Wildcatter's Woman

by Janet Dailey

  Tears raced into her eyes, despite her effort to blink them away. She started to reach for the white hand extruding from the plastic cocoon, then hesitated and glanced at the doctor. He silently nodded his permission. She curled her hand around the limp fingers.

  “Phillip.” There was a thready run in her voice, and Vanessa paused to steady it. “It’s me. Vanessa. I’m here, and everything’s going to be all right.”

  With tears blurring her eyes, she was just able to see his faint stirring at the sound of her voice. His eyelids fluttered, briefly fighting the sedation. She saw his lips moving in a soundless effort to speak, but she couldn’t make out what he was trying to say. She glanced mutely at the doctor.

  “I believe he is asking for his son,” the doctor guessed. “Is his name Pierce?”

  “No, it’s Race.” But the two names would look similar when trying to read someone’s lips, Vanessa realized. “He’ll be here, Phillip,” she insisted. “You rest for a while.”

  He appeared to relax, believing her, when she had no idea how long it might be before Race was notified about his father. The doctor touched her elbow to signify she had stayed long enough.

  In the outer hallway again, the doctor stopped. “Perhaps you should try to contact your husband again, Mrs. Cantrell.”

  Something in his tone alarmed Vanessa. “Is Phillip’s condition more serious than I was led to believe?”

  “He is responding very well to the treatment, Mrs. Cantrell, but I don’t want your father-in-law to be subjected to undue anxieties. I want him to stay as calm as possible. And I don’t think that state is going to be achieved until he sees his son,” the doctor explained.

  “I understand,” she murmured.

  “There’s a telephone in the waiting room you can use.” He gestured in the general direction of the room.

  While Vanessa hesitated, trying to find a way to explain why she didn’t want to speak to Race, the doctor walked quietly away. She was glad, then, that she hadn’t protested. Under the circumstances, it would have been petty. This wasn’t the time to be concerned about her bitter differences with Race. Phillip wanted him here.

  She entered the waiting room and walked straight to the telephone. The fat phone book sat on the lower shelf of the table where the phone rested. Pulling it out, Vanessa sat down on the straight chair and balanced the phone book on her lap. She flipped through the white pages to the back of the book and stopped to run her finger down the W section until she found the listing of Westcat Oil and Gas Company.

  Ignoring the uneven murmuring of her heart, she dialed the number. There was a moistness in her palms as she held the receiver tightly and listened to the ringing on the other end of the line.

  A woman’s voice answered. “Good morning. Westcat. May I help you?”

  Before Vanessa could respond, there was a partially muffled sound of laughter in the background. “I’d like to speak to Race Cantrell, please,” Vanessa requested stiffly.

  “I’m sorry, he isn’t here.” There was an underlining hint of laughter in the woman’s voice that Vanessa resented. “May I give him a message?”

  “When do you expect him?” she demanded.

  “I don’t expect Mr. Cantrell in the office for several days,” was the reply. In the background, a man’s voice murmured, “While the cat’s away—” But the rest of his phrase was silence by a loud “Sssh” by the woman on the phone. “However, he will be checking in with me.”

  “It’s imperative that I speak to him right away,” Vanessa asserted. “Is there another number where I could reach him?”

  “No, I’m sorry. Mr. Cantrell is at one of the drilling sites. And there isn’t any phone there,” the woman explained. “If you would care to leave your name and a message, I can pass it on to him. He should be calling me this noon.”

  “Very well.” Vanessa released a long breath. “Tell him that Vanessa called. Vanessa Cantrell. It’s extremely urgent that I speak to him… on an important family matter.” Like Sybil, she discovered that she was reluctant to flatly leave a message of Phillip’s heart attack.

  There was a slight pause before the woman came back on the line to ask, “You are his ex-wife?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed with a faint snap to her voice.

  “Is there a number you wish to leave?” The woman didn’t sound as friendly this time.

  Vanessa gave her the number on the telephone in the waiting room. “I’ll wait for his call. Please stress that it is an emergency when you give him my message.”

