by Lori Wilde
“Colorful.”
She leaned her butt against the kitchen counter, sized him up. “Your stubborn pride has kept you away for ten years. If Archer hadn’t decided to get married, I wager you could have stayed away another decade without a second thought.”
“And you’re mad about that?”
“Hell yes.”
“Why?”
“You were missed, dammit. Desperately.”
“By whom?” He lowered his voice and his eyes. She’d missed him?
“By the entire community.”
“Bull,” he said, but felt a strange tug in the center of his chest. “I was the hellion of Cupid. I’m sure mothers and fathers, teachers and preachers fell to their knees and gave thanks when I drove away.”
“God.” She shook her head. “That chip on your shoulder is huge. I hoped ten years away would knock it off.”
“Watch it, Braterminator.” His lip twitched. “You’re treading on thin ice.”
“See? Still too stubborn to even have a conversation about it.” She turned away from him, got two white pills from her medical kit, filled a glass with water, and carried it over to him.
“What’s this?”
“Aspirin.”
She was standing close enough that he caught a whiff of her shampoo. It was the refreshing scent of chilled watermelon and summer daisies. His mouth watered. If he’d been of a mind, he could hook one leg around her waist and pull her into his lap.
He considered it. Was tempted.
Quickly, she hopped back. “Don’t you dare, Ridge Josiah Lockhart.”
She remembered his middle name. Why that should thrill him, he had no idea, but it did. “Dare what?”
“You know.” She waved a hand.
“So you do have a boyfriend?”
“If I was in a relationship it would be with a man, not a boy. But no, I do not have a boyfriend. I’m far too busy with school and work. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Something in the way she said it, the way she tensed her body told him there was more to the story. Had some man hurt her? Just the idea of someone hurting her had him clenching his fists and his blood boiling.
“I heard that,” he murmured. “Not enough hours in a day.”
“Does this mean you don’t have a woman friend?”
“I do not.” By design, he’d not ever had a romantic relationship that lasted longer than four months. Four months tended to be the time when women wanted to know where the relationship was going and that’s when he bailed.
“Not even a friend with benefits?”
“Not currently.” He laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“I’ve missed the hell out of you, Kaia Alzate.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
“You miss me? The Braterminator? The kid who vexed you and Archer to no end? Why would you miss that?”
“I know, right.” He tried to wink, but couldn’t pull it off with the swollen eye. “But vexing can be exciting.”
“Or it can be … well … vexing.”
The tone of her voice, low, lazy, like the slow easy swing of a hammock strung between two sheltering trees, triggered a visceral response in him. Tight chest. Shallow lungs. Queasy stomach.
His imagination was off, spinning visuals of how she looked early in the morning: sleepy-eyed, hair mussed, her mattress imprinted with the shape of her body, and the smell of fresh-brewed coffee stirring the morning air.
“Where are you living these days?” he asked, shifting gears to keep from getting aroused again. “Still staying with your family?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t. Just making conversation.”
“I rent a house on Murkle Street until I go back to school in the fall. Behind the Dairy Queen.”
“Older homes in that area and you’re really close to those Butterfinger Blizzards.”
“You remembered.” Her smile could light up outer space.
“Hey, they were my favorite too.”
“The house is on a two-acre lot and the rent is cheap and the landlord doesn’t mind if I keep animals, and there is that proximity to the Blizzards.”
“How many animals do you have?”
“Varies. I foster.”
“Cats? Dogs? Birds? Rabbits?”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, and goldfish, a couple of pigmy goats, Earl the donkey, and a potbelly pig named Lancelot. Although right now Lance is off providing stud service at a neighbor’s farm.”
“Lucky Lance.”
“Men.” She rolled her eyes, but did not look disgusted.
“I like the way nothing much changes around here. You’re still elbow-deep in critters, Elly May.”
“Take the aspirin,” she said, “and I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
“Not going. I’m fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Give me some credit, woman.”
Her cheeks pinked and she glanced away again. He’d rattled her. Good. She looked cute in pink.
“Give me some credit, man,” she sassed. “I do know a few things about medicine. Granted, it’s on animals, but a lot of stuff translates.”
“You’re being overly cautious.”
“And you’re being underly cautious.” Her scowl was a shovel, digging under his skin.
“It’s just a black eye.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“I’ve been in enough fights to gauge the damage.” He doubled up his fist, posed like a boxer. “I’ll live.”
“It could be something serious.”
“Would it bother you if it was something serious?”
“Yes, of course it would.”
His pulse skipped a beat and his chest twisted tourniquet tight. “Why?”
“’Cause it would ruin Archer’s day if you fell into a coma. He and Casey have waited a long time to find each other. Last thing he needs is you screwing it up.”
“Tell it like it is.” He exhaled. What had he expected her to say? That she cared about him and it would break her heart if anything bad happened to him? He’d been fishing, which was pathetic. “At least we’re on the same page about Archer’s wedding.”
“Just different approaches. Yours is denial. It’s common among stubborn men.”
“And yours is being overly cautious.”
Kaia threw her hands in the air. “Fine. Have it your way. No hospital. But if you pass out I’m not helping you.”
