The Cowboy Takes A Bride

“Am I to take it then that you somehow feel duty bound to Keith’s son?” Caitlin asked. Unloosed from a throat tight with emotion, her voice sounded high and strained.

“Contractually I’m not obligated to anyone. But when you consider that Grant came here on his own to bust his butt for a company on the brink of bankruptcy, yes, I think it’s fair to say that I feel an obligation to him,” Paddy responded shortly.

Caitlin flinched against the reproof in her father’s voice. Then hardened herself against it. However nicely Paddy gilded it, something didn’t sound quite right in his abbreviated explanation. Until proven otherwise, Grant would remain suspect in her mind. The thought intensified her desire to stick around and see what exactly this man was up to.

“Let me get this straight,” she said, gesturing toward her father with graceful, long fingers. “You blame yourself for an act of God, then spend time teaching this bleeding heart everything he wants to know about the oil business out of sheer pity, and you can’t so much as give your own daughter a solitary chance to earn her keep around here?”

Paddy was not a man accustomed to having his judgment questioned. “It wasn’t pity,” he snapped. “Grant’s proven himself many times over.”

Despite the anger Caitlin’s question aroused in him, Grant nonetheless considered it fair. In fact looking back on it, he couldn’t think of anyone presenting a more pitiful image than he had that day he’d arrived with his hat in hand, humbly asking to be taught the tools of the very trade that had claimed his father’s life. Having targeted Paddy in his mind for years as the cause of that fatal accident, it had been all he could do to keep from throttling his father’s partner. The last thing he’d expected was to ever like the old codger who managed somehow to take him in without compromising his dignity by offering him not a hand out, but a hand up.

Grateful that Paddy had glossed over years of heartache with one broad, sweeping stroke, Grant nevertheless could not forget that there was far more to the story of how their partnership came about than Paddy was telling. It was just like Paddy to leave the telling of that to him when and if he ever decided to share it.

“If you’re trying to put a price tag on what was owed me,” Grant growled, “you’ll have to tell me the going rate to replace a father.”

Caitlin drew her breath in sharply as her heart cried out the answer to Grant’s inquiry. No amount of money in the world! As difficult as it had been growing up in a broken home, Caitlin loved both her parents dearly and couldn’t imagine life without either one.

For the first time since meeting this man, she felt an inkling of sympathy for him. He may look as impervious as a Roman gladiator now, but she mentally calculated his age and figured that he must have still been in high school when tragedy befell his family. Her throat closed around the image of a beautiful, dark-haired teenager acting as his father’s pallbearer. And of a tearful, bereft mother leaning on him for support. It was Caitlin’s understanding that the mere thought of losing Paddy in such a hellish manner had been enough to compel her mother to abandon the one true love of her life. Maintaining that she was too young to be a widow, like poor Cissy Davis, Laura Leigh had shortly thereafter packed her bags and headed back to the security of her parents’ home in San Antonio.

Caitlin bit the inside of her mouth in a nervous habit that survived her childhood. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s just that I feel obligated to look after my father’s interests. It is awfully strange that he hasn’t mentioned you to me before.”

“As much as I appreciate your concern,” Paddy interjected with a crooked smile. “I’m a grown man accustomed to making my own decisions. Maybe I didn’t feel the need to explain myself to you. Then—or now.”

With that, he ran his hands through his silver hair. “This conversation is over. The only thing left to decide is what to do with you, young lady.”

Fighting the tears that welled up in her eyes, Caitlin set her jaw in the same determined way that her father had of leading with his chin whenever things looked their bleakest. She was not about to come all this way just to be brushed off. There was far more at stake here than just a job.

Her self-worth was quivering on the line.

“I’ll tell you what you can do with me,” she countered, each word an articulated bullet. “You can back off and let me do my job!”

Grant had to admire the lady’s grit. Having expected her to employ the age-old female tools of alternately crying and pouting, he was struck by Caitlin’s fortitude in standing up to Paddy Flynn, the terror of drillers and corporate giants alike. It aroused in him a grudging respect.

