Her back went ramrod straight. “Excuse me?”
“Look, Paxton, I know as project manager you’ve had your hands in every aspect of this project, but I also know that there are a lot of things you have to pay attention to with a project of this size. You trust your engineers to take care of certain things. Now, I want to know how sure you are that these maps are accurate, because based on these flood totals, something isn’t adding up.”
“I think you’re jumping to conclusions.”
Sawyer crossed his arms over his chest. “How do you explain two feet of water in an area that should see no more than a couple of inches at the most?”
“It’s not just the speed of the storm that you have to take into account,” she argued. “The river was also still high from all the snow that melted from that previous winter and traveled down from the north. Gauthier doesn’t have robust pumping stations like the ones in New Orleans and other big cities, so they’re going to get this type of flooding during the perfect storm, even in places that are not flood prone.”
“That’s the thing,” Sawyer said. “This wasn’t the perfect storm. Not even close.” He rounded the table and moved to a map he’d hung on the wall. He pointed the pen cap at the center of the Gulf of Mexico. “Lucy formed here and lingered over the gulf for several days before moving north. The eye of the storm followed the Louisiana–Mississippi state line, which means Gauthier wasn’t even on the so-called bad side of the storm. In fact, for the most part, it remained in the lower-left quadrant, which is the best-case scenario.”
“But Lucy was a slow mover,” Paxton countered.
Sawyer shook his head. “That shouldn’t matter. If I’m to believe that the elevation in this area is as high as it is on this map, then Lucy could have lingered for another three days without this part of Gauthier seeing even close to the amount of flooding that it saw.”
Paxton let out an exasperated sigh. “Bolt-Myer’s engineers went over these topography maps, Sawyer. They would have caught discrepancies.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” he said. “Even the best of them.”
“Including you?” she asked with that haughty lift to her voice.
Sawyer nearly said yes, even him, but he stopped himself just in time. He wasn’t there to bare his feelings over the mistake he’d made on his previous job—he was there to make sure it didn’t happen again.
“All I’m saying is that this doesn’t add up,” he said. “I’m not questioning the professionalism of your team at Bolt-Myer, but Iamquestioning the accuracy of these maps. I know this may put us back as far as your timeline is concerned, but we have to consider bringing in a surveying team to measure some of these areas again. There’s a possibility that new maps will have to be drawn up.”
“New maps?” Her screech was so high that Sawyer was sure every dog within a five-mile radius heard her. Her brows nearly reached her hairline. “Are youinsane? Do you know what that would entail?”
“I’m a civil engineer,” he pointed out. “Yeah, I think I know a thing or two about what it would entail.”
“Well, as a civil engineer you should know that we don’t have the time or money in the budget to have completely new topography maps drawn up. It’s ridiculous to even suggest it.”
Sawyer took a step forward. “You want to know what’s ridiculous? Building a flood-protection system based on incorrect specs.”
“You’rethe one who thinks the specs are incorrect,” she said. She took a step toward him, getting in his face. “Myengineers thought they were fine.”
“Yourengineers are hundreds of miles away! Order the surveyors, Paxton.”
“No!” she shouted.
“I’ve seen what happens when something is built half-assed. And that isnothappening with this project.” Sawyer pointed at his chest. “Not on my watch.”
“Excuse me for sounding like a broken record, but I’m the project manager. It’smywatch.”
“Dammit.” Sawyer ran both hands down his face. “Stop being so damn stubborn.”
“Stop being so pigheaded,” she snapped.
“I’mbeing pigheaded? You’re the one—”
The conference room door swung open. “Hey, hey, hey.” Matt Gauthier poked his head in. “Is a referee needed in here?”
Sawyer and Paxton both stared at Matt for several heartbeats before backing away from each other. His eyes met hers again before drifting lower and landing on her chest. It pumped up and down with her quick, shallow breaths. He was so turned on by their fiery exchange that, if not for Matt standing in the doorway, Sawyer would have probably taken her then and there.
Paxton looked at Matt. “I’m sorry we disturbed you.”
“Hey, I’m all for passionate debate, but I have a conference call starting in a few minutes, and unfortunately the walls in this place are pretty thin.”
“We’ll keep it down,” Sawyer said.
