Break the Rules (The Flanagan Sisters Book 1) (4 page)

When
she opened the door one of the planners was standing there. “There’s an issue
with the upcoming shutdown. Can you come take a look at the paperwork?”

She
grabbed her hat and safety glasses. “Sure. Lead the way.”

* * *

Bridget
arrived home from work and poured herself a glass of white wine, before
flopping on the couch.

What
a day! After the meeting with Jack she’d spent the rest of her time fighting
fires – not literally, thank goodness, but figuratively. She was still
wrestling to get her capital project approved so she could do some of the
urgent safety repairs the audit required. Every time she checked its status she
was told it had been moved to the next person. There were just too many people
in the line who needed to sign off on it. Currently it was sitting at head
office, probably invisible in the mass of emails in someone’s inbox. But she
wasn’t allowed to contact any of the people directly. She could only speak to
the accountant on site who would follow it up. It was so damned inefficient.

Tanya
breezed into the living room. “You’re home finally!” She poured herself a glass
of wine and sat on the sofa next to Bridget. “I’ve been dying to tell you about
my weekend.”

When
Bridget had arrived home from her mother’s yesterday Tanya was out, and there
was no way she would have been up this morning before the sun like Bridget.

Pleased
her friend was excited about something, she settled in for the tale.
“All right.
Regale me.”

Tanya
clenched her hands together and squeezed her eyes shut. “Hal is an absolute
sweetie. I think he might be the one.”

Bridget
smiled. She’d heard that before. “So you had a good time?”

Tanya
rolled her eyes.
“
So
good.
And he has stamina.”

Bridget
held up a hand. “I don’t need to know any more.”

“All right.
So anyway, on Sunday he called and took me out to dinner. We talked for hours
and just gelled, you know? He’s busy tonight, but tomorrow we’re going to the
movies.”

Bridget
raised her eyebrows. That was unusual. Generally by this stage Tanya had scared
off any guy with her enthusiasm. It appeared Hal was as into her as she was
into him. It was nice.

“Sounds
great,” Bridget said. “I’m happy for you.”

Tanya
grinned and took a sip of her wine. “So, what happened with his brother – what
was his name again?”

“Jack.
He insisted on seeing me home and I broke my first rule.”

Tanya
grinned. “You go, girl!”

Bridget
shook her head. “Not so good,” she said. “Turns out, he’s my new boss.”

Tanya
had her wine glass halfway to her mouth and she stopped, mouth agape, wine
splashing on to her top. “You’re kidding?”

“I
wish I was.”

She
brushed at the wine. “He’s the schmuck who stole your job?”

“He
didn’t
steal
it.”

Tanya
waved away her protest. “When did you find out?”

“This morning when the HR manager brought him into my office to
introduce him.”

“Oh,
that sucks. How did you take it? How did he?”

“It
was a shock to us both but I handled myself all right.”

“I’m
sure you did. Nothing shakes you, Miss Unflappable.”

She
grimaced at the nickname Tanya had given to her at college.

“So
are you going to see him again?”

“I’m
pretty sure I’ll see him every day at work.”

Tanya
gave her the look. “You know what I mean.”

Bridget
took a sip of her wine. “Rule
number
two.”

Tanya
placed her glass of wine down on the coffee table. “You
can
not
let the Lionel affair affect every potential new relationship. He was a
jackass, he treated you badly, but not all men are Lionel.”

“He
almost ruined my career,” Bridget reminded her. “I could have handled breaking
up and still working with him, but he blamed the whole incident on me. I lost
my job and my reputation. I’m lucky Jeremy convinced Dionysus to give me a
chance.” Jeremy was the fire officer at Dionysus but had worked with her and
Lionel previously. It had been a horrible six months and she’d had to cope with
a broken heart, betrayal and a potential lawsuit all at once. She was not going
through that again.

“That’s
not likely to happen again. Love is a risk, Bridge. You’ve got to open yourself
up to it.”

