The Cowboy Takes A Bride

Grant took a taste of his soup and found it delicious. He was surprised to discover Caitlin could cook. He wouldn’t expect a debutante to know anything as practical as one end of a pot from the other.

“It’s good,” he said and grinned again at how warily she reacted to the compliment.

“I’m glad someone around here appreciates it,” she replied, pointedly staring at the way Paddy was swishing his spoon around in the soup, apparently searching for tasty bits of cholesterol.

“Maybe you’ll be good for something around here after all,” Grant added just to see if he could get another rise out of her.

He did. Caitlin bristled up like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on.

With perfect timing, Paddy interrupted. “How’s your mother?” he asked in an offhanded way that fooled no one.

“She’s fine.”

Grant felt a stab of pity for his mentor who was still so obviously interested in the woman who had packed up his heart when she rejoined the high-society crowd after her amusing little encounter with blue-collar life. Still Grant was too tired to pay much attention to the conversation and was eminently relieved when Caitlin refused his offer to help clean up. Excusing himself from the table, he stumbled toward the shower. If he was lucky, he told himself he wouldn’t fall asleep and drown on his feet.

The water pressure was too weak to give him the kind of pulsating release that his muscles needed, but the shower was nonetheless warm and soothing. Grant felt no guilt in draining the hot water tank. It wasn’t until he climbed out of the shower and was toweling himself off that he faced the quandary of his sleeping arrangements. He didn’t so much as own a pair of pajamas, and the thought of sleeping in the middle of the living room in his underwear didn’t much appeal to him. Not when Paddy and Caitlin were bound to want to stay up late and catch up on old times.

He glowered at himself through the steam on the bathroom mirror. “To heck with them both,” he grumbled, wrapping a towel around his middle and heading toward his room to change into a clean pair of briefs. Whether it inconvenienced or embarrassed anyone else or not, he was going to catch some shut-eye.

Discretion won out over comfort at the last minute as Grant reached for a clean T-shirt in its usual spot in the bottom drawer. He was taken aback by the flimsy piece of lace which he fished out of his dresser instead. Apparently even his drawers were not exempt from confiscation. He couldn’t so much as put a name to the sexy little froufrou dangling from his hand let alone understand what possible occasion Caitlin thought she would have to wear such a flimsy garment out in the middle of nowhere. The slick material of the camisole caught on the roughness of his fingers, and he felt a familiar, frightening tightening in his groin.

Grant groaned at the thought of satin and lace in his bedroom—and on his oil rig. As if life wasn’t hard enough without courting disaster. First thing in the morning, he planned on issuing Caitlin a standard pair of overalls with the intention of covering her from chin to toe. He didn’t want his crew catching so much as a peek of lace about their new geologist. Just maybe a hard hat would manage to hide that luxurious, distracting tumble of mahogany hair, he thought hopefully.

Irritated at the thought of sleeping on a raggedy old couch while Paddy’s little princess slept undisturbed in his bed, Grant was tempted to put a pea under the mattress before leaving the room.

Caitlin’s jaw went slack at the sight of Grant sauntering into the living room with his dark hair damp and glistening from the shower. Wearing nothing but a pair of worn jeans with a missing top snap, he was all sinew and muscles and mouthwatering masculinity. She had caught an eyeful earlier of his impressive forearms and biceps, but a T-shirt had covered the rest of his upper body. His pectoral muscles and rippled stomach seemed to Caitlin the single most beautiful thing she had ever encountered in her life. She disliked hairy chests and backs that made some men look more like bears than humans. Grant’s chest had just enough to make her want to run her hands over the rock-hard contours of a body honed by hard labor.

The mere thought of sleeping in his bed made her feel wobbly. The college boys she’d dated were nothing compared to the virile hunk standing so nonchalantly before her with a lazy thumb hitched into his waistband. His imposing presence and overt sexuality hit her like a ton of testosterone. Belatedly Caitlin snapped her mouth shut.

“Sorry, folks,” Grant said with an unapologetic yawn. “But if you don’t mind moving off the couch, I’d like to go to bed now.”

Although no innuendo was intended, just the word bed coming from his mouth was enough to make Caitlin redden with the weight of her inexperience. Unwilling to subject herself to the kind of teasing she had endured as a child regarding those embarrassing telltale blushes, she hopped right up.

“Of course. I’d like to get a good night’s sleep for the first day on the job myself.”

She started to make a quick getaway but turned around before she had gotten halfway out of the room and hurried back to drop a kiss upon her father’s weathered cheek. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that Grant had missed a tiny spot on his back with that towel he had draped over his shoulder. It was all she could do to refrain from asking if he would like her to dry him off.

“Good night,” she chirped and as an afterthought added from her childhood memory, “Sleep tight.”

“It’s the only way I’m going to keep from falling off the sofa,” Grant grumbled as he flattened himself against the scratchy fabric of the cushions. Too tired to belabor the fact that he’d been so neatly displaced, he attempted to go to sleep with one arm securely anchored over the back of the couch.

Caitlin could no more banish her guilt at having put him out of his bed than she could dismiss the haunting image of that incredibly sexy little trickle of water on the broad expanse of his back. She took her locket off and set it carefully on top of the dresser before slipping into her pajamas, turning off the lights, and climbing into bed. Tired as she was, sleep proved nonetheless elusive. Deep cleansing breaths were of little help. The scent that was exclusively Grant Davis tickled her nose. Caitlin rubbed the edging of the cotton sheet to her face and breathed in his very essence. A miraculous blend of woods and sagebrush and pure masculinity, it made her feel far too intimate with a man whom she was certain had every intention of firing her just as soon as he could possibly get away with it.