Protected Pt. 06

"Ready?" he asked as he tucked his shirt in around his pistol, making it disappear.

"If you are."

He gestured me to the door. I picked up the truck's keys in passing, and he followed me down the steps. He walked to the passenger side of the Larke Oil truck without hesitation, and I forced myself to not smile. I liked the fact he didn't think he had to drive all the time, especially when it was easier if I did it myself.

After battling the typical Houston rush hour traffic, we rolled up to Larke Oil with ten minutes to spare. Nobody would complain, at least officially, if I was late arriving at work, but I didn't want the reputation of the owner's daughter getting special privileges. I swiped my badge for the employee parking area, and then drove past it to the loading dock. I wheeled the truck around and then backed up to the dock so it could be unloaded. Another swipe of the badge and I gained access to the building.

Where the public areas of Larke Oil were richly decorated, the working areas of the building looked like any other working building. I punched the button to start the dock door opening. The dock was sized for a box truck, which meant the pickup was far too low.

"Well... shit," he muttered when he thought he was going to have to lift the samples up to the dock.

I grinned. "I wouldn't do that to you. See that?" I asked as pointed to the portable crane.

"That'll certainly make this easier," he said as he started toward it.

The crane looked a bit like an electric pallet jack, but instead of forks, it had a small boom with a lift cradle attached. It was only rated for a two thousand pounds, but that was plenty for what I used it for. I twisted the key to energize the crane, then using the handle and thumb switches, guided machine to the open door. As I worked the crane into position, Colt jumped into the back of the truck. I lowered the cradle, he hooked it to the two rope handles, and I lifted the sample out of the truck before depositing it on one of the four carts I used for moving the samples to the lab. Two more trips, and we were done. I parked the crane back where it belonged, closed the door, and then we pushed the two carts down the hall to the lab, me pushing one with Colt pushing the other with one with two cases on it.

"Willow!" Arnie called.

"Morning."

"Is it true?"

I kept going. "Is what true?"

Arnie fell into step with me. Arnie worked in the lab where they analyzed samples of the crude to determine the volatility, viscosity, and probably a thousand other properties. I found the stuff, then Arnie and his team figured out the best way to turn it into something useful.

"That drug runners tried to gun you down."

I allowed my cart to roll to a stop. Before I could answer, I heard the grunt of Colt trying to stop his cart before it ran over me.

"What did you hear?" I asked, more than a little curious what the rumor mill was saying.

"Only that you were shot at during a car chase out in the scrub, and then a few days later, you had to crash a roadblock in your RV to escape another attack by a bunch of guys with machine guns."

Arnie was in his mid-sixties and was worse than an old woman for gossip. Larke Oil had its own version of the old joke about the three fastest forms of communication... telephone, telegraph, or tell Arnie.

"Mostly true. I had--"

Arnie's attention shifted to Colt as he extended his hand. He wasn't interested in details. He had confirmation and pretty soon anyone who hadn't heard the story will have. "Arnold Zimki. People call me Arnie. You must be Willow's bodyguard. We're all so thankful you're staying with her and keeping her safe."

Arnie was fishing for information. Colt must have recognized what Arnie was doing because though he took Arnie's hand, he only nodded, becoming the strong and silent type, and refused to divulge anything.

Realizing he wasn't going to get anything out of Colt, Arnie turned his attention back to me. "Did one of the drill rig crew really get shot protecting you?"

"Enrique Cardenas took one in the shoulder," I confirmed touching myself about an inch down and halfway between my arm and neck. "I saw him yesterday and he was already back on the job."

"Wow! He's lucky to be alive. So are you."

I glanced at Colt. He was glaring at Arnie, his eyes hard. "Yeah. Four good men lost their lives to protect mine."

"Four! I'm so sorry!" Arnie glanced at Colt before looking back to me. "Good thing they were there."

I leaned into my cart to start it rolling again. "A very good thing."

Arnie was a gossip, but he wasn't a bad guy, and realized I was done answering his questions. I had little doubt he'd circle around several times over the next few days and weeks, trying to pick up a tidbit of information here and there.

"Okay. I know you're probably busy. Glad your home safe." His attention shifted to Colt. "Thanks again for keeping her safe."

