All pretense of gallantry vanished from the man’s eyes with the swiftness of a summer storm. Jerking himself into a rigid upright position, he swept the hat in question from his head and glared at her. The fact that his thick dark hair was tousled and wet with sweat made him look no less sexy, no less imposing than a bodyguard. He typified the expression “glowering good looks.”
“I don’t give a damn if you’re a geologist or the Pope’s own emissary, a drilling rig is no place for a lady—even if I do use the term loosely,” he barked, crowding down onto the step beside her.
Caitlin had to turn sideways to avoid backing down. The step was so narrow that she was sure the man could feel her heart thumping wildly inside of her chest as it brushed against his. At the contact, she felt a jolt of pure sexual energy race though her, short-circuiting the electrodes that connected her brain to her body. Frozen in place, she gaped at him as if seeing Frankenstein’s monster come to life.
“I’m not going to tell you again,” he said. “If you don’t turn around right now and clear out on your own, I’ll be forced to bodily remove you from the premises.”
It took every bit of Caitlin’s self-restraint to keep from slapping the smirk right off that handsome face. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he meant what he said. An image of herself slung over this barbarian’s shoulder like so much chattel to the crew’s gleeful delight made her shudder. She had worked too hard and come too far to be dismissed in such a comic, brutal manner.
This wasn’t at all how she had envisioned her first day on the job.
One of the men gathered about the drilling floor hollered out, “Betcha Harry wouldn’t be so quick to run off such a fine-looking geologist.”
“Don’t mind him, sweetheart. Come on up,” entreated another. “You can check out my rocks anytime!”
Grant whipped his head around like a rattlesnake ready to strike. Just what he didn’t need—an audience to observe some saucy college girl bent on undermining his authority. The fact that the crew was enjoying the show only served to strengthen his resolve to get her out of here before all hell broke loose. That and the fact that she was trying to blink back the moisture in her eyes.
Damn it all to hell! The one thing in the world Grant couldn’t handle was a woman’s tears. A moment ago he was contemplating whether to hoist her over his shoulder. Now suddenly he found himself wanting to enfold the poor little thing in his arms and protect her from the crudity of men who saw but one thing in a woman. Looking at the youthful hope, the unquenchable resolve burning in this girl’s eyes, he realized such chivalry would be as useless as trying to stop a moth from immolating itself on a bare lightbulb.
“I thought I told you to get back to work!” Grant called out over his shoulder.
If he were ever able to pinpoint who’d uttered that crude piece of innuendo that had this pretty little thing blushing six unbecoming shades of red, he intended to personally throttle him.
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