Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
Dana
He always picked places like this.
Dana sighed as the ma?tre d’ walked them through the restaurant to their table. This place was fancy; rich, reddish-brown wood paneling offset with cream-colored upper walls. Small, discrete paintings she suspected were real pieces of artwork and not something bought on the cheap at Hobby Lobby hung in subtle asymmetry, all of them set in wood frames that matched the paneling. Glancing up at the light fixtures, she’d bet each of them cost more than three months of her mortgage, and there were a half dozen of them dotting the ceiling. Yeah, this place was going to be expensive, and she was going to grit her teeth for every second she spent searching for the least expensive dish they offered. Kurt knew how she felt about restaurants like this, and yet every time…
“Have you been here before?”
She stared across the table, arching her eyebrow. “Kurt. Seriously?”
He chuckled. “It gets incredible ratings. Nancy Silverton owns it.”
“And I’m sure you expect me to know who she is.”
“You… don’t?”
“No. What I do know is we passed a perfectly good In-N-Out on our way here,” she pointed out with a sigh.
Kurt rolled his eyes. “Do you mean to tell me you’d rather eat a “double-double animal style” than have a tomahawk ribeye expertly prepared by a chef who’s probably on his way to earning his first Michelin star?”
She regarded him for a beat. “Yes.”
“Oh my God… I give up with you.”
“And yet here we are.” She gestured to the elegance of the restaurant around her.
“Oh, stop. Just enjoy a good meal, okay?”
When she cracked open the menu, she felt vindicated. There wasn’t a single item on it that was under twenty dollars, and most of the signature dishes ran close to two hundred. Add in the wine and cocktails she was sure he’d order, and they weren’t getting out of this place for under five bills, minimum.
She found the cheapest salad she could, ignored Kurt’s glare, and once the sommelier had come and gone, took a sip of the wine he’d ordered.
“I could eat for a week off what this one glass is costing.”
“You aren’t paying for it, so zip it and enjoy.”
“You’re pretentious.”
“I enjoy the fruits of our labor.”
“So do I. I just do it with a modicum of restraint.”
“Yes, I’m well aware of how much you love restraint.”
Dana groaned. “Oh my God, that was… so bad.”
“I thought it was kinda clever, myself,” Kurt replied with a grin.
“Don’t flatter yourself. It wasn’t.”
He laughed and took another sip of his drink. “Okay, can we talk business for a minute?”
“We could’ve talked business at my place over pizza.”
“Too many distractions.”
“Whatever,” she said, shaking her head.
“Gary’s got a new assignment for us.”
“About time,” she replied gruffly. Argentina had been… rough. And even if Kurt was still mother-henning her over the injuries she’d gotten there, she was re ady to be back out in the field, proving once again to everyone she was the best there was.
“Please. You needed to recover.”
“I’m pretty sure I showed you the other night just how recovered I am.”
“Fair enough,” Kurt replied, “but Gary wasn’t there to see that, was he?”
“You could’ve told him.”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
“Okay, fine,” she said with a sigh. “Thank you, if you did.”
“I did. I assumed you were ready to get back in the field.”
She pursed her lips. It had crossed her mind that maybe being laid up was part of the reason why she’d been feeling anxious lately. Part of the reason, because it wasn’t only that, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what the rest was.
“I am,” she said quietly, taking another drink.
“Good, because this one’s going to be… interesting.”
She made a face, suspicion narrowing her eyes. “Interesting?”
Everything she and Kurt did in the field would be considered interesting to those who worked in their profession, so for him to start off describing this new assignment as such…
Where are you going with this, buddy?
“Yeah.” Kurt smiled. “And potentially… fun.”
“Fun?” She slowly raised her eyebrow.
Hoo boy. Fun? Yeeeah… I know all about you and fun , Kurt…
“Yep.” Kurt took a sip of his drink, then pointed at her. “Do you remember about two years ago doing some preliminary analysis work on a potential deposit in southwestern Montana?”
Dana pursed her lips. “Yeah. The one Gary asked me to do after Bob Thoenburg and his team announced the Sheep Creek find.”
“Exactly. What do you remember about it?”
“Well,” Dana replied, furrowing her brow. “Gary thought we should do some investigating to see if there was any possibility of any additional rare earth mineral indications along the Gunnison Range.”
“But you had a different idea.”
She studied him shrewdly. “Did he go over this with you?”
“A little.”
“Okay, so I spent a lot of time reviewing spectroradiometry data, and I thought there were better opportunities to be found northwest of the Gunnison Range.”
“In the Sapphire Mountains.”
“Yeah.”
“And you narrowed your search to one mine in particular.”
“Nooo. I narrowed my search to one specific mine I felt was the best starting point for a more in-depth review.” Dana shrugged. “Whether there’s anything of value there or not I have no idea. The only real way to know for certain would be to do an onsite walk-over survey and assessment.”