Colt nodded as he slowly started his cart rolling.

I stopped at the wide double doors leading into my lab. "Willow!" Marsha called as I opened the doors. "Welcome back. I heard there was some excitement out in the field. You okay?"

The other three people working in the lab quickly clustered around, wanting to hear the story for themselves. Colt and I pushed the carts into the room and I closed the doors. "Yeah... I'm okay. This is Colton Arne... my guardian angel."

"Nice to meet you, Colton," Marsha said as the rest of the staff nodded in agreement.

"Same," he rumbled. "Call me Colt."

Hanna, a big-boobed brunette was giving Colt the once over, probably wondering if she could get some personal protection from him, and I smiled to myself.

"Are the stories true?" Ben asked.

"That I was attacked by drug runners, shot at by machine guns, and was involved in two car chases?" They all nodded, their eyes bright and faces eager. "Yeah. It's true, as far as it goes."

"What do you mean?" Hanna asked.

I spent the next fifteen minutes retelling my story as Colt stood silently out of the way. I made sure to give all credit to Colt and the BDMC, and I was enjoying how everyone kept glancing at him. Marsha was old enough to be my mother, but I could see her melting as I told my story, and Hanna, fresh out of college and the youngest of us in the lab, was all but panting over him by the time I finished. I could also see Ben and Lyle measuring themselves against Colt, and realizing they were lacking.

"So, that's it," I finished. "Hopefully that's behind me now and things can get back to normal."

"And no idea who or why someone was trying to kill you?" Lyle asked.

I shook my head. "Not a clue, but we think it had something to do with drugs... though I have no idea why or how."

"Wow," Hanna breathed. "Is he still guarding you?"

I glanced at Colt and had to fight the smile. He was playing the tough, no bullshit, bodyguard shtick to the hilt. "For a few more weeks... just to be sure." I couldn't help but smile with the idea of spending the next few weeks in his arms. I didn't want anyone shooting at me, but I wouldn't mind a bit of danger in my life just so he had to stick around. Maybe I could hire some guy to occasionally skulk around in my neighborhood at night, so he wouldn't leave. "Okay... that's it. Enough of story time," I said, shooing them away with my hands. "You have work to do, and so do I."

-oOo-

"I'm not going to get anything done today," I grumbled. In the last hour, I'd had to pause and tell my story twice more when visitors stopped in my lab to say hello.

"Maybe you should just call everyone together and give them the story all at once. Get it over with," Colt suggested as he reached into the sample case and pulled a core out of its padded holder.

I pointed where I wanted the core placed. "Maybe. You don't think that's a little over the top though?"

"Rather than repeating the same story a dozen times?" he asked as he carefully placed the cylinder of rock where I indicated and turned back to the thick plastic case to extract the next sample.

"Maybe. I'll think about it."

"Hey, Willow! I heard you were back. How's it going?" Jerry called as he entered the lab.

My back to the door, I rolled my eyes at Colt. "Okay, you're right," I whispered before I turned to face my latest visitor.

Jerry was responsible for the company fleet. He claimed he was paying me a visit to see if I still needed the truck, but nobody in the lab believed that. I told my story again, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. The story was getting shorter with every telling.

After Jerry left, I pulled Colt into my small office off the lab proper and shut the door. "Nobody is going to get a thing done today for all the tongue wagging that's going on. Especially the women."

"What about the women?"

"Oh, come on! You can't tell me you haven't noticed how they're all looking at you. Everyone woman in this place is jealous of me, wondering if we're sleeping together, and if you're good in bed."

"I hadn't noticed."

I tried to not smile at the obvious white lie, but failed. "Whatever you say," I murmured before I pulled his lips to mine. We kept the kiss quick and innocent. "I normally go out for lunch, but today I think I'll have lunch in the cafeteria, and get this over with. Would you trust me to stay by myself long enough to go get us some lunch?"

"You'll stay in the building?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "Then sure. I'll leave now, go get my bike, and then pick up something and bring it back. What do you want?"

I smiled. "You."

He grinned. "We going to do right here on the desk?"

A wave heat rolled over me with the idea. "You wouldn't," I challenged.