  “I will.” But the woman sounded indifferent.

  “Thank you.” After hanging up the receiver, Vanessa discovered she was trembling. She stared at the phone a moment longer, awash again with the bitter anger and hurt that had marked the end of her marriage.

  She moved away from the telephone and took a seat on the sofa, forcing her thoughts to Phillip in an effort to rid herself of the bad taste left by old memories. A nurse stopped by the waiting room and gave Vanessa a cup of black coffee. She shrugged aside the suggestion to have lunch in the hospital cafeteria. She had no appetite for food, subconsciously choosing to stay close to the telephone in case Race called.

  At one-thirty the doctor walked past, then retraced his steps to pause in the waiting-room doorway. “Have you spoken to your husband yet, Mrs. Cantrell?”

  “No. I left word for him to call me here.” Vanessa nodded to the silent telephone on the table.

  He sighed heavily, a grimness tightening his mouth. “Maybe you should try him again.” The grim line curved upward in a semblance of a smile before he continued down the corridor.

  Moistening her dry lips, Vanessa glanced at the phone. It was well past the lunch hour. The woman had said Race would be calling around noon. Surely he had received her message by now, so why hadn’t he phoned? After a minor debate whether to call now or wait a little longer, Vanessa walked to the phone and dialed the number from memory. The same woman’s voice answered the phone.

  “This is Vanessa Cantrell again,” she said briskly. “Have you spoken to Race yet?”

  There was a long hesitation. “Mrs. Cantrell, of course, I recognize your voice. How are you?” It was a falsely bright reply.

  Vanessa recognized the stalling tactic. “Did Mr. Cantrell call you at noon?” she demanded.

  “Well, yes, he did,” the woman admitted with obvious reluctance.

  “Did you give him my message?” Her fingers curled tighter around the telephone receiver.

  “I did, Mrs. Cantrell,” the woman insisted defensively. “Hasn’t he called you?”

  Anger began building up inside her, a slow simmer heating her temper. “I have the feeling that you know very well that he hasn’t called,” Vanessa accused.

  “I gave him the message,” the woman repeated.

  “What did he say when you relayed it to him?” she asked, her suspicion growing into a certainty.

  “Mrs. Cantrell, he made no reply whatsoever.” Her answer was very definite.

  “His father has had a heart attack.” Vanessa ignored the gasp of dismay that come over the phone. “Now, will you tell me where I can find your employer? You said he was at a drilling site. Which one?”

  “It’s located in Assumption Parish. Mrs. Cantrell, there really isn’t a telephone at the site,” the woman inserted, in case Vanessa thought she had lied about that. “The best I can do is leave a message at the motel where he’s staying, but I can’t be sure when he would receive it.”

  Vanessa didn’t need an explanation of that. There had been many nights spent alone while they were married, with Race wandering in during the wee hours of the morning after working most of the night on drilling rigs. Once a well was spudded in, the drilling went on twenty-four hours a day as long as the money lasted.

  “Don’t bother,” Vanessa replied. “I could probably drive there and back by the time he’d receive your message. Assumption Parish is near Thibodaux, isn’t it?” In Louisiana, there were no counti
es. The state was sectioned into parishes.

  “Yes, it’s just northeast of Thibodaux.”

  “Give me directions to the drilling site.” She opened her purse and took out a small notebook with a pen attached.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE STATE road followed the meandering course of Bayou Lafourche, its banks clustered with homes belonging to a population of mainly Cajun fishermen working the shrimp fleets. Any other time, Vanessa would have found the drive picturesque, but she was tensely watching for her turnoff onto a side road. Even then, she almost missed it, seeing it at the last minute.

  Within minutes, moss-draped trees increased in numbers on either side of the road. Vanessa slowed her silver-gray Porsche to read the last part of the directions again. The homes had thinned out, which meant fewer chances of asking directions.

  Another three miles, she saw the sign she was looking for on the fence gate. It read: “Boar’s Head #1, Westcat Oil and Gas.” She turned the car onto the narrow, rutted lane that led into the trees. She was nearly to the site before she could make out the skeletal steel of the drilling rig rising into the air.

