Free Back Road Chances (Roughneck #2) by Nicole Hart

want to sink my teeth into that shoulder. Damn, I love that woman.
    “Damn” She said, as she looked me over while she walked up to me. I was still in my coveralls and work boots. I didn’t even stick around to shower; I would do that at the motel. I didn’t want to wait an extra minute before I saw her.
    “My working man looks sexy,” she said and kissed me. Was she claiming me?
    “Mmmm,” I said into her mouth. “I’ve been waiting for that all day.”
    “Let’s go get you fed boss, you’re gonna need your strength,” she said, as she slipped her arm through mine and pulled me towards the restaurant. I loved how affectionate she was lately. It felt so good.
    The hostess got us seated quickly. I scanned the restaurant. There were contractors everywhere. These kinds of restaurants were about as close as we got to home cooking while we were working, so we took advantage of good food when we could get it. We ordered our drinks and started looking over the menu, and that’s when the shit about hit the fan. I noticed two city girls stand from their table and pushed their chairs in loudly. I saw the look one of the girls gave as she looked around the restaurant, but I ignored it. In this field, you ran into people all the time that had an opinion about the work you did. Some good and some bad. And by the snarl on that snotty bitches face, I could tell which one she had.
    “Let’s go somewhere else,” she said to her friend as she walked away from her table. “I’d rather not eat with a bunch of oilfield trash.”
    Aw shit. Sam’s eyes got as big as quarters as she dropped her menu. She stood up and stepped in front of the snotty girl.
    “What the fuck did you just say?” Sam said, as she stood toe-to-toe with her. But the truth is, that girl could have been six feet tall and I know it wouldn’t have made a difference.
    “Excuse me,” the girl said, and glanced in my direction before turning her eyes back to Sam. The hums of chatter in the restaurant stopped. Other than the sounds of dishes in the kitchen, it was silent.
    “Can I ask you something?” Sam said calmly, but I know she was on the verge of knocking this girl out.
    “What?” The girl said, as she folded her arms and looked around the room.  She was uncomfortable, but Sam wasn’t letting this go.
    “How did you get here?” Sam asked.
    “What?”
    “Are you hard of hearing? I said how did you get here?” Sam said with a cocky ass smile. Damn, I love this girl.
    “Uh, my car,” the girl said with a voice full of sarcasm.
    “You do realize that without the oilfield, your car wouldn’t start right?  In fact, this whole country couldn’t run without these men. So what you should be doing, instead of running your fucking mouth, is thanking these ‘oilfield trash’ for the life you have.”
    Then I heard a set of hands clapping, then another, then another. I started to clap right along with them. I looked around and realized half of the restaurant was standing and clapping.  The girl just looked around, with her mouth wide open, then turned around and stormed out the door, with her friend right behind her. Once the girls were out of sight, Sam turned towards me and quickly sat back down. The restaurant noise started back up, like nothing happened. I almost told her I loved her, right then and there.
    “I can’t stand ignorant people like that,” Sam said, as she picked her menu back up. Half of the men in Sam’s family were oilfield; she had been raised in this life. That girl ran her mouth around the wrong woman.
    Our waitress walked up to us, carrying our drinks in her hand.
    “Here y’all go,” she said, as she put our two glasses of sweet tea on the table.
    “And you ma’am, your dinner’s on the house,” she said.
    “Oh, that’s not necessary,” Sam said.
    “Yes ma’am it is. My daddy is a mud engineer.” And then she leaned down close to Sam and whispered “And I hate snotty little bitches like that, who run