“Yes.” Josie retrieved the coffeepot and topped off both their cups with more of Wade’s hot, delicious coffee. “He just doesn’t think much of my expertise—yet. But I’m going to prove him wrong on that with my input in this job,” Josie told him determinedly.
Wade folded his arms in front of him and rested both his elbows on the table. “So your position here really is...?” he asked, keeping his eyes on hers.
Josie felt herself flushing under his continued scrutiny.
“Officially, as far as Big Jim goes, my position is just as lowly as I’ve said. Unofficially, well, let’s just say that Gus, Dieter and Ernie have all come to realize how much I really do know about the business and I, in turn, have welcomed the opportunity to share everything I learned at my dad’s elbow with them on this job. Hopefully, when we strike oil, and Big Jim understands the pivotal role I’ve played in our success, he’ll share that happiness, too, and give me a lot more responsibility.” At least she hoped so, Josie thought, as she cradled her coffee cup to her chest.
“Which brings us to the next point,” Wade said, casting a glance out the window. Noticing it had stopped raining, he picked up his coffee cup and escorted her onto the back porch. Cottony blue-gray clouds were streaking across the Texas sky, being buffeted about by a cool wind. The sun, surrounded by a starburst of pink, rose slowly in the east. “I’m thinking—considering this latest fiasco—that maybe it’s time we reassessed. And wait for Big Jim to get back from his consulting job in South America before we continue.”
Josie sighed her frustration. She took a long, slow sip of coffee. Although she had braced herself for just this eventuality, she had hoped it wouldn’t happen. Not that it really mattered. She had promised the guys that she’d give them time to get the drill up and running again. She was going to keep that promise.
Josie drained the rest of her coffee in a single draught. She looked him straight in the eye. “Not,” she said firmly, leading the way back inside and setting her cup aside, “before I show you something first.”
JOSIE’S CLOTHES WERE DRY. While she plucked them from the dryer and hurried off to dress, Wade went to check the fax machine for the fax that had supposedly come in earlier. As she came down the stairs, he was still on the phone. To his chagrin, the news was not good. “I understand,” he said in a low, grim tone. “Thanks. Some other time.” Without another word he hung up the phone and swung around to face her.
It was a relief to have her out of the sheet-and-shirt ensemble, to know she was no longer nearly naked beneath. It was all he’d been able to do earlier to keep his imagination in check—to stop from mentally disrobing her and making love to her, again and again and again.
Not that seeing her in jeans, T-shirt and work shirt was any less seductive, particularly when he knew—both from the way her breasts jiggled softly as she moved and the clothes he’d put in the dryer—that her panties consisted of a surprisingly delicate triangle of satin and lace, and she’d forgone wearing a bra.
Not that he had any business thinking of her this way, he reminded himself firmly. Or wondering how she would react if he gave in to his baser impulses, took her in his arms, undressed her slowly and kissed her senseless.
Josie focused on his expression. “Problem?” she asked curiously. Boots in hand, she sat down on the next-to-bottom step.
Wade frowned. He swallowed around the unaccustomed dryness of his throat, pushed the image of Josie—naked in his bed—from his mind. He was not going to find out how her hair would look spread across his pillow or know how soft and beautiful she was all over.
Aware she was still waiting for an answer and that she thought his peculiar mood related to the phone call, he replied, “Remember Andrea?”
Josie nodded. “The events planner who left you high and dry.”
Wade nodded, his attention shifting to the problem at hand. “Not only has she been tracking my progress at making arrangements for the party myself, but she has apparently prevailed upon all her colleagues in Houston to make sure I don’t get help from any of the best caterers or florists. Apparently Andrea and her friends have decided to make an example out of me.”
Josie made a sympathetic face as she worked her foot into the top of her red Western boot. “Have you considered using local merchants?”