Bridget
shook her head and got to her feet. She didn’t want to talk about this now. “It
is
a risk, and while the likelihood is low, the potential consequences
are far too high. It’s not worth it.” She put her empty wineglass on the
kitchen sink and said, “I’m going to take a shower.”

It
wasn’t until she was standing under the cool spray that she unclenched her
fists. She was right, no matter what Tanya said. Relationships at work were a
bad idea and one with her boss was even worse. She needed to be one hundred
percent focused, had to make sure she didn’t miss any safety issues, had to
ensure that each person who came to work left in the same state. A relationship
would distract her. Bridget was sure she was right.

The
only problem was going to be ignoring her attraction to Jack. When he’d been in
her office, her whole body had been aware of his presence. She’d doggedly run
through her report, ruthlessly ignoring her physical reactions. It had been a
relief to escape the small space and head to the meeting. After she’d
introduced him, she’d moved to the other side of the room so Jack could take
control of the proceedings. She’d admired the way he’d spoken to the team and
could see they were already taking to him. He said the kinds of things you
wanted to hear.

But
then again, she’d heard it all before. The real test was if he delivered on his
promises.

Chapter 4

Jack’s first week at Dionysus proved to him
what an enormous job he’d taken on. So much of the equipment they used was
outdated and the corrective actions loomed overhead like a cloud threatening
rain. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, and it weighed heavily on him.
Did he really have the skills required? Was he kidding himself?

He
shook his head. There was no point getting down on
himself
.
It wouldn’t help. He needed to concentrate on the main problem, which
was the audit actions
.

What
had Bridget been thinking? She’d prioritized the actions but had barely begun
fixing them. He was not looking forward to his meeting with her this morning.
Hoping he’d misinterpreted the information, he’d spent the weekend reading
reports, checking and cross-checking the data. It had taken him hours.

In
the end, every way he examined it, the plant desperately needed to address
safety. He had to get to the bottom of why, and it was going to be a hell of an
awkward conversation. From what he could tell, the staff loved her. Perhaps
that’s why she’d been left unsupervised.

Working
with Bridget had been harder than he expected. Her laugh echoed down the hall
and he often heard her calling out greetings to people. There was something
about her voice that warmed his body. He had to get a grip.

But
right now, he had to deal with her from a work perspective. He looked up at the
knock and gestured Bridget into his office. He ignored the way his heart sped
up at the mere sight of her. “Shut the door behind you.”

A
frown flitted across her face but she did what he asked and took a seat at his
meeting table.

“I want
to talk to you about the safety audit and the corrective actions list,” he
began.

“Sure,
I brought all of my notes.”

Jack
swallowed, bracing himself for the unpleasant task. “From what I can see, only
two corrective actions have been completed. They were the least important
items.”

“They
were the quick wins. We didn’t need money to fix them.”

“These
issues are very troubling. There could be a major incident if we don’t get them
fixed. Shouldn’t they have been a priority?” He couldn’t prevent his tone from
being accusatory. This was a big deal.

She
arched an eyebrow, tilted her head and glared at him as if he was a piece of
dirt. “You don’t think I know that?”

“There’s
no evidence of it.” He crossed his arms and leaned forward.

Bridget
sifted through her papers. “
This
is the complete action plan and project
outline I wrote within two days of getting the report.” She handed him a couple
of documents. “
This
is a copy of the capital expenditure request I
submitted after management
finally
agreed the changes needed to be done.
It took me a month to convince them I knew what I was talking about and wasn’t
just spending money for the sake of it.” Her eyes flashed and her spine was
rigid. “Here are the quotes for all of the expenses, and I could show you two
dozen emails I’ve sent chasing up the capital expenditure request, not to
mention the number of times I’ve raised it in management meetings. I can’t get
the
damned
funds to fix the problems.” She was breathing heavily by the
time she finished.

Shit,
maybe he’d missed something when he’d read all those documents. “We’re waiting
on funds approval?” he asked, unable to believe management could be that
ignorant of the problem.

