problem like a man.” Again James sounded pissed.

“Shut the fuck up! I’ve had about all I can take from you Rydens. Move away from the horses.”

He waved the gun in the direction he wanted them to move, and watched them like a hawk as they complied. His face was red and his piggy little eyes darted between her and James. Shannon thought perhaps a little calm diplomacy might work better.

“Roy, my name is Shannon. This is not the way to resolve things. Theft and property damage are small crimes compared to murder. Think about it carefully. Is it worth it? Doesn’t Texas still have the death penalty? You
will
get caught, there’s too much evidence. People know our route and they’ll be all over the area. This little operation will be discovered and then you’ll be in a much worse position than you are now.”

“Hush there, darlin’, I’m sorry that such a pretty little thing like you is involved. You probably think you’re special, but the truth is Ryden’s had every willin’ cunt in the County and spreads a different set of legs every weekend, sometimes more than one set.” He laughed nastily. “Him and his partner like to share the pussy. They must like their sloppy seconds, but I bet you know that.” He gave a nasty snigger and spat to the side. “You ain’t no different, gurl, just a wet place to park their dicks.”

“Shut your filthy mouth,” James yelled.

“That’s it!” Roy fractionally moved the barrel of the gun toward James.

At that moment a blur of fur leapt from seemingly nowhere and launched itself growling at Roy. Rug clamped his jaws around the arm holding the gun. It went off with a startlingly loud bang. Rug yelped and one of the horses reared and bolted. Taking advantage of the confusion James lunge forward to tackle Roy. He tried to wrench the gun from Roy’s hands, but Roy was clearly holding on for dear life as he stumbled over Rug’s body. The dog howled pitifully, blood freely flowing from his mangled rear leg.

Acting on impulse Shannon hurtled sideways, going for James’s guns. She slid along the ground like a baseball player passing fourth base, and grabbed a gun out of the holster. Shit, she didn’t have a clue what to do. Was there a safety catch or something? She looked over at the men, both of whom had work hardened physiques and looked strong and powerful as they grappled viciously for the shotgun. Suddenly there was another loud bang. Everything seemed to freeze. Shannon looked over at the two men in horror. They had stopped struggling and were locked so close together their noses almost touched. They seemed to be waiting for something, as if each man expected the other to drop. Shannon looked at the gun in her hand in confusion and horror. Oh, God, what had she done? She quickly dropped it on the ground.

“That’s enough o’ that. Now don’t either of you young’uns move ’til I gits a good look at y’all.”

Startled, Shannon spun around and stared wide-eyed as an old man, with a rifle trained on James and Roy, moved closer.

“Howdy, ma’am, ’preciate you not movin’ either.” He stared at the men as he spoke to her.

With relief she realized that she hadn’t fired. Of course she hadn’t, she knew enough to know that she would have felt some recoil. No one moved a muscle. She wasn’t the only one looking stunned. Roy and James were just realizing that it wasn’t Roy’s gun that had gone off either.

“Well, if it ain’t young Jimmy Ryden, and who’s that there with you? Crossling, ain’t it? Never did like you, boy.” He focused his rifle on Roy.

“Now, Roy, real careful like your life depends on it
¾
’cause it does
¾
release your grip on that there gun and give it to Jimmy. Keep the barrel pointin’ down. That’s it, nice and slow.”

Once James had the gun he stepped away from Roy and stood with Shannon. Shannon now understood that James had whistled to get Rug’s attention and yelled aggressively at Roy so that the dog would know there was trouble.

“Thank you, Mr. Connor. This here is Shannon O’Reilly. You met her best friend, Rachael, the other day with my brother Josh. D’ya mind keeping the gun on Roy a bit longer?”

“No problem.” The old man looked delighted to do it.

“James!” cried Shannon as she noticed a bloodstain spreading on his shirt. “Are you hurt?”
This can’t be happening, not again. Not twice in as many months.