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

by Cathleen Galitz

  “How’s everything going here?” Paddy asked, wiping the sweat from his brow as he approached. He stopped short to visibly scowl at his daughter’s choice of attire.

  “Just fine,” Caitlin chirped, pointing a finger away from herself to a stack of bags. “I’d like to switch over to this compound and see if it won’t improve the stability of the hole.”

  Paddy grinned as he shot her a mock salute. “Whatever you say.”

  “Whatever you say,” Grant repeated dully.

  He noticed that the boss’s good-natured humor didn’t conceal the pride shining in his eyes. He couldn’t help wondering if his father would have shown him the same kind of glowing acceptance—had he but lived to see his son become a man. It was hard not to compare his life with Caitlin’s. Although her parents apparently hadn’t enough faith in one another to make a go of their marriage vows, they somehow managed to lavish love and affirmations upon their daughter. Grant’s own parents had loved each other so deeply that even a mother’s love could not keep Cissy Davis tied to the earth once her husband had departed it without her. Within six months of each other, Grant had buried both parents. Adrift in shock for the first year following the double tragedy, he went through the motions of living in alternating states of numbness and anger.

  Looking back, his Aunt Edna’s cold indifference had been a blessing in disguise. Seeing him as the answer to her own financial worries, she had forced him to put one foot in front of the other, submitting him to a rigorous regime of work without benefit of a heart beating inside of him.

  Love had ripped it out and dutifully fed it to the fates.

  Since his fondest childhood dream had simply been to have both parents alive and well, it was difficult for Grant to understand what more this pampered little princess could possibly want—other than to cut him completely out of her father’s heart so she had to share him with no one. The thought knifed him through the chest.

  Grant wondered exactly what she was so afraid of. Didn’t she understand that he would do anything in his power for her father? Why would someone graced with so much be so stingy with someone who had so little?

  Such a sick, fickle goddess was love that Grant again vowed never to pay her homage. Skin as thick as his could not be pierced by Cupid’s arrow. Having every intention to play it safe for the rest of his life, he deliberately limited his involvement with the opposite sex to good times unfettered by demands of any kind. Plenty of women knew the score and were willing to accept whatever Grant chose to give.

  Craning her neck to look all the way to the crown of the rig, one hundred and fifty feet above ground, Caitlin broke into his meandering thoughts with an observation. “I can’t get over how incredibly big it actually is.”

  “A little different than the pictures in your college books, isn’t it?” Grant sneered.

  “I’ll say,” she agreed, deliberately choosing to ignore the derision in his voice. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the sheer immensity of it.”

  Grant was right about one thing. An oil rig looked a whole lot less formidable when viewed from a distance.

  Throwing a companionable arm around his daughter’s shoulders, Paddy shared the breakneck view with her. Against the clear Wyoming sky, Caitlin could almost imagine Jack’s giant climbing down this gigantic iron beanstalk from his palace in the clouds. She squeezed her father tightly around the middle and bestowed upon him a dazzling smile.

  Grant turned away without saying a word.

  He proceeded to throw himself into his work like never before, attempting to chase the long afternoon hours away with the kind of physical labor that taught more than one’s muscles a lesson. Immersion in hard work had always been a sure cure for self-pity.

  For the first time that he could remember, the strategy failed him.

  A stickler for safety, Grant was all too aware that not all of the crew shared his dogged determination to stay focused on the task at hand. All it took to distract the green hand who was catching pipe and loading it onto the beaver slide was the sight of Caitlin below bending over the pipe rack in her shorts. Momentarily fixated on her trim, rounded derriere, Bernie Sommers forgot to pay attention to the speed at which the traveling block was coming down its steel cables.

  A ton of steel gave a whole new meaning to the expression “to knock one’s block off.” The combined roar of all three engines drowned out the warning Grant shouted from below. Nothing makes a person feel more helpless than to watch an impending accident in what seems like slow motion and be able to do nothing whatsoever to stop it from happening. In one brief moment, Grant envisioned Bernie being smacked in the head and being tossed like a rag doll to the hard ground some forty feet below.

