“Woman, you higher watch your self. These right here males, they ain’t too comfortable {that a} girl’s their boss, ya know.” Reaching my arm round to embrace him, I snort on the remark.

“Oh, Mack, you already know I ain’t nervous about these miners. They’re right here as a result of they’ve a job to do, and I’m supplying them with that job. Sons of bitches higher be grateful. I ain’t received time for his or her shit, and I gained’t put up with the disrespect. However I do respect you searching for me,” I reply, calmly patting him on the again.

“Ah hell, I shoulda recognized you’d be simply as cussed as that previous jackass, Huge John. However I’m glad you’ve received powerful guts, woman. That’s what it’s gonna take to maintain this place goin’, ya know. I’ll preserve my ear to the bottom,” Mack says with a wink and leaves the convention room.

Again in my workplace, I kick my boots off beside the desk, then flop down within the chair. Tossing my toes up on the desk, I lean again, and launch a pent-up puff of air. I pinch the bridge of my nostril and marvel what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. I therapeutic massage the bridge of my nostril, prepared the headache that teases behind my eyes to dissipate. The telephone rings and interrupts the transient silence. Trying on the display screen on the receiver, I see that it’s solely Shelly calling from the entrance desk. “Sure, Shelly?”

“Ms. Simon, I contacted your lawyer, Mr. McCoy, simply as you requested, and you’ve got a one-thirty appointment.

“Thanks, Shelly.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am. Is there anything you want?”

“Tylenol please and a bottle of water. Thanks once more, Shelly.”

“Sure, ma’am; my pleasure,” Shelly provides earlier than disconnecting the receiver.

She enters the workplace instantly with a bottle of water and Tylenol, setting them on my desk earlier than leaving quietly. Tossing the Tylenol again in my throat, I crack the lid on the water and take a drink. I stare up on the ceiling because the occasions of the supervisors’ assembly play all through my thoughts like a damaged document.

Colton has all the time been ill-tempered, however I used to be actually shocked by his response of Cooper merely cussing in my presence. Hell, I grew up across the coal mines. Miners have mouths equal to sailors. Colton has all the time stubborn round me. Maybe it wasn’t the cussing, however simply the blatant disrespect for me as his supervisor and as a girl? Regardless, Colton Weston has as soon as once more left me in shock and confused. This man by no means ceases to weave my feelings right into a messy internet I can’t untangle.

Chapter 13

Colton

Stomping like a pissed grizzly bear, I storm from the workplace out to the car parking zone to clear my head, however simply find yourself pacing nervously. Carly Jo has no concept the impact she has on me. I fricking can’t take my coronary heart being ripped out of my chest and stomped on. I need her again. I want her again in my arms the place she belongs. We each made errors, and the one approach we are able to transfer on is to collectively.

Shaking with rattled nerves, I search the cab of my truck for a pack of cigarettes. I do know my pops has left smokes in right here; it’s simply discovering ’em. Turning the truck the wrong way up, tossing water bottles and previous mail round, I sift by means of the glove field and fist pump the air in victory when a smashed pack of Marlboro Lights falls to the floorboard.

I press the lighter within the truck and wait impatiently for it to warmth up. POP! I snap the lighter from the console, and shake a cigarette unfastened from the crushed pack, pulling it between my lips to mild it up. The primary drag is deep, and it makes me a little bit dizzy, however rattling it’s good.

I stop smoking years in the past and vowed to by no means decide ’em up once more, however my nerves want this candy launch. I take a pair extra drags to appease me. I toss the half-smoked cigarette to the bottom and stomp out the embers. Leaning my head in opposition to the door of the truck, I really feel calmer and extra relaxed. I’ve half the thoughts to go residence sick, however there’s no want so as to add defeat to my already broken ego.

I pull myself off the truck and seize my laborious hat from the seat earlier than slamming the door shut. I shuffle my toes slowly by means of the gravel and drag myself to the portal of the mines to the person journey. I climb contained in the shuttle, crank the engine, and start my descent to the depth of the mines, a solitary mild guiding me by means of the darkness. The darkness brings peace to my scattered ideas as I shut my eyes and chill out momentarily, listening to the gears grind because the rail pulls the person journey deeper into the earth. A number of minutes cross earlier than sparkles of sunshine cross my field of regard, and the quiet is changed with the sounds of heavy gear.

