by Jo Barrett
Wearing the tiara like a helmet, she stood there firm. And naked.
Dylan’s gaze fell upon her and he stopped in the middle of the water and stared.
“What on earth are you doing, Kathleen?” he asked, looking stunned. This was the first time Kat had been naked on the ranch. She knew she must look a sight. Standing in the middle of the stream on the Wishing Rock, with her hands planted firmly on her hips, wearing a diamond tiara.
And then Dylan said something that made Kat’s heart fall into her stomach.
“Get dressed, please.”
His voice was quiet. Eerily quiet. And Kat felt as if she’d been sucker punched. She grabbed her T-shirt, balled it up, and threw it at his head.
“Hey! What’s the matter with you, Kathleen?”
“You’re making a mistake, Dylan Charles Grant!” she shouted. Kat was angry now. She shimmied her jeans back on and her boots, and kicked the water so that it splashed up high into Dylan’s face.
“Jeez, wild Kat! Settle down now,” Dylan commanded her. He boosted himself up onto the Wishing Rock and handed her the now soaking wet T-shirt.
“Let me help you put this on,” he said. Kat struggled as he tried to pull the T-shirt down over her head.
“Jesus, woman. What’s gotten into you?”
Kat wouldn’t cry. Not in a million years. Not ever. She shook her head violently to keep the tears from spilling.
“You’re making a mistake,” she hiccupped.
“I don’t think so.” Dylan cupped her chin in his hand and stared deeply into her eyes. Kat nearly fainted on the spot. She made a quick wish on the Wishing Rock and saw a flash of white light that she suspected could only be divine intervention.
Before she knew what was happening, Dylan was dropping down onto one knee. He’d pulled something out of his pocket. Something shiny. Something that glinted in the sun and flashed into her eyes.
It was…a ring.
“Kathleen Connor King,” Dylan said in a formal tone.
Oh my Lord, Kathleen thought. He’s proposing!
“I know that times have been a bit rough, lately. But it’s in times like these that our relationship shows its true colors,” Dylan said. He stared up at her and his eyes became moist.
“Kathleen…will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Kathleen felt his hand touch hers. He kissed the top of her palm, as if she were a real live princess.
“B-b-but,” she stuttered. “What about the babies?”
“We’ll find a way. Just like other people do,” Dylan said quietly.
Kathleen looked down into his solid eyes, and she knew her answer.
“Yes,” she said. “A million times, yes!”
Dylan broke into a smile. He rolled the ring gently onto her engagement finger. It was too big for her, but Kathleen couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw it.
The sapphire was cut in a way that revealed its deep natural blue color, with two half-moon-shaped diamonds on either side. Quite simply, it was stunning.
“Dylan!” she breathed. “Where on earth?”
“My mother,” he said. “And before that, my grandmother. And before that…” He shrugged. “Let’s just say it’s been in the family a long time.”
Kathleen couldn’t help herself. She threw her arms around Dylan’s neck and showered his face with kisses. It might have been sappy, but this was the most blissful day of her life.
Dylan was laughing. “You got so angry when I told you to get dressed. But I didn’t want us to remember this moment with you being naked and all,” he said.
Kathleen giggled. She couldn’t stop staring at her hand. She loved that it was a sapphire. She loved that Dylan had given her a family heirloom. And she loved that he’d chosen this place, of all the places in the world, to ask for her hand in marriage.
The Wishing Rock had done its duty. Things couldn’t be more perfect.
Thirty-three
They’d decided to take a little hike around the ranch. Since Kat’s clothes were soaking wet, Dylan had hung them up on a tree. Kat was hiking in her snake boots, panties, and bra. On her finger was an antique sapphire, and on her head, a diamond tiara.
There goes my woman, Dylan thought, watching Kat expertly maneuver around some tough terrain. She was a tomboy in some respects, having grown up with such a tough grandfather. Kat’s mother had died early on.
