Foot.
He’d hated heights when he started this job. Got dizzy every time his feet left the ground. But being a lineman was the most decent-paying job that they hadn’t yet shipped overseas, and dizziness wasn’t worth complaining about as long as it got him out of Alabama. It wore off after the second year. He still couldn’t look down without feeling sick, but that just kept him honest. Kept him careful.
Hand.
Foot.
Hand.
Foot.
He didn’t pause when his boots hit dirt, because he’d never let his crew see him take that gulp of relief he always, always wanted. Instead, he held his breath until the urge passed, and strode toward his truck.
“Going to the yard,” he yelled over his shoulder. “If that section’s not done when I get back, nobody’s taking lunch.”
Their new safety leashes had come in the mail today. Their old ones had finally been certified unusable, six months after he would have tossed them out if it had been his decision. Sure, he could pick them up tomorrow, but if anybody fell this afternoon, that’d be on his conscience.
He stripped off his leather gloves and stuffed them into his pocket, already calculating how much work time he’d lose by running to the construction yard. He could send the apprentice, but probably the kid would come back toting a crate of tissues or something that was clearly not what he’d been sent for. Joey was fresh out of high school, and Jack was afraid he was going to have to fire the kid. He was eager, but too head-in-the-clouds for a profession where the consequences were often a lot more dire than a bad employee review.
There was a little lump under Jack’s tire. He glanced back at the crew to see if anybody was watching. The bios had said that the only way to look under his tires was to go the full 360 degrees, walking all the way around the truck and getting down on his knees to peer underneath. Well, the bad knee a half-drunk forklift driver had bumped back in his twenties wasn’t going to put up with that, even if his dignity could have. But even having never seen one before, it was pretty clear that one of those freaking tortoises had cozied up under his tire.
Wasn’t a big one. More like the size of a cheeseburger, and not even a double. He eyed it, glanced behind him again. The bio had walked up a wash on the far side of the construction pad, and she was peering at some weird kind of plant as she scribbled on her clipboard. Compared to his men, she moved like a creature made out of a breeze. Weightless and gentle, fading between bushes and over rocks like she never felt the roughness of the world she walked on.
He’d caught himself watching her so many times over the past four days that he was disgusted at the example he was setting for his men. It figured that the first time one of these fancy turtles decided to show up, he’d have this new soft-spoken bio instead of one of the regular smelly, bearded ones.
Protocol was to call the bio to move any “sensitive species” out of the way of his work. But if he did that, she’d probably have to do a raft of paperwork, and want him to sign even more crap. She might talk to him, smile at him . . .
He jerked at his pants, impatient with his own reaction. He needed to make time after work to do a little self-maintenance. In his line of work, he wasn’t used to having women around, and he’d never really gotten the hang of dating.
Jack walked to his truck, his decision made, and scooped up the tortoise from under his tire. It was cool to the touch and surprisingly heavy. He cupped it in both hands, because sure as shit if he dropped an endangered species, they’d write his company a citation with enough zeros on the end that he’d be looking for new work by morning.
He strode around the back of his truck, heading out into the desert before anybody could see what he was up to.
The tortoise poked his head out, craning his wrinkled neck to see where they were going, his scaly legs paddling the air like he wanted to pretend he was in control of this voyage.
Jack huffed out a breath. “Nice try, little buddy, but you ain’t steering this ship.”
The shell felt different than he’d expected. Lots of little ripples and bumps, as individual as a fingerprint. And ancient, like something out of a museum case he had no business touching. He smoothed his thumb down the side of the tortoise to feel the texture, careful to keep his grip secure.
He set the tortoise down a few long strides outside the work area, then glanced toward the crew just in time to see Kipp back the forklift over an empty cardboard box he clearly hadn’t seen. Jack winced, and carried the tortoise a little farther.
This time, when he bent over, a drop of sweat fell from his forehead onto the shell. Jack chewed his lower lip and picked up the tortoise a third time, stuffing him quickly into the shade of a scraggly desert bush. It was hot today. Too hot to leave it out in the sun, probably.
“Oh!” a feminine voice said from behind him. “You found a tortoise!”
He turned with a scowl. “Wasn’t hurting him. Look, he’s fucking fine.” He gestured at the tortoise, sitting snugly in the shade and peering up at Jack as if he didn’t know enough to squeeze up into his shell and hide.
“I can see that,” Mari said in that gentle way she had. “But I could have moved him for you. That’s my job, after all.”
“Can carry my own goddamn turtle,” he grumbled.
Her lips twitched. “It’s just, they’re so rare anymore, you need a permit to handle them. And even if it’s an emergency and I’m not around, you need to use gloves.” She pulled a baggie of blue latex gloves out of her pack.
He looked at the tortoise, looked at his own grubby hands, all crisscrossed with old steel burns and stained black from messing with the forklift battery earlier. “You afraid I’m gonna get him dirty?” He gestured. “Little sucker lives in a hole in the ground. Probably doesn’t have a shower in there.”
Her face softened, and for a second, he thought she was going to laugh, but then she seemed to stop herself.
Heat crept up Jack’s collar. Why did she keep smiling when he talked? What the fuck was he saying that was so damn funny?
Pretty women were like that, though, always two steps ahead of you. So a man never had any idea what they were mad about or laughing about or looking so expectantly at you for.
“It’s for disease, actually,” she said. “You could be carrying all kinds of germs on your hands that might be fine for humans but affect tortoises. Or, without knowing it, you could have touched something out here that a diseased tortoise had already touched, and you might spread that disease. Tortoises were nearly wiped out from disease that we didn’t have a good understanding of until just a few years ago.”
“You telling me I need to use a turtle rubber?”
Her lips twitched. Trembled. And then she burst into laughter, so musical and unabashed that he saw a few of the crew’s heads turn their way. His skin flared a red as deep as a sunburn.