Cathleen Galitz – The Cowboy Takes A Bride (страница 3)

Pace yourself, he reminded himself. After all, he could only be expected to deal with one emergency at a time.

“Last chance, lady,” Grant growled, putting his hands on her shoulders. “You can do this with or without dignity, but one thing’s for certain—you’re not staying here. It’s not safe or smart.”

Caitlin flinched as if she had been branded by his touch. Ignited by womanly indignation, fire snapped in eyes the color of precious emeralds.

“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?” She punctuated the question by thumping a finger against the middle of his chest.

Dark clouds turned his blue eyes as gray as gunmetal. Caitlin suspected that had she been a man, he would have snapped her index finger off at the joint.

“Do you?” he snarled in reply.

“What’s all the trouble about up there?” bellowed a familiar voice.

Grant looked down to see Paddy stumbling out of the trailer below. Looking as grumpy as a grizzly awakened from a sound sleep, the older man provided a welcome diversion from the trouble at hand.

His voice heavy with irony, Grant hollered to his partner over the side of the rig. “You’re just in time. Maybe you can use some of that famous Irish charm to explain to this doll that an oil rig is no place for a woman.”

Much to Grant’s surprise, Paddy’s mere presence was able to accomplish what all of his stern directives had not. It got the woman moving. In fact she took off down the stairs two at a time, her speed giving her the uncanny appearance of actually flying.

Her voice rose over the hum of the machinery as she cried out in unrestrained joy, “Daddy!”

Two

A moment later Grant watched dumbfounded as the woman who claimed to be their new geologist launched herself into Paddy’s outstretched arms. This time he didn’t bother swearing under his breath. His eloquence colored the air around him blue.

No wonder she had looked so familiar. Paddy had been sticking cherished photographs of his darling baby girl under Grant’s nose for the better part of a decade. Long ago he had tired of hearing how wonderful the “little princess” was. Paddy’s pride and joy, Caitlin occupied much of her daddy’s thoughts. When Paddy had a couple of beers in him, she dominated most of the conversation as well.

Grant didn’t have to personally know Caitlin Flynn to dislike her. To hear Paddy talk, she was the toast of Texas, a regular debutante just like her mother—that coldhearted witch who had left him because he lacked “culture” and had spine enough to resist her efforts to turn him into something he could never be. Of course, Grant didn’t claim to know the whole story. Even after ten years, Paddy’s wounds were still so raw he seldom spoke of the woman who had broken his heart. The woman after whom he had named his company. Most people were under the impression that L.L. Drilling stood for Lucky Lady, but once over a six-pack of beer Paddy had shared with Grant the little-known fact that it was actually Laura Leigh who had inspired the name.

The only thing women had ever inspired in Grant’s life was grief.

Perhaps that was why it was so hard for him to understand Paddy’s preoccupation with turning out a daughter in the exact same mold as her mother. It was his understanding that nothing Paddy did was ever good enough for the fragile, city-bred bride who found the open spaces of Wyoming as terrifying as marriage to a man with oil under his fingernails. Grant never put much stock into that old axiom about opposites attracting. Personally he wasn’t sold on the tired, overrated institution of marriage, but as far as he was concerned, the more similar one’s background and interests, the better the chance a relationship had of surviving.

There was no denying that he had always been fascinated by those photos of Paddy’s dark-haired, green-eyed angel, but the truth of the matter was, even in photos, Caitlin struck him as being a snob. Maybe it was all those little white matching gloves and anklets in her childhood pictures or perhaps the one of her sitting sidesaddle in an English riding competition in her adolescence that gave him the impression early on that this girl was too darned smug for her own good.

It galled him to think of all the privileges she took for granted.

For what Paddy had spent on his daughter’s Ivy League college degree Grant could have easily paid his way to a state university many times over. Fate hadn’t been so kind to him as it had been to fresh-faced Little Miss Texas. His chances of ever going to college had gone up in smoke with the explosion that had killed his father. When all was said and done, Grant supposed that he was probably a better man for not having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Still, it was hard sometimes not to be bitter, but he reminded himself again how useless it was belaboring the past.

As far as he could tell psychiatrists were the only ones to benefit from such counterproductive thinking, and they had to be paid exorbitant fees to listen to people whine about things that couldn’t be changed. What with his father’s premature death, his mother’s suicide, and his Aunt Edna’s treachery, Grant was sure the modern school of psychology would have a field day with him. He figured he’d warrant an entire chapter entitled, “Real Men with Honorary Degrees from the School of Hard Knocks.” He wanted no more part of such psychological pity patter than he did the kind of superficial chatter he supposed Caitlin had perfected at sorority parties.

Despite the blood tie connecting Paddy to his daughter, Grant couldn’t bring himself to believe his friend would circumvent his authority by hiring Caitlin without so much as asking him first. Even as softhearted as he was, surely Paddy had sense enough to know that a drilling rig was no place for the daughter he was certain was as pure as virgin falling snow. A likely story, in Grant’s opinion, only if she went to college at a convent. The probability of any woman who looked like that remaining chaste into her twenties was even slimmer than his chance of hitting that deep pocket of oil and salvaging this godforsaken company any time soon.

Grant wiped the back of his neck with a red bandanna and considered the scene playing on the ground below him. It appeared his hellish day was about to get even hotter. From Caitlin’s animated gesticulations, he imagined she was at this very moment describing to her father just how “beastly” his hired hand had treated her. A smile played upon Grant’s lips. He wondered how she would react to the news that he was more than just some menial hireling. If it weren’t for the fact that her certain histrionics might well drive a wedge between him and the man he had come to think of as a father, Grant would have looked forward to the performance. The Blue Blood and the Redneck.

No doubt it had a certain Hollywood ring to it.

Stuffing his bandanna back into his hip pocket, he decided it was pointless postponing the inevitable. As hesitant as he was about breaking up this touching family reunion, it was time to officially make the formal acquaintance of Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Petulance.

Caitlin was so moved by the sight of her father that she momentarily forgot all about those odious men and their Viking leader, Redneck the Terrible. Safe in her daddy’s arms, her only thought was of how glad she was to be with him again. For so many years, distance and her mother’s judgment had kept them apart. Now at last a college graduate, Caitlin was free to do with her life as she wished—and what she wanted more than anything else in the world was to make up for lost time with the father she adored.

Oh, she had taken Psych 101 and knew that most girls idolized their daddies. She also knew that eventually the harsh light of reality shattered their childish beliefs that their fathers were invincible. But what she could never get her professor to understand was that her father really was that which John Wayne personified in all those wonderful old movies: the most honorable, kindhearted, heroic man who ever lived.

Tears filled her eyes as she pressed her ear against his heart and took comfort in its steady beat. She felt all of ten years old again in her father’s arms. Safe, secure, and happy. Caitlin was determined not to let anything pull her from the refuge of those arms ever again.

“As much as I hate to interrupt this touching moment, we really do have work to do around here.”

Grant’s voice sounded like the gravel crunching beneath his feet as he approached. He moved slowly, hoping to give them enough time to disengage from the tearful embrace that twisted his guts into a tight, tangled knot.

God above, what he would give to hug his own father one more time!

Taking the pained look on his face for disapproval, Caitlin gave him a disdainful once-over. Her voice was laced with righteous indignation when she turned back to her father. “Daddy, I’d appreciate it if you would tell this, this…two-bit tool pusher just who is in charge around here.”

The self-satisfied smirk she tossed Grant’s direction indicated a little groveling to keep his job was in order.