Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
“Did you figure anything out, boss?” Iago wanted to move into the house with Xander, and the ghosts weren’t helping.
Colton grunted, scrolling along on his laptop at the kitchen table. He’d come over to work with the team, and they were waiting. Still. And it had been three weeks.
“Gent got the permits today. We can send cameras down the shaft now, and if it looks safe enough, then we can send Mason and Law along with someone from the regional geology lab.”
“Oh, that’s cool. Do you need me to find someone, or do they have someone in mind?” He needed things to do, after all.
“I bet Gent would love that. Mesa University over in Grand Junction has an amazing geology department, and a lot of those guys moonlight for the state, too. You might start there.” Colton always knew shit he shouldn’t already know. Iago thought he had a little mojo to him, to be honest.
“Cool.” He put a hand on his belly. “I want to be with Xander full time, not going back and forth.”
“Of course you do. You find us a scientist, and we’re going to send cameras down. You want to monitor the feed?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I want to monitor the feed?” That actually sounded like fun.
“Cool. I just wanted to make sure. Law will have to feed the cameras, and Mason will be doing readings.”
“Perfect. I’ll get to work on the computers and find us a geologist.” He hugged Colton tight. “I’m tickled. I want to be able to live with him, you know?”
Colton nodded. “I do. I’ll fix this. We just need to get this shit done.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
Colton glanced up, smiling at him. “So where are the other guys today?”
“They went to Secret Springs to do a grocery run.”
“Well, crap.” He almost jumped out of his skin, and Colton swore as he whacked his laptop. Gent grinned at them from the doorway, where he’d slipped in quietly. “I was going to come get everyone for a meeting.”
“Colton and I are meeting. You can join in,” he teased.
“Can I? Ooooh la la.” Gent came to kiss him on the cheek. “Is there coffee or hot tea?”
“There’s a machine with cocoa, decaf, leaded, and four types of tea. Xander likes his options.” And he was learning to explore them.
“Nice. Can I make anyone else a cup?”
Iago loved that about Gent. He was comfortable anywhere. Effortlessly alpha, yet still polite. It was wild.
“I’m having lemonade right now. It settles my stomach somehow.” He was drinking it by the gallon.
“That and soup,” Colton teased.
“Is Xander working?” Gent asked.
“He is. He’s got a catering gig this afternoon. He’s making chili and cornbread. He says he’ll bring some home with him.” Maybe Xan would bring him chicken soup. Chili might be too much for him, but the guys would love it.,
“Yum.” Gent sat down once he had his drink in hand. “So, you’ll find the geologist?”
“I will. No problem. I’ll find someone amazing from the western slope.” That was easy.
“Cool.” Gent studied him. “How are you feeling?”
“Good. The morning sickness is way less, though I’m still craving stuff like mad.”
“But you’re where you need to be? Everything is good?” Gent was always concerned about the team, whether it was an injury like Colton had dealt with when he broke his leg, or if they had the flu, and now that he was pregnant. Gent was such an alpha hen.
“I am. Devon says I’m progressing perfectly.” He beamed. And Xander was so happy, making the nursery up, letting him mostly direct while Xander and Xavi did the heavy lifting.
“Wonderful. Just don’t overdo it. I want everyone happy and healthy.”
“Thanks, Gent.” He loved his team. They were his family, and they really cared. “Anyway, what else do you have for me to research?”
“Has anyone ever come back up with those blueprints?”
Iago winced and shook his head. He wished. “No, they up and disappeared. That’s why I got fired from being a volunteer.”
He pouted a little bit, but really, he got what they needed. They knew what the problem was.
“They’ll show up. They will. They’re probably down in that hole.” Gent grimaced as he sipped his drink.
Colton nodded. “That would be my best guess, too, believe it or not. I think the best thing for us to do is just get on it. You get us the geologist and, like I said, we’re about to go down with the cameras.
I’m going to have you recording up here, keeping an eye on things.
Law and Mason are going to go down. I’m going to stand up here. ”
Gent nodded. “And I’ll just wander back and forth giving direction, as I do.”
Iago winked at Gent. “And very well, I might add.”
“Someone has to be really good at it.” Gent winked then waggled his eyebrows. God, he was funny when everybody let him relax and not be the big boss.
Colton was ostensibly the boss, but Gent was the one who had fronted the whole project, and he was the one who made all the deals. He got them the places to go film; he was the one who had to wrangle it when people were unhappy.
