by Lori Wilde
What the hell? Why the instant lust? Normally, he went for tall willowy blondes like Vivi. Not petite, shapely brunettes.
Why?
That was easy enough to answer. A) The brunette was smoking hot. B) There was something familiar about her, something warm and cozy and inviting. C) He hadn’t had sex in so long he’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
Hope cut into him, gutted him open, leaving him raw and hungry. Hey, who knew? There was a wedding this weekend—alcohol, food, music, slow dancing. Maybe they’d hook up.
Easy Lockhart, getting ahead of yourself.
He didn’t even know her name, or if she was involved with someone, or if she’d even been invited to the wedding.
No, but that didn’t stop steamy sexual fantasies from unspooling inside his head. Nor could he shake an odd feeling that he’d gone fishing for shad and managed to hook a mermaid instead.
The woman opened the extended cab’s passenger side door and bent over, butt wiggling as she ducked her head inside to retrieve something from the backseat. That round wriggly rump robbed the air from his lungs, highjacked his brain as effectively as a gun-toting bandit.
As the owner and CEO of Lock Ridge Drilling, he made snap decisions on a daily basis and he’d honed the skill of sizing up people at a glance.
From the click-quick snapshot trapped in that breathless time of his mind, Ridge knew she was the spunky girl-next-door type. Able to climb trees, make chicken soup for a sick neighbor, organize a charity drive, spike a witty barb at smart-ass-know-it-alls, passionately root for her favorite sports team complete with face paint and logo jerseys, park her butt in the church pew every Sunday morning, and cheerfully answer three a.m. phone calls from friends in need.
She was, in fact, everything Ridge was not—perky, happy-go-lucky, laid-back, a rule-following, people-pleasing team player.
Not his type. Not in the least.
Which probably explained the pounding lust. He had a knack for picking women who were all wrong for him.
At this distance, with the width of the landing strip between them, he hadn’t gotten a clear view of her face, but his initial impression was that she was more pretty than beautiful, while her body language exuded a come-sit-by-me friendliness that drew him. She was curvy enough to let him know that she enjoyed a good splurge meal now and again, but she was also healthy and fit. Her skin was tan and supple, her eyes soft and bright, her teeth straight and white. She took good care of herself.
But it was the way she carried herself that totally wrecked him. Confidence mixed with humility. She had an authentic stride full of wholehearted openness. The last person he’d known who’d possessed that special combo was Archer Alzate’s kid sister, Kaia.
He hadn’t seen Kaia face-to-face since she was sixteen and she had attended his and Archer’s graduation from the University of Texas. But two years ago, Archer called him to tell him that while working on her doctorate in veterinarian medicine at Texas A&M, Kaia had been in a terrible car accident and fractured her pelvis. Ridge had flown straight to College Station to see her only to discover she was in a medically induced coma.
The waiting room had been packed with her family and friends, and no one noticed him standing in the doorway. After so much time away he’d felt awkward and misplaced, an outsider. Not wanting to turn Kaia’s accident into a stage for his return, he’d slipped quietly away without speaking to the family.
But later he texted Archer to meet him in the parking lot to get an update on Kaia’s condition. Archer gave him the rundown, including the fact Kaia had such a high medical deductible he didn’t know how she was ever going to afford to finish her degree.
Once Ridge knew she was stable and going to pull through, he went to the business office, anonymously paid the fifteen-thousand-dollar deductible toward her medical bills, and swore Archer to secrecy.
Later, when she was out of the coma, he sent flowers and a card and he’d gotten back a kind thank-you note, and their correspondence had ended there. Archer kept his word and Kaia never knew Ridge had come to see her or that he was the one who paid her deductible.
Ridge slipped off his sunglasses for a clearer look at the provocative woman. From the back seat of the Tundra, she extracted an oversized present wrapped in gold foil. The package was so big and the backseat so small. How she’d managed to cram it in?
She tossed her head, a triumphant smile on her face, and turned in his direction. Their gazes met across an empty desert.
For a split second, his heart stopped.