I exit the buggy and discover the part my crew is working in at present. They’re all laborious at work, digging coal from the mountain and pinning the roof above ’em. Productiveness is booming, as I’ve the quickest crew at Simon Vitality working their asses off twelve hours each day, barely stopping to even take a chunk of meals. We don’t screw round down right here. We get shit completed. I make my method to every miner, checking in to see how the day is treating ’em and ensuring there aren’t any points. After speaking with the lads, I examine the mines, strolling by means of the sections and checking the roof pinning for security.

Most superintendents don’t come underground too typically. They keep bundled up of their heat places of work, capturing the shit all day, sipping their sizzling espresso, and go residence on the finish of the day nearly as clear as they have been once they left. That shit ain’t for me; I’m underground every day. Coal is in my blood. Working so fiercely that sweat rolls from my forehead, regardless of the chilly fifty-two-degree temperature underground year-round. The thrill of working every bit of kit, the fun of realizing that with one false transfer you can be in imminent hazard. However we preserve a watch out for one another, all the time conscious of the brother subsequent to us. All of us have households to go residence to on the finish of the shift. Once I go away the mines, I count on to be black, lined within the sulfur-scented soot. It’s proof that I’ve completed my job, not pussy-footed round, pushing pencils and measurin’ dicks all day. I put on my mining stripes with pleasure.

After inspecting the crew’s work, I discover a quiet part of the mines and plant my ass firmly on the chilly, laborious floor, switching my headlamp off. I relaxation my forearms on my knees and my head in opposition to the rib of the mines.

I sigh in desperation, feeling empty and lifeless. I can’t sleep at evening for the heartache of seeing her saddened eyes and listening to her cries in my desires. Waking in chilly, chilling sweats evening after evening, shaken from the nightmare of crushing her coronary heart makes me need to rip my beating coronary heart from my chest to finish the struggling.

Tears sting my eyes, and I pressure them to shut. Puffing out a deep breath, I stand and start to tempo. Pictures of a shattered Carly Jo flood my thoughts, and the one sound I hear is her relentless screams, sobbing in despair.

Gripping my fists to my sides, rigidity rises, and I start to ship blow after blow to the rib of the mines. The discharge of my pent-up anger is momentary as thick, heat blood drips from my knuckles, sliced from the sharp coal. Trying down at my bloody knuckles, I’ve to snort at myself and the irony of beating out the ache. What the hell! Wiping my bloody knuckles throughout my pants, I storm off within the route of my crew.

I work facet by facet, mining coal with my crew for the rest of the shift. Using out of the mines, my eyes squint on the solar, making an attempt to refocus from the darkness. Consumed with anger, desperation, and heartache, I storm off to my truck. I gotta get the hell away from Carly Jo Simon, away from this rattling mines.

Leaping within the truck, I hearth the engine to life and velocity out of the lot, tossing gravel behind me. When the rubber meets the highway, my tires squeal and smoke flies, scaring the asphalt with black tracks. I drive. Simply drive, with no vacation spot in sight. I flip the radio on to drown out the sound of Carly Jo’s cries which are nonetheless haunting me. “Keep” by Florida Georgia Line performs from the audio system. Listening to the phrases, this track tells the story of my shattered coronary heart.

I struggle my internal demons and proceed to hurry to a vacation spot unknown. However irrespective of how briskly or far I drive, I’m nonetheless drawn again to Carly Jo. Rattling all of it to hell. Whipping my truck round on the shoulder of the highway, I flip again and velocity up the nation highway in the hunt for my coronary heart.

Chapter 14

Carly

I’m escorted down an extended, slender hallway to James McCoy’s workplace by Alisa, his very younger, enticing assistant. Wearing a really brief mid-thigh skirt and button-down high, exposing her busty cleavage, it seems as if Alisa’s help to James can be way over the secretarial wants that her job requires. With lengthy blonde tendrils curling down her again, she wears an excessive amount of make-up, and sufficient fragrance to make a French whore cross out. If one have been to cross her on the road at evening, you can mistake her for a whore … simply sayin’.

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