Wade watched in fascination as Josie gripped the sides of her boot with both hands and simultaneously extended her long luscious showgirl leg away from her body. Her foot made a soft, swishing sound as it connected snugly with the sole. “Like you said,” Wade drawled, wishing her jeans weren’t quite so tight, her bottom so enticingly rounded, “it’s June. There are four weddings earlier in the day in Laramie, six at various churches on Friday evening and even more on Sunday. Needless to say, the area merchants already have their hands full. I know, ’cause I tried them first.”
Josie paused. Leaning forward, she rested the inside of her forearm on her knee and regarded him with bright-eyed speculation. “Have you tried Fort Worth or Dallas merchants?”
“That’s next on my list.” Struggling to keep his mind on the conversation, Wade wiped a bead of perspiration from his upper lip. “But where—and with whom—to start is a mystery to me. I’ve never thrown any parties in that part of the state.” The few he’d had, had always been in Houston.
Josie smiled at him confidently. “I know a few people there who arrange parties,” she told him reassuringly. “A couple of ’em even owe me a favor or two or three.” Josie extended her other leg and shoved her foot all the way into her boot in the same, deliberate, incredibly sensual, easy-to-watch process. Finished, she bounded cheerfully to her feet, slapped her hands on her hips and looked him straight in the eye. “I’ll be happy to help hook you up with them. But first—” she linked arms with him, the softness of her breasts lightly brushing his arm “—we’ve got to go out and do what we should have done first and look at the property.”
FIGURING HE OWED HER that much, Wade let Josie chart their expedition. She stopped by her trailer to get a topology map of the surrounding area and the property Wade owned. With Josie charting the way, they drove, then walked along the creek that wound through the Golden Slipper Ranch, studying the bends and the curves of the snaking waterbed now filled nearly to overflowing with the results of the previous night’s rain.
Together they noted the surface formations that—according to the “creekology” method pioneered by legendary wildcatter Hugh Roy Cullen and used extensively by Big Jim—indicated oil formations below. From there they visited several other sites in the general area where wells had been dug years before only to go dry shortly thereafter without producing much. Finally they went back to the desolate area where Josie and her team had decided to drill.
Standing a good distance back from the steel rig, where Ernie, Gus and Dieter were now working again, Josie turned and looked at Wade and said, “What do you see?”
Wade sighed and shrugged, his glance on the men on the drilling rig, who still had yet to get the drill going again. “A lost cause?” he guessed dryly.
Josie scowled. “Besides the current problem,” she said impatiently. Hands on her slender hips, she turned to face him.
Wade looked at the desolate landscape peppered with trees. Heaven knew, as grazing land it had never been worth much. Truth to tell, this particular section of his ranch wasn’t much to look at, either. “Cacti, scrub brush, cedar, mesquite—”
“I’m not talking vegetation,” Josie replied, looking irked. “I’m talking terrain.”
Reluctantly Wade turned his attention from her, to the topography.
“A flat area surrounding a big hill.”
Josie smiled, like a teacher regarding a particularly brilliant student. “Now, stand over here and take a deep breath and tell me what you smell,” she directed enthusiastically.
Wade drew a deep breath. “Sulphur.”
“Very good.” Her lusciously soft, bare lips forming a beautiful smile, Josie picked up some sog
gy dirt in her fist and transferred it to his palm. “And what is this?” she asked cheerfully.
Wade glanced down at the juxtaposition of her soft, delicate hands over his larger, rougher ones. “A mixture of mud, clay and sand.”
Josie’s grin widened. “In the history of Texas oil finds, what other big well had all these properties?” she quizzed enthusiastically, wiping her hands down the sides of her jeans.
“Spindletop.” Wade dropped the muddy soil back onto the ground and watched as Josie sensually scrubbed as much dirt as she could from her palms on her jeans.
“Bingo!” Josie said. She watched him rub the dirt from his hand the same way. “Not to mention the creekology fits,” she said eagerly, striding closer. “And the property also has significant underground deposits of sandstone and shale.”
