“Adam Murdock Sanders. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t know.”
“Adam!” Wyatt exclaimed. “What’s the matter with you? Ms. York hasn’t done anything to you!”
“The hell she hasn’t! She very nearly killed me. She put me in the hospital and my foot in a cast for more than six weeks!”
Sparks flew from Maureen York’s dark eyes as she pinned him with a glare that would have withered a lesser man. “I didn’t do anything to you! You did it to yourself!”
“Sure. I’m the one who swerved to miss that damn dog!”
Her brows shot up with indignation. “Would you have had me kill it?”
“That would’ve been a helluva lot better than killing me!”
A deep shade of rose spread across her high cheekbones. “Nothing would’ve happened to you if you’d been wearing your seat belt. Like I told you to in the first place. But no. You had to play macho man and—”
“I wouldn’t have—”
“Whoa! Whoa now!” Wyatt shouted above their voices. “I think there’s been a mistake here and—”
“There sure has,” Adam interrupted hotly. “And the mistake was hiring this—” he gestured toward Maureen “—this maniac.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sanders,” Maureen spoke up. “I didn’t realize this—” she inclined her head toward Adam “—this man was your son. Otherwise, I would’ve saved the time and trouble for both of us and told you I couldn’t accept the position in your company.”
Seeing the whole situation was escalating out of control, Wyatt shook his head at her. “Please take a seat, Maureen, while I have a word with Adam. It won’t be but a few minutes. I promise.”
She weighed his plea for a moment, then with a reluctant nod returned to the chair she’d been sitting in earlier. As for Adam, Wyatt hustled him out the door and down the hallway to a storeroom.
“What in hell’s come over you?” Wyatt shot at him the moment the door closed behind the two men. “I’ve never seen you act so rude and overbearing in my life! Ms. York is a damned good geologist. One of the very best. We’re lucky to be getting her. If we still are. Thanks to you.”
Adam deeply respected his father and loved him even more. From the time he was a small boy, he’d known he wanted to grow up and be just like him. He’d wanted to be an oilman and a damned good one. He wanted to be known the way Wyatt was in the business. But there were times he clashed with the older man, and this just happened to be one of them.
“Dad, Maureen York is the woman who was driving me out to the rig site down in South America. She was the woman who wrecked me. Do I need to say more?”
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Adam, you know the woman didn’t purposely wreck the Jeep to hurt you. And I had no idea the Maureen woman you’d mentioned that day in the hospital was this one! You only told me she was giving you a lift out to the rig. I didn’t know she was a geologist or even that she worked for an oil company. I thought it was some girlfriend you’d picked up down there and she was simply giving you a ride!”
“She was giving me a ride all right!” he growled, then seeing the impatient look on his father’s face, he let out a heavy sigh. “Look, Dad, even if she didn’t intentionally wreck the Jeep, she has a list of other problems. Frankly, I don’t think I could work with her for two days, or even two hours.”
Wyatt folded his arms across his chest and leveled a stern look on his son’s face. “All right, tell me what sort of problems she has.”
“She’s reckless. Opinionated. Stubborn. And disrespectful.”
“In other words, she’s a whole lot like you.”
Adam shook his head. “Dad, you know what I mean. She’s—well, she’s a woman in a man’s world. She doesn’t fit.”
“She’s smarter than any man I’ve come across. She’ll be a big asset to the company.”
“Find me someone else to work with and you can cut my salary in half.”
Wyatt’s brows shot up. “You’re serious!”
“Damn serious,” Adam told him.
Wyatt studied him for long moments. He’d seen that look on his son’s face before. Stubborn, defiant, even a little reckless. And he felt as if thirty years had rolled back and he was staring at himself in the mirror.
“Well, I’m serious, too,” Wyatt told him. “I can see you’re letting your personal feelings get in the way of the real purpose here. To get gas and oil from the ground and eventually to the consumer.”
Ducking his head, Adam jammed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and stared at the toes of his cowboy boots. His ruined cowboy boots. But he tried not to think about that now. He could probably forget that Maureen had slung him out of that open-topped Jeep, too. But could he bear to be around her day in, day out? The woman bothered him in ways he didn’t want to think about.
“I have no personal feelings for Maureen York,” he said bluntly.
“It didn’t sound like that a few moments ago when you were practically biting her head off,” Wyatt pointed out. “Did the two of you...you didn’t come on to the woman down there in South America, did you?”
Adam appeared shocked by his father’s question. “Dad, Ms. York is probably getting close to thirty!”
Wyatt’s expression grew wry. “Since when did a few years’ difference in ages ever stop you?”
Adam had the grace to blush. “Well, maybe she isn’t that much older than me. But I can safely say she’s...far from my type.”
“Good.” Wyatt gave Adam’s shoulder an encouraging pat. “Then it won’t be a problem for you to go back into my office and assure her you’re looking forward to working with her.”
“I’ll do my best to lie like hell.”
Wyatt chuckled. “Trust me, Adam, in a few months’ time, you’ll be thanking me for hiring the woman.”
Maureen had almost decided not to wait another minute when the door to the office swung open and Adam Murdock Sanders entered the room. She immediately rose to her feet and clasped her hands behind her back.
“Where is Mr. Sanders?” she asked him without preamble.
“I’m the Mr. Sanders you’ll be working with. My father has gone home to our ranch.”
Maureen moistened her lips and told herself to remain calm. She’d never been an emotional woman. It was one of the reasons she was successful in spite of her gender. But there was something about this young man that got under her skin like no one ever had.
“Look, Mr. San—Mr. Murdock Sanders,” she corrected pointedly, “I believe you and I both know we could never work together.”
Adam totally agreed.
