Eric.
“Great.” Eric grinned. “My friends are going to love you.”
“I sure hope so.” Gloria tapped Sarah’s regular order into the register and beamed. “I’ll do my very best to make that happen.”
Chapter 13
Lane ignored the stare of the receptionist in the lobby of the Carrigan building and hit the “up” button on the elevator. He’d woken exhausted by dreams of Sarah and had resolved that if she was going to wear him out, he’d rather she did it in person. Hopefully he could talk her into lunch, because five o’clock would be way too long to wait. He’d play on her conscience, point out that they’d never gotten around to talking about the drilling.
Stepping into the elevator, he tipped his hat to two giggling young women as they exited. City girls in Casper were mostly country girls trying out town life. Eventually, they’d finish with the outside world and return to the small-town cycle relationships, work, marriage, and children—who would repeat the cycle all over again. They all giggled when they saw a cowboy—except for Sarah. She wasn’t a giggler, which was part of the reason he’d been compelled to come back.
Compelled. How long had it been since a woman compelled him to do anything? He hit the button for the tenth floor and eyed his reflection. The wavy stainless steel walls of the elevator gave his image an amorphous fun-house twist, stretching his legs and widening his shoulders and hat so he looked like a cartoon cowboy. Ducking down to check his reflection in the smoother panel that housed the controls, he realized he hadn’t shaved that morning, and maybe not the day before, either. Stubble shaded his chin and his hat was bent where the bull had stepped on it. He looked like a refugee from Wyoming’s outlaw past, not the heir to one of its most successful companies.
At least, it used to be successful. Eric had been grumbling about the dwindling supply of oil in the West for years, and now he claimed that if they couldn’t access deeper reserves under the rocky Wyoming plains, they were going to run out of product. Their methods had to change.
Well, they could change without Lane’s help. He wasn’t coming along for that ride.
But he’d been thinking about his family, and a few things were bothering him. Sure, he hadn’t asked for a life of ease, but he’d lived one. He’d ridden the Carrigan gravy train straight to stardom, and yet he’d gone on the nightly news to bite the hand that had fed him all his life.
The elevator beeped and the doors slid open, revealing a gleaming modern hallway. Lane took a deep breath and a right-hand turn toward his brother’s office. Rapping on the door, he opened it without waiting for an answer. “Hey, bro.”
Eric leaned back in his padded leather office chair and smiled. For half a second Lane felt like he was looking in another fun-house mirror—one that made him look nattily dressed, slimmer, and altogether tidier than usual.
And a little on the smug side.
“Well,” Eric said. “I thought you’d be back.”
Lane eased into the chair in front of the desk, suddenly conscious of the ache in his ribs.
“I realized the other day that I hadn’t been much of a brother lately. Thought I ought to stop by more often.”
Eric’s smug grin widened. “What you realized the other day is that I have a gorgeous woman working for me. Who’s way out of your league, but that never stopped you before.” Lane started to protest and Eric held up one hand like he was stopping traffic. “I saw you looking.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Lane shrugged one shoulder and winced. “But she’s not going to change my mind about the drilling.”
“So she told me.”
“She tell you anything else?” Lane suddenly felt like he was back in middle school, asking if a girl liked him.
“Nope. But I can give you some hints and tips. First one is to shut that door so she doesn’t know you’re here. She’s got a thing about fraternizing with the bosses, and seeing you’s liable to remind her of that. You’ll lose me my date to the benefit dinner tonight.”
“Your date?”
“I talked her into coming to the Petro Club tonight. And that’s your next tip. You show up there and make an effort to fit in, she might see you a little differently. It’s her kind of place,” Eric said.
Lane was tempted to laugh. With its smoked windows and brass accents, the Petro Club was