by Lori Wilde
“You really don’t have—”
But Ridge was already hanging up.
Chapter 27
Ridge pocketed his cell phone and reached for the handle of the sliding glass door, just as Duke yanked it open.
A vein throbbed at his father’s temple, and his nostrils flared like a crazed bull charging a matador. Duke snarled. Lips curled back over his teeth. “What did you do?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t start that crap!”
Ridge shook his head. “Didn’t learn a thing from the heart attack, huh? Take a deep breath, calm down.”
“How can I calm down when the minute my back is turned you stage a coup!”
“A coup?”
“You go into my office, change things around …” He waved his arms wildly. “Get into my business accounts, move my money—”
“Oh, you mean how I modernized your banking, updated your software, and found a way to save the ranch seven hundred dollars a month? That’s the ‘coup’ you’re talking about?”
Duke ran right over that speed bump of information. “You had no right!”
“Vivi asked for my help. She’s the one who gave me access to your accounts.”
“You had no right! Coming in when I was down and out, throwing your swagger around. I know you’re trying to show me up. You don’t fool me for a minute.”
In the back of his mind Ridge had been holding on to a thin rope of hope that Duke’s illness would lead to some kind of reconciliation. Okay, maybe not a reconciliation, since they’d never been close in the first place, but at least an understanding so they could hold a conversation without constantly butting heads.
Dream the hell on.
His relationship with his father was what it was. Things were never going to change. All the wishing in the world wouldn’t alter the facts.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
His father scowled. “What the hell for?”
“Staying behind, looking after the ranch for two weeks when I should have been in China taking care of my business.”
“Nobody asked you.” Duke hardened his chin, his voice going petulant as a five-year-old kid told he had to wear galoshes.
“Yeah, yeah they did. Vivi, Ranger, Remington, Rhett. They all asked me to stay. So I did.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
“God no. Heaven forbid Duke Lockhart ever asked anyone for help.”
“Goes to show you can count on me for something.”
“Pigheaded? Yes. In that regard, you’re as predictable as the sun comin’ up in the east,” Ridge drawled.
“I need a drink,” Duke said. “Where’d you put the hooch you took out of my office?”
“Doctor said you need to lay off the liquor. Vivi’s swept it from the house.”
“Goddammitall.” Duke sulked, his eyes turning dark and sullen.
“Look,” Ridge said. “I’m sorry you’re pissed off about the changes, but you’re just going to have to adjust.”
They exchanged a hard look. Duke’s face razor-edged with anger.
“No whiskey at all?”
“Nope.”
“When are you leaving?”
“As soon as Vivi and Ranger get here.”
“For good?” Duke asked in a fisticuffs voice, but underneath the pugilism whispered a tremor of fear.
They were still standing in the doorway. Ridge outside. Duke in. Staring each other down.
“You should go to bed,” Ridge said.
“And you should butt out.”
“If you won’t go to bed, at least sit down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Duke grunted, but backed up and sat down at the kitchen table.
“Want some water?” Ridge asked, coming into the house, pulling the sliding glass door closed behind him.
“I want some whiskey.”
“Sorry, can’t always get what you want.”
“Throwin’ that back in my face?”
“You told it to me when I was three and begging for my mama,” Ridge said.
“She wasn’t comin’ back.”
“I was three, you hard-ass.” Ridge plunked down at the table across from him.
“I didn’t tell her to leave you on my doorstep and run her car into a brick wall.”
“You don’t think you had a hand in it?”
“I couldn’t marry her.” Duke’s voice softened. “I was already married to Sabrina.”
“You might have figured out she was having a rough time hanging on and stepped in to help.”
“I gave her money. What else was I supposed to do?”
Every bone in Ridge’s body solidified into stone. A wrecking ball couldn’t have knocked him down. He was that hard inside.
“She was pretty.” Duke’s voice softened, and Ridge could have sworn he heard traces of regret, but maybe that was wishful thinking. “And she smelled so good.”
“Yes, she did.”
“She’d be proud of you.”
“I imagine she would.”
They sat like boxers, eyeing each other from their corners after a tough round. Waiting for the bell to ring so they could flay each other again.
“So,” Duke said. “You’re flying away tonight.”
“I am.”
“Go on then.” Duke flipped his hand. “No need to wait on Vivi and Ranger.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“There’s a housekeeper. She can look after me.”
“It’s not her job.”
A moment passed. One tick of a clock. Then another. And another.
“Think you’ll ever get married?” Duke asked.
Ridge shot him a quelling look. “Why are you asking?”
“Just filling the air.”
“Can’t say I’m marriage material.”
“What about Kaia?”
“What about her?”
“You gonna throw her away same as Vivi?”
Zing. Bam. There it was. Sucker punch.
“I didn’t throw Vivi away. You stole her from me.”
