Hell, Yeah Read Online Free Page B

parties at work and just forgot. Merle’s niece, Angel, is going to work for me but you already know that. She’s been in the Honky Tonk pretty often. The rig crew will be in and out of it in the daytime. The trailer I’m putting back there will be mainly an office and will shield the sight of the smaller travel trailers the rig crew will live in. So there shouldn’t be a conflict of interest here. If we hit oil in this area I may put up a more permanent office building. If not, well, we’ll cross that bridge when it gets here. Sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
    “You promise all the noise will stop by Monday?”
    “Cross my heart. Had to pay out the nose to get these men out here on New Year’s Day, but I want this place up and running coming Monday morning.” He went to the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee.
    Cathy eyed him. He didn’t look seventy and he damn sure didn’t look like he dressed up in leather and rode motorcycles with a gang out of Dallas on weekends either. That morning he looked the part of a businessman in his khakis and starched blue shirt. Gray hair rimmed his otherwise bald head and his lean face was etched in deep wrinkles.
    He handed her a cup of coffee and sat back down.
    “No men in the apartment,” she said.
    Amos’s eyes twinkled. “I was part of the reason Ruby made that rule. I don’t expect at my age there’s a chance I’m going to get lucky with you, is there?”
    Cathy grinned and sipped the hot coffee. “Not today.”
    “Okay, then, I’m going back out to supervise the work. I’ll bring the cup back before I leave. Oh, besides the trailer they’ll use for the office, they’re bringing in gravel this weekend. There’ll be twenty travel trailer spaces back there for the oil crew. It’s probably only for a couple of months and then it’ll all be gone,” he said.
    She swallowed quickly to keep from spewing coffee onto the carpet.
    “I’ll get back out there and make sure it’s all coming along. By Monday you can sleep until noon again.” He opened the door and said, “Come right in out of the cold.”
    Cathy looked up to see who he was inviting into her apartment. Surely that wasn’t… but it was!
    Amos threw an arm around Angel’s shoulder. “Cathy, I don’t know if you’ve met my new team. This is Angel Avery, Merle’s niece. And this is the best damn petroleum engineer in the whole state of Texas, Travis Henry. He’s been working for me several years. The trailer’s living room will house our office and one bedroom will serve as a filing room. The other one is where Travis will be living the next couple of months. Meet your temporary new neighbor. Travis, this is Cathy O’Dell. She owns the Honky Tonk.”
    Cathy mumbled something.
    Travis muttered a “hello.”
    Angel patted Amos’s arm. “We were at the Honky Tonk last night for the New Year’s Eve party. I whipped Garrett McElroy’s ass in pool but just barely. Just looking at that cowboy almost puts me off my game. And Travis kissed Cathy.”
    “I didn’t know she owned the place,” Travis said with clenched teeth. What in the hell had he done? At least he didn’t see that enormous bouncer anywhere in the small apartment, so maybe he wasn’t on a hit list. Not yet, anyway.
    “Damn, Travis, I swear you have no tact. Forgive him, Cathy. He’s outside material. I’ll try to get him housebroken so he won’t be a horrible neighbor,” Angel teased.
    “You kissed Cathy?” Amos asked.
    “New Year’s kiss. You can bet it won’t ever happen again,” Travis said.
    “That’s right,” Cathy smarted off.
    “Well, it looks like you two got things worked out between you. Let’s get out of here and let Cathy go back to sleep. She’s unbearable when she first wakes up. We don’t want to get bit.” Amos chuckled and ushered them out to the porch.
    Cathy rolled up into a ball and moaned. He would be living within spitting distance of her back door—so much for not having to deal