Her obsidian eyes arrested him, a mysterious color that suggested hot summer nights and low, deep-throated whispers. Ripples of recognition jolted his nervous system, both shocking and exhilarating. He knew her.
Kaia Alzate.
Freakadilly circus, he’d been lusting after little Kaia Alzate. Hot for the girl he’d once dubbed the Braterminator.
Ridge coolly slipped his sunglasses back down over his eyes. She’d pestered the hell out of him and Archer when they were kids. Tagging along everywhere they went, tattling if they stepped out of line, and generally being a run-of-the-mill pain-in-the-ass.
He might have hidden his eyes from her, but he couldn’t hide the goose bumps spreading over his skin, pushing an insistent heat into his bloodstream as he watched her from behind the safety of the polarized lenses of his aviator Ray-Bans.
Her snapping black eyes sparkled with glee, as an enthusiastic grin split her mouth wide. She had recognized him too, and she looked more than happy to see him.
His gut dove the way it did whenever he’d practiced a stall in pilot training, spinning, whirling, and hurtling headlong toward the earth.
Thank God her hands were full because he had the distinct impression that if she’d been empty-handed, she would have come flying across the tarmac to hug the stuffing out of him.
He didn’t mean to do it, told himself he wasn’t going to do it, but damn if he couldn’t help sliding his gaze over her body. After all, she had no idea what his eyes were doing behind the sunglasses.
Thank you, Ray-Bans.
She moved toward him, arms strapped around the oversized present. Stopped. Cast a glance over her shoulder at the main house. Swung her gaze back to him. She wanted to come over, but didn’t seem to know what to do with the package.
He kept his face unreadable, but gave her a respectful nod. I see you, but no need to rush or gush or make a fuss.
Deliberately, he turned away, telling himself it was to chalk the plane’s tires, and it had nothing to do with the fact his chest was tight and his head fuzzy. And a smile he could not stop was pushing across his face.
He was happy to see her too. So happy it freaked him out.
Once the chalks were in place, and he reined in his galloping pulse, Ridge raised his head, ready to dish up a slick greeting.
But she was gone.
Yay. Great. Perfect. He’d avoided her exuberant hug. Good work.
Why then, did he feel so bummed?
Holy tidal wave!
It was Ridge Lockhart, and he was more devastatingly gorgeous than ever.
Of course, Kaia had known he was coming home for Archer’s wedding. She expected to see him. Thought she was braced for it.
Fat chance!
What she hadn’t expected was that he’d be so damned sexy.
Her initial impulse had been to run to him and fling herself into his arms and tell him how thrilled she was that he’d come home. But she wasn’t eight years old anymore, and he was no longer that lanky boy who’d yanked her braids and called her irritating names.
Her heart jackhammered, and she clutched the oversized wedding present tighter and hurried up the stone walkway to the mansion where the wedding party was assembling before the rehearsal. Instead of the traditional rehearsal dinner, Casey Hollis, the bride-to-be, had decided on a rehearsal brunch. As soon as everyone arrived, they would all head out to the cowboy chapel to rehearse.
Ridge included.
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br /> Kaia’s pulse gave another sharp hop.
The gift was a crate for the German shepherd puppy that Archer and Casey were adopting from the shelter when they returned from their honeymoon. But ugh. She hadn’t fully thought it through. Per usual, excitement had swept her away.
Then again, she’d used the gift as a shield against Ridge’s steely gaze. It provided a great excuse not to talk to him until she was prepped.
Seriously? She was not a silly teen with a monster crush on her big brother’s best friend. Why did she need to prep to speak to the man?
Why?
Because just seeing him standing there in the sunlight sent her blood swirling the way it always had.
Darn it. Shouldn’t she be over puppy love by now?
There ought to be a law. No one man had a right to look so handsomely heartbreaking.
The past decade had been kind to him. More than kind. He’d grown from the lean, skinny kid into full-blown manhood. Big-framed. Rugged. Untamed as ever.
