Truth and Humility (18 page)

“Shit,” he ground out, and moved her clothing back into place.

“Where do you want me, boss?” Danny inquired while the crew filed out of the commons room.  Her movements were sluggish while wrapping the tool belt around her waist and securing it.  Austin noticed, dropped the clipboard down on the table.  He was annoyed to even see her face at morning meeting.

“You aren’t working today,” he informed riotously and hauled his own tool belt over his shoulder before heading out to the yard.

Her head shot up in the middle of her first attempt to tie her hair back.  “Since when?”

“Since that cocksucker cleaned your clock.  Take the day off and heal.”

She grabbed her hardhat off the hook and followed him out.  “A few bruises are not that big a deal, Austin.  You’d let any one of these guys work under the same circumstances.”

“You’re not any guy and you’re not immune to injury.  Deal with it.”

A small sound of disgust.  “Injury.  This is nothing.  I’ve been hurt a lot worse than this and been back to work the next day.”

“Really?  Been in a lot of accidents, have you?”

It was a trap.  Danny sensed it, proceeded with caution.  “Not a lot...one or two.”

“And the result was what?  Pinched fingers, broken nail, boo-boo on the knee?”

She glared at his back.  Boo-boo on the knee...  The man had a gait to his walk that was damned distracting.  “Okay, I don’t like admitting this, but since you’re being such a jerk...”  She reared back to keep from slamming into him when he halted in his tracks and faced her.  Waiting.  “Aside from your average garden-variety work injuries...I was knocked out once.  Nice concussion.  Don’t remember a thing, but I was told my clothes got caught on a boom.  I went over the side of a two-story building with an air conditioner but then my clothes ripped and I decked-out on the sidewalk.”

His eyes squinted with a ‘
really?’
“Not big on caution, are you?”

Jerk.
voosNe.  Thspan>
  “My boom operator suffered more than I did.  He quit.  But I was back on that rooftop by eight a.m.”

“Okay then.”  Mac came sauntering up at that moment and Austin took advantage of the other man’s company.  “Mac, tell me what you think.  Does Wonder Woman here look fit enough to work in the yard today?”

Mac looked her up and down, scoped out the purple bruise on her left cheek and the one discoloring the left side of her mouth, caught the pleading in her eyes and flipped his hardhat over a tuft of fly-away hair.  “Looks good to me, boss.”

Danny lifted her chin a notch.  “You see?”

Austin cocked his head and proceeded to slip on work gloves.   “Now, Mac, you know she can’t work out here with her hair down.  It could obstruct her vision or, God forbid, get caught in machinery.”

“I was going to put it up.”

Gloves on, Austin put his hands on his hips and waited.  “Do it, then,” he prodded when she only stood there defiantly.  When she turned to head back to the commons room, he stopped her.  “No, Danny, I want to
watch
you do it.  Right here.”

Her look became wary and she glanced at Mac.  It was clear she was getting no help from her partner as he watched her curiously.  With sure movements, she took the hardhat off and gritted her teeth when her drawn-up muscles screamed at the simple act of lifting her arms.  Now that they were up and her hands were working her hair into a loose ponytail, she attempted to pull the rubber band off her wrist and choked.  Taking a deep breath, she tried again, but the muscles she needed to manipulate the rubber band were connected directly to her injured ribs.

“Hold on,” she said, and paused to breathe before taking the plunge.  Mac’s face took on a deep look of suspicion.  She bit her lip against the pain and her knees nearly buckled, but the rubber band was finally, if not loosely, in place.  “There, you see?” she panted, her face pale, a fresh layer of sweat forming on her upper lip.

“Yeah, I see,” Austin sneered, meeting Mac’s worried glance, and threw up a hand to indicate the obvious.

“Ribs?” Mac observed.

“What were you thinking, Danny?” Austin yelled as she bent over to rest her hands on her knees and recover.  “You thought if you didn’t say anything I’d let you work today?  Let you gingerly tear shit up until something happens and you or someone else gets hurt because you can’t react fast enough?”

Still panting, Danny straightened her back and shot him a mean look.  Her poor excuse for a ponytail was already sagging loosely behind her neck.  “How did you know?”

Because I can’t take my eyes off of you,
he thought sourly.  “I’m a
{
guy
,” he said instead.  “I know pain when I see it and you’re not stepping foot in my yard today.”

“I need to earn my pay, Austin.  There’s no clause in that contract that says I can’t work through an injury.”

“Don’t be absurd,” he barked, and addressed Mac to end the conversation.  “Looks like you’re on your own today, Mac.  Take that load of stainless vats and strip them for recycling.”

“Sure thing.”  The big man ambled on and Austin branched off in a different direction.

“I’d be working today if I were home!” Danny yelled impudently and her face twisted into a scowl when he abruptly turned, stormed toward her once again.

“Well you’re
not
home, are you?  You’re in
Cahill
territory and I don’t tolerate arrogant little fools who’d sooner get themselves killed to save face.”

Offended, she swiped angrily at a ruthless mosquito.  “I’m not ‘saving face,’ I happen to have a large debt to pay!”

“Well, I’m sorry if this extends your stay by one or two days, Danny, but safety is more important to
this
salvage company than your desire to leave.”

“You just want to keep me here as long as you can to rub it in Derek’s face.”