  There was little to distinguish this drilling site from hundreds of others Vanessa had seen when she reached it. A mud-spattered office trailer was parked to one side, with three equally dirty pickup trucks lined up in front of it. The drilling rig rose as high as the tree-tops, its pounding noise drowning out all other sounds in the quiet bayou country.

  Vanessa stopped her car midway between the trailer and the drilling rig. Switching off the engine, she left the keys in the ignition and her purse on the passenger seat as she climbed out. Her high heels immediately sank into the soft earth, drawing an impatient curse as she quickly picked her way to drier ground. There was little of it in this low-lying area.

  A man stepped out of the trailer and swung off the high step onto the ground. His muscled, chunky body was clad in a sweat-stained white T-shirt and khaki drill pants. He wore boots and a hard hat, typical of the half-dozen or so other workers on the rig. The man came to an abrupt stop, halting like a statue at the sight of the chicly dressed brunette in her white skirt and teal-blue blouse.

  “Is Race Cantrell in the trailer?” Vanessa shouted, not wanting to ford the mud-puddle-strewn ground between herself and the trailer if he wasn’t.

  The man cupped a hand to his ear to indicate he couldn’t hear above the noise of the drilling rig. The throbbing din was eroding her already thin control. Vanessa took a deep breath, fighting down the waves of irritation, and cupped both hands to her mouth to form a megaphone and shouted her question again. This time the roughneck shook his head in a negative answer and pointed toward the rig.

  Turning, but being careful to keep to her patch of dry ground, Vanessa scanned the workers on the rig, trying to pick out Race from among them. With everyone in hard hats, it was difficult to distinguish one from the another. Impatiently she began picking her way toward the rig, forced to watch the marshy ground if she wanted to avoid ruining her shoes.

  A couple of shrill wolf whistles pierced the pulsating din of the drill being driven into the ground. Vanessa paused to look up and get her bearings. The rig floor was roughly ten feet above ground level with a set of steps allowing access.

  Two men stood near the top of them, both halfturned toward her. Despite the distance and the hard hat that shaded most of his face, Vanessa recognized Race’s tall, flatly muscled figure, instantly identifying him as the man on the right. It was something in his stance—in the way he carried himself—that always suggested latent power concealed behind looselimbed ease. She noticed it now and could almost feel his gaze boring into her. Her pulse began to beat loudly in her ears, as if suddenly trying to compete with the rhythmic hammering of the drill. For a split second she wanted to turn and get as far away from him as possible. Then she remembered her purpose in coming and squared her shoulders on a determined angle.

  Vanessa didn’t have to be an expert in lip-reading to understand the order Race gave the man at his side. He was being told to “Get her out of here,” and it was emphasized by the dismissing jerk of his hand. Her lips were compressed into a thin, tight line as Vanessa started forward again.

  Before she reached the bottom of the steps, she was met by the man Race had sent to intercept her. Somewhere in his mid-thirties, the same age as Race, he was easily six feet, although not as tall as Race. His expression was decidedly unfriendly as he gripped her arm in his gloved hand and propelled her around to head back the way she’d come.

  “This is a restricted area,” he informed her coldly. “No unauthorized personnel are allowed. You’ll have to leave.”

  Vanessa didn’t attempt to struggle until she had solid ground under her feet. Her initial acquiescence had lulled the man into thinking she wasn’t going to argue. Surprise flashed across his face when she suddenly stopped and pulled her arm free of his loose hold. She was doing a slow boil at Race’s high-handed attempt to send someone else to get rid of her. An amethyst fire glittered in her eyes when she turned on him. “I’m not going anywhere,” she warned. “So you can march right back up there on that rig and tell that to your boss.”

  “This is a hard-hat area—” the man began in tightlipped protest.

  “Then I’ll wait in the trailer.” Vanessa cut across his sentence and swung away to stalk across the moisture-laden ground.