I playfully slapped his hands away when unsnapped my bra. He was expert at that trick and had proven on multiple occasions he could have it opened before I realized what he was going to do. "Stop!" I growled, drawing the word out long as I reached behind me and refastened the clasp, but I couldn't hide my smile.

Grinning, he bent and pulled me into another kiss. I wanted more, much more, but I forced myself out of his embrace and held his gaze. My smile spread. I had no doubt he'd have been willing to fuck me right here, right now, if I hadn't stopped him. My smile spreading, I opened the door, adding him fucking me in my office to the list of things we were going to do. Now the only question was, did we do while the rest of the staff was here and working? I felt flushed. It'd sexy as hell fucking the shit out of each other and not being able to make a sound because people were working in the next room. Damn him! Now there's another reason I'm not going to get shit done today.

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COLT

I spent another thirty- or forty-minutes watching Willow work as she moved around the lab with practiced ease. I helped where I could, mostly moving the cores to where she wanted them, but I spent most of my time sitting on a stool in a corner so I wasn't in her way. She prattled way with her staff about things I knew shit about, such as void fraction, permeability, and hydraulic conductivity.

When she wasn't answering questions about her adventures in the field, she was cutting the cores into thirds lengthwise, slabbing she called it, carefully recording and labeling each piece before she stored one of the slabs in a huge room full of other such slabs, and then boxed up the second slab for shipment to the government as part of the conditions of their drilling rights. She then subjected the third piece of the core to a few tests, washing the samples with various solvents and looking at them under black lights.

About ten, I called for an Uber. "My Uber is here," I said as I rose from the stool. "I'll be back as quick as I can with lunch."

"Okay," she said. I'd reached the door when she called me back. "Where do you think you're going?"

"What?" I asked as turned and walked back to her.

Holding her gloved hands away, she stretched her lips toward me. "Kiss."

I was surprised she was willing to do that in front of her staff, but I damn sure wasn't going to turn it down. I bent kissed her quickly and innocently on the lips. "Want to go to your office?" I whispered as our lips parted.

She grinned as she bumped her safety glasses up on her nose with a knuckle. "Maybe later," she whispered in return.

I kissed her again, just as quickly and innocently, before I again turned for the door. The thought of fucking her in the office, trying to make her scream as she attempted to remain quiet so nobody would hear, was causing me to harden. Shoving the thoughts away, I opened the door and glanced back at her. She was watching me, along with the brunette chick with the rack, whose name I couldn't remember.

Thankfully the lab was close to the dock, so I didn't get lost, but I didn't know how to get to the front of the building, where my Uber was waiting, from the lab. I went out the way Willow and I came in and quickly walked out of the parking lot while sending another text to the Uber, letting the driver know where to pick me up.

The drive to Willow's house was quick and uneventful, the older woman engaging me conversation like I was some long lost relative. By the time she pulled into Willow's driveway, I knew her son lived in California and worked for a company that built movies sets, one daughter lived in Houston and was a stay-at-home mom and wife of someone that owned a business she seemed to think I'd recognize, and her youngest was working for a law firm in Dallas whose name I'd long since forgotten.

"Thanks for the ride," I said I stepped out of her Tacoma, glad I could stop pretending that I was interested in the lives of her children.

I pulled the slip of paper out of my pocket where I'd written the codes to the garage door and gate, and typed it in. I went into the house, retrieved my helmet, along with the extra one I'd packed for her. Her helmet had been in the truck with her, so was dry. I couldn't say the same about mine. I put it on anyway. It wouldn't take long in the sun and heat for the helmet's liner to dry.

I rode back into Houston using my phone to find my way back to Larke Oil via a nearby sandwich shop she recommended called Ikes' Love and Sandwiches. I'd never heard of the place, but she said it was close, good, and her go to place when she wanted a sandwich for lunch.

I ordered her the Menage a Trois as she asked, and I decided on the Matt Cain for myself. I assumed the name of her sandwich came from the three types of cheese, but I had no idea who Matt Cain was. I carefully tucked the two sandwiches into the bag on my bike while hoping they didn't leak. She'd given me her badge, so I swiped myself into the employee parking lot and parked my bike in front of the truck. It was minutes before noon when I pulled my phone from its holder on the handlebar and extracted the sandwiches from the bike's bag. I felt around in the bottom of bag for dampness and was relieved I wouldn't have to clean it.

