Caitlin looked at Grant.
Grant looked at Caitlin.
They provided one another a perfect mirror of their utter incredulity. Laura Leigh might as well have told them she was running off to join the circus as to have made such a preposterous claim.
“I know it was wrong of me, but you have to know that it was your happiness I was thinking of. Why, anybody could see that you two were meant for one another.” The little catch in Paddy’s voice exposed the truth of Laura Leigh’s allegations.
“Anybody but us, apparently?” Caitlin asked numbly. The fact that her father could be so conniving was taking time to sink in.
Sheepishly Paddy nodded his head. “You two were mighty pigheaded when it came to seeing what was right before your eyes. You have to believe that I was acting in your best interest. And for a while there, the doctors really did think I was a goner. Is it so much to ask to wish for grandchildren at my age? And what beautiful children they would surely be. And smart of course,” he added in a hopeful tone.
The young couple before him was shaking their heads in disbelief at what they were hearing. Nobody likes to be manipulated. Certainly no one as headstrong as either Grant or Caitlin.
At that particular moment, nothing could have moved either one to admit to the old codger that he’d been right. A tacit agreement was reached in the look that they exchanged. Paddy deserved to sweat it out before being forgiven.
After a tangibly uncomfortable amount of time had passed, Laura Leigh pulled an official-looking paper from her purse. She unfolded it and passed it to Grant.
“It’s your annulment papers,” she said as calmly as if she were handing him a particularly interesting article in the local paper. “I gather by both of your reactions that you’re still as anxious to sign this as you led me to believe last time we spoke.”
Grant responded like a rattlesnake that had its tail stepped on. “I suppose this has nothing whatsoever to do with the way you feel about marrying your debutante daughter off to some lowly oil field hand?”
“As a matter of fact, it doesn’t.”
He couldn’t believe how cool and indifferent to his anger Laura Leigh was. His mother-in-law had the blood of an IRS agent running in her veins. “Look, lady. There’s no way you can make me feel guilty for falling in love with your daughter. Or make me feel like I’m not good enough for her.”
Laura Leigh arched an aristocratic eyebrow at this startling admission.
“Am I to understand that you have changed your mind then?”
Grant looked at her in shock. “Has it ever occurred to you that your daughter is made of sterner stuff than you? That maybe, unlike you, she won’t up and leave me at the first sign of trouble? That she’s not ashamed to be married to a poor oil field cowboy. That just because you don’t personally approve of me, you have no right to—”
“Back off, son.”
The sound of Paddy’s voice filled the room with the strength of its command. Fire flashed in his old Irish eyes as he stood up and addressed Grant man to man.
“I don’t like the tone you’re taking with my wife.”
Grant and Caitlin’s mouths dropped open at the same time as Laura Leigh flashed a wedding ring in their startled faces. Caitlin recognized it as the same one Paddy had given her so many years ago. Her mother had kept it secreted away in her jewelry box since the time they had separated.
“I never had the heart to give it up,” Laura Leigh admitted to her daughter. “For some silly sentimental reason I brought it along with me when I caught the plane to Wyoming.”
“Good thing you did,” Paddy interrupted, snaking an arm protectively around her waist. “It came in handy when the priest who performed the ceremony for you two assisted us in renewing our vows. You see, all these years neither one of us could ever bring ourselves to actually file for divorce.”
Paddy’s explanation that old feelings were rekindled in the hospital and a long overdue reconciliation was reached seemed too much for Grant to comprehend. He stood woodenly off to the side as Caitlin launched herself into her mother’s arms first, then her father’s. Clearly she was beyond delighted at the unexpected turn of events.
Grant wished he could share her enthusiasm. He’d already gotten off on the wrong foot with the mother-in-law whom he’d mistakenly believed would have little more impact on his life than a brief annual visit to see the grandkids. If she and Paddy really were back together for good, this barracuda would undoubtedly be a more constant presence than he’d anticipated. The thought of battling his in-laws on a daily basis was not something he relished.
Abruptly Laura Leigh turned to him and asked point-blank. “Whatever gave you the idea that I don’t like you?”
Caught off guard, he stammered, “I just assumed that because you left Paddy and went back to your life as a socialite that you wouldn’t much care to see your daughter married off to a man who doesn’t have much more than a couple of dimes to rub together. I assumed you’d think that—”
“That she’s too good for you?”
When Grant nodded his head in assent, Laura Leigh confirmed his suspicions. The woman was nothing if not brutally honest.
“She is. But then I’m going to think my baby is too good for any man. That’s my prerogative as her mother. I just hope you know how lucky you are. She’ll be a wonderful wife. Admittedly a better one than I made Paddy, but there’s still time for me to make up for my mistakes, and I have a good teacher. Caitlin can give us all some invaluable lessons in love.”
Moved to tears by her mother’s words, Caitlin wrapped an arm around Grant. Gently she nudged him to take the first step toward establishing family harmony.