Suppressing a smile, he imagined her reaction to the strictly male observation that she was indeed very beautiful when she was mad. He was mesmerized by the attention she paid the gold locket nestled in the hollow of her throat. The way she was stroking it so lovingly made Grant wonder if it was some kind of a magic talisman. Maybe a religious medal. Perhaps a lucky charm to protect her from catastrophes, assorted imaginary ills, and hard-hatted villains.

Neither Caitlin’s voice nor her resolve quavered as she continued the fight to get her way. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll offer my services totally free of charge for one month. If I can’t prove my worth to you in that time, I’ll accept your decision to replace me. No questions asked. No hard feelings.”

“No way!” Grant exploded. Alarm bells were sounding in his head. One only had to watch the way Paddy was thoughtfully scratching his chin to see all hope of banishing this woman from the premises go up in a magician’s poof of smoke. “I don’t have time to be baby-sitting some college kid whose knowledge of an oil field is limited to what some dried-up old professor asked on a midterm.”

No matter how pretty she is! he added silently to himself.

“No one asked you to,” she countered, twisting her necklace around her index finger and wishing it was the man’s thick neck instead. “Besides, I don’t see that you have much choice in the matter. Whether you like it or not, you need a geologist. It’s going to take some time to line another one up. Why not at least let me fill in during the interim? What have you got to lose?” she asked, her eyes flashing him a challenge in emeralds.

Besides my sanity and the friendship with your father that I value above everything else in the world?

“Just my time, this oil rig, the entire business, and my physical well-being when the crew decides you might make an interesting diversion some lonely night,” Grant snorted with an angry wave of his hand.

A shiver raced through Caitlin at the thought. “I can take care of myself,” she retorted, not bothering to explain about the defense class she had taken in college for physical education credit. If the need were ever to arise, she knew how to fell a man like a tree.

Grant rolled his eyes at this assurance. “I’m sure you can—at a sorority party or a poetry reading. But we’re not talking about the latest trends in social awareness here. This is an oil rig, not a library or an office. You can’t protect yourself here with a thick book and that withering look you’ve perfected.”

A degree in geology hadn’t prepared her for dealing with such hardheadedness. “Maybe I should have majored in archeology,” Caitlin murmured sweetly.

Grant’s eyebrows arched into question marks.

“That way I would have been better prepared to deal with such an archaic male attitude. I don’t know why you have a chip on your shoulder the size of the state of Wyoming, but it seems like you’re just afraid that I might be good at what I do.”

“What I’m afraid of,” Grant clarified with an angry jab at the air, “is that your father won’t be able to let his own daughter go when the time comes.”

Paddy started to point out that he was in the room and capable of speaking for himself, but Caitlin cut him off before the first syllable was out of his mouth.

“You’ve made it perfectly clear that you are the one in charge of hiring and firing. If in a month’s time you haven’t changed your mind about me, I’ll abide by your decision. Daddy won’t have anything to say about it.”

“Sounds more than fair to me.” There was a hint of admiration in Paddy’s voice.

Grant’s groan was of theatric proportions. “I don’t like it.”

“What you mean is that you don’t like me,” Caitlin observed. “You don’t have to. You just have to work with me.”

She stuck out her hand and forced a decision, one way or the other. “Do we have a deal?”

Thinking he’d rather kiss a rattlesnake than shake her hand, Grant’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Like I have a choice.”

He looked to Paddy for support but instead found a happy smile of anticipation plastered on his old friend’s face. This little vixen had indeed positioned him upon the horns of a dilemma. Either way he jumped, he could expect to be gored. Grant considered the small, manicured hand dangling in the air in front of him. He shook his head in disgust. As Paddy had pointed out earlier, such hands were not intended for the kind of hard work to which this woman was so blithely pledging herself. Grant hoped she understood that on this rig she would be asked to pitch in and do more than what might fall into the scope of a written job description. Real life wasn’t as orderly as college professors were apt to lead one to believe.

Damned if he didn’t feel the strongest urge to bend his lips to those clean, polished fingertips and kiss them. He shook his head at the medieval image that evoked. Both Paddy and Caitlin were looking at him, waiting for his response.

Reluctantly he took Caitlin’s hand in his.