He moved with the predatory grace of a mountain lion on the hunt. Intent, alert eyes and muscles, but with loose limbs and fluid joints. He looked like he should be on a high mountaintop staking in a pennant flag, claiming his territory.
Dressed in jeans, Stetson, suit jacket, tie, aviator sunglasses, and lizard-skin boots, he was part businessman, part pilot, part cowboy, and one hundred percent alpha male. Muscular fingers and scarred knuckles hinted at his roughneck past.
He was both rawboned and polished. Cheeks and jawline sharp, primal. Nose perfectly straight. Eyebrows orderly. It was a dizzying combination of refined poise and rough-edged virility.
Everything about him caused her insides to quiver and her heart to flush. She couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d unearthed pirate treasure in the desert.
Oh no. Oh damn. She was in trouble. Felt the truth of it overtake her. Nothing had changed. She still pined for him. How could she not even know it until now?
Stop it. Just stop it.
She was letting her imagination run away with her. All she had to do was steer clear of him until he went back to where he’d come from, and that would be that.
Turmoil over. Crisis avoided.
Except that she had to be around him for the wedding. He was her older brother’s best friend and the best man and she was a bridesmaid. There was no way she could avoid him completely.
Chillaxe. No need to flip out. He would only be in town for three days. She could keep her hormones in check. All she had to do was make sure she was never alone with him. Considering all the people who’d been invited to the wedding, that should be a piece of cake.
Armed with a plan, Kaia chuffed out a relieved breath, kicked on the front door with the tip of her boot in lieu of knocking, and called out, “Open up. It’s me, Kaia. I come bearing gifts.”
Chapter 3
Some days hovered over the desert like God’s fist, big and omnipresent, pressing heat into the barren earth until the ground burned with low, undulating energy. Steady as a locust buzz, squirming circuitously across the Trans-Pecos.
Ridge looped his thumb in his waistband, raised his face to the wide expanse of hot blue sky. He could smell the sun.
Relentless.
A pizza oven that blazed mad mirages until the soil smelled of it too, leaving the plants withered and crisped, lizards darting for shade in the cracks, tears drying long before they hit cheeks. The desert had the power to strip a man of everything, even his right to grieve.
An involuntary shudder ran through him and instead of immediately heading into the mansion, Ridge wandered the grounds, stalling.
This wasn’t like him, avoiding problems, but here he was, loping along, checking out what had changed, and what hadn’t. Looking for Archer, and putting off facing the people inside of the house for as long as possible.
Christ, he’d had ten years. What was it gonna take? Truth? He could have a century and never belong here.
He walked around, impressed by the improvements. He spied a fleet of ATVs in the barn, gassed up and ready to go. Archer had told him the ranch used ATVs now for herding instead of horses, cheaper and more efficient, but it felt wrong somehow. The end of an era.
The ranch hands in the barn greeted him as Mr. Lockhart, so they knew who he was, but he didn’t know any of them. They’d always had a big turnover in staff. While the old man paid well, he was notoriously hard to work for. Ridge had no idea how Archer had lasted so long as the Silver Feather’s foreman. When he asked his friend about it, Archer would say, “You just gotta know how to sweet-talk him.”
Yeah, about that, Ridge refused to kiss the old man’s ass. Why should he? He had nothing to apologize for, and no desire to pump up the old man’s ego.
Although to be fair, Duke Augustus Lockhart was a smart sonofagun with a masterful ability for making money.
Duke had taken the modest Lockhart fortune he’d inherited, invested heavily in real estate during the boom, and managed to get out just before economic sands shifted and things collapsed on Wall Street. With that move, he’d become the richest man in Jeff Davis County, finally surpassing the privileged Fants.
The Fants had come from Baltimore old money and had a family history that harkened back to British royalty, and at one time had rubbed elbows with the likes of Wallis Simpson and Prince Edward.
The Lockharts had none of that pizzazz. Their pedigree was hard work, dogged tenacity, and Texas-sized chutzpah. Levi Lockhart, Ridge’s three times great-grandfather had come to the Trans-Pecos in 1852 looking to strike it rich at silver mining.