“Yes.”
She let out a deep breath, obviously trying to regain control of herself. “I
can’t convince anyone of the seriousness of the issue. The general manager,
Kevin, is certain it’s not a big deal, just the company wanting to cross every
t and dot every
i
, and the funding request is sitting
somewhere at head office awaiting approval. No one will tell me who has it, and
when I suggested I’d call myself and ask, I was told in no uncertain terms I
wasn’t allowed to. There are processes to follow and no one wants to ruffle
feathers at head office.”

“This
is ridiculous.”

She
nodded. “I know. Even if we get the funds tomorrow, we’re going to have to hire
people to be able to complete the work before the next audit. It’s going to
cost far more than I originally budgeted and we don’t have a hell of a lot of
money to begin with.”

Jack
closed his eyes. He’d heard about these kinds of issues at other companies, but
that was generally when head office was in another country. When it was less
than an hour down the road he didn’t think there’d be a problem.

“All right.
I’ll raise it in the meeting this afternoon,” he said.

“Good
luck.”

He
ignored the doubt in her tone and turned to the next issue. “What’s the problem
with replacing the fire equipment? Some of it has expired.”

“Same problem.
Budget was approved, but getting the expenditure signed off is proving
difficult.”

“Why?”

“They’re
saving money wherever they can. They don’t consider it essential as the
equipment is working, it just doesn’t fully comply with the standard.”

Jack
made a note to bring that up today as well. He was going to be really popular with
his peers.

“Did
you really think I was that incompetent?” Bridget asked, tilting her head to
the side and meeting his gaze.

Shit.
What was he supposed to say to that? “I couldn’t comprehend how something this
serious could be ignored. There didn’t seem to be a good explanation.” He felt
about as big as ant.

“There
isn’t a
good
explanation,” she said curtly. “Now, can I help you with
anything else? I’ve got work to do.”

Her
posture was stiff and her eyes dared him to raise any other issues. There were
a couple of things he wanted to ask her about but they weren’t important right
now. He would leave it until she’d had a chance to calm down and wasn’t feeling
so hostile toward him. Not that he blamed her.

“No,”
Jack said finally. “I’ll let you know how the meeting goes.”

“Thanks.”
She left the room.

He
ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t have time to worry about Bridget’s
feelings, though he knew he would anyway. He had a couple of hours to figure
out how to convince the management team of the urgency of the situation and to
give him the money he needed.

* * *

Bridget
headed out to the plant. She was not in the right frame of mind to speak to
anyone and at least she could do her inspections undisturbed while she cooled
down.

Jack thought
she was incompetent.

She’d
given him all her reports, documented the status of everything,
including
that they were waiting for finance, and he still thought her inept. Wasn’t that
typical?

It
was just as well she had her two rules. She couldn’t date someone who didn’t
respect her skills. She’d tried every way she knew to get people to listen to
her: she’d emailed, called, gone to speak to them one-on-one, raised it in
management meetings and discussed it with the managers separately. The problem was
that they all had projects they wanted funded, projects they thought were more
important than hers. Plus no one wanted to disrupt the production schedule, and
part of Bridget’s project would require a line shutdown. Even emphasizing it
was a
safety
issue didn’t matter. She didn’t know what else she could
do.

Stopping
at the edge of the administration boundary, Bridget took a few deep breaths to
calm
herself
. It wasn’t safe for her to be so
distracted going into the plant. She had to clear her head and be mindful of
the potential hazards. She checked her personal protective equipment, that her
radio was switched on to the correct channel, and she had her inspection
clipboard, and then swiped on to the section of the plant she was going to.

Her
ear plugs blocked a lot of the noise but there was still a rumbling hum of the
machinery around her and a bad egg smell in the air from the
sulphur
pit. Each step made her aware there was a lot
around her that would be dangerous without the proper controls. But that was
her job – to make sure the controls were in place and being followed. It was
her task to make sure everyone went home at night.

