The Cowboy Takes A Bride (The Bridal Bid #2)

by Cathleen Galitz

  Grant bit back the caustic comment that was on the tip of his tongue. He had given Paddy his word that he would do his best to help Caitlin out, and as much as it rankled him, it appeared he was going to have to play nursemaid to his partner’s daughter.

  Not that others wouldn’t envy him the opportunity. Just as Grant had expected, the leers that lit up some of the crewmen’s faces when Caitlin walked through that door spelled nothing but trouble on all fronts. Even baggy coveralls couldn’t hide this lady’s alluring figure. And that tempting cloud of dark, thick hair simply called out to a man to run his fingers through it and test its softness against his cheek. The only way he could think to keep this little spitfire both safe and productively occupied was to stay as close to her side as possible. To never let her out of his sight if he could help it.

  Grant shook his head and sighed. The thought of working with someone who smelled as good as Caitlin presented him with a completely new set of problems.

  “Put that hard hat back on, and keep it on,” he directed gruffly, wishing there was some way to glue the darn thing to her head. “Apparently it’s time to take a core sample.”

  That he sounded none too happy about it didn’t seem to hurt Caitlin’s feelings any. Again she narrowed those cat-green eyes of hers at him as she gathered her hair into a loose ponytail and stuffed it beneath the brim of her hat.

  Grant wagered that the man who could capture all the sparks in the emerald depths of her eyes could start a forest fire. Feeling suddenly hot himself, he tugged at the neck of his T-shirt as he watched a couple of loose tendrils fall out about her heart-shaped face. Seized by the urge to wind one of them about his finger, Grant had a sudden vision of her naked and willing and—

  “Let’s get going,” he barked, wheeling about on his hardtoed boots and stomping out of the building a good four steps ahead of her.

  He could pretty well guess which part of his anatomy Paddy would be coming after with a pipe wrench if he so much as suspected the kind of thoughts his trusted friend was secretly entertaining about his little girl.

  Six

  By noon Caitlin was forced to abandon her heavy coveralls and strip down to jeans and a T-shirt. Noting how it was modest enough attire for him to wear on the job, she chose to ignore the pointed, disapproving stare Grant leveled at her. Even without the hot jumpsuit, she was roasting. The sun overhead had baked a nearby creek bed into great, peeling chunks of clay. Much the way her fair skin was going to look, Caitlin realized, if she didn’t take care to slather it several times a day with the sunscreen she had stuck in her back pocket.

  Sticky with sweat, she decided that whether Grant Davis liked it or not, she was wearing something cool tomorrow. At this point, a three-piece tailored suit wouldn’t make an ounce of difference to the crew. Unaware that she was near enough to overhear, one of the men had said something during lunch break about having to work with “daddy’s little girl.” The other men laughed and leered in her direction.

  Caitlin cringed. She couldn’t imagine dating let alone being married to such a loathsome creature.

  As if it weren’t bad enough being despised by her co-workers, Grant had been glued to her all day long like a fly stuck on flypaper. Doubting that he had developed a sudden, overwhelming fondness for her company, Caitlin assumed he was simply afraid to leave her alone for fear that she would either screw things up or simply be unable to fend for herself. Rather than appreciating his attention, she found herself resenting it almost as much as the fact that she was so keenly aware of every bulging muscle beneath the tight white T-shirt he wore. She wished he would have the decency to wear a regular shirt—preferable one three sizes too big with a collar and long sleeves.

  Gorgeous body aside, she sternly reminded herself that Grant Davis was indeed the most disagreeable, obstinate man she had ever met. Despite his promise to her father, Caitlin wasn’t so sure that he wouldn’t deliberately sabotage her efforts just to be rid of her.

  “Just shale and sand,” she announced with false nonchalance after analyzing the core sample she had insisted they take.

  “I could have told you that and saved us all a lot of time, energy, and money.” Grant spat the words out as if they tasted as bad as they sounded.