  Racing across the drilling floor, he tried desperately to get Bernie’s attention. Seconds before the moment of impact, the young man glanced up just in time to cover his head with both arms. He desperately tried to sidestep the pipe swinging from the blocks overhead. The glancing blow sounded like brittle wood snapping beneath one’s boot as it cracked against his shoulder. Bernie teetered on the edge of the floor, struggling not to lose his balance completely. He would later claim that it was God’s hand that pulled him back to safety where he crumpled to the ground in a heap.

  Bouncing off the edge of the beaver slide, the pipe careened toward Caitlin. Still bent over her work, she was oblivious to the impending danger. Lungs exploding with the effort of his adrenaline-charged sprint, Grant threw himself at her like a runner charging home plate, knocking her completely off her feet.

  The pipe missed them both by inches.

  Understanding nothing of his daring rescue, Caitlin knew only that she was being crushed by two hundred twenty-five pounds of solid male. Grant’s insinuation that his less than refined co-workers may be dangerous rang in her ears. Fighting her way out of a haze of panic with fingernails bared, Caitlin let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  Grant stifled her the surest way that he knew how. Pressing his lips to hers he disarmed her with a mind-numbing kiss. It had the desired effect.

  Recognition immediately dawned in her eyes as she gasped his name. “Grant?”

  Caitlin felt so incredibly good writhing beneath him and he was so awash with relief to discover that she was all right that he hastened to make her understand what had just occurred before moving his considerable weight off her.

  “Let me explain.”

  “Please do,” Caitlin stammered, wondering how she was ever going to get him off her without making even more of a spectacle of herself.

  “Keep your head down,” he ordered, pulling her so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

  Seeing the pipe dancing wildly above their prone bodies, Caitlin was struck by a blinding flash of the obvious. Understanding replaced fear and confusion in those kaleidoscope eyes of hers.

  “My God!” she gasped.

  Suddenly grateful for the strong arms wrapped around her, Caitlin felt something behind her eyes go all hot. Trembling, she tried in vain to clasp her hands behind Grant’s broad back.

  “Shhhh,” Grant whispered into her ear. “Everything’s all right.”

  He was only vaguely aware of the flurry of movement about them as Caitlin splayed shaking fingers through his dark hair and pulled his mouth down to hers. To be kissed so thoroughly and so publicly by the boss’s daughter was an altogether new experience for Grant. One he knew he should fight like St. George attacking a man-eating dragon, but one he could no more resist than taking the next breath of air. He had done a fair job of convincing himself that the overwhelming physical impact of the kiss he had stolen the previous night had been nothing more than a fluke, but Caitlin’s sweet, hungry lips shot that theory all to hell in the span of two thundering heartbeats.

  Never before had Grant been kissed with such desperate need. If he could somehow capture the power of this woman’s passion, he felt sure the need for fossil fuels would be completely eliminated.

  Someb
ody yelled, “All clear” as Paddy arrived on the scene. Caitlin’s piercing scream had brought him flying down that steep flight of stairs two at a time.

  The sight of his daughter pinned beneath Grant in the midst of a cacophony of general confusion was enough to put a hurt, bewildered look upon his face. Short of breath, Paddy clutched his left arm with his right, and covered his heart with both.

  Hoping the threat of near death would be enough to explain away the questionable position in which he found himself, Grant rolled off Caitlin as quickly as if he had somehow accidentally fallen face first into a bed of hot coals.

  “It’s all right, Daddy. I’m all right,” she hastened to assure him as she jumped to her feet and ran to his side as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her.

  But it was too late for explanations as a heart attack brought the big man to his knees.

  Eight

  “Call 911!” Grant yelled, dropping to his knees beside Caitlin to check Paddy’s pulse.