Dylan had met Kat’s mother only once, and the memory was a foggy one. He remembered her being glamorous, the most glamorous woman in the entire room. Like a butterfly, she’d swept in and fluttered around everyone, casting a warm glow wherever she went. He remembered her looking down at him—he was just a kid—and then bending down to wipe some smudge off his face.
“Handsome boy,” she’d murmured, which had caused Dylan to blush. This was his only memory of Kat’s mother. As he watched his new fiancée climb over rocks and trudge through the sharp grasses that made up this unforgiving ranch terrain, he wondered if she didn’t have more of her grandfather in her than anyone. Cullen Davis King was considered Texas nobility if there ever was such a thing, but he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. One of the most famous photos taken of Kathleen’s grandfather showed him out in an oil field, his clothes and face streaked with black, working right alongside the rig men.
If anything, Kat had this type of…gravitas.
Dylan picked up a rock that was smooth and flat and perfect for skimming, and flicked it across the stream. The rock bounced twice and sank. He bent down to pick up another rock, and froze in his tracks.
A patch of crude bubbled up from a patchy hole in the ground. Dylan bent down and stuck his fingers in the hole. Then he smelled what could only be described as the sweetest smell on earth.
I’ll be damned…
He knew exactly what oil in its natural state looked like.
The Tangled Spur had always been considered dry. For years Cullen Davis King had drilled for oil on other people’s land, and rumor had it that his own land was cursed to be forever dry. Which was why he’d sought it elsewhere.
Kathleen had always assumed her land was dry, because the neighbors didn’t have wells drilled on their property, either. The law in Texas was the law of capture. That was, you could build a well on your own land as long as it was four hundred and sixty-seven feet from the property line of your neighbor’s property. Then you could drain your neighbor’s minerals, because under Texas law, you could capture anything underneath the ground as long as the drill site was on your own property. If your neighbor got mad, his only remedy was to drill his own hole and try to drain the minerals faster.
Dylan whistled for Kat. “Hey, hon! Come take a look,” he called out.
Kat came scrabbling back toward him. “What is it, my dear fiancé?” she asked. She had now started calling him her “dear fiancé,” and it seemed as though the name would stick.
Dylan pointed to the hole.
Kat pinched her nose. “Eew. What’s that smell?”
“How did your grandfather determine that this land was dry?” Dylan asked.
Kat’s eyes grew wide, and her lips started to tremble.
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“See this rock. Look at the grease slick.” Dylan pointed to the ground. “Now, I don’t know what’s down there. It could just be some surface stuff and nothing to get too excited about, but heck, we could be standing on a damned ocean!”
Kat crossed her arms over her chest. “No. It can’t be. Pa Pa would’ve known,” she said. “He wouldn’t have let something that huge go by the wayside.”
Dylan dropped the rock and kicked it. She was right. Tangled Spur had been Cullen Davis’s ranch for as long as anyone could remember. And Kat’s grandfather had spent so much time on this land, he surely would’ve noticed a patch of bubbling crude.
Dylan figured that Kat’s grandfather had seen the patch and ignored it. The land possibly had a bit of surface oil, but nothing worth drilling
deep for.
A deep rig, one that could drill down thousands of feet, cost well into the millions to run—and that money could be lost in an instant if the rig encountered a dry hole.
If Cullen Davis King, a man who was known for taking extraordinary risks, hadn’t bothered, then there was probably nothing there.
Dylan shrugged. “Well, it’s nice to know the Tangled Spur isn’t as dry as we thought,” he said.
He and Kat hiked back to the pickup truck. He watched as she put her clothes back on and climbed into the passenger seat.
“I think I’m over the tiara,” she said, taking it off her head and slipping it inside the glove box.
Dylan dug the heel of his boot into the dirt. “I bet I could pay off Wyatt’s entire gambling debt with that thing.”
“Yeah, but the wrath of Shelby Lynn Pierce is much worse than those casino sharks,” Kat said. “Plus I told her I’d return it over the weekend.”