  Caitlin squared her shoulders and attempted to hide her chagrin with sarcasm. “Gosh, next time I guess I’ll just ask you to walk around, wave your magic witching stick over the hole, and give me your personal take on the situation. That should be enough for me to feel comfortable signing my name as official rig geologist to my reports.”

  Expecting an equally caustic comeback, she was caught off guard by a reluctant smile that caused something wonderful and uncomfortable to flutter inside her. “Or maybe you could just come with me and check what’s coming back up through circulation.”

  Caitlin tilted her chin at a haughty angle. “That leaves way too much room for costly error.”

  “You are your father’s daughter,” Grant remarked enigmatically.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Just that I bet you’ve never been wrong even once in your life. Paddy’s an expert at turning things around to make the other person feel defensive, and it looks like you’ve inherited the trick yourself.”

  “I resent that,” she retorted, arms akimbo.

  And I resent the way your eyes strike sparks whenever I get close enough to see those amazing gold flakes in them, Grant thought to himself. I resent the fact that it’s been so hard for me to keep my mind on my work with you so close at hand, smelling of coconut oil and looking like something out of one of my old adolescent fantasies.

  “The truth hurts,” he said offhandedly.

  A worry line furrowed his brow as he watched Paddy’s struggle to manage the steep walk up the stairs to the doghouse. In his attempt to oversee every aspect of daily operation, he must have been up and down those steps at least a dozen times already.

  Caitlin, too, noticed how tired he looked and felt even more guilty about the strain she’d put on her father to accommodate her request for a core sample—especially when it appeared to be, as Grant had predicted, so completely unnecessary. She hated to admit that her father was not as young as he used to be. Though his hair remained thick and his eyes still as bright and clear as the sky above, there was a droop to his shoulders that she had never noticed before. Was she the added burden bowing that once strong back? It had been her intention to lighten his load, not add to it. Caitlin wished there was some way of getting him to cut back a little but at the same time simply couldn’t imagine Paddy retired and playing golf every day with those boring duffers who hung out at her mother’s country club repeating the same old stories of their glory days. Her father’s vitality and zest for life could no more be confined to a putting green than her own considerable energy could be restricted to high society parties where the highlight of the evening was comparing shopping sprees.

  Her mother had not realized it until too late to save her marriage. Paddy Flynn was more at home on an oil rig than he could ever be in one of Grandpa Perry’s corporate boardrooms. Caitlin liked to think that nothing as comparatively insignificant as the choice of a job or geographical preference could stand in her way if she were ever lucky enough to fall in love with a man even half as wonderful as her father.

  “If you could convince him to take a little break with you, I’ll relieve Paddy for a spell,” Grant suggested.

  Accepting the fact that in his mind, Grant would be temporarily rid of two problems at once, Caitlin nodded. By no means was she going to prove a slacker on the job, but there was no reason why she should kill herself off the first day either. It was hot enough to cook a three-course meal on the drill floor, she’d been up and down the steep stairs leading to the doghouse at least fifteen times, and aside from rearranging the heavy equipment in her lab, she had pitched in to help Grant thread some tool joints on the ends of the drill pipe. She put a hand to the small of her back and stretched her muscles. No doubt,
she’d be sore tomorrow.

  Supper that night consisted of three hungry-man frozen dinners zapped in the microwave. Caitlin promised to get into town no later than the day after tomorrow and pick up some actual, recognizable food. Grateful that all it took to clean up was the rinsing of three forks in the sink and tossing empty containers into the trash, both she and her father opted to turn in early.

  After a quick shower, Grant grabbed a blanket from the closet, plopped down on the couch, and tuned in the clearer of the two channels that he could get on their small television set. As much as he would have liked to blame his insomnia on the less-than-comfortable sleeping arrangements, the truth of the matter was his mind wasn’t ready to give up his troubles yet. Especially when those troubles came so alluringly packed in five foot six-and-a-half inches of green-eyed, kiss-my-royalhiney sassiness.