“I know all that,” Wade said dryly as the increasingly warm breeze stirred shimmery dark brown strands of Josie’s hair. “I acquired this land and the oil and gas leases for it for that very reason,” he told her as he drank in the scent of her. “Because it looked promising.”
Josie planted her dirt-stained hands on her hips and tilted her chin up. “Then why are you so willing to give up now?” she demanded.
“Not give up,” Wade corrected, aware he would’ve liked nothing more at that moment than to haul her into his arms and kiss her again and again. “Put it on hold till Big Jim gets back,” he finished explaining his point of view firmly.
Josie’s chin thrust out mutinously. “We can do this, Wade,” she said.
“I know you think you can, Josie,” he said gently.
“But you’re not convinced.” Hurt resonated in Josie’s eyes.
“No.” He paused, knowing he should keep his emotions—his attraction to Josie—out of this equation. He knew full well business and pleasure did not mix. But he was unable to turn off his attraction to Josie, any more than he was able to curtail his growing desire to hold her in his arms and kiss her passionately again. “But you are,” he observed softly, wanting more than ever to understand her. “Why?”
“I’m not sure I can explain.” Josie turned away, looking uneasy again. Like she was afraid to reveal too much about herself to him.
Wade put his hands on her shoulders and turned her back to face him. He wanted them to trust each other, and the only way that would happen was if they also understood each other. In their business and their personal lives. “Try.”
Josie nudged the base of a cactus with her foot. Her expression became reflective. “My dad used to talk about what made the early independents successful. He said knowing where to dig was a combination of science, financial considerations and intuition.” The edge of her white teeth raked across the plumpness of her soft, bare lower lip. “I’ve seen Big Jim work—he has this amazing ability to figure out where the oil is. I’ll be honest with you,” Josie said softly, lifting her eyes to his with the trusting confession he’d been seeking. “I think I’ve got it, too.”
JOSIE WAITED FOR WADE TO SCOFF, laugh or otherwise belittle or make fun of her like so many others had. To her relief he did none of those things.
“And you feel it here,” he noted, continuing to study her resolutely. Compassion lit his eyes.
Josie nodded. “So strongly I can’t even begin to describe it,” she whispered. She paused, worrying her lower lip with her teeth, and looked deep into his eyes, finding all the understanding—and respect—she ever could have wanted there. “You don’t seem surprised,” she noted softly. In fact, unlike so many others, he didn’t doubt her at all.
Wade shrugged. “Maybe because I’ve got the same ability—in financial matters.” He took one of her hands in his and led her over to the back of his truck. He opened up the back. Hands on her waist, he lifted her up to sit with her legs hanging off the tailgate of the truck, then hoisted himself up to sit beside her. “I learned very early that I had a real knack for sizing up likely financial outcomes of any given situation.”
Josie relaxed beside him. “How young?”
Wade smiled, recollecting. He grabbed the thermos of orange juice they’d brought with them and poured some into the stainless steel cap that also doubled as a drinking cup. “I was eight when I began collecting stamps and coins.” His hand brushed hers as he handed her the icy cold juice. He watched as she lifted it to her lips and drank deeply.
“I started trading those, made a profit, and when I was ten used those proceeds to buy my first stock,” Wade continued filling her in companionably. “My folks used to shake their heads—they didn’t know where I got my intense interest in all things financial—but they were really great about it, too, in encouraging my interests. They let me get a paper route and invest all my earnings in whatever I chose.”
“Which was...?” Josie drained the cup.
“Gold, silver, more stocks and savings bonds.” Wade lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip. “I wanted a diverse portfolio even then.”
“Amazing,” Josie murmured.
“Nope.” Wade grinned. “Just me.” Wade knew he had plenty of shortcomings to balance his talents. Plenty of them. But he was still proud of what he had accomplished and, for reasons he wasn’t sure he wanted to examine closely, eager to share his experiences with Josie. “By the time I was in college I had so many things going I could pay my own way,” he admitted, aware it was going to be a blistering-hot day after all, despite the cooling rain they’d had just hours before.