“Sure you will. You can’t help yourself. I saw the look in your eyes when you were hovering over me. You were worried.”
She notched up her chin. “I’m still worried. I’m a compassionate person.”
“You’re …” He let the sentence dangle, and she shot him another sideways glance.
“What?” she whispered.
“All grown-up,” he murmured.
“And you are stub—”
“Stubborn. Yes, we covered that. What else?”
“Late for brunch,” she finished, leaving him feeling vaguely disappointed.
Keeping the ice bag of frozen corn to his temple, he downed the pain pills, chugged the water, and pushed back the chair. Lost his balance a little from getting up so suddenly, and stumbled against the table.
“Whoa!” Kaia leaped forward, reached for his elbow.
He put up a restraining hand, moved away to keep her from latching onto him. He hated being fussed over. “I’ve got this. I’m fine.”
She clicked her tongue, shook her head.
He flashed her the brightest smile in his repertoire. Pure gold, the one that never failed to charm. But he couldn’t quite pull off full stun because of the black eye.
She scoffed at his smile. Shot down again. “You look like a junkyard dog after a weekend bender.”
“Feels a bit like that too.”
“Still,” she said with all the primness of an old maid accountant. “I’m very glad you came
home.”
“Are you?”
“Absolutely.” She lifted up a perky, I’ve-got-sunshine-in-my-teeth smile. Enthusiastic. Classic Kaia.
He saw her in a montage of past moments, hugging animals, splashing in Balmorhea Springs, spinning on the tire swing in the front yard of the foreman’s house. She smiled the same. A girl who existed eternally in the amusement park of her mind. He was glad that hadn’t changed.
“It was brave of you,” she said. “Coming back after so long.”
“I have a butt load of faults, but when I commit to something, I’m loyal to the bone. My best friend gets married. I’m there.”
Noticing him evaluating her, Kaia’s gaze scooted to her hands and she tucked them in her lap. Small hands, delicate but work-roughened, nails clipped short, palms calloused, skin tanned. Several small scars dotted her knuckles, and twin silvered puncture marks puckered the outside of her left hand.
“Ferret bites,” she explained. “Vicious little suckers if they feel trapped.”
He laughed at her comical expression, but immediately regretted it because it sounded as if he was laughing at her pain. “They better not try that around me.”
“You’ve got plenty of scars of your own. I remember when you got that one.” She reached out and traced an index finger over the jagged scar staggering across his palm. He had a corresponding scar that ran the length of his inner thigh. “You cut it on the barbwire fence saving my silly hide from Clyde the bull.”
“You terrified the crap out of me. Standing there in your red cape with a bucket of oats.”
Kaia crinkled her nose. “I thought I could tame Clyde.”
“Testosterone-fueled bulls pastured near heifers in heat are impossible to tame.”
“So I discovered. But give me a break. What did I know? I was eight.”
“And fearless as hell.”
“Animals have never scared me. People on the other hand …” She peered into his eyes.
Ridge flexed his hand, felt the sting of the barbwire, as he recalled yanking apart the strands to toss Kaia to safety on the other side of the fence. And there he stood bleeding all over the corral, Kaia’s overturned bucket of feed spewed out on the ground, Clyde ducking his head, snorting and pawing the sandy earth.
Kaia had hollered, “Hey, hey!” and then yelled, “Run!” as Clyde charged.
Ridge had thrown himself over the fence like a pole-vaulter, dragging his jeans and his flesh across the long expanse of barbwire, slicing his thigh wide-open. It had taken forty-six stitches to close the wound and the entire time the doctor was sewing him up, Duke bitched at how much it was costing him.
“In retrospect,” he said, rubbing a palm down his thigh. “I might have come out better if I’d stayed in the ring with Clyde.”
“I haven’t thought about that day in years,” Kaia said. “But it was a defining moment for me.”
“Yeah?”
“I developed a healthy respect for nature.”
“But you didn’t lose your love of animals.”
“I could never lose that. Animals are in my blood. I was born to care for them.”
Her perky smile grew so bright Ridge was tempted to put on his sunglasses. Her smile overwhelmed sometimes. Too honest. Too true. Too compassionate. Too much of a reminder of what he was missing.
He cast around for something clever to say, light and deflective, but he had no grip on where this conversation was going. She was his best friend’s little sister. He wasn’t about to do what his male instincts were urging him to do.
Kiss her.
Kiss her hard. Kiss her long. Kiss her now. Kiss her as if they had a future. Kiss her as if they belonged.
“I hated that you got cut up over me,” she said, tracing her finger over his scarred palm.
“You ran for help.”
“Your father came and carried you back to the ranch. Blood was everywhere.”
Ridge touched the scar on his hand. “When I got home from the hospital, you stuck a Barbie Band-Aid on me.”
“I loved Barbie.” Kaia sighed. “For me to share my Barbie Band-Aids with you was monumental … but I was feeling guilty.”
“I was honored.”
“Were you?”
“I proudly showed off Barbie at school.”
“You didn’t get teased?”
“I was the quarterback and the class president and captain of the debate team. People didn’t tease me.”