  Another worker was just coming out of the trailer as Vanessa reached it. There was a quagmire of mud directly beneath the metal step. If the worker hadn’t extended a helping hand to pull her onto the high step, she doubted if she could have bridged the mud and kept her balance. She was too incensed to do more than nod a curt thanks for the assistance and ignore the slightly lascivious rake of the worker’s glance as she brushed past him on the narrow flight of steps to go inside.

  The long trailer was a combination of office, rec room, and bunkhouse all in one. The closed door shut out much of the drilling noise, creating a modicum of quiet. While the trailer offered a break from the glaring sun, it didn’t lessen the oppressive humidity. A rotating fan whirred in the corner, circulating the heavy air.

  Vanessa barely had time to glance around the cluttered jumble before the door opened behind her and the man who had attempted to escort her off the drilling site entered. Conscious that a display of temper would not accomplish any purpose, Vanessa tried to hold it in check.

  “Would you please inform Race that it’s imperative that I speak with him?” she requested with tautly coached politeness.

  The man’s glance touched her briefly and coolly, but he made no immediate response. He crossed the narrow width of the trailer and stopped in front of a tall avocado-green coffee urn sitting on a water-stained table. With growing irritation Vanessa watched him slide a white cup under the spigot and fill it with thick black coffee. He partially turned to look at her and lifted the cup to his mouth, taking a sip of it. With deliberate rudeness, he failed to offer her a cup of coffee.

  “Race is busy,” he finally responded to her request. “You can leave a message and I’ll give it to him later.”

  “Oh, no,” Vanessa breathed in angrily. “I didn’t come all this way from New Orleans to be pawned off on some underling.”

  “That’s your problem, Mrs. Cantrell—not mine,” he replied with bland indifference.

  She stiffened when he said her name, suddenly realizing the cause of his hostile attitude. “You men are always closing ranks to protect one another. Because I’m the ex-wife, that automatically makes me the villain of the piece, is that it?” she challenged.

  “I wouldn’t know, Mrs. Cantrell.” He took another sip of his coffee.

  “Look, Mr … whoever you are…”

  “Jeb Bannon,” he supplied his name.

  “Look, Mr. Bannon,” Vanessa picked up where she’d left off, her voice trembling with anger, “I don’t know why you think I’m here, but I’ve driven all this way to let Race know that—”

  The door opened,
letting in all the outside noise. Vanessa swung around at the interruption to face the door. Her angry outburst was stopped cold by the unexpected appearance of Race. For the span of a hard hitting second, there was a lock of clashing glances and no movement.

  Some half-remembered sensation quivered through her nerve ends as his glance broke from hers. The door was shut with a decisive click. Vanessa hadn’t expected four short years to make any changes in him, but they had. She began noticing the small differences the minute Race puled off his hard hat with its decal of a snarling wildcat. There had always been the reckless glitter of wanderlust in his brown eyes, but that dark gleam had hardened with cynicism—a cynicism that had etched deeper lines in his sun-browned face, giving his lean male features a certain harshness. Maturity and experience had marked him with invisible scars of battles lost, but Vanessa sensed Race was the stronger for it and would ultimately win the war.

  The hard hat was hooked on a wall peg and left to hang there as Race crossed to the coffee urn, peeling off his gloves and slapping them down on the table. He combed his fingers through the thickness of his dark, nearly black hair, carelessly rumpling it.

  “I want to look over the well log, Jeb.” Clean cups were overturned on a coffee-stained cloth. Race took one of them and righted it, filling it with coffee from the urn’s spigot.

  As the second man in the trailer went to retrieve the electrical record of the geological formations penetrated by the well, Vanessa realized that Race had not addressed a single word to her. That one glance when he came into the trailer had been the only time he acknowledged her presence. Resentment bristled along her spine at the way he was ignoring her. When the two men huddled in front of a littered desk to pore over the records, Vanessa stalked to the side of the desk to forcibly intrude.

  “Pretending I’m not here won’t make me go away, Race Cantrell.” She curled her fingernails into her palms.

  There was a brief silence, during which he didn’t look up, not even when he finally spoke. “That would be wishful thinking, I suppose.” The dryness of his tone was cutting.