  Frozen in the terror of the moment, Caitlin was incapable of responding. She was not even aware of her tears hitting her father’s chest. The head she cradled in her arms seemed as magnificent to her as that of a downed lion king. Murmuring prayers of divine intercession, she stroked the face that she loved so dearly. His skin felt as cold and clammy to the touch as death itself.

  One of the drilling hands raced off in the direction of the cell phone, returning momentarily to report that a helicopter had been dispatched out of Casper, the nearest thing to a city within a hundred miles.

  Grant broke into action with a cool head and an eye to the darkening sky. He ordered someone to check on Bernie, called for a stretcher, and helped situate Paddy as gently and surely upon it as if he were actually conscious and aware of every jostling movement. Knowing how dearly every minute counted, Grant decided to move Paddy away from the rig to where the helicopter would land.

  Caitlin did not feel the rising wind lash her long, dark hair across her tear-stained face as she held her father’s right hand to her heart, trying to transfer her own vitality to him. The wind carried her cries across a sky the color of deep blue velvet.

  “Don’t die, Daddy.”

  Grant cupped her face in his hands, peered deeply into her eyes, and commanded her, “Get a grip on yourself.”

  Having experienced it firsthand at a much younger age, he recognized all the signs of shock. Those exceptional green eyes were glazed and tortured, her face was drained of all color, and she was shivering like a kitten left out in the rain. Grant’s firmness could have easily been misconstrued as anger.

  “I can’t deal with two emergencies and your hysterics at the same time. I need your help, Caitlin. So does Paddy.”

  Shaken by his words from a sense of complete powerlessness, Caitlin mutely nodded her head as she tried to rouse herself from her state of shock.

  Positioning four men including himself at the corners of the stretcher, Grant felt a sense of déjà vu. The day of his father’s funeral had been overcast and windy. Having insisted on serving as pallbearer, he knew for certain that Keith Davis had weighed far less than Paddy, but the combined burdens of the world could have weighed no more to the sixteen-year-old boy. A half a year later he carried his mother toward the headstone she was to share with her beloved for eternity. Grant had been struck by how very small her white casket looked as it was lowered upon a layer of rose petals that he had placed in that dark hole the evening before when he reached the lonely decision to carry on as best he could on his own, rather than succumbing to the temptation to join his parents in everlastingness.

  The anguish in Grant’s face mirrored Caitlin’s. He did not think he had the strength to bury three parents. Lack of blood ties made Paddy Flynn no less a father to him.

  “Don’t give up, old man,” he commanded the pale man on the stretcher. “Help’s on the way.”

  Embarrassed about causing his own injuries, Bernie refused help as he hobbled down the stairs on his own two feet, cradling his broken arm in his other hand. The unnatural bend was almost as gruesome as the way his shoulder poked through the tatters of a bloody cotton shirt.

  It was difficult to pick the helicopter out of the sky, arriving as it did on the heels of dusk amid gathering storm clouds. The time they waited seemed an eternity as the speck on the horizon grew larger and made itself known at last. Dust swirled in a man-made tornado as the ’copter landed in the middle of the sagebrush and the experts rushed into action.

  Caitlin tried following the stretcher into the aircraft, but the pilot shook his head. Grant put a gentle, restraining hand upon her arm.

  “I’m going along!” she screamed, desperate to be heard over the whir of the blades overhead. “You can’t stop me from going!”

  The medical technician who strapped Paddy securely in place hollered back. “Sorry, lady, there’s only room for one more, and it looks like we’ve definitely got another patient.”

  Belatedly remembering Bernie, Caitlin stepped out the way. No matter how desperately she wanted to go with her father, she knew her co-worker’s condition warranted immediate attention.

  The pilot motioned for Bernie to climb aboard. The young man obliged with a wince and an apologetic glance in Caitlin’s direction. Not another word was uttered as the metal bird rose straight up and turned toward a bank of dark clouds. Distant bolts of lightning scissored through a sky bruised purple with the descent of night.

  Caitlin said a prayer that her father’s heart would soon be beating as rhythmically and solid as the sound of the chopping blades echoing in her ears as she turned in the direction of her vehicle.