The truth was, her scathing remark would have carried some weight the prior week.  But now he just cared about her...a little too much.  And he was quite disgusted with himself for it.  “We’re done, Bennett,” he growled thickly and walked away.

“They aren’t broken,” he heard behind him the next morning while he filled a cup at the breakfast bar.  Austin took up his coffee and bagel and walked to the table with his tag-along close behind.

“Can you put your hair up this morning?” he asked without looking back.

“Yes.”

“Lemme see.”

Danny was getting tired of his blasé attitude, but she was prepared to prove her worth.  She felt like a sideshow act as she performed the simple task while he watched.  This time, she managed a tight ponytail with only a small wince or two.

“You can take the vats with Mac,” he conceded, “but you stick to him like glue, understand?”  At her nod, he took the offered clipboard from Sue and proceeded with the morning meeting.

It was all he could do to n {couandot watch her like a hawk the first hour, but she performed well enough.  Mac did the heavy work while she managed the tedious job of removing the control panels from the stainless steel vats.  The valuable metal was stripped of rubber rings, plastics, worthless metals, foam stripping and insulation until all that was left was a stainless shell ready for recycling.  The forklift was down for the day with an oil leak, so Stan moved the readied vats with a modified backhoe since the uni-loader was on location that day.  Exhaust plumed from the stack as the machine went back and forth between the waiting vats and the flatbed trailer.

Stan backed up and turned the hoe with its metal forks toward the last stripped vat as Danny and Mac continued to work on the rest.

“Got an invoice for the hangar doors, boss,” Sue said, coming at him with a clipboard and pen.  “I need your signature and a delivery date.”

“You sold them already?” he asked her, the pen scrawling across the bottom of the invoice.

“A friend of a friend knew a guy…”

Her words trailed off and her eyes widened.  Shouts rang out and Austin turned just in time to watch Danny turn too late, disappear behind the forked bucket of the runaway hoe.

“Danny!”
he roared and, dropping the clipboard, began a desperate sprint across the yard.  The hoe crashed into the remaining pile of un-stripped vats and he saw Mac scramble to avoid the flying debris.  The hoe kept going, out of control, and veered sharply to the left.  The diesel engine howled in protest and accelerated to a full speed toward the water tower.  As he ran, Austin’s eyes frantically searched the spot ahead where Danny was last seen, but the only evidence of her was the abandoned hardhat on the ground.

Men were scrambling to follow the runaway backhoe as it zigzagged past the water tower and was now on a direct path toward the fence.  The forks pierced the chain link.  The barrier folded.  The hoe swayed forward as the engine quieted for a scant moment, then came back to life again just as the rolling machine was about tip over the edge of the steep embankment.  Black smoke shot into the air.  Dirt spun as the rear tires began to spin backward, pulsing over the earth in a heart stopping battle between horsepower and gravity.  Just as it seemed gravity was winning, the rear shovel curled out and down.  Hydraulics moaned as the teeth clawed at the earth, grasped a firm hold and worked with the spinning tires to return the hoe to a safe enough position at the edge.  Men gathered around the machine but remained at a safe distance as the stabilizer legs came down to secure the precarious position.

Austin had been torn between searching the pile of vats for Danny’s body and following the backhoe that was about to carry Stan over the embankment.  When the engine was cut, the only sounds left were men’s shouts as his crew went into rescue mode.  Mac ran past him and he realized he was frozen to the spot.  His feet began to move toward the chaos by the demolished fence.

The door of the backhoe was yanked open and Frank leaned in, struggled with something, then emerged with the limp form of Stan’s body draped over one shoulder.  Men on the gro {en stund grabbed the middle-aged man and Frank disappeared back into the cab.  Austin’s feet kept chewing up the distance, but he nearly collapsed with relief when Danny’s small form appeared and she began her shaky descent from the cab.

Stan was surrounded by crewmembers as he lay on the ground.  Austin recognized the signs of diabetic shock and shouted for Sue to get him some juice and call an ambulance.

Danny’s boots hit the dirt.  Her knees wobbled for a moment.  She yanked off her gloves, then her tool belt. 
Please, God, let her be okay,
Austin prayed as he took his last strides.  She was already covered up by men by the time he arrived, but soon the bodies parted and she ran to the back of the hoe.  Her shoulders lurched forward.  She blindly grabbed for something to hold on to as the contents of her stomach spilled out into the dirt.

“Get out of the way!” Austin yelled, panicked by the sounds of her retching.  The men let him through and he could finally see her.

When the convulsions stopped, Danny wiped her mouth with her sleeve, staggered and wrapped her arm around her middle while the other tensed at her side.  Austin knew her ribs hurt and he immediately turned her to face him.  Her hair was out of control, her face and clothing were covered with dirt, but there were no other physical signs of injury.  “Danny, look at me,” he prompted.  She did.  “Are you hurt?”  She shook her head.  “What about your ribs?”

“They’re fine,” she panted and nodded her head for assurance.  “I’m just a little shaken up.”

“Shaken up, she says!” Torsten guffawed from behind him.  “Hell, I’d have
pissed
myself!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that, Danny.”  He turned to address the other men.  “Did anyone else
see that?
  Did you fucking
see – that?”

While Torsten raised hell with the others, Austin scooped her up in his arms and began the long trek back to the office.

“You don’t need to carry me,” she protested weakly.  “Dammit this is embarrassing!”