“Because they wanted to be you or be with you.”
“Pretty much.” He grinned, not the least bit embarrassed. “Barbie made people think I had a new girlfriend.”
“You liked that?”
His I’m-the-best-at-everything-I-do shrug. “Fueled my reputation as a player.”
Kaia snorted. “As if you needed any help with that. You kissed most every girl in Cupid high school.”
Ridge lowered his lashes, pitched her a softball smile. “I never kissed you.”
“Because I was your best friend’s kid sister.”
His head bobbed in agreement. “True.”
“Besides, I didn’t go to high school with you, old man. I was in seventh grade when you were a senior.”
“You were off-limits in those days,” he said. But not now. Six years wasn’t such a big age difference between twenty-six and thirty-two.
She shifted, backed up, grabbed for her shoulders, hugged herself.
He wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
“We should go. They’re holding brunch,” she said in a quicksilver rush.
“Ah yeah, brunch.” He didn’t want to go to brunch at the mansion with a houseful of people who by and large made him uncomfortable.
But she was already in motion, headed for the door.
“Hang on.”
She paused, peered at him, looked frustrated and antsy. “What?”
“I owe you.”
“Wait until you get my bill.” She laughed, an honest-from-the-belly laugh. A laugh that said she knew how to have fun, a laugh that curled up tight inside him, a laugh that made him nostalgic for all the times he’d hadn’t heard it.
A laugh he was going to miss when he was gone.
Chapter 8
Kaia stepped onto the porch of Ridge’s house, medical bag in hand and stared at the ATV parked in front of the chapel. All the other vehicles, including her truck, were gone.
After Majestic kicked Ridge, she’d been so focused on him that she hadn’t paid much attention to how the rides back to the mansion had been divvied up. But of course, they’d needed her truck for transporting that many people.
And she wasn’t about to let him drive with only one operational eye. Her resolve to avoid Ridge was already shot all to hell, but the thought of riding tandem with him left her quaking in her cowgirl boots.
Or, new thought, she could get one of her sisters to come and pick them up. Except cell reception this far from the main house was spotty at best, although occasionally texts could get through when calls couldn’t.
Ah, life in the Trans-Pecos. It might as well be 1980.
The front door slammed behind her.
She could feel his eyes on her. But she wasn’t going to look back. No siree. She trotted toward the ATV. Stopped.
She couldn’t help herself. She looked back.
His head was cocked to the right and he had the makeshift ice pack pressed to his temple. Stetson and sunglasses were in place, giving him the appearance of a cowboy cop—authoritative, in control, self-assured. She felt a wallop of sexual heat blast into her.
Transfixed, Kaia gulped.
The left corner of his mouth tipped up, a lazy, seductive half smile. She wasn’t going to encourage him by smiling back. Nope. Nope. Not gonna …
A smile kidnapped her face, took it freaking hostage, and held her for ransom in the heart of the hot, dusty desert.
Gak! Call the CDC. She needed an emergency Ridge vaccine. STAT!
Too late. His contagion had already sprea
d. The man was pure sex on two legs. T. R. O. U. B. L. E. For so many reasons she couldn’t begin to count them all, but primarily because she’d had a crush on him since she was a kid.
And he could break her like biscotti. Snap. Snap.
Shaking off the silly notion that she and Ridge could ever pair up, she pretended she wasn’t the least bit unnerved to ride back with him on the ATV, and strapped her medical kit to the flat metal rack on the front of the four-wheeler with the attached bungee cord strap.
“I’ll drive,” she said firmly.
“I’m driving.”
“You’ve got one eye swollen half-shut. I’m not arguing with you.” She swung her leg over the seat, glanced back over her shoulder to see if he would follow.
He hesitated as if he was going to put up a fight. Bruised and battered, but full of cowboy swagger, tugging at her with masculine spunk.
And in a wholly feminine way she reacted.
Her body softened and her pulse quickened and her stomach fluttered. Dear God, stop it. She clamped her lips together to keep from grinning at him and starched her spine. “You coming?”
“No, but I’m breathing hard.”
“Oh good grief,” she muttered, but she could barely suppress a laugh that rose up in her when he flashed a devilish smile that sent desire and heat rolling through her body.
“I’m not giving in. You’re injured. I’m in charge.”
“When did you get so ornery?”
“I could ask you the same thing, except oops, you’ve always been ornery.”
“Now that’s a sweeping statement, considering you haven’t seen me in ten years.”
“Prove me wrong and get on without any further argument.” She waved at a spot on the seat behind her.
He sauntered toward her, adjusting his Stetson lower on his forehead. “Bravo, you’ve learned to stand your ground, Brat.”
She shrugged like it was nothing, but she was thrilled that he noticed. “You don’t come within inches of dying without rearranging some things.”
“Ornery suits you.” He slid onto the back of the ATV behind her. “I like it.”
Well, look at that, Mr. Alpha Cowboy CEO was going to do it. He was going to let her lead. Being the second-youngest of five kids, she was accustomed to being brushed aside and minimalized. But surprise, surprise, Ridge didn’t steamroll her, and she appreciated it.
