“I’ll eat it,” Heidi interjected proudly. “I like everything. But Henry doesn’t.”
Her brother glanced at Heath. Claire, too, was curious to see the man’s reaction.
“I’m glad you know what works for you,” he said. “It’s important for a fellow to know his own mind.”
Henry’s eyes widened appreciatively. That was not the reaction he usually got.
Claire flashed Heath a grateful smile, then sat down at the table. While they helped themselves, family-style, to the food, she cut straight to the chase with Wiley. “So what was this business you wanted to discuss with me?”
“I’m in Summit County to look for oil.”
She lifted her palm. “The wells on the Red Sage went dry forty years ago.”
That information didn’t deter Wiley. “Conventional extraction yields only thirty percent. The rest of the oil squeezes into tiny cracks in a reservoir and clings to the underground rocks. There’s a process now that wasn’t available at the time your wells were capped, called water-flooding.”
“I know all about injection wells,” Claire said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Heath accept a bite of Heidi’s green beans with great relish. Suppressing an amused smile, she continued, “The oil companies push water into the ground and try to wash out the remaining oil.”
Wiley nodded, as Henry offered Heath a bite of peanut butter toast. “That’ll get out a portion, but not all. Adding surfactant could get out even more.”
Claire shook her head, as Heath offered Henry a bite of his meat, which he refused. “I don’t want chemicals on my land,” she said.
Ignoring the increased restlessness of the kids, Wiley pushed on. “We could also inject steam or carbon dioxide into the wells.”
Henry offered Heath another bite of peanut butter toast, which was wordlessly accepted. Not to be outdone, Heidi gave him another green bean.
With effort, Claire pushed aside thoughts of how comfortable he was with the kids and what a great dad Heath would be, and brought her mind back to the business at hand. “Injecting steam requires putting in huge pressure vessels to heat the water. I don’t want anything that dangerous or noisy or intrusive on the ranch,” she stated decisively. “The same goes for carbon dioxide.”
“How about putting microbes into the wells then?”
It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. “Microbes produce large amounts of gas and pressure underground.”
“Properly handled,” Wiley countered, with the smoothness of a snake oil salesman, “that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Claire disagreed. “It’s bacteria. We have well water out here. I’m not taking any chances that our drinking water might be contaminated, now or in the future.”
Heath gave her an admiring glance. “You know a lot about this.”
Glad for the interruption, she nodded. She wanted him to understand her position. “A couple years before my dad died, after he had stopped running cattle out here, an oilman came by and tried to convince him to reopen the wells. Dad said it took him forty years to get the land back to its natural state. No way was he letting heavy trucks and machinery tear up the place, after all his hard work.”
Wiley cleaned his plate. “There could be a lot of money involved here, Claire.”
About that, she noted in disappointment, Heath did not disagree. But then, what had she expected? He was a banker—a bottom-line guy.
“And it could be,” she countered, “that the process of getting to whatever oil is left in there—if there is any in the ground on this ranch—is not going to be economically viable for you or any other wildcatter.”
Wiley frowned. “Don’t you want to find out?”
She scowled right back. “Nope.”
And then and there, the twins’ patience—what was left of it—ended.
Henry tipped his milk glass over. Heidi did the same. The liquid fromHenry’s flowed into Wiley’s lap, that from Heidi’s splashed onto Claire’s. Both victims sucked in a distressed breath as Heath, who’d been unscathed, grabbed for napkins.
“Oh my goodness!” Claire jumped up to get clean dish towels to mop them up.
Wiley grimaced as the liquid soaked into his pants. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt. “No problem,” he drawled. “Accidents happen.”
Only, Claire thought, it hadn’t been an accident.
“EVERYTHING OKAY?” Heath asked twenty minutes later, when Claire finally came back downstairs, this time without her two young charges.
“The twins are fine.” She sighed, feeling a lot more comfortable now in faded jeans and a loose-fitting shirt. “Just overtired.” She’d scolded them gently for their end-of-dinner behavior, then helped them brush their teeth and change, and finally tucked them into bed.
The effort left her feeling the way she did every night around this time—like she had just run a marathon.
Claire paused to look around. “What happened to Wiley?”
“He took his pecan pie à la mode and went back to his cottage to change and check his messages.”
Before sprinting up the stairs with the twins, Claire had told the guys to help themselves to dessert and coffee. Heath had apparently not yet done so, in favor of cleaning up the table and scrubbing the pots and pans. She studied his rolled-up shirtsleeves, and the damp towel thrown across one broad shoulder. He looked as at home in her kitchen as she was. She wouldn’t have expected that of a man in his line of work.
She watched the play of muscles in his brawny forearms as he scrubbed down the table and counters with an enticing combination of strength and finesse. She edged closer, taking in the brisk woodsy fragrance of his cologne. “You didn’t have to stay.” But she was suddenly glad he had. It was nice having company—attractive male company—after hours.
Finished with the cleanup, he let the sudsy water out of the farmhouse-style sink. “I felt I owed you after such a delicious meal.”
Claire reminded herself Heath was a paying guest. And as such, not a target for lusty fantasies.
Pushing away the image of those same nimble fingers on her bare skin, she quipped, “And a rather inglorious end.”
He chuckled. “Tip things over accidentally-on-purpose often, do they?”
“No.” Thank heavens.
Heath hung up the dish towel and lounged against the counter again, one palm flattened on the gleaming top. “I get why they did that to Wiley. He’s a bit of a blowhard. But why they doused you—now that’s a mystery.”
Claire shook her head ruefully. “I think they were trying to tell me I should have paid more attention to them during the meal. Suppertime is their time. They get my undivided attention. I should have known better than to turn it into a business meeting and a chance to pick up some extra cash, by charging you two for the meal.”
Heath’s blue eyes narrowed. “Why did you?” he asked with curiosity.
She sighed. “I knew I had to hear Wiley out sometime, or risk him pestering me to death. I figured the twins’ brief attention span would keep his sales pitch short, and I would have skated by, without offending a paying guest. Which, you may have noticed,” she intoned dryly, “I need.”
“And me?”
Easy, Claire thought, cutting them each a slice of pie. “I wanted you to know my opinion on what he is trying to do, and it was easier to have you hear it firsthand than for me