Trouble In Dixie (26 page)

She gave him a wobbly smile then assured
him, "I love her too, Tommy...I don't want to leave, but I have
to...for her. She'll still do fine without me here, if you keep her
on her routine."

His breathing became shallow and his eyes
were shiny, then he dropped to his knees in front of her, hugged
her hips, and begged, "Don't leave me, Katie..." then finished in a
gravelly whisper, "Please...we'll work it out."

She dropped down in front of him and took
his face in her hands and kissed him gently, with tears pooling in
her eyes she said in a soft whisper, "Please don't do this to
me...my heart is already bleeding, sugar."

He sucked in a sharp breath and his face lit
up, then he said, "Marry me, Katie--that would solve things!"

Katie's heart felt like it melted inside of
her chest, and pooled around her knees like candle wax. She
couldn't marry him, not like this. She shook her head and told him
softly, but firmly, "I can't, Tommy...not like this. If and when I
get married, it's gonna be because of love, and nothing else.
You're only asking me now because you're afraid, and I'm not going
to say yes to that."

"Dammit, I do love you!" he grated and shook
her, "Marry me, because I love you."

"I love you too, that's why I'm saying
no...you don't need to do this impulsively either. If we got
married, she'd fight you even harder, it would make things worse.
I'm a distraction right now, and you need to focus on settling this
for Dixie...for us."

CHAPTER TWELVE

The hollow cackle of Edith Preston's laugh
still rang in Katie's ears, three weeks after she'd made the call
that sent her running from the Rockin' D Ranch back to Bowie. She'd
told the old woman that she was leaving Tommy and Dixie, and that
she'd won. Edith agreed to drop the suit, only if Katie stayed away
permanently. She told her emphatically that she was not going to
let Tommy Tucker disrespect her daughter's memory, and that
included having a relationship with another woman or getting
remarried. She told her in no uncertain terms if she ever came back
to the Rockin' D, Tommy would lose Dixie permanently.

Katie knew what the woman was actually doing
was punishing Tommy for what she believed he'd done to her
daughter. She wanted him to be lonely and miserable for the rest of
his life, and Dixie to be motherless. So she was using that poor
child as a rope in her tug-of-war with Tommy. It was horrific, and
it made Katie want to choke the life out of the horrible old hag.
Tommy was the only one who could stop her though, and until he did,
they couldn't be together.

Their separation was so complete, she hadn't
talked to him in two weeks, not since the repairs on the bunkhouse
were finished, and she moved there from Karlie and Gabe's cabin.
Katie hadn't had a land line installed yet, and since there was no
cell phone reception out here, he couldn't call. When she'd gone to
Henrietta last week for her doctor's appointment, she saw he'd left
her a couple of messages, and she'd tried to call him, but he
hadn't answered the phone, and she hadn't been back to town
since.

Every day, either Karlie or Gabe came out to
check on her, and brought her pre-cooked food that Imelda had sent
with them from the Double B, or take out from the Blue Bird. Other
than their visits though, and a few conversations with the
contractors working on the other buildings, she was alone...and
damned lonely. She missed Tommy and Dixie so much, it felt like she
had a twelve-gauge shotgun hole right in the middle of her
heart.

Maybe she should go eat lunch at the Blue
Bird today, she thought, so she could try calling Tommy again to
check on them...to hear his voice. Katie was just about to go get
dressed to do that, when there was a knock at the door of the
bunkhouse. She got up from the sofa where she'd been watching a
soap opera on television, which eerily resembled her life these
days, and went to answer it.

The man standing on her doorstep was the
contractor she'd hired to dig a secondary well out by the barn to
use for watering the livestock. The one for the house wasn't enough
to sustain both structures.

Katie greeted him, then stepped back for him
to come inside. He pulled off his hard hat and stomped his boots on
the door mat then came in and said, "Ma'am, we have a problem with
the well...might be a good one for you, but not so good for
us."

Katie groaned, all she needed was another
problem to deal with. Termites in the walls of the big old barn had
been her last hurdle. There was extensive damage, and the
contractor had to adjust his repair estimate to include an
exterminator and stud replacements.

"What's the problem?" she asked and
flinched, waiting for the cash register sounds to start ringing in
her ears.

He chuckled and she wanted to punch him in
the nose. "Well, we were drilling for water, and got about halfway
down and hit oil...a lot of it...too much for us to continue
digging your well there."

Katie shook her head and repeated,
"Oil?"

"Yes, ma'am...you need to get a wildcatter
out here, and an engineer to check it out. We're going to have to
wait to see, before we start drilling your well again," he told
her.

Oh, god...more money, and more delays, she
thought and sighed.

"Why aren't you smiling, ma'am? I'd be
grinning like a polecat in a lavender patch," he told her and
grinned just like that.

Unless this man was independently wealthy,
she didn't have a clue as to why he'd be happy to have to put out
more money on property that was fast becoming a money pit to her
way of thinking. She shook her head, and her eyebrows drew
together. "Why would you say that? This is gonna cost me a lot of
money for the engineer and to have you redrill in another spot,
right?"

He snorted and scratched his head, then
asked her, "Ma'am did you not hear me say oil?"

"I heard you quite clearly," she said
shortly, aggravated that he was making fun of her.

"We struck
oil
on your property, Miss
Upton...if it's a deep vein you could be a very rich woman," he
said slowly and distinctly, like she was mentally challenged.

Katie felt like she'd stepped on an
electrical wire, as clarity struck her, then she did grin like a
polecat in a lavender patch. "Holy, shit..." she whispered and
covered her mouth with her hand.

