Melting Point

Melting
Point

By

Terry Towers

Melting Point

Copyright 2014
by Terry Towers

Cover by: Erin Dameron-Hill @
edhgraphics.blogspot.ca

All rights reserved. With the exception of brief quotes used for critical reviews and articles no part of this book may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the author Terry Towers. Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Terry Towers can be contacted via her website at www.elixaeverett.com

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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors imagination and used fictitiously.

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Chapter 1

Faith
tossed the used stick aside, snatched up another, tightened it up into the welding gun then went back to work. She'd been slaving on the overhead weld for a couple of hours now, but she was almost finished. Finally.

Currently she was
positioned on her back, under a large cylinder, which was suspended in the air a mere two and a half feet above her. She found herself thankful she wasn't claustrophobic. She doubted someone with claustrophobia would last long as a welder. Since she was a female, a petite one at that, she was always the lucky one selected for the shit assignments.

In truth, it made sense. She couldn't expect a two hundred pound man to
squeeze into the tiny areas that some jobs required. Not when her compact body could fit, not comfortably, but fit nonetheless. She’d made peace with the fact that that was how it was going to be for as long as she was in this profession.

Sparks continued to fly, litt
ering her body, burning into her leather welding jacket.

"Damn it!"
Faith cursed, but refused to flinch and ruin the string of weld as a stray spark happened to worm its way under her helmet and onto the tiny patch of exposed skin the jacket collar failed to cover. It burned for just a moment or two before extinguishing itself.

"That's going to leave a scar," she murmured as she continued on with her string, not missing a beat.

"Done," she announced to no one in particular, while flipping up her helmet's visor to get a good look at her work. Setting down the welding gun she examined the weld. "Another great job, beautifully done, Veates," she praised herself.

She had no doubt
the inspector would clear her welds. There were no visual defects. She seriously doubted they would fail any other type of inspection either. She was damned good at what she did; the fact she loved the job was just an added bonus.

Satisfied
, she wriggled her way out from under the massive cylinder, pulling her equipment along with her.

As she cleared the cylinder she welcomed the fresh spring air.
Sitting up and rummaging through her toolbox, she snatched up a plastic bottle of water. Flipping the lid open, she drank deeply, until the bottle was empty. She tossed the empty bottle back into the toolbox and looked around. Many of the men were already finished with their tasks for the day, but were not permitted to leave until the end-of-day inspections. As a result, they would spend roughly the last half hour of their shift lounging around until five o'clock hit.

Five o'clock.
Quitting time.

As she gathered up her equipment, she could feel a presence behind her.
Turning around she looked up to see Brian Underwood standing nearby. While most of the men were fine with her working there – many even welcomed her with open arms – Brian was an entirely different issue altogether. It was a male-only company before she’d arrived, and he had liked it that way. He wasn't shy about making that known either.

He
was what people commonly referred to as a “man's man.” The majority of the men working with United Welding looked up to him. He was the bachelor of the company who always had some wild, raunchy sex story to share. She would have bet money most of his stories were works of fiction. The way he talked, a person would be led to believe that he had dozens, correction
hundreds
, of women lined up just begging to be banged by him.

"It's about time you got finished
– thought we'd be stuck here all weekend waiting for you to finish up," he commented with a smirk. He said it as a joke, but there was no mistaking the look in his eyes. The look told her that he felt she didn't belong there.

Condescending dickwad
, was Faith's mental response. What she said aloud was simply, "Taking the extra time to do a job right means it won't have to be redone."

He paused, started to say something, stopped himself, turned and walked
off in the direction of a group of men – the same men she’d noticed earlier lounging around one of the company's pick-up trucks.

She
was almost finished packing her equipment up, when she felt someone else behind her. With an exhausted sigh, she spun around to come face to face with the new guy. Trent, she believed his name was.

She couldn't help herself from looking him up and down. He wa
s a solid foot taller than her, with dark hair and eyes. She had to admire his strong build. She also found her eyes lingering over his broad shoulders, covered with a tight-fitting, red t-shirt with United Welding printed across the front in bold white letters. His powerful thighs were clad in faded blue jeans. When her gaze finally reached his face, she noticed it had grown a couple of shades redder. His lips wore a slightly embarrassed smile. Evidently he hadn't missed her blatant evaluation of him.

Perhaps I'm picking up some of the guys
’ undesirable habits?
she mused. The inability to ogle discreetly.
Before I know it I’ll be belching and farting in public, if I don’t watch myself. Okay, maybe it won’t get that bad.

"Don't pay any mind to my brother, he was born an ass
hole."

She smiled weakly, feeling a blush color her fair skin. "I never do.
Won't start now."

"I'm Trent, by the way," he
said, extending his hand to her.

"
Faith," she responded with a smile.

Pulling her welding gloves off and tossing them into her toolbox she took his hand. His handshake was firm and seemed to linger just that extra moment longer. As he pulled his hand away she felt a stirring in her stomach.
The stirring demanded more of his touch, but she pushed it down deep and with force. Faith wasn't about to break one of her cardinal rules for
any
man, regardless of how attracted she seemed to be to him.

The cardinal rule was simple. Never,
ever
get involved with the men you work with.
Ever
. If you did you were simply begging for trouble.