She
started in the plant administration hut, examining a couple of jobs that were
on the go and making notes.

“On
the prowl, Bridge?” one of the guys asked her.

“As always.
Got to make sure everyone’s doing what they should.”

“No
one dares to do otherwise when you’re around.”

Bridget
smiled, but she wished it wasn’t the case. She wanted them to be safe
all
the time, not just because they didn’t want to get caught. It was often pure
laziness that caused the minor incidents, or else a lack of training. While
she’d been acting safety manager, she’d made sure all training was up to date.

However,
the laziness was a problem she hadn’t been able to resolve so far.

* * *

By
the time she’d finished her inspections Bridget was calm. Back in her office,
she called the accountant at head office to check if the approval had been forwarded.
It was her weekly task before the management meeting and she figured she could
give Jack an update before he went in.

“David
Randall.”

Bridget
took a second for her mind to adjust. She’d been expecting the site accountant
to answer. She glanced at the phone display to check she’d called the right
number, while trying to work out who she was speaking to. The name was
familiar. “Hi, this is Bridget from the plant. I was after Laurel.”

“So
am I.” His tone was slightly annoyed.

That’s
when it clicked. David Randall was the Chief Financial Officer for the company.
He was one of the signatories she needed. “Maybe you could help me,” she said
quickly. “I’m chasing a capital expenditure request I submitted a couple of
months ago. It’s for some safety improvements on the plant.” She held her
breath.

There
was a pause. “I know the one. Have you finally refined the scope? Can I approve
it yet?”

Bridget’s
mouth dropped open. “Sorry. What do you mean refine the scope?”

“Kevin
called me and asked me to hold off on the approval. Said someone was going to
refine the scope and he’d get back to me.”

She
was lost for words. What the hell was he playing at? He’d not mentioned
anything about refining the scope. He’d simply said head office was busy and
she couldn’t rush them. Bridget had had enough.
“Of course.
I thought someone would have called. You can approve the request.”

“Sure thing.
I’ll do it as soon as I get back to my desk.”

“Thanks.”
She hung up. How much trouble was she going to get in for that? She pushed her
unease aside. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the safety of the staff. She
should tell Jack though.

“Bridge, you coming to training?”
Jeremy poked his head into her office.

Bridget
checked the time. She was the backup fire officer, which meant weekly training
sessions to ensure each shift knew what to do in an emergency, particularly a
fire. It was the one part of her week that she loved. There was a real sense of
camaraderie between the operation technicians and a real purpose to what they
were doing.

“I’m
right behind you,” she said, grabbing her gear. She stuck her head into Jack’s
office but he wasn’t there. She would have to tell him about the approval
afterward. She headed for training.

* * *

At
the end of the day Bridget stopped by Jack’s office.

He
looked up and raised an eyebrow. She glanced down at her shirt which was
plastered to her skin and covered in grime. They’d been practicing confined
space rescue and she’d been the “injured party”. It had been hellishly hot in the
vessel and none too clean.

“How
was the meeting?” she asked. She wanted to know what excuse Kevin had given him
before she told him about her conversation with David.

He
shifted in his seat. “I explained how urgent the situation was and Kevin told
me to call the CFO. I was just about to.”

Her
jaw dropped. For three months she’d been explaining how urgent it was. She let
out a deep breath. It didn’t matter. “About that …” Bridget recounted her
phone call and what David said. “I couldn’t let the opportunity pass.”

He
frowned at her but nodded. “Let me know if the approval hasn’t come through and
I’ll call.”

“Thanks.”
She paused. “Are you happy for me to run with the project?” He might still
doubt her capabilities.

“Absolutely.
You run into any problems you tell me. Keep me updated with weekly
reports.”

She
nodded and returned to her own office. Checking her email she saw the approval
sitting there, along with the expense code. She grinned. Grabbing her project
notes, she found the phone numbers of the suppliers who had been waiting for
her call. She called the first one. “We’re finally good to go.”