“All I expect of you, Grant,” Laura Leigh continued. “All either of us expects is that you take good care of our little girl. I never have based my opinion of a man on how much money he has in his bank account. I prefer to save the judgment for how much love he has in his heart.”
His mother-in-law’s eloquence astounded Grant. All this time he’d been thinking of this woman as a praying mantis, devouring the bodies of her male victims, and come to find out, she was a fine lady indeed. Once he got to know her even better, he suspected that they just might become good friends. When she held out her arms to him, he didn’t hesitate to walk into her embrace.
She smelled of honeysuckle, of old money, and fresh beginnings.
When Grant started to apologize, Laura Leigh silenced him with a wave of her hand. “What are you two planning on doing now that the company is defunct as I understand it?”
It was a fair question. One uttered out of genuine concern rather than as an accusation. Grant knew his humble dream of owning a ranch was little in comparison to what Caitlin could have so easily married into. A lump of embarrassment stuck in his throat.
His wife didn’t give him a chance to try to dislodge it as she launched into a description of the place Grant had his heart set on buying. She spoke with all the enthusiasm of an experienced salesman. Strangely enough the more she talked, the less preposterous it sounded. Caitlin insisted that she didn’t care where they lived. For the rest of her life, home would be wherever Grant was.
“I don’t care if he wants to raise goats, pigs, or potatoes in Hawaii. Just so long as he wants me at his side,” Caitlin assured everyone in the room, including her husband, who needed to hear it most of all.
Taking her in his arms, Grant held his bride against a heart brimming with joy. In the shadow of financial ruin, he had never been happier in his life. The cold past was to be banished from his heart forever as together they embarked on a new life filled with love and hope and trust.
While Caitlin searched the cupboards for four glasses, Grant popped the cork on a bottle of champagne. Though he had been saving it for the day they hit oil, he could think of no better time to celebrate than the present.
That they were broke was suddenly of little consequence. Never was there a more jubilant crew than the foursome toasting one a
nother around a small kitchenette table that could barely accommodate them all.
“To love,” Grant proposed, ripping the annulment papers in half and tossing them in the air.
“To love,” they all exclaimed to the clinking of cheap plastic glasses.
As they all drank deeply of their shared loving cups, Caitlin became aware that something was amiss. It took her a long moment of introspection to figure out that it was in fact the silence that was so out of place. Deafening in its totality, it engulfed her senses.
“Listen,” she said, cocking her head toward the rig.
To an untrained ear the normal daily noise level on a drilling rig can be overwhelming in its intensity. The reverberation of the variety of sounds carries for rig workers important information that could save their lives and assures bosses that business is under way as it should be. That no noise at all reached Caitlin’s ears was definite cause for concern. Though she couldn’t blame them if they had, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that the crew had given up before the actual last day of the deadline that had been looming over their heads like ominous thunderclouds.
“Do you hear it?” she asked the people huddled about the small kitchenette table.
A sudden rumbling deep beneath the trailer made her think of some great slumbering monster being awakened by the grumbling of its own empty belly. Caitlin set her glass down and watched it shiver on the tabletop.
“What’s happening? Is it an earthquake?” she asked, grabbing the only pair of shoulders she knew to be broad enough to bear the entire weight of the world.
“No, honey. Something much, much better,” Grant exclaimed. He placed a reassuring kiss on the top of her head as he raced to the window.
Paddy beat him there. “Come look!” he hollered.
What was obvious to both her husband and father was made clear to Caitlin only when she peered out behind the curtains herself. She spied the entire crew high above them on the drilling floor, whooping and howling and dancing about as if they had just drained a vat of hard cider. The impact of their revelry dawned slowly upon her. The reason the rig was quiet was that the emergency pressure valves had shut off the well, stopping the crude oil from shooting out of the top of the rig as in days of old. The rumbling they heard was caused by the intense amount of pressure trying to force its way to the surface.
“We’ve struck oil!” she squeaked.
Hitting bottom hole on schedule meant L.L. Drilling was going to be solvent for some time to come. And the bonus it meant for Grant would enable him to put a down payment on the ranch of his dreams. A place where he and Caitlin could spend a lifetime learning to know one another better. A place where they could concentrate on raising a family and appreciating the abundance of the land. A place where they could face life’s challenges on their own terms—together.
Grant lifted Caitlin up in his arms and twirled her around and around the small living room. Dizzy with joy, laughter mingled with kisses as Paddy proceeded to pour everyone another drink. Surrounded by the people he loved most in the world, the man who had spent a lifetime banking on miracles hoisted his glass in the air and made yet another toast.
“To Love’s fair sisters, Tenacity and Luck!”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1331-9
THE COWBOY TAKES A BRIDE
Copyright © 2000 by Cathleen Galitz
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*The Bridal Bid
The Cowboy Takes A Bride (The Bridal Bid #2) Page 18