"That's more like it!" the contractor
hooted, then picked her up and swung her around. When he set her
down, he said, "Let me know if you need some recommendations on
drillers, I know a few."

In shock, Katie shook her head then closed
the door behind him and just stood there with her mouth open. She
needed to talk to her sister, and get her mind together. Katie's
feet barely touched the floor as she headed for the shower.

Katie made it to the Blue Bird in less than
an hour, and excitedly called Karlie and asked her to meet her
there. She sat at a booth and sipped on an iced tea, while she
waited for her sister, smiling at every new person who entered the
cafe. The smile on her face had been perpetual, since she
understood what the contractor had been telling her. There was oil
on her property, and that could mean a different kind of life for
her and her babies.

She put a hand over the slight rise of her
belly, which was growing every day, as her babies grew. She was
only about three months along, but because she was having twins,
she looked at least five months pregnant. Her clothes didn't fit
anymore, so she'd bought some maternity clothes at a shop in
Henrietta, when she'd gone to the doctor last week. Katie had to go
see the doctor again next week, and she was counting down the days,
because he was going to do another ultrasound and told her he would
probably be able to tell her the sex of the babies.

The bell over the door chimed again and
Katie looked up expectantly, then a grin spread over her whole face
when she saw her sister and Gabe walk into the cafe. Neither of
them were smiling, both wore looks of concern, as they spotted her
and walked over to the booth then sat down.

Without preamble, Karlie demanded anxiously,
"What's wrong, Katie?"

"Ask me what's right, instead," she said
smugly, then took a sip of her tea.

Her sister huffed out a frustrated breath,
then said shortly, "Okay, what's
right
then?"

"The well contractor hit a snag when he
started drilling," she told Karlie obtusely.

Karlie shook her head, then slapped a hand
on the table and said, "That's
good
news?"

"Yep...because he hit
oil
, instead of
water when he was drilling," Katie told her breathlessly then
squealed and danced in her seat.

"
Holy, shit
!" Karlie and Gabe said in
unison and Gabe vaulted out of the booth, when Karlie elbowed him
in the ribs. Katie slid out of her seat and they all hugged and
danced around in a circle. Every head in the cafe turned in their
direction, and Katie could hear the cook in the kitchen banging
pots around, that's how quiet it had gotten. She pulled out of
their group hug and looked around, then slid back in the booth, and
Gabe and Karlie did the same, but all of them had ear to ear smiles
on their faces.

"So, what do you need to do now?" Gabe
asked.

"He said I needed to find a drilling company
and an engineer to check it out and see if it's a vein."

"Okay, so we should wait to get excited
then...because we have to find out exactly what he drilled into?"
Karlie settled down and her smile slipped a little.

"Yeah, but don't burst my bubble...I'm still
excited. It's been a while, since something good has happened to
me...well, other than the babies, of course," she said and deflated
a little. Emotion surged up into her throat as she told them, "I
miss Tommy and Dixie..."

Karlie covered her hand with her own then
said sympathetically, "I know, sugar...it's a tough situation, but
it'll work out. Have you talked to him?"

"No...I called him last week when I went to
the doctor, but he didn't answer," Katie replied and reminded
herself to try again today before she left town.

"When is your land line going to be hooked
up? You really need to get that done, because you're pregnant and
alone out there," Karlie said firmly.

"They said by the end of the week, but you
know how that goes..." she said with a shrug.

Gabe's face brightened and he said, "Hey,
you know what? Chase, the guy who lives next to the lake house is
in oil exploration, I think...doesn't his daddy own a drilling
company?"

Excitement flooded Katie again and she
smiled. She had forgotten all about Chase Rhodes, and Gabe was
right he was in oil drilling. "He sure is...I'm going to call him
right now," she said and pulled her phone out of her backpack, then
scrolled through the list, until she found his number, and hit
send.

He answered right away and she said, "Chase?
This is Katie Upton...do you remember me from the lake house?"

"Of course, I remember you, sugar...you're
unforgettable," he told her in a low sexy drawl.

She felt blood rush to her face, as she
remembered the last time she'd been with him in the cove at the
lake. "Um, I have a question for you..."

"I hope it's can you meet me at the lake,
because I'm over the asshole cowboy who hurt me..." he said with a
chuckle.

"Not quite..." she laughed nervously, then
said, "I think there's oil on the property I just bought...the
contractor was drilling a water well for me and he hit oil instead
of water. He told me I need to get it checked out."

"Wow, sugar...you must be excited...that's
fantastic, congratulations," he told her in a more professional
tone. "So you need someone to look at it then? I have an engineer
on staff, so we could probably get out there Friday, if that's soon
enough?" he asked her.

Two days, god, she didn't know if she could
wait, she wanted to know now! But she knew he was probably busy,
"Okay, that would be great," she told him.

"If you give me your address there, I'll get
the engineer to take a look at the maps, and other wells in the
area, so we have a better idea of the odds that you have a big
enough reservoir there for drilling," he told her, and she gave him
her address.

"Do you own the sub-surface rights to the
property? Was that transferred in the sale?" he asked.

"I own all the rights to the property...I
made sure of it, before I bought it," she told him. The title
policy had insured all rights were being transferred to her, and
the closing agent had made certain, both she and the seller knew
that and agreed to it.

"Good, good...okay, I'll pull the property
description, and get the engineer working on it, then we'll see you
on Friday...I look forward to seeing you again, Katie."

Katie didn't want to ruin her chances of him
helping her, so she didn't tell him there wasn't a snowball's
chance in hell they'd ever get together, because she would forever
be in love with her asshole cowboy, instead she told him, "I look
forward to seeing you too, and thanks."