“And that’s what Gary wants us to do.”
“Wait…” Dana held up her hand. When Kurt had brought up the work she’d done over two years ago at the beginning of this conversation, she’d been searching through her memory to retrieve the specifics of the research she’d performed back then. It was starting to co me back now, including one particular detail that had her eyes growing a little wider.
“Are you telling me Gary wants to send us to… Rawhide Ranch.”
“Ding, ding, ding!”
Dana laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Except I’m not,” Kurt replied.
“Oh my God, do you know what Rawhide Ranch is?”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Do you ?”
“Kurt, it’s a dude ranch.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean, ‘hmm’? ”
“I’m going to take your answer to mean you don’t know what kind of dude ranch Rawhide is?”
“What do you mean what kind of dude ranch it is? It’s the kind where people pay big bucks to play cowboy for a week, then afterwards tell all their cocktail party friends how hard they had to rough it.”
“Wellll…” A broad grin split Kurt’s face. “Rawhide Ranch is a little different than that.”
“And what the hell does that mean?”
“It’s… umm...”
“Listen”—Dana pointed her wineglass toward him—“could you just cut to the chase here?”
“Rawhide Ranch isn’t for… vanilla people. It caters to a very specific clientele.”
“Vanilla people? A specific clientele?” she repeated, her voice dubious.
“Yeah.” Kurt rubbed his hand over his lower jaw. “Rawhide Ranch tailors its services to people in the lifestyle. It’s a place for Dominants to find a submissive, and for submissives to find their Dominant. ”
Dana set her glass down slowly. “Are you yanking my chain?”
“Nope. Swear to God.”
“And you know this, how?”
“Bits and pieces I picked up talking to people at munches, different clubs, other places.”
“So, you mean to tell me the mine I isolated as potentially having a rare earth mineral deposit sits on a dude ranch that’s also a BDSM resort?”
“In so many words.”
“That’s insane.”
And it was. Going into the jungles of South America and slipping past rebels to investigate a mine long dormant was one thing, as Indiana Jones as it sounded. But going to a mine that sat on a resort catering to people in the lifestyle? That was treading into some serious “ you can’t make this shit up ” territory.
“What was it you said earlier?” Kurt asked pointedly. “‘And yet here we are.’”
Dana shook her head slowly. “Please tell me this is all an elaborate joke on your part.”
“Sorry, no can do.”
Dana eyeballed Kurt across the table as a wry grin tugged up the corners of his mouth.
“This is crazy,” she murmured.
“I agree, but it is a unique opportunity. And it’s certainly bound to be more fun than what we just went through in Argentina.”
“Fun? I think you mean awkward. What the hell would make going to this place fun?”
“Well, I mean… c’mon, Dana.” His grin turned sly.
She gaped. “Oh my God. Are you serious?”
“I’m just saying, as long as we’re there… we could make it fun. ”
“No.” Dana shook her head vehemently before taking a gulp of her wine. “Listen, you and I are friends with benefits, nothing more. We made that clear to each other from the very beginning.”
“And how would having fun at Rawhide Ranch affect that?”
“Because I may be a submissive in the club and bedroom, but I’m not looking for my ‘ Dominant ’.” She made air quotes with her fingers.
“Don’t be pedantic. Just ’cause that’s a service they offer doesn’t mean it’s the only reason people go there.”
“Oh, yeah? You sure of that?”
“I’m…” He paused. “I’m fairly sure.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
“Gary has arranged access for us. I’m pretty sure he’s not in the lifestyle, so I seriously doubt he knows the details about the kind of place Rawhide Ranch really is. So, unless someone in corporate travel is a kinkster, however they managed to get us on the property must have circumvented any need for either of us to appear in the market for a Dom or sub.”
“Whole lotta assumptions going on there.”
“Maybe so, but he wants us to check the place out. Surreptitiously. He doesn’t want us tipping the owners off to what might be hidden in that mine.”
“Are you kidding me? He wants us to spy on the place?”
“It’s not like we haven’t done something similar before.”
“In a foreign country! Where we had no choice! And not posing as…” She made an agitated gesture with her hand.
“A sub and her Dom. ”
“Oh, no!” Dana stabbed a finger at him. “No, no, no. Don’t even think it.”
The tiny grin pulling at the corners of Kurt’s mouth told her he clearly found this whole thing amusing, but… going to a BDSM resort in conjunction with work had not been on her bingo card this month, this year—ever. It was one thing for her and Kurt to enjoy their mutual kinks at the random clubs they’d gone to here and there, because those were kept separate from their actual fieldwork. This… this brought both those worlds too close together for Dana’s comfort.
And there was another thing. Those thoughts from over the past few months and the other evening still hadn’t gone away entirely. This… this intersected with those anxieties in ways she couldn’t afford to deal with right now.
