throaty query snapped him back to attention, bringing an uncomfortable flush to his cheeks. “This is Murdock,” he said curtly. “The builder whose project you just shut down. You want to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing, lady? I know you’re just a sub, but you ought to check things out before you start throwing your weight around. That cement you’ve got a problem with has already passed inspection.”
Well used to dealing with angry men, Pru refused to let him goad her into a sharp comeback. “My title is inspector, not ‘lady,’ Mr. Murdock, and I’d appreciate it if you’d remember that in the future,” she said in a voice that was as cool as his was heated. “If you have a problem with that, then Pru or Ms. Sullivan will do. I don’t answer to lady.”
“What I have a problem with,” he said through his tightly clenched teeth, “is a woman who obviously doesn’t know what she’s doing and refuses to admit it. If you’re not qualified to do the job, have the guts to say so and let James send over someone who is. In case you didn’t know it, you’re costing me money, lady, and I can’t afford you.”
For just a second the temper that went along with the red glints in her mahogany hair flashed in her eyes before she brought herself up short. No, she wasn’t going to let the insufferable man get to her. After all, it wasn’t as if she had to work with him on a regular basis. She just had to get through today, and he wasn’t even on the site.
Cheered by the thought, her eyes started to dance. “Don’t blame me for your own incompetency, Mr. Murdock,” she said sweetly.
“Murdock,” he growled. “It’s just Murdock.”
Willing to be gracious when she was about to win an argument, she said easily, “Okay, Murdock it is. You should have seen how thin that concrete was when it was poured, so if you want to blame someone, blame yourself. And, yes, it’s true, Thompson did pass it. But he’d just suffered a blow to the head and couldn’t have known what he was doing. If he’d have checked the results of the cylinder tests, he would have seen there was a problem.”
“Thompson was the problem,” he stressed. “When those cylinders were filled, he didn’t handle them properly and everyone knew it. He had them rolling around like bowling balls in the back of his pickup, so don’t talk to me about test results. They aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”
“Maybe not to you—”
“Dammit, there’s nothing wrong with that cement!”
His angry roar startled Pru’s heart into a crazy pounding and, unexpectedly, tugged up one corner of her mouth in a smile. Lord, the man had a short fuse! Did he think that just because he barked at her like a drill sergeant she would jump to attention and salute?
Grinning, she shrugged. “I wouldn’t take any bets on that, Murdock. I know my onions...and my cement.”
He’d have had to have been deaf to miss the laughter lacing her words, and he was a long way from that. “So you think this is amusing, do you? I—”
He broke off suddenly, cursing under his breath as a page announced that the committee was reconvening. “I’ve got to go,” he said shortly. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking this conversation is over, Inspector. I don’t lie or cheat or cut corners, and when I tell you that cement was poured according to specs, you can take it to the bank. But you go ahead and take your core samples and have them tested. When they come back, up to standard, I’m going to laugh in your face and have your job.”
It wasn’t an idle threat and they both knew it. She was holding up a government project worth millions of dollars solely because of a gut feeling that something was wrong. If she was right, she would have the satisfaction of throwing the truth in Zebadiah Murdock’s face. If she was wrong, then Murdock wouldn’t have to go after her. Her boss would beat him to the punch.
* * *
Standing at St. Peter’s side, his assistant, Joshua, shook his head sadly as the two souls hung up, each muttering about the other. “They seem to have gotten off to a bad start, sir. And they haven’t even met, yet. With Eric Thompson coming back in the morning, it looks like they never will.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” St. Peter gently disagreed with a smile. “I think things are coming along nicely. And don’t worry about tomorrow. I have a feeling that the wind is going to shift directions during the night, and you know what that means. Change is in the air. Watch.”
* * *
When Pru reported to the office the next morning, it was only to get her next assignment and get out of there. If she could do that without having to once lay eyes on Bruce James, all the better. Luck, however, wasn’t with her. The second she stepped through the door, her boss was there, almost as if he’d been waiting for her.
“I want to talk to you.”
It wasn’t, Pru decided, going to be her day. “If it’s about yesterday,” she began, “I’ve already taken the core samples—”
“I fired Eric Thompson this morning. The Fort Sam project is all yours.”
Pru couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d told her he was her Aunt Sally. Caught off guard, she just looked at him. He was lying. He had to be. As obnoxious as he was, even Bruce James wouldn’t be so cold as to fire a man who’d made a mistake right after he’d been injured on the job. But one look at his ferretlike face told her not only would he, he had.
She almost told him then what a low-life, scumbag of a weasel he was, and damn the consequences. But the slight curve of his mouth was expectant, his beady black eyes bright with anticipation, and she knew that that was exactly what he wanted her to do. Then he would fire her for insubordination and direct her to the nearest unemployment line.
Oh, no, you don’t. you little worm, she thought grimly, her expression carefully guarded under his watchful gaze. You’re not going to get rid of me that easily. “Fine,” she said indifferently. “I’ll get right over there.”
Judging from the way his already thin mouth squeezed into a flat line of annoyance, her reaction wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for. But Pru could find little satisfaction in the triumph. Now instead of just working with one irritating man, she had to deal with two. And there was nothing funny about working with Zebadiah Murdock.
Heading for the site, she tried to tell herself it wasn’t going to be that bad. She’d heard of Murdock long before she’d ever subbed for Eric Thompson, and what she’d heard, she’d liked. He’d started out as an ordinary carpenter, worked hard and learned fast, and gradually started his own small construction company. But with a talent for bringing projects in on schedule and under budget, he had become a success almost overnight. The Fort Sam project was his first with the government, but no one expected it to be his last.
In spite of the problems with the cement, he had a reputation for being honest and straight as an arrow. As the contractor, he could have spent his days doing paperwork in the air-conditioned comfort of his office, but Pru had learned from his men that he liked to work side by side with his crew in the hot sun. Evidently he hadn’t forgotten his roots, and she liked that about him. But it was also common knowledge that he’d never met an inspector that he thought was worth a damn.
They’d probably be at each other’s throats within an hour.
Common courtesy dictated that she immediately search him out and introduce herself as soon as she arrived at the site, but as she parked and plopped her hard hat on her head, she knew she wasn’t going to do it. She hadn’t forgotten their conversation of yesterday and she doubted that he had, either. She’d give him a little more time to cool off...and give herself a chance to adjust to the sudden change in her working conditions.
She learned from one of the plumbers that Murdock was handling a problem with one of the steel tiers in the west wing. Turning in the opposite direction, she intended to check the roughing-in the electricians