Page 31 of Rugged and Filthy

“I’m an old man. You have your life ahead of you.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re talking about selling the business again. Please don’t do it. You spent your entire life putting everything you had into the rig and the people who work for you love you.”

“That’s the problem, sunshine girl. I spent far too much of my life on that rig and what did it get me? I wasn’t here when your mother died. I wasn’t here when you or your sister were born. I missed holidays and birthdays because I was out on that fucking rig. That wasn’t fair to anyone, especially your mother.”

“Mama understood.”

“At first, yes. Your mother was special, a true gift in my life. But she begged me to stop, to find a desk job. I just couldn’t do it.”

“I don’t want a desk job, Pops, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I want to follow in your footsteps.” I wasn’t entirely certain if that was true or not, but I couldn’t allow my father to sell off the business he’d worked so hard to build. I knew we were on difficult and shaky financial ground. I realized that we were barely making ends meet. I was the one who had to pick up the pieces, using most of the insurance money on keeping things afloat. But that didn’t mean I was ready to toss in the towel. Not yet.

“I’m not selling it, baby girl, but not because I haven’t tried to find a buyer. It’s not worth what I thought it was. We aren’t bringing in the contracts that some of the new rigs are doing.”

“Then I’ll get some other contracts.” He was hiding something from me. I was certain of it. We never had secrets, although I had a whopper of my own, which I continued to feel guilty about.

“Honey, it’s not that easy. The oil business is fickle and the output isn’t what it used to be. The bank is threatening to foreclose. The rig needs a lot of repairs, even if I did want to sell. We just don’t have the money to replace the drills so we can go deeper on the ocean floor.”

I almost tossed the bowl across the room. “I’ll talk to the assholes at the bank, the fuckers.”

“It won’t matter, Ry. You know that. You’ve pulled every string and done everything in your power. The men aren’t performing, and we have no real rig mechanics to work on the equipment other than Cormac. He’s good but rough around the edges, his skills learned on the job. The skeleton shift of maintenance men is doing their best, but Band-Aids aren’t enough any longer.”

“That’s because we keep hiring shit for assholes who refuse to pull their weight.” That was because so many of them didn’t want to work when a woman was in charge. I hadn’t planned on taking over when my father had collapsed and a helicopter had taken him to the hospital. It had been one of the darkest days of my life. He’d been in remission, the cancer almost claiming him three years before. The black cloud needed to be obliterated from over our heads. “Half the assholes have jumped ship. Literally.”

After the last less than profitable three months, almost two dozen of the men had quit, and I honestly couldn’t blame them. The last few years had been a bear. We’d gone from one hundred twenty-five workers to less than eighty, which meant we couldn’t manage a full production run even we wanted to. There’d been talk of moving the rig, but that was expensive as hell. We just couldn’t afford to do it, much like new equipment was out of the question.

The roughnecks who remained I wasn’t certain would stay but for so long. I wasn’t stupid. I knew it was a make it or break it situation and if we failed, the bank would foreclose on the second loan I’d been forced to take out on the rig. I’d somehow convinced the banker to give us one last chance. I’d been out of my mind to do so.

What I hadn’t wanted to tell my father about was that I’d found another life insurance policy Finn had taken out right about the time he’d been diagnosed with cancer. I was currently going through the trials and tribulations of trying to get the money, but the company was giving me shit, the first insurance policy not nearly as much money as I’d thought. If it came through, I could float a loan to the company for a full year if not more and have enough to pay the bills. However, I couldn’t count on it coming through. Dealing with the bullshit bureaucracy was taking a toll.

“I want to do more.”

My father patted my hand. “Stop worrying so much. I think our luck is changing.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means I had a buddy reach out to me. He had some issues in his life and can’t fulfill a contract. He offered it to us off his rig. He’ll take a commission, but the rest will be ours. If we can pull it off, we might be able to squeak by for another year. In the meantime, maybe some maintenance work can be completed on our rig.”

“That’s fantastic.” My dad knew everyone in the business. Sadly, a lump continued to form in my throat. It felt like a Hail Mary being tossed.

“Not so fast, sunshine girl. None of his crew are willing to work on the rig with us and I have a feeling given the deep-water location some of our remaining riggers won’t want to go either.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I called in some additional resources.” He smiled and sat back, his jaw tight. I knew my dad’s stubbornness. That meant he wasn’t going to listen to reason.

“O-kay. What does that mean?”

“It means I’ve called a buddy of mine who’s also in the business. He’s someone I can trust and he owes me a favor. He’s sending about thirty men to help us on a limited basis.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“It’s something we need to do to stay afloat. It’s that or give up the rig altogether.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How was I supposed to handle this?

“Daddy. There must be another way.”

“We’ve gone over this before. You’d done everything in your power to keep us afloat and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful but if this works out, then we will sell. That way you can return to your life.”

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