Iago was glad most of the time to just be a worker drone.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t ambitious. It was just that somebody needed to do what he did. Someone needed to look stuff up, research things, and help. He loved his job, and he really felt like he was doing good.
“All right, I’m going get to work. I want to know what happens when everybody gets downstairs.”
Colton grinned at him. “You’ll be the one watching the cameras. You’ll probably see anything before we do.”
Gent shot Colton a glare. “You mean they do?”
Colton’s eyes went wide, and Gent just shook his head.
“Let the guys do it. Once they get some safer scaffolding down there, you’re welcome to go down, but I don’t wanna risk your leg. You have babies.”
Colton sighed but he nodded. “Right. You said I wasn’t going down. I was just in denial.”
“Once they get back,” Gent said, “We’ll get everything started. We’ll send the camera down first, the one that we use for tight spaces, like the snake camera. Then if it looks solid, we’ll send the guys down and we’ll go from there.”
“Let me find a likely geologist.” Iago murmured, turning to his laptop, his fingers flying as he looked up Mesa State University.
It didn’t take him hardly any time to find the department. He was hunting one of the associate professors, somebody young enough to want to explore, eager to maybe make some money.
And bingo.
“I found this professor, Dr. Duke MacDonald. He specializes in structural geology and has a fondness for Colorado mines.” Iago winked over. “Also, he’s cute.”
“Hey, eye candy is important.” Colton gave him a wide grin back. “Let me see.”
Iago turned the laptop so Colton could see the picture.
Gent whistled. “Nice. Call him.”
Yeah, this was too urgent for an email. In conjunction with being only a couple of hours away, drive-wise, the guy could be here in no time if he could get some time off from his job.
“I’ll call him, but I’ll also look at Western State. That’s closer. Their geology department’s just not as good.”
“Make it worth his while, Iago.” Gent had a wicked grin on his face.
Oh, that was adorable.
“Yes, boss, I’m on it.”
“Good man.”
He gave Gent a thumbs up and set to work. This was more fun than color TV, and he couldn’t wait to tell Xander about how everything was going.
When Xander got back to his house after working on the catering project that he’d been doing, the scene was pure chaos. There were cords everywhere in the kitchen and a piece of wall had been removed to expose the mine shaft.
The guys were milling around with lights and cables, and they were feeding a camera down into the shaft, he thought. To his utter fucking relief Iago was sitting at the table, which had been moved all the way across the room from the mine shaft, working on his laptop.
“We’re moving forward, I take it?”
“Got the permits.” Iago beamed at him. “I texted, but you didn’t answer. I also got a hold of a geologist over in Grand Junction. He’s on his way right now. He actually got somebody to cover his last class so he could run over here.”
Xander raised his eyebrows. “Excited by this prospect? Am I being replaced by a geologist?”
“Gent thinks he’s cute, but no. You’re my baby alpha. I’m keeping you.” Iago winked at him, and Xan fell a little more in love with the way his omega smiled, so wicked. “And note that I am all the way away from the hole.”
“I did notice that.” Xander chuckled at Iago and leaned down for a kiss. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“I know it’s important. I get it. I don’t want anything to happen to the little sprog either.”
Their little sprog. “What are you doing?”
“Right now, I’m calibrating cameras and just watching because I can see a lot more up here than they can.
I’m going to watch and tell them to move one way or the other.
Whoever’s seeing the show will be hearing the recording, and they can’t hear me, obviously, so I can tell them, ‘Look, move the camera this way. Check that out over there.’ That sort of thing. ”
“Neat. I have to admit I haven’t really watched you guys work too much. I always tried not to stare.” He took another kiss and then moved past his lover. He put all the food he was carrying in the refrigerator, which was plugged in in the mud room still.
He’d brought chili and cornbread, soup, as well as a peanut butter pie and some roasted veg. They would all eat well.
Iago grinned at him again when he came back, but he was talking to the guys about the cameras.
He’d pulled up a chair for Xan, though, and patted it, welcoming him to sit. He was curious enough to plop down and see what the guys were doing.
“The geologist is only about half an hour out, so don’t go too far, okay guys?” Iago rolled his eyes dramatically, as if he knew there was no way the guys would listen.
“They won’t.” Colton grumbled it. “They know they have to follow regs.” He was much louder on that last part.