  The same hand that had held her back from the helicopter detained her once again.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Grant demanded.

  “To the hospital, of course.”

  Caitlin’s voice sounded hollow and far, far away.

  “You’re in no condition to drive anywhere.” Resisting the urge to gather her into his arms, he employed reason instead. “Besides, you don’t even know where you’re going.”

  The reality of that fact slumped Caitlin’s narrow shoulders. The myriad of roads that crisscrossed this back country would have baffled Ulysses.

  “You take me then,” she pleaded. Her eyes were as luminescent as the full moon rising on the horizon so low to the ground that it almost seemed possible to drive right over and touch it.

  What Caitlin was asking was impossible. With Paddy and Bernie both out, they were so shorthanded it would be difficult finishing this shift, let alone making the deadline that was going to either make or break the company. Grant understood that compliance with her request would leave but a skeleton crew to manage a hopeless situation. Hell, they might as well start shutting down right now and save the bank the trouble of foreclosing on them.

  “Please,” she added in a broken whisper.

  You’re a bigger fool than even I thought possible, Grant told himself as he nodded his head and took the keys from her small, cold hands.

  Before taking off, he gathered up the crew and made a brief announcement. “If this wasn’t an emergency I wouldn’t ask you to make the kind of sacrifices that you’ll have to in order to keep this rig up and running until I can get back. You know, of course, that if we can get this rig to pay out before deadline, there’ll be bonuses commensurate with your efforts. You have to make up your own minds about whether you’re willing to hang in at this point or toss in the towel. I want you to know that I’m not asking for me—I’m asking for Paddy.”

  Understanding the seriousness of the situation, the men gathered so somberly about chewed on Grant’s words like a tough steak. Tucker Morley broke the silence at last by spitting a long stream of tobacco juice between his steel-toed boots. He turned his withered face to Caitlin and spoke with emotion that cracked his voice.

  “I’ve worked for your daddy in both good times and bad. I don’t expect I’ll abandon him now. When you see him, do me a favor and tell him not
to worry. Old Tuck’s got everything under control.”

  Tears filled Caitlin’s eyes as she hugged the grizzled fellow as tightly as she could. The rest of the crew’s assent echoed reassuringly in her ears.

  Vowing to be back just as soon as he possibly could, Grant gave them his final orders. “Just keep on drilling!”

  About the time Caitlin’s red Jeep pulled away from the site, the rig’s photocells kicked in. Illuminated by lights strung the length of the derrick to prevent any low-flying planes from colliding into it, the oil well took on an eerie glow in the motionless silence.

  Caitlin appreciated Grant’s silence as he negotiated the narrow dirt road. She was in no mood for the empty platitudes of consolation. God works in mysterious ways… It’s far better to go fast than to linger for years in agony… Only the good die young…

  Memories from her past rose up to haunt her. The loveliness of each solitary moment studied in retrospect was as exquisite as sunlight glinting fire off the calm waters where Paddy had helped her reel in her first fish. Or the crimson petals of the dozen roses he’d sent her on the sixteenth birthday when she had felt so certain of her homeliness. Or the softness of the kisses he placed on her cheek when he tucked her into her little white four-poster bed with the gold trim.

  “Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he’d say without fail.

  “Sleep tight,” she’d repeat before drifting off to sleep blissfully undisturbed by grown-up concerns.

  Locked in wordless contemplation with Grant, Caitlin took no comfort as she had as a child in the gentle swish swish of the windshield wipers. Tonight they only conjured images of twisted metal tossed from angry skies.

  Silent tears streamed down her face like the rain beating against her window.

  When Grant reached across the seat to take her hand into his, she did not pull away. Nor did she bother checking the speedometer as they hurtled through the darkness at an average ninety miles an hour. In less than an hour and a half, the lights of Casper winked within their range of vision. Fifteen minutes later they were standing in the hospital lobby being told there was nothing to do but wait patiently until Paddy was out of surgery.