He was not prepared for the impact her touch had on him. A thousand volts of electricity surged between them. Grant knew that Caitlin felt it too by the way her eyes grew wide, exposing her shock for the length of two full seconds.

Sheer willpower alone gave him the strength to pull his hand away from hers.

A telltale blush stained Caitlin’s cheeks as she looked straight into his eyes and told the most prodigious lie he’d ever heard. “You won’t be sorry.”

Four

“I don’t want to inconvenience anyone,” Caitlin insisted. “Really.”

Grant tried not to gag as he watched her work her father over. The little lady had perfected the art of female persuasion with an adoring look that had Paddy doing back flips to accommodate her. It didn’t take an enormous stretch of the imagination to envision a horde of pimple-faced, preppy schoolboys falling all over themselves for a chance to carry the Princeton Princess’s books across campus. The poor suckers.

Grant’s observation that their small trailer was going to be mighty cramped, considering the fact that there were only two bedrooms available didn’t seem to faze Caitlin in the least.

“I’ll just have to sleep on the couch then,” she responded with the kind of magnanimous sincerity Grant considered worthy of Hollywood’s recognition.

“Fine with me,” he grumbled. He saw no reason to give up his bed for this spoiled college brat. The least a man should expect after putting in long, demanding hours of physical labor was a firm mattress. The very least.

His words were drowned out by Paddy’s firm protest.

“Absolutely not,” he declared. “If anyone’s going to sleep on the couch, darlin’, it’s going to be me.”

Grant groaned. Paddy had no more intention of sleeping on that couch than he did of using a rock for a pillow. Greatly amused by the older man’s grandstanding, he watched him forage helplessly in the closet for bedding, one hand pressed dramatically to the small of his back. Grant was tempted to applaud the performance.

“Don’t even think of it, Dad!” Caitlin exclaimed, successfully wrestling him away from the closet and into the easy chair.

“I won’t have you sleeping on the couch and that’s all there is to that,” her father puffed chivalrously. “It wouldn’t be right for a beautiful young lady to be without her privacy.”

Had Paddy’s pallor not been of such real concern to him, Grant might have enjoyed the show a good while longer. As it was, he was too fond of the older man to ever actually allow him to jeopardize his health by sleeping on a sagging sofa. It would not, however, have bothered him in the least to save the privilege for Caitlin. As far as he was concerned, a bed of nails would be good enough for her Royal Eminence.

In the midst of their argument, Grant slipped away unnoticed. When he returned a few minutes later carrying enough heavy suitcases to tax his considerable muscles, father and daughter were still engaged in a rousing game of martyrdom.

“Enough already,” Grant groused on his way through to deposit Caitlin’s luggage in his room. “Think you packed enough for what promises to be a short stay?”

Caitlin refused to dignify his sarcasm with a response. Instead she merely stepped out of his way, “I had every intention of doing that myself, and I hope you know it wasn’t my idea to put you out of your room.”

“Save it for the Academy Awards,” he grumbled, not even bothering to slow down.

Caitlin hated letting such an odious man do her any favors. Having fought hard for the right to be treated as an equal, she preferred carrying her own baggage around—so to speak. She did not want to begin this particular job in debt to Grant Davis for anything as chivalrous as opening a door or carrying in her belongings. She was keenly aware that he wasn’t doing this out of fondness for her but rather out of respect for her father. Antipathy emanated from every pore in his body. Since he’d made it abundantly clear that he took affront to her college degree, Caitlin made a mental note to downplay her education in his presence. Seeing how they were going to be roommates after all, she saw no sense in borrowing trouble.

“He’s a good man,” her father assured her.

Caitlin remained unconvinced as the sound of suitcases being dumped onto the floor resonated through thin walls.

She smiled weakly. “A regular knight in shining armor.”

A minute later he was back, crossing the room in a few long strides. “I’ve got to get back to work,” he said, pointedly checking his watch.

Opening the trailer door, Grant let in the light and the heat from outside. Caitlin was struck by the way the sunshine glowed about his body, giving the momentary illusion that she was in the presence of an angel. Not some cute little Cupid, but rather an angel warrior. Rugged St. Michael entering a fray without benefit of sword or shield.