Been there, done that,
won't
be doing it again. Being the interloper was one thing. Being that interloper who slept around was a dozen times worse.

The
y continued watching each other, sharing a tense, awkward moment, before he gave her a final smile, nodded and sauntered off. She watched as he walked away, paying close attention to his sexy, tight ass under the denim.

She had just finished packing up her things and was in the process of removing the elastic from her
sweat- and dirt-filled shoulder-length, chocolate brown hair when she heard the foreman’s announcement for everyone to be ready for inspections of their work. Brian had been the one working closest to her, a mere few yards away. Quickly he manned his station. He could have been on the other end of the work site and it would still have been too close for her liking.

She watched as the inspector went from person to person ensuring that everyone's welds were up to code.
He inspected Brian's work directly before Faith’s. Even though she tried not to look or eavesdrop, she couldn't help herself. She wasn't close enough to him to hear everything, but she was able to hear him being told his work was horseshit and he would need to gouge it out and redo it first thing Monday morning.

Serves the asshole right
for rushing through his work then having the balls to ridicule me
.

Faith
found that she was smiling despite herself, so she looked away for fear Brian would notice she had heard what the inspector had said.

Head down, eyes straight ahead.

She was next.

The inspector was a small, pudgy man
, perhaps an inch or two taller than her 5'2. He wore thick, black, horn-rimmed glasses. She watched as he visually inspected her work, making notes on the pad he carried with him. He was one of the few men on the site who didn’t seem to take notice of the fact she was a woman.

"Visually, it look
s sound," he mumbled, more to himself than to her. He dug into his case of inspection goodies, and proceeded to do a couple more tests to verify his visual diagnosis.

Once done he stood next to her, eyeing it a final time. She had noticed several of the men, including Brian
and Trent, were now standing within earshot of her and the inspector. Unlike her, they weren't even attempting to pretend not to listen in.

The o
nly thing she hated worse than inspections were inspections with an audience.

The inspector turned to
Faith, nodded and stated flatly, "Perfection, if I have ever seen it. Have a good weekend." Without waiting for a response the inspector walked away from her, heading toward the next welder on his list.

She knew it was a terrific job
so the verdict wasn't a shock to her. However, even after working as a welder for close to ten years now, she still felt good when she was told she’d done a job well. With a smile on her face, she picked up her equipment and headed toward the direction of the parking lot.

As she passed by Brian she heard him
talking with the other men who were now standing in a circle with him. She tried to tune out their conversation but one part filtered through loud and clear, "...course he said it was perfection, she has a pussy, doesn't she?"

Faith
fought the urge to turn back and confront Brian. Instead, she continued to walk briskly, increasing her speed slightly.

Don’t confront him, don’t give him the satisfaction
, she coached herself.
I know the truth and that’s all that matters.

She just wanted out of there for the day,
and now
!

"Faith, wait."
As she brushed past Trent, he attempted to stop her, taking hold of her upper arm.

She pulled her arm from his grasp
without so much as turning or offering the courtesy of looking in his direction. "I'll see you Monday."

Without another word to anyone she exited the job site.

****

Trent watched as
Faith marched off the job site and headed for her navy half-ton. She was upset and looking over at his older brother grouped up with a number of his buddies, Trent had a pretty good idea why.

"Asshole," he muttered under his breath as he stormed over to Brian.

"Trent. Glad you’re here, I wanted to introduce you to a few of the guys." Brian smiled warmly at his brother as he motioned for Trent to join the group.

"What did you say to her
, Brian?" He wasn’t in the mood to beat around the bush with Brian and couldn’t care less about his idiot buddies. Having grown up with Brian, he knew without meeting the men that if they were friends of his brother’s, then they were not people he had any interest in knowing.

"Who?" Brian asked
, frowning.

"Do you really need to be such an ass
hole
all
the time, Brian?" Folding his arms across his chest Trent waited for his older brother's response.

Brian snapped his fingers
and his face lit up. "Oh, you mean what I said about Faith?"

"Ya
h. What exactly
did
you say?" He had a pretty good idea, but still wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth.

"I don't know, something about the inspector passing he
r work because she's got a cunt," Brian replied in a nonchalant manner. A couple of the men in the group snickered. Trent shot them all a dirty look.

"I
didn't mean anything by it. We were just kidding. Messing around. She didn't even hear me." He waved a hand in Trent's direction, dismissing the subject from his mind. "Let me introduce you to some of the guys."

"Why are you such a dick?" Trent cut him off before he could get to the first introduction.

"What is the problem now?" As far as Brian was concerned the issue was buried.

With a shake of his head Trent turned and strode off toward the park
ing lot. He'd had enough of Brian for one day. He knew he should never have taken a job working with his brother. Their whole lives they had never gotten along, why would it change now?

****

Faith had barely made it through the front door of her apartment when the telephone started ringing. Sprinting through the kitchen, still wearing her soot-covered, steel-toed work boots, she grabbed the telephone up on the fifth ring.

"Hello."

"What's wrong with you? You sound out of breath." It was Sophia, her closest friend of twenty years, give or take. They’d met when Sophia moved into her family’s neighbourhood. Faith was eight years old at the time.