Dylan thought about the weekend. Saturday was just three days away. He considered telling Kat about the heist, about the map he was planning to steal from Bo Harlan’s office, but decided against it.
It had been a beautiful day. He didn’t want to spoil the memory of their engagement with petty details of a breaking and entering.
“I’m hungry,” Kat said.
“I hear you,” Dylan replied. He walked around to the driver’s side and jumped into the truck.
As he pulled toward the gate, he considered the hole he’d found. He was comfortable with forgetting about it. But that nagging feeling of what if kept tugging at him. What if Cullen Davis had died before telling anyone about an ocean of oil underneath his property? What if he’d known but had kept it a secret?
Dylan reached the gate. He shielded his eyes from the searing Texas sun and took one last glance around. A group of deer were clustered underneath some trees, but that was about it.
What he really wanted to do was drive the perimeter of the entire ranch, just to see if Cullen Davis had staked a well. It would be simple to spot. A single stake hammered into the ground at the site where an oil well should be drilled.
“Your fiancée needs a taco,” Kat called out.
Dylan locked the gate and jogged back toward the pickup.
“Coming right up, my fiancée,” he said.
Thirty-four
Fridays were balloon day. Kathleen moved confidently from room to room at the hospital delivering balloons to all her children. For the kids who were well enough to sit up in bed, she tied balloons around their tiny wrists. For the others, she left the balloons on their windowsills. Read them books. And checked their charts with the nurses.
When Kat reached Diego’s room, she gasped. The boy had undergone a complex brain surgery that Dr. Levin had called “successful.”
She was expecting Diego to be in recovery. Sitting up in his bed, with his head shaved and bald, watching cartoons or playing with some of the toys Kat had left on his nightstand.
Diego looked comatose beneath a tangle of wires. He was breathing through a respirator, and hooked up to a monitor that beeped constantly to show his vital signs.
One of the nurses buzzed into the room, tapped at a hanging IV bag, and wrote down Diego’s vitals in his chart.
“What…happened?” Kathleen choked.
“His lung collapsed,” the nurse said. “And he came down with a serious infection to boot.”
Kat’s hand shot to her mouth and she nearly gagged. She knew that it wasn’t possible to save every child. Pediatric cancer was a formidable adversary. But she’d made a promise to Diego’s parents. A promise she intended to keep.
“Where’s Dr. Levin?” she demanded.
The nurse checked her watch. “In his office, I believe. He doesn’t do rounds for another hour.”
Kat nodded and approached Diego’s bedside. He had a tube taped over his mouth that ran down into his throat, and his chest was rising and falling in steady rhythm with the respirator. She reached down and caressed his warm hand.
“You are a strong boy,” she whispered. “Do you hear me, Diego? You are a strong, strong boy. And you will get through this!”
Kathleen closed her eyes and said a quiet prayer.
“Ms. King?” a voice said, from behind her.
Kathleen whirled around. It was Dr. Levin. His eyes seemed sad, and his white lab coat was covered with what looked like an old coffee stain.
“One of the nurses paged me,” he explained.
“I was just on my way to your office,” Kat said.
Dr. Levin walked over to Diego and checked his monitor. Then he flipped open a metal chart and read over the results. “This is a tough one.” He sighed.
“Don’t tell me that,” Kathleen said. “I want to hear good news with this one.”
Dr. Levin leveled a hard stare at her. “I’m afraid I don’t have good news. I tried to call you but it went straight to voice mail.”
Kathleen bit the bottom of her lip. “I was out at the ranch and my cell phone doesn’t get reception.”
Dr. Levin motioned for her to follow him. “Come with me.” He ambled down the hallway toward his office.
Kat followed him. Her body had gone into shiver mode, and she couldn’t stop her limbs from quaking as she walked.
Inside his office, Dr. Levin took off his lab coat and changed into a fresh one he had hanging behind the door.
“Damned hot chocolate,” he said, pointing out the stain. He flicked a finger in the air and said, “I can’t see without my eyeglasses. Don’t ever get old.”