The image disappeared with the slam of a door.

“It would mean a lot to me if you two could find a way to get along,” Paddy said to his daughter. It was miserably hot inside the trailer. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

Caitlin reached over and wiped it away with a lacy handkerchief her mother had sent with her. A misty look came into Paddy’s eyes as he recognized Laura Leigh’s signature scent. The fragrance lingered between the two of them, an invisible reminder of the happy home they had once shared. As loudly as Paddy and Caitlin had both disavowed Laura Leigh’s penchant for feminine frills and fancies, the memory that scent evoked was a rich contrast to the austerity of a small, tidy trailer sitting in the middle of the sagebrush. The sudden hint of honeysuckle bridged the gap of time, overpowering the mingled smell of dust and sweat and a river of oil rumbling silent and deep in the Earth’s belly waiting to be awakened like a slumbering lover.

“I’ll go unpack my things,” Caitlin said. With clumsy tenderness, she placed a kiss upon the very spot where that errant drop of sweat had lingered. “Thanks for letting me stay, Daddy.”

Grant’s bedroom matched the rest of the trailer’s decor. Neat and bleak. Walls, as bare as the top of the small cheap dresser that held his clothes, revealed no personal secrets. No single clue of Grant’s past or future was evident in the room. Not that Caitlin gave a darn, she reminded herself as she opened the closet door.

A half-dozen work shirts hung there, leaving plenty of room for her own clothes, which she put up in short order. Soon all that was left was to find a suitable place for what her mother referred to as her “delicates.” Caitlin hoped at least one of the dresser drawers was empty.

A funny feeling settled into the pit of her stomach as she opened the drawer which held Grant’s socks and underwear. It came as a surprise to her that such a boring stack of serviceable white briefs could make her feel like such a voyeur. She slammed the drawer shut on her shame. It was a feeling too akin to lust for Caitlin to comfortably admit.

By the time she had her things in order, it was almost time for supper. Having had nothing to eat but a fruit bar and a soda since lunch, she was ravenous. Since her father had asked her to try to make an effort at getting along with Grant, Caitlin figured she could start making amends by fixing them all a nice supper.

A quick look in the refrigerator reawakened her fears that in jockeying for control of the company, Grant was actually out to kill her father. Beer seemed to be the beverage of choice. An uncovered steak coagulated in a platter of fat, a block of cheese sported the latest in fashionable molds, and an economy-size carton of eggs nestled beside a huge slab of bacon. Ketchup was the sole condiment.

The freezer compartment was jam-packed with a variety of ice cream flavors and frozen dinners, none of which carried a healthy “lite” label upon it. Instead words like hearty and filling jumped out at Caitlin. She imagined that just reading the nutritional information panel could cause one to gain five pounds.

In the pantry she found several dusty cans of fruits and vegetables hiding behind a bag of corn chips. A sack of potatoes had sprouted roots, but Caitlin figured she could salvage some of them by knocking the eyes off those that hadn’t begun to rot. A couple of onions and a smattering of seasonings completed the meager reserves. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do until she could get to a grocery store.

Grant hadn’t taken two steps into the trailer when he was assailed by the aroma of homemade soup. Dead tired, he wanted nothing more than to take a shower, shovel one of Paddy’s tasteless frozen “big man” dinners into himself, and hit the sack—or the couch as the case may be. His previously foul mood hadn’t improved any since Caitlin had conned her way into his bed. The last thing he expected when he finished his shift was to be taken back in time by the smell of simmering vegetables and pungent spices.

Suddenly Grant found himself in his mother’s kitchen again, marveling at what she could do with some lean wild meat, a couple of carrots, potatoes, and an onion. Best of all was the way she could magically make a lump of dough rise in the pan and make it look like an elfin cottage. The redolent smell of baking bread wafting through the house always reduced him to begging for a “taster,” a crusty end piece slathered with wild honey or homemade jam or a thick slab of cheddar cheese and fresh milk. Cissy Davis’s frugal dinners were a wonderment of fragrance and taste. When his father would ask what it was that made her meals so delicious, his mother would smile and say that her secret ingredient was love. And when they kissed in front of Grant, as they always did after this exchange, it seemed to him that his life was destined to go on like this forever—happy and secure.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Caitlin said, greeting him from the kitchen and bringing him into the present with a start.

