Dallas, Texas

"Telephone for you Mrs Ewing", Maria, Mavis Anderson's maid, approached Miss Ellie as she stood by the refreshment table after the DOA meeting, nodding, Miss Ellie excused herself and walked inside. Across the patio, Sue Ellen stood talking to Linda Bradley and a few other ladies, she noticed Maria speaking to Miss Ellie and the nosy part of her was curious as to who would be calling her mother-in-law at this time of day anywhere other than Southfork. For a moment she was worried, the majority of the people she was friends with were here in person, so that meant that the call was serious; instead of instantly worrying though, she tried to think rationally, if there was a problem then Miss Ellie would tell her, if not, she needed to calm down and stop being so fearful. "What do you think Sue Ellen?" she snapped back into reality as she heard her name mentioned, "I'm sorry?..." she blushed as she realised that she didn't have a clue what question was being asked of her, "the new menu at the Oil Baron's Club, worth the hype? Or is it just more of the same?" Sue Ellen felt silly for missing the question, but immediately smiled and answered, presenting a confident façade to the other ladies. From the other side of the patio, Marilee Stone stood observing JR's perfect little wife, smirking as she noticed the slight red flush on her face; Sue Ellen tried so hard to always appear calm and collected, but underneath it all Marilee was sure that she was a bundle of nerves. She would never understand why a man like JR Ewing would continue to be attracted to a boring girl like Sue Ellen; she was the definition of vanilla. No, there was one reason and one reason only why they were married, JR needed a wife and an heir and Sue Ellen was just charming enough to fit the part without causing any problems for the Ewing family. Taking a sip of her iced tea, she thought about her own marriage, she was very happy with Seth, his job at her father's company kept him busy, so when he was home he was the doting husband she wanted, but when he wasn't home, he pretty much left her alone to do whatever she pleased. Their arrangement suited her just fine, she had never enjoyed being solely attached to one man and she wasn't too concerned about what her husband did either, as long as she was kept in the lifestyle she had grown up with. She'd really only gotten married because it was expected of a lady in her social situation, but she had been lucky enough to find a husband who didn't expect too much of her and accepted who she was. As long as their relationship looked good in public, he didn't particularly care what she did with her time and she didn't particularly care what he did with his, but they also enjoyed each other's company on the rare occasions when they were alone; their marriage really was the best of both worlds.

"Do any of your husbands ever order anything other than steak anyway?" Sue Ellen participated in the conversation, though only half of her attention was really focused on the other women; she was still watching the door to the house, surprised, and a little worried that Miss Ellie had been inside for so long. "Excuse me", she quietly stepped away from the conversation and walked toward the house under the guise of 'freshening up' as her curiosity got the better of her. Although she had an excuse, she didn't need to use it, walking into the house she was greeted by Miss Ellie, "oh good Sue Ellen, I was just coming to find you. That was Julie, Jock's secretary, there's a problem at one of the oil fields in Midland, he and JR are there now but the problem doesn't look like it's going to be as easy to fix as they expected, so they're probably going to have to stay the night". Sue Ellen stayed stoic as Miss Ellie explained the situation, she didn't like when JR was away, but it was inevitable and she wasn't going to make a fuss about it. "Oh, I hope everything's all right", she smiled and exchanged a few more words with Miss Ellie before excusing herself in search of a bathroom, she needed to validate her excuse for walking into the house and truthfully, she needed a moment alone to get her emotions in check. Although she knew that JR was an experienced oilman and things like this were routine, she still worried about his safety, there was a reason why the men who worked on the oil fields were paid so much, it was a dangerous job and she couldn't help but worry about her husband, it was just in her nature to worry. After a few minutes alone in the bathroom, she felt much better; she remembered what JR and Dr Danvers had told her, she shouldn't concern herself with things that were out of her control, it wasn't good for her or anyone else. Making her way outside again, she pushed the fears out of her mind, she couldn't do anything about the situation in Midland, but she could control the way she acted in reaction, so instead of worrying herself sick, she presented a confident front to the world, slowly internalising some of that confidence as she socialised with the other women.

Midland, Texas

"…kids with firecrackers?" JR looked at the sheriff in disbelief, "what am I paying the security for!?" he shot the foreman a dirty look, the situation could have been easily avoided if the people he paid to oversee the site had just done their jobs right. "I…" the foreman stuttered as he noticed the way JR was looking at him, he didn't really have a good explanation and he knew that JR Ewing didn't mess around, he wasn't going to get away with this, even if it was an honest oversight in practice. JR sat and watched the man as he waited for an answer; as a courtesy he would do his best to listen to the explanations offered, but Ewing Oil had just lost millions of dollars' worth of crude oil because of the lax security at the site and bad risk management. Someone had to be held responsible, it wasn't something he could just let slide, he had a business to run and he couldn't go around pardoning costly mistakes, especially simple ones. It would be dangerous for him to take anything less than a serious approach to the way he dealt with the issue; he couldn't set a precedent for acceptance of careless work.

Jock made conversation with some of the workers and watched as the fire crews worked to extinguish the blaze. JR was inside the office with the sheriff and the foreman and he was well capable of dealing with that situation, so Jock's job was something different, he made sure to pose enough leading questions to the crew to give him a better idea of what exactly what had happened and whether anyone in particular seemed to be at fault. Later, when they had a chance to speak to each other alone, they would compare notes and determine what to do about the whole situation in the aftermath. They'd worked out their system years ago, at first JR had been the one outside with the workers, but it soon became apparent that his real strength lay in one-on-one business talk and he could better assist Ewing Oil if he was the one dealing with the officials while Jock dealt with the workers. It worked well for them and Jock had no doubt that although they had just lost millions of dollars' worth of stock, they weren't out yet; their insurance would compensate them for their losses and the field seemed to be salvageable. They'd been lucky this time, it wasn't a good situation, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse, and for that he was thankful.

To be continued…