Here Comes Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page A

alright...it was just against me," Terri told her
with a tremble in her voice.
    "You should sue them," Jenny told
her.
    "His word against mine, it'll wind up the
same, and I'll spend a ton of money in the process."
    Joel could hear the defeat in Terri's voice
and it made him angry. A lot of things about the situation made him
angry. From the pieces and parts of the conversation he overheard,
he gathered some asshole had tried to come on to her at work, and
now she was paying the price for trying to make things
right.
    Jenny huffed a frustrated breath then said,
"God, this sucks bad."
    "Tell me about it," Terri replied then added
with forced brightness, "But the good thing is now I can be here
when the baby is born!"
    "What are you going to do?" Jenny
asked.
    Terri groaned before she responded. Joel felt
it all the way in his toes.
    "I have to find another job before the
suspension is over. Maybe I'll try the hospital in
Amarillo."
    There was silence and then Jenny finally
spoke. "As your best friend, I should probably say 'sure you should
do that, you're a good nurse, they'll hire you'. The only problem
is, I know firsthand how the good ole boy network operates.
Remember I had a similar problem, that's why I wound up in
Henrietta."
    "Yeah, I remember," Terri told her. "Now that
I have a black mark too, I'm marked as trouble, and it's unlikely
another hospital will hire me. Thanks for not sugarcoating
things."
    "Sorry, but I didn't want you to get your
hopes up."
    Joel almost wished Jenny had given her some
false hope, maybe then her voice wouldn't be so sad. Terri really
was in a fix.
    "Well, I'm not going to worry about it for a
couple of weeks. It's been five years since I had a vacation, and I
can't think of a better place to spend it than with you and your
new bambino."
    "I'm glad you're here too. Between Chase and
his mama, and now Joel, they're driving me nuts. Maybe you can help
me run interference," Jenny told her with a chuckle.
    Joel thought they were done talking, and
figured he'd slink away like the sneaky snake he was, so he started
creeping but Jenny's next words stopped him in his tracks. "You
know...we need a few more onsite medics for our rigs. It wouldn't
take much to train you. The guys are pretty rough there, but I
think you could handle them."
    Not no, but hell no! There was no way
Joel was going to let the petite brunette work on an oil derrick.
Those guys were called roughnecks for a reason. Besides, that was a
dangerous place to be most of the time. A person could get killed
in the blink of an eye, if they weren't careful.
    Joel's dad had made him work in the oil patch
as a teenager, so he knew the perils involved. Had almost been a
statistic himself, if his safety rope hadn't held when he fell from
the monkey board high up on the rig.
    She wouldn't be doing that of course, would
probably be in the trailer with the company man, but well blowouts
happened, things got wild and shit happened. The thought of it
happening to her sent chills down his spine. Without thinking, Joel
spun on his heel and walked around the corner to stand before the
two women with his hands on his hips.
    "She's not going to work on a rig," he told
Jenny flatly, then glared at her.
    "Whoa, buster..." Terri said then pushed up to
her feet and stepped into his space. The top of her head barely
reached the center of his chest, but she faced him off and put a
finger in his chest. "What the hell were you doing listening to our
conversation?" she started then poked him again. "And who the hell
do you think you are telling me what I can and can't
do?"
    Joel looked into her angry green eyes and
swallowed down the lust that punched him in the gut. "It's
dangerous, and you don't need to be around those men."
    Terri rocked back on her heels and put her
hands on her hips, her beautiful lips cocked up on one side. "Your
brother is one of those men, isn't he?"
    "Yeah, we both were, that's how I know you
don't need to be there," he grated.
    "And