“That must have delighted your parents.” Josie swung her legs back and forth, like a kid pumping a swing.
Wade looked at the way Josie had braced her hands on either side of her, her fingers curling around the edge of the truck bed. “With four sons to support and put through college, you bet it did. Anyway,” he tilted his head to the side, “afterward I was too busy overseeing my various investments to hold a regular job. And financially—because I’d been so careful to pick only top-returning investments—there was no need for me to do that. I had more than enough to live on and reinvest, and that’s when I branched out and began acquiring oil and gas leases, too.”
Josie sighed admiringly. “You’re really something.”
“So are you.” Wade gave in to the impulse and covered her hand with his own. He paused, delighting in the soft, warm feel of her skin and the pulse throbbing in her wrist. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman quite like you.”
Josie mugged at him and made no effort to pull away. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Were they flirting here? How had that happened? Wade wondered.
He had never been one to let business discussions veer off into the personal.
“Now—” Josie drew a deep, energizing breath and smiled “—to continue our discussion.” Her eyes glimmered merrily as she turned slightly to face him. She pointed a finger at him, like a professor addressing the class. “You know that with any given discovery well there are at least four dozen things that can go wrong during the drilling process.”
Wade rolled his eyes, loving the excited color that had come into her high, sculpted cheeks. “At least.”
Josie leaned toward him intimately. “And, to pick up your lesson in the history of Texas wildcatting—you do know who Hugh Roy Cullen was, don’t you?”
Wade nodded. “Absolutely.”
“Then you probably also know his motto?” Josie guessed.
“Dig a Little Deeper than Anyone Else.”
Josie grinned, looking sexy as hell. “That, cowboy, is exactly what I think we should do.”
In the distance there was a whoop at the derrick, then a thumbs-up from Gus and the guys as the drill got going again. Josie grinned, gave a thumbs-up back, and slapped Wade on the thigh. “Is that a sign or what?” she crowed gleefully.
SIGN OR NO, Wade soon found himself agreeing to let Josie and the team continue drilling the discovery well in Big Jim’s absence. That settled, and with everything well under control at the site, Josie insisted they get down to work on the p
arty for his parents.
“I just need to change into some clean clothes,” Josie told Wade as she led the way into her trailer. “The only problem is,” Josie said, as she sidestepped the huge pile of laundry on the floor and sifted through the empty drawers in her bedroom and the row of empty hangers in her closet, “I don’t have anything clean left.”
Wade lounged in the doorway to her bedroom. Josie wasn’t sure how and when they had got so comfortable with each other, she just knew that they had, and that she liked it—maybe a lot more than she should.
He studied the disarray with cheerful disdain. “Looks like you could use some help. Come on. Gather up your clothes and we’ll take them over to the ranch house and you can do laundry there while we work on the party arrangements.”
Josie sighed. “I’ve got to admit I wouldn’t mind taking care of two things at once.” Particularly since she had no idea when she’d have time to take everything to the coin laundry in Laramie.
“Good. Then it’s settled.” He winked. “Hell, if you can find me a caterer for Friday night, I may even teach you how to make a great cup of coffee.”
Josie shoved her laundry into three big duffel-style laundry bags. “You just keep dreaming, cowboy.”
“I just may.”
While Wade tossed her laundry into the back of his Expedition, Josie went over to have a word with Gus. He used a red bandana to wipe the perspiration from his face while she filled him in on her plans.
“McCabe doesn’t know about the oil strike in South America yet, does he?” Gus growled as protectively as any father, as soon as she had finished.
“No,” Josie retorted stubbornly, feeling a lecture she most certainly did not want to hear coming on. “And with any luck at all, he won’t until after we strike oil here, too.”
“You’re taking a big risk, keeping him in the dark this way,” Gus predicted direly.
Especially, Josie thought, when she was also getting close to him.
Wildcat Cowboy (The McCabes of Texas #2) Page 11