“Hungry and tired,” he admitted.

Grant couldn’t remember the last time he had sat down to a home-cooked meal. Funny how a proper table setting, no matter how simple the fare, made eating seem special.

Before taking his place at the table, he attacked his hands in the bathroom sink with a bar of abrasive soap that did little to loosen the oil and grime that, like his past, seemed an indelible part of him. Wiping his hands and face with a towel, Grant paused to look at himself in the mirror. The stubble on his chin gave him a hard look, and he wondered how someone as young and delicate-looking as Caitlin dared tangle with such a tough-looking character. He secretly admired her spunk but also worried that such bravado might well land her in serious trouble with other members of the crew. Someone less of a gentleman might mistake such moxie as a challenge—with the gravest of consequences.

“It’s not much,” Caitlin apologized as Grant took his place at the table.

Grant started to reply that everything looked just fine when Paddy demanded to know, “Where’s my steak?”

His tone was belligerent as he searched the depths of the refrigerator.

“In your soup,” Caitlin explained without pausing to digest his obvious indignation. “I’m afraid tonight we’ll just have to make do with soup and cheese. The bread I found was a lovely shade of bluish green. Fine for growing penicillin but not particularly appetizing. Once I get into town and pick up some groceries, you are going to begin eating healthy—whether you like it or not.”

Surprised that they actually agreed on something for once, Grant grinned into the depths of his bowl. For once he wished Caitlin luck. Every time he dared to bring up the subject, Paddy searched his vocabulary for the most vivid expletives to best explain his opinion of nutritional eating.

Grant took a taste of his soup and found it delicious. He was surprised to discover Caitlin could cook. He wouldn’t expect a debutante to know anything as practical as one end of a pot from the other.

“It’s good,” he said and grinned again at how warily she reacted to the compliment.

“I’m glad someone around here appreciates it,” she replied, pointedly staring at the way Paddy was swishing his spoon around in the soup, apparently searching for tasty bits of cholesterol.

“Maybe you’ll be good for something around here after all,” Grant added just to see if he could get another rise out of her.

He did. Caitlin bristled up like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on.

With perfect timing, Paddy interrupted. “How’s your mother?” he asked in an offhanded way that fooled no one.

“She’s fine.”

Grant felt a stab of pity for his mentor who was still so obviously interested in the woman who had packed up his heart when she rejoined the high-society crowd after her amusing little encounter with blue-collar life. Still Grant was too tired to pay much attention to the conversation and was eminently relieved when Caitlin refused his offer to help clean up. Excusing himself from the table, he stumbled toward the shower. If he was lucky, he told himself he wouldn’t fall asleep and drown on his feet.

The water pressure was too weak to give him the kind of pulsating release that his muscles needed, but the shower was nonetheless warm and soothing. Grant felt no guilt in draining the hot water tank. It wasn’t until he climbed out of the shower and was toweling himself off that he faced the quandary of his sleeping arrangements. He didn’t so much as own a pair of pajamas, and the thought of sleeping in the middle of the living room in his underwear didn’t much appeal to him. Not when Paddy and Caitlin were bound to want to stay up late and catch up on old times.

He glowered at himself through the steam on the bathroom mirror. “To heck with them both,” he grumbled, wrapping a towel around his middle and heading toward his room to change into a clean pair of briefs. Whether it inconvenienced or embarrassed anyone else or not, he was going to catch some shut-eye.

Discretion won out over comfort at the last minute as Grant reached for a clean T-shirt in its usual spot in the bottom drawer. He was taken aback by the flimsy piece of lace which he fished out of his dresser instead. Apparently even his drawers were not exempt from confiscation. He couldn’t so much as put a name to the sexy little froufrou dangling from his hand let alone understand what possible occasion Caitlin thought she would have to wear such a flimsy garment out in the middle of nowhere. The slick material of the camisole caught on the roughness of his fingers, and he felt a familiar, frightening tightening in his groin.