Kathleen attempted a smile. Leave it to Dr. Levin to try and provide some levity. “Have a seat,” he said. He dragged a stack of files off one of the chairs and motioned for her to sit.
“Where are Diego’s parents?” she asked.
“The mother and father both work two jobs,” Dr. Levin said. “They come at night. Sometimes they sleep in the chapel on the pews.”
Kathleen swallowed. “Have you told them?”
Dr. Levin plopped down into his chair. He rested his hands across his broad belly, with his fingers interlaced. He furrowed his brow, and Kathleen noticed the deep wrinkles fanned out across his forehead. She didn’t know how old Dr. Levin was, but his age was starting to take a toll.
“We’re making Diego as comfortable as possible,” he said in a low tone. “But I think it’s time we tell the parents that his prognosis doesn’t look promising.”
“There’s nothing left we can do?”
“Kathleen, we do the best we can. And you’ve made that possible.”
Kathleen waved her hand as if to say: Don’t bother thanking me.
“I’ll tell his parents,” she said.
Dr. Levin patted his stomach. “You’re the only person at this hospital who speaks Spanish better than me.”
“You don’t speak Spanish.”
“Exactly.”
Kathleen shook her head. “Don’t try to be a comedian,” she said. “This is not the time.”
Dr. Levin nodded. “You don’t have to do it. We have the grief counselor.”
“I want to.”
Kathleen thanked Dr. Levin. She walked as if in a trance toward the chapel. It was five o’clock. Diego’s parents should be arriving any time now. And it was up to her to inform them that their son was dying.
Thirty-five
“No, no,” Diego’s mother was crying uncontrollably. She dropped to her knees, clasped her hands together, and shook her fists toward the heavens.
Diego’s father sat solemnly in a pew. His face was ashen, the face of a man in extreme anguish. But he didn’t shed tears. It was as if his body was too tired to produce them.
Kathleen rested her hand on his shoulder. She noticed how weak he felt underneath his shirt.
She’d started off by telling them the hospital had done everything they could. They’d attempted an operation that few hospitals even attempt, with equipment that few hospitals even have. But Diego’s brain tumor was spr
eading. His lung had collapsed. And an infection was ravaging his body and making everything worse.
It was only a matter of time, she’d said.
Diego’s father raised his head and looked into her eyes.
“¿Cuándo?” he asked, which meant When? When would his son die? When would he have to endure the pain of this reality?
I don’t know. Kathleen shook her head. “No lo sé,” she replied.
“No, no, no!” Diego’s mother cried out. She shook her fists up toward the ceiling, as if fighting off an invisible demon.
Kat was at a loss. She didn’t know what else to do. So she dropped down onto her knees next to Diego’s mother, grabbed the woman’s hands in her own, and began to pray.
Thirty-six
Saturday was the day of the big heist. Dylan, Wyatt, C. Todd Hartwell, and Steve had taken a vote. They’d conduct the “operation” around dusk, when the sun was just beginning to set. This was the least likely time for anyone to be in the building, and yet it would still be light enough outside, so they wouldn’t have to use flashlights. Flashlights might look suspicious coming from the windows of the Titan offices.
“Just dress normally,” Dylan had said. “We don’t want to look like a bunch of men in black.”
The plan was simple. C. Todd Hartwell would unlock the building with the key he’d “borrowed” from Bo Harlan’s sexy little secretary. Dylan and Steve would unload the heater and bring it up the service elevator, while Wyatt changed out of his normal clothes and into the Mylar suit.
The four men would “rendezvous” outside Bo Harlan’s office. There, they would jack up the heater to raise the temperature to around one hundred degrees. And Wyatt would slowly approach and dismantle the alarm.
Once inside Harlan’s personal office, C. Todd Hartwell and Dylan would find the seismic map and make copies, while Steve and Wyatt dumped the heater and the Mylar suit. The four burglars would exit the building one at a time so as not to arouse suspicion, and get into the yellow Hummer driven by Achmed which would be circling the block.