  It was late, he was still hot, and television was no panacea for what ailed him. He kicked off his only cover, hoping that enough of a breeze would slip through the window to cool him off. Not a pajama man, he wore nothing but a pair of briefs. He had just switched off the TV when he heard someone padding down the hallway.

  Apparently worried about awakening him, Caitlin made her way into the dark kitchen without the aid of electricity. Grant could tell it was her by the lightness of her footsteps even before the soft glow of the refrigerator light revealed her presence. Clad in an oversized T-shirt, she stood in the cool air of the open fridge door. Grant took almost as much pleasure in the fact that she hadn’t been able to sleep either as he did in the lovely, virtually transparent view she presented of herself while searching the depths of the fridge.

  It came as less of a surprise to him that the thin shirt she was wearing sported the logo of her alma mater’s football team than how incredibly sexy he could find such nondescript sleepwear. As if there had been a doubt before, sleep was out of the question the minute he laid eyes on that young, nubile body showing through her thin nightshirt. His reaction was totally male and totally involuntary as he slipped off the couch and headed toward the light in the other room.

  “Looking for a late-night snack?” he asked.

  Gasping her surprise, Caitlin banged her head on the open freezer compartment door. She wheeled around to find Grant leaning against the kitchen counter looking rather like a cat with a feather sticking out of its mouth.

  “You scared me,” she said, rubbing the spot where she’d cracked her head. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Too long for your good—or mine.”

  Even in the dim light, Caitlin could see the interest glittering in his dark blue eyes. Her tummy tightened, and her heart clattered against her chest like a wild beast rattling its cage. All too aware of the fact that her nipples were as hard as tiny rosebuds, she crossed her arms over her breasts, hoping he would think that the cool air from the open door was the cause.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s rude to go sneaking up on people?” she demanded haughtily. It was all she could do to keep from stealing a peek at that pair of briefs he was wearing. The ones that left nothing to the imagination.

  “Didn’t yours ever teach you not to go parading around half-naked in front of grown men?”

  In less than two steps Grant stifled the indignation sputtering on Caitlin’s lips. Crushing his mouth to hers, he meant for the kiss to be punishing. He hoped to put enough scare into this little temptress to either send her running back to Texas or at the very least to keep her safely locked away in the room she had confiscated from him.

  Brutal though his intention, the kiss had no such effect upon her. Too surprised to fight against the onslaught of sensations that hit her with the impact of a tidal wave, Caitlin’s mind emptied of everything but a warm, accepting fog. She was aware of Grant’s hands around her waist like steel bands, making her feel small—but not scared. Despite her innocence, nothing that felt so divine could possibly feel frightening.

  Heat suffused her body. Running her hands over a pair of shoulders as wide and solid as a pillar, she was determined to give as good as she got. Since the first moment she laid eyes on him, Caitlin had wondered what it would be like to feel those magnificent muscles beneath her hands, to taste his lips upon hers, to sample the passion glistening in the depths of those phenomenal blue eyes. As each of her senses was assaulted and conquered, Caitlin willingly surrendered herself to him.

  Grant made a thorough exploration of her mouth, devouring like a starved man the rich, sensual feast offered him. Caitlin’s submissive moans heightened the intensity of his physical reaction. She tasted sweet, so very sweet—like wine and wild flowers and cinnamon. A heady blend of innocence and sinful promises that could easily have a man so tied up in knots it would take the entire National Guard to untangle him.

  Not that he was in any hurry to be extricated from such a heavenly embrace. His hands roamed the distance from her small waist, along the sensual length of her rib cage, and came to rest at the sides of her breasts. Caressing their swell with a soft touch made her gasp with pleasure. Caitlin arched her back and pressed her lithe body against his. Grant ground his hips into hers, making sure she understood the extent of his arousal.