"Lunch is here," I said as I opened the door to the lab.

"Good. I'm starving," Willow said as she began pulling off her safety glasses and gloves. "Let me wash my hands, then we can go eat. Did you have any trouble finding the place?"

I shook my head. "Google know all." She glanced at me. "I have a mount on the handlebar so I can use my phone as a GPS."

"Ah," she grunted as she dried her hands. I turned for the door but she took my arm and turned me to face her. "Everyone's gone to lunch, so a kiss first... a proper one this time."

"Want to go to your office?" I rumbled as my lips closed over hers.

"Not today," she purred as our lips parted.

"But sometime?" I murmured.

"Count on it."

I pulled back from the kiss as motion in hall caught my attention. I had the distinct impression that someone had paused at the door and then moved on before they were seen watching. The cafeteria was filled almost to capacity. Apparently word had gone around after I left that I was bringing lunch back and we were going to eat in the cafeteria.

Between bites, Willow recounting, again, her exploits to assembled group. When she finished, it was clear from the questions that the rumors were already spreading and her exploits were becoming larger than life. Depending on which rumor you believed, she'd either driven the RV out herself as Fish, Goose, Big Dick, and I engaged the cartel in a running gun battle with machine guns... she'd removed a bullet from Big Dick's leg while under fire... or she'd engaged in the gun battle herself, picking off bad guys using Juice's rifle after Big Dick, Goose, and Fish were out of the fight.

I could tell she was embarrassed, her face flushed for almost our entire lunch, but I simply sat back, played the strong silent type as she answered questions, and enjoyed the show. She kept trying to downplay her role while building up her protectors, and to drag me into it, but I stuck to my strong silent persona, grunted out one- or two-word answers, and left her to deal with the hero worship on her own.

"Don't fight it," I whispered as I escorted her back to the lab. "Just go with it."

"Me sniping bad guys from the RV, or performing surgery on Big Dick's leg? Really? Who'd believe shit like that?" she growled.

I couldn't stop my snicker. "Probably nobody, but don't minimize what you did. You very well may have saved Big Dick's life, and you did help me get the RV moving since I obviously didn't know what I was doing."

"Yes, well, they make it sound like I saved everyone there single-handedly," she grumbled as we turned into her lab.

I was enjoying the hell out of her discomfort. "It's because you're one of them. Enjoy it while it lasts."

"I guess. It just feels so weird having people stare at me all the time."

I gently turned her face toward me. "Don't be too hard on them. I can't stop staring at you either," I murmured.

Some of the tension in her posture oozed out of her. "The difference is, I like it when you stare at me." She softened even more. "Especially the way you're looking at me now."

"How's that?" I asked as I released her chin.

She held my gaze for a moment. "I can't describe it... but it makes me feel all gooey inside."

She'd kissed me in front of her staff already, so what the hell. "I love making your insides gooey," I murmured in the instant before I briefly brushed her lips with mine.

She shivered, almost as if she were cold, and then smiled as I pulled back. "Oh, God... so do I."

-oOo-

I was sitting on the stool with my back against the wall and my arms crossed over my chest.

"Done!" she said.

I jerked slightly. I hadn't been asleep, but the short night and boredom was taking its toll on me, and I'd been drifting in a pleasant torpor as I watched her do whatever it was she was doing. I glanced at the clock over the door. It was minutes before four.

"Already?"

"For today. I was mostly prepping the samples today, but what I saw looks good. The cores confirm what I expected to see from the soundings. Now, when we hit the oil-bearing shale, we'll see if we actually find oil."

"What do you think?"

"I think there's oil down there, and a lot of it, but we won't know for sure until we get there. You know how it is. You drill, too."

"Yeah, but there's water everywhere if you go deep enough." She arched eyebrow at me. "Okay, nearly everywhere," I amended as I stood and stretched.

"Dinner then my Jeep?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Okay, but before we go," she purred, leading me into her office before she pulled my lips to hers.

"Aren't you afraid someone will walk in and see us?" I breathed as our lips parted.

"Why? Do you care?"