Forrest, Dawn - Sweet Water Wedding: Sharing Shannon (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read Free Page B

mission, but the shrill ring of her house phone diverted her from her task.
    “I’ll get you later,” she muttered, critically eyeing the weeds as she jogged into the house.
    She was surprised to hear the voice of Keith Armstrong, an ex-boyfriend from a few years ago, who was now an Environmental Sciences and Management lecturer at some university she couldn’t recall in America. Their paths had professionally crossed a few times since. After exchanging pleasantries he got to the point of the call.
    “Shannon, the Texas Oil and Gas Association are hosting a conference in Houston and this year they have decided to include an environmental element. I got a phone call yesterday from a contact who asked me to suggest an environmental consultant with experience in oil and gas development. Apparently the speaker they had lined up had a nasty car accident and can’t make the presentation. I thought that your involvement in drawing up the International Impact Associations guidelines for decommissioning wells and land restoration would make you ideal. It’s quite a hot topic here at the moment as some oil and gas fields are nearing the end of their lives. It is a bit last minute, but would you be willing to give a talk?”
    “You want to throw me to the sharks, Keith?” She snorted. “Actually I was planning on taking a break from work. When is the conference?”
    “You, fish bait? Never. It’s a week-long event, but they only need you near the end, on Thursday, July tenth.”
    “Flights and accommodation covered?” she queried, suddenly interested because Rachael’s wedding was taking place on Saturday, July twenty-sixth in Meadow Ridge County, Texas.
    “Of course, are you interested?” He sounded eager.
    She quickly assessed the pros and cons of going. If she gave a talk for the conference she could change her existing flight reservation and the trip to Texas would be covered. It was a moot point really because Rachael’s fiancée had offered to reimburse her for the trip, but she felt better about paying for it this way. She could surprise Rachael by turning up a few days earlier than planned. Their friendship was one of the few things that Shannon had made a conscious effort to sustain. It would be wonderful to have a little more time with her friend before the wedding and help out in the moral support department.
    Despite her declaration to take a break, the conference appealed to her because she sometimes gave lectures at Dublin University and other institutions and businesses, so it wouldn’t take a lot of preparation. A little extra money wouldn’t hurt before beginning her vacation. Representatives of large, multinational companies would be attending, and the opportunity to increase the environmental awareness of these people was too important to miss. The fact that they wanted to include an environmental talk was a move in the right direction. She couldn’t think of any reasons not to go.
    “Keith, you’re in luck, as it happens I have a prior engagement in Texas in July and I suppose I could go a bit earlier.”
    “Great. I’ll also be attending and look forward to seeing you again, Shannon. I can’t thank you enough, although maybe you could think of a way?” He chuckled.
    He sounded far too suggestive for her liking, so she sweetly replied, “Yes, and I’d love to meet your new wife, Keith, perhaps we could all have dinner?”
    “Er, yes, that would be...great. I’ll e-mail the details to you. See you then.”
    Shannon put the phone down then nabbed a Jelly Baby from a packet sitting on the table. Raising the little, soft sweet to her mouth, she said, “Bye bye, Keith,” and bit its head off, enjoying the taste as she stood at her kitchen back door looking at her garden. Realizing that she would be away for a while, she resigned herself to doing what she should have done months ago, and rang a cousin who owned a garden maintenance business.

Chapter 3

    Two weeks later Shannon strolled into