  Tearing his lips away from hers, he looked deeply into her eyes. They were as wide and full of discovery as a child’s on Christmas morning. And just as eager to tear into her first package. Grant was shocked to think that his ploy to scare this little innocent off had just blown up in his face. Beneath the studied coolness towards him that Caitlin wore like a royal mantle was an impassioned woman who like Helen of Troy was capable of launching more trouble than any peaceable kingdom could hope to withstand.

  Grant took one giant step backward.

  Good grief, what if Paddy were to wake up and discover his darling daughter being ravaged amid the frozen goods? Abused at the hands of the man he treated like a son? Though there was no blood between them, Grant suspected Paddy would feel as betrayed as if there were.

  He backed up yet another step and hit the kitchen counter with his backside. Crossing his arms over his heart, he issued a warning.

  “You’d best remember, little girl, I’m no wimpy college boy who’ll put up with your teasing. Either put some clothes on or stay in your bedroom at night.”

  The look on her face was of someone who had just been hit in the face with a squirt gun full of cold water. Caitlin wasn’t sure whether it was the term little girl or teasing that wound her arm like up a piston and sent her open hand cracking against Grant’s jaw. Quite frankly it didn’t much matter. She wasn’t about to be kissed, then insulted, all in the span of two shallow breaths.

  “If anyone’s being a tease, I’d have to say it’s you,” she snapped in her own defense.

  Then with as much dignity as she could muster, she transferred her cold derriere out of the open refrigerator, slammed the door shut behind her, and escaped to the questionable safety of a room permeated by the scent of the first and only man she had ever slapped.

  Seven

  Just as Grant feared, he was not the only one on the rig to notice their new geologist’s decidedly feminine attributes. A pair of khaki shorts and a T-shirt teamed with heavy work boots should have been the furthest thing from provocative, but when Caitlin showed up wearing them the next morning, every head on the drilling floor turned in unison. Any second, Grant expected to see his derrick man come flying out from a hundred feet above. He didn’t care how sexist it sounded in this politically correct millennium, a drilling rig just wasn’t the place for a pretty woman. A man could get himself killed over a glimpse of those long, shapely legs.

  After their heated encounter at the refrigerator, Grant had spent a long, restless night on the couch. Caitlin’s well-timed slap had little effect upon the male hormones racing through his body with the force of a mustang coming out of the chute for the first time. It completely boggled his mind how a sophisticated college graduate with an attitude the size of the Rocky Mountains could affect
such an innocent act all the while kissing him like something out of an X-rated dream.

  As long as Caitlin stayed hidden away in the tiny lab located directly behind their trailer, Grant was more than happy to give her all the space she needed. But the instant she stepped outside to check the mud pit and oversee the chemicals used in the drilling process itself, he was all over her like down on a duck.

  “I don’t need a guardian angel,” she huffed, flattening her hands on her hips at his approach.

  “The hell you don’t!”

  The way his eyes traversed the length of her legs made Caitlin feel like she was wearing a slinky skirt with a thigh-length slit rather than a pair of nondescript shorts.

  “Does your daddy approve of what you’re wearing?” Grant asked.

  “My daddy has no more say about what I wear than you do,” she snapped, her eyes flashing with unconcealed irritation.

  “Better cover up,” Grant drawled with languid, sexy nonchalance. “If a gentleman like me has a hard time keeping his hands off you in the dark of the night, there’s no telling what some of my less refined co-workers might be driven to in the full light of day with so much of your beauty on display.”

  “You’re about as refined as the crude oil we hope is bubbling under this rig.”

  Fixing him with the emerald drill bits of her eyes, Caitlin tried melting him on the spot with a look of sheer disdain.

  He didn’t so much as blink.

  To her chagrin, Caitlin instead found herself heating up beneath Grant’s purely masculine scrutiny. She wasn’t sure what to make of that crack about her beauty. Her first reaction was that he was simply making cruel sport of her. When she realized that his eyes held no trace of humor, Caitlin’s feminine instincts kicked into high gear. Despite the heat of the day, the mere memory of his hands, his lips, his body pressed against her sent trembles skittering deep in her abdomen.