Good job, Dana. Keep kicking that can down the road…
As all of this raced through her head, Kurt stared back with a wicked look, waiting.
“No.” She repeated the word, growling it this time for emphasis.
“I’m just saying,” he replied, his voice filled with ill-concealed mirth, “it would save the company the price of an extra room and amenities.”
“Dream. On.”
“ Fiiine .” He sighed dramatically. “Separate rooms it is, then.”
She silently pushed her glass across the white tablecloth as Kurt picked up the bottle then poured.
“This is… ridiculous,” she mumbled, drawing back the refilled glass.
“No, going into a jungle filled with revolutionaries to investigate a decrepit mine was ridiculous. This”—he topped off his own wineglass—“is a vacation. ”
“No, that’s what you want this to be.”
“Dana,” Kurt said, his tone going serious, “all I want is the same thing you do. To figure out if your research is correct?—”
“Which it is.” Because it was. She’d proven it over and over and she’d do it again this time, too. Her way, as always.
And he knows it. Which was true because Kurt had never shied from praising her for her results. But there was another thought hidden inside that kernel of knowledge. Something that was less affirmative and more…
Disapproving? Okay, but if so… of what?
“—and to see what this find could potentially net out at,” Kurt went on over her train of thought. “That’s why we do what we do. You’re extremely good at it. I’d like to think I am, too. And if I have the opportunity to work with you at a location where there isn’t the possibility of getting shaken down every other day, then—yeah—I’m going to enjoy it.”
Dana shot him a dubious look.
“The other option is”—Kurt made a sweeping motion with both hands—“we turn this down. Ask for a different assignment. And we can do that, though I wouldn’t suggest it.”
“Why?”
“I… I just think it would draw attention if you did. And let’s be fair, you could do with a little less corporate attention right now.”
Wait, what?
“Why would you say that?” she probed.
Kurt looked away. “I’m merely saying I think it would be a good idea, okay?”
Uh huh . Kurt wasn’t good at this. Being coy wasn’t his strong suit, and this instance was no different. She hated when he tried, even if it was typically an attempt on his part to protect her feelings. On one level it was sorta sweet each time he made the effort, but she bristled nonetheless at the idea he thought she wasn’t self-aware enough to know what people in their field thought of her, particularly those at McKerr-Dennison.
“You think they’re watching me.”
He snapped his gaze back to her. “I didn’t say that…”
“You didn’t have to. I’m not stupid, Kurt. Of course they’re watching me. They have been for a while now. I’m… I’m reckless. I take chances. I do things my way, not the way they preach in the company manual, and… sometimes things happen.”
“You definitely have a way of painting a target on yourself.”
“But I get results,” she stated emphatically.
Kurt nodded. “Sure, nobody’s questioning that, but it couldn’t hurt to finish an assignment without you ending up in the hospital, know what I’m saying?”
Dana had her suspicions why he was selling this assignment so hard, the teasing about going as a D/s couple aside. As she’d said, she wasn’t stupid. She’d heard some of the rumors going around. HR and folks on the board wanted her kept on a tighter leash. Hell, that was part of the reason they’d partnered her with Kurt all these years, the fact they occasionally shared a bed notwithstanding. Her aggressiveness in the field was both an asset and a detriment. And while she never really worried about them letting her go, she did fear someday they might try to keep her desk-bound, looking at scans and mapping topography to hand over to someone else to do the boots-on-the-ground field work. The fun stuff. The things that still excited her about being in the profession.
She took another sip of her wine as Kurt gazed back intently. He was right about one thing: this assignment had the potential to take a measure of heat off her. They’d find something out in Montana; that was a given. Her peers called her cocky and arrogant, but that was jealousy substituting words for what she really was: confident. Dana was confident in her skills, confident in her abilities, and her track record backed her up. There was only one thing she wasn’t confident about in her life right now, and the fact she couldn’t entirely pin down what that was irritated her more than she cared to admit.
“Okay,” she said, to break the pause that had gone on too long. “Fine. Let’s do this. But let me make it clear”—she held up her finger—“I’m not going to Rawhide Ranch so you can spend the week trying to fuck me in between checking out this mine. I’m going there to prove that like all my previous research, I’m right about this one, too. We’re either going to find a deposit there, or data that points us in the right direction toward one.”
“So”—Kurt gave her a teasing smile—“what I’m hearing is once you do find one or the other of those things, then we can spend the rest of the time fucking?”
Now it was Dana’s turn to laugh. “Dude. You had the chance to fuck me the other night, and you passed it up.”
Kurt’s mouth morphed in an elaborate ‘O’, his eyes wide in faux shock. “I’m certain I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you don’t,” she huffed. “That being said, since the concept seems to be eluding you, let me put it in simple terms even you can grasp… ”
She pointed her finger.
“I’m not going all the way to Montana just so you can screw up again .”