LITMIR.BIZ

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his favorite watering hole. They also mentioned his reputation as an outrageous flirt. At one point one columnist had kept a running count of the number of women with whom he’d been spotted. Whatever his past habits, Maddie had seen no evidence that he was womanizing these days.

      In fact, he’d looked so down, so totally alone, that she’d almost felt sorry for him. If he had been anyone other than a Delacourt, she wouldn’t have let him get away without convincing him to spill his guts. Since he was a Delacourt, she had known she had to proceed with caution, not scare him off with her limitless curiosity.

      She flipped open her cell phone and called Griffin Carpenter, as promised.

      “I made contact tonight,” she told him.

      “With Delacourt?”

      “No, with his son, Tyler. There’s something going on with him.”

      “We’re looking for something on Bryce, not his son.”

      “But if I can get Tyler to open up, to trust me enough to confide in me, I’m in. He’ll pave the way with the rest of the family.”

      “That’s your angle?” Griffin asked worriedly. “Maddie, watch yourself. Tyler’s got a reputation with women. At least, he did before he started spending so much time out of town, working on that rig over in Louisiana. Forget about Tyler. Why not get a job at the company, something that’ll give you access to their files?”

      She wasn’t about to explain that any, even the most superficial, background check by Delacourt Oil’s personnel office would reveal her link to a man who’d once been fired. They’d never hire her.

      “I like my way better. I can handle Tyler,” she assured her boss. “I’ll be in touch.”

      She put the cell phone back in her purse and thought about the man who’d just left. Thank heaven he wasn’t her type. With his blond hair, dimpled smile and muscled build, he was too good-looking by far, too used to having women swoon at the sight of him, no doubt.

      When she’d first seen him a few nights ago, she had been surprised by his preference for jeans and chambray shirts, rather than fancy suits; for sturdy work boots, rather than expensive cowboy boots. He’d told her he worked on an oil rig, and he certainly looked as if he could handle hard work. In fact, she could imagine him out on a rig in the blazing sun, his chest bare, muscles rippling. The unexpected image left her mouth surprisingly dry.

      Where had that come from? she wondered, not one bit pleased by the reaction.

      “You need another drink?” the bartender asked.

      Maddie nodded. When the ginger ale came, she drank it down in one long gulp, but it didn’t seem to do much for her parched throat. This wasn’t good, not good at all.

      Repeat after me, she instructed herself. Tyler Delacourt is the son of the man who destroyed your father. Therefore, Tyler Delacourt is a despicable toad. Tyler Delacourt is pond scum.

      Tyler Delacourt is the sexiest man I’ve ever met.

      Maddie moaned at the traitorous thought. This assignment had just gotten a whole lot more complicated. Maybe she would be better off trying to slide her credentials past personnel and accepting some bland, innocuous job taking dictation at Delacourt Oil.

      With a shudder she dismissed the idea. Tyler Delacourt was vulnerable. She had seen it in his bleak expression. Her hormones had never been a problem before. She could certainly keep them in check now. She was too close to her goal to let anything—least of all a handsome Delacourt—get in her way.

      Chapter Two

      Tyler avoided O’Reilly’s—and the very disconcerting Maddie—for the next few nights. In fact, he pretty much stayed in his apartment for a solid week, sorting through the options he had for the rest of his life. He ignored the phone, letting his answering machine take messages, most of which were from his increasingly impatient father. There was no getting away from the fact that the time had come to make a decision, and no matter which one he made, there was going to be hell to pay.

      When he got a call from Daniel Corrigan, supervisor of operations on the rig and Tyler’s boss, Tyler thought about ignoring it, too, but something in Daniel’s voice as he left a curt message told him that he shouldn’t. He snatched up the phone just as the older man was about to hang up.

      “Daniel, what’s up?”

      “Good. You’re there. Now the question is, when are you coming back here?”

      “Why? Is there a problem?”

      “That’s what I want to know. I had a call from your father this morning telling me not to expect you back. I wanted to hear it from you before I filled the position. I told him that, too. I figured if you’d decided to quit, you owed it to me to call yourself.” He hesitated then added wryly, “It also occurred to me that you might not know about it.”

      It looked as if the matter was about to be snatched out of Tyler’s hands, unless he took some decisive action. He muttered a harsh expletive under his breath, then assured Daniel, “I’ll take care of it.”

      “That’s not really answering my question now, is it, Tyler?”

      “Look, I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle on this. I’m trying to work it out. For now, though, don’t fill that job, not until you hear from me.”

      “Anything I can do to help, like reminding you that you’re the best man I’ve got on the job over here?”

      Tyler couldn’t help being pleased by the compliment. Daniel Corrigan was an incredibly demanding man, one of the best the company had, Tyler’s father conceded, even though there was some bad blood between the two men.

      Daniel had been with Delacourt Oil for most of his life. He was loyal to the company, but even more fiercely loyal to the men who risked their lives working the rigs. He’d tried a desk job briefly nearly thirty years earlier, but by grudging mutual agreement with Bryce Delacourt, he’d gone back to working the rigs. Bryce had never entirely forgiven Daniel for abandoning the corporate role he’d been offered. Tyler assumed that was the main source of the friction between them.

      In addition, it was evident that his father didn’t much like the bond that had formed years earlier between Daniel and Tyler. The older man had taken Tyler under his wing when he’d first expressed an interest in learning the business literally from the ground up. Even though Bryce was no longer in any position to spend time in the oil fields with a curious young boy, he’d been resentful of turning the task over to another man. Stubborn, even as a kid, and sure of his own interests, Tyler had had to badger him into it.

      Now, when Tyler didn’t respond, Daniel sighed heavily. “I suppose this is none of my business, but is this mood you’re obviously in really about work?”

      “Of course it is,” Tyler insisted, guessing where his boss might be headed.

      “You sure of that? Or is it about Jen? I know that accident tore you up inside. You’ve been brooding about it for months now. Have you even told your family what happened?”

      Tyler regretted ever telling his boss about Jen, but at the time he’d felt he had no choice. He’d had to give Daniel a way to reach him if he was unexpectedly needed on the rig. As a result Daniel had been the one who’d come into Baton Rouge personally to deliver the news when Tyler’s father had suffered a heart attack a year ago. He’d also been the one to break the news about the accident. The police had found Daniel’s office number in Jen’s purse as an emergency means to contact Tyler. Despite all that, it didn’t mean the man had a right to go picking at the scabs on Tyler’s emotional wounds.

      “Daniel—”

      “You listen to me,” his boss said sharply, ignoring the warning note in Tyler’s voice. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

      “You don’t know—”

      “I

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