From all accounts Levi had been a persistent cuss, part outlaw and part idealist, with a grand imagination and even grander schemes. Although many pronounced him a damn fool for daring to encroach on territory claimed by the fearsome Mescalero Apaches.
Levi not only managed to survive with his scalp intact, he also gained the lands that became the Silver Feather and a personal truce with the natives when he found a young Apache brave wounded in the desert.
Rather than leaving the teen to die, Levi nursed him back to health. The young brave turned out to be the tribal chief’s son. In gratitude for saving the boy, the chieftan presented Levi with a silver hawk feather and a solemn vow that the Apaches would forever leave Levi and his family in peace.
That framed silver feather hung in his father’s mansion.
While Levi did settle the homestead in the town that later become Cupid—so dubbed because of a stalagmite found in the local caverns that resembled the Roman god of love—he never did find the silver he came looking for. That discovery went to Levi’s oldest son, Malachi, who took up his father’s quest, staked a claim, and in 1884 founded Lockhart Silver Mining Company.
Stalwart ancestors, peace treaties with the Apaches, ranching, and silver mining cemented the Lockharts’ legacy deep in the history of the Trans-Pecos. Ridge had a huge birthright to live up to and he did not take his responsibility lightly. He was the oldest son, of the oldest son, of the oldest son all the way back to Levi.
Never mind that he was illegitimate. Each subsequent generation of high achievers kept raising the bar.
The urge to prove himself to Duke drove Ridge. He was as good or better than any other Lockhart, and he would do whatever it took to show them all up.
Drive gnawed at him like hunger pangs. Spurred his galloping ambition. Dreams mattered. Success mattered. Money mattered.
The urge to excel colored everything he did. And that went for the best man duties he’d signed on for. If Ridge promised something, he delivered.
Always.
Where was Archer and why hadn’t he come out to greet him?
Probably wrapped around his fiancée’s little finger. The way the man talked about Casey made Ridge’s teeth ache. He didn’t mean that in a disparaging way. He liked Casey. Archer had brought her to Calgary to meet him at Christmas, and they’d gone skiing at Banff. She and Archer had cuddled and canoodled and got along like two peas in a pod.
It was just that … well … Ridge didn’t much believe in all that sappy romance stuff. It colored people’s reasoning and judgment. He knew that falling in lust could make for some pretty bad decisions.
He passed through the stables, rounded the corner of a stall and boom!
There was Duke, saddling up a mature stallion named Majestic, a horse that was once so untamable that only a rare few dared ride him. Was he still as wild? Or was he age-mellowed?
Involuntarily, Ridge’s gut clenched and for a whisper of a breath, he was that three-year-old kid again, snatched up by his arm and dangled in Duke’s face. This is your mess. Clean it up.
Majestic whinnied at the sight of Ridge. His gut loosened, and his heart swelled, and his pulse broke like floodgates.
Duke had bought the stallion for Ridge as a college graduation present, and he had loved that horse. But he’d left Majestic behind when he’d fled the ranch after catching Duke in his bed at his house with his girlfriend.
Ridge ground his teeth. Ancient history. Let it go.
His father raised his head, met Ridge’s eyes. Grunted. “Son.”
“Duke.”
The old man had aged in a decade. Wrinkles lined his sun-weathered face and his hair was thinner, his moustache grayer. His father made an I-suppose-I-deserve-not-being-called-dad sound. Not an actual admission of guilt or regret, but it was something.
What had he expected? That his father would hug him and beg his forgiveness? The prospect of hell icing into a frozen Arctic skating rink was far more likely.
Duke Lockhart did not apologize. Ever. In all honesty, neither did Ridge.
Ten years had passed since they’d seen each other. They were standing four feet apart, the smell of hay and horse manure in the air. Staring at each other as if they were strangers.
Weren’t they? Truly, had he ever really known the man?
“You made it,” Duke said mildly.
“Archer’s my best friend.”
“Whom you rarely see.”