“Bullshit. That’s the sugar teat you use to soothe yourself with. Truth was, you were too busy trying to show me up to give a woman like Vivi the kind of attention she deserved. Stop blaming me for your failings.”
“Oh, so that wasn’t your bare ass I saw over my girlfriend, in my bed, in my house?”
“Okay, you got me there. I apologize for the circumstances,” Duke said. “In hindsight it was crass. But I don’t apologize for picking up the diamond you tossed aside as coal.”
“Well all right then, that makes it okay.” Ridge gripped the edges of the chair, his heart wedged firmly in his throat.
“You’re doing it all over again,” Duke accused.
“Doing what?” Ridge asked, his mouth so tight the words grated against teeth.
“Running away when you start to feel something.”
“Excuse me?” Knees trembling, Ridge shot to his feet. “I’ve never run away from anything in my life.”
Duke threw back his head and let out a donkey guffaw.
“What’s so damn funny?” Ridge scowled, balled up his fists, and tucked them into his armpits.
“You!” Duke hooted, slapped both palms against his belly, and heehawed until tears rolled down his cheeks. “That is … whew wee …” He swiped at the tears. “That is … priceless.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” Ridge pulled his shoulder blades together, felt hot, ugly energy shoot up his spine like a bullet and lodge in the base of his skull.
“Oh, oh. What are you gonna do? Run away again?”
“I didn’t run away. I left to make my fortune.”
“And spent the next decade hiding out.”
“I was not—” Ridge bit down on his tongue. The old man was trying to get his goat and he was allowing it to happen. “Fine. Think what you want. I know the truth.”
“Do you?” Duke’s laughter vanished. He plan
ted his palms on the table, leaned in.
“I do.”
“Whose truth? Yours or the rest of us?”
“And what is your truth, Duke?”
“Was I the best father in the land?” Duke shrugged. “No. But at least I own who I am, and I don’t make excuses. You were the one who took off. If you’d stayed and had it out with me things would have been a lot different. I would have put you in charge of the ranch—”
“Is this your way of trying to make amends? If so, you pretty much suck at it.”
“I’m saying you ran, so you have no right to come in here and mess with the way I do business. No right to change things to suit you without consulting me. No right to take over when I was down and out.”
Ridge dug deep, grabbed hold of his steel self-control, and gripped it tight. “I was just trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You’ve made that clear enough,” Ridge said. “I’m outta here.”
“That’s right. Scoot. Take off. Toodle-loo. Live up to my expectations. ’Cause leaving is what you do best.”
After Kaia left her sisters, she’d gone to see Granny Blue. Only her grandmother could truly understand the emotions buffeting her, harsh as a west Texas sandstorm.
“Give Ridge time,” Granny Blue said softly. “He’s had a hard life. He’s not used to being loved.”
“He didn’t say a word after I told him about the Song of the Soul Mate. He just stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.”
“Most people are afraid to let go and trust their inner wisdom. You didn’t want to trust it either.”
“Until it happened to me.” Kaia touched the base of her skull from where the humming emanated. Wished she could kiss Ridge and stir that sweet sound again.
“And you’ve had your whole life to hear about the legend. To prepare. He’s new to this.” Granny Blue had patted Kaia’s cheek. “Give him time.”
“How much time?”
“As long as he needs.”
“Weeks? Months?” Kaia paused, gulped. “Years?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“What if he falls for someone else?”
“Have no fear, little one. The Song of the Soul Mate is never wrong. If you hear the hum when he kisses you, he is yours.”
That all sounded well and good, but it did nothing to quell the fear in her belly. Granny Blue hadn’t seen the stony look in his eyes when she’d told him about the humming.
“You must have patience. You must believe. You must trust. Understand me when I say this to you. You cannot lose him. He is yours. He has always been yours. He will always be yours. Nothing in heaven or earth can ever change that.”
“All right.” Kaia nodded, feeling marginally better. “I can’t lose him no matter what?”
Granny Blue’s eyes shone, her smile steady and filled with golden promise. “No matter what.”
“But …” Kaia bit her bottom lip.
“What is it?”
“What happens if, no matter how much time I give him, no matter how long I wait …” She paused on a hiccup of emotions.
“Hope is your greatest strength, child. You’ve always been able to see past the thunderclouds when others could not. Hold on to that hope.”
“But what happens if he is so broken, so afraid, he simply can’t or won’t accept our destiny?”
Granny’s bright eyes shuttered and her smile evaporated. “I’ll pray that does not happen.”
A wisp of loneliness blew over Kaia so strong and mournful she felt it seep deep into her soul. “What if prayers just don’t work? What if despite everything Ridge is incapable of loving me.”
“Then …” Granny Blue’s voice broke, brittle and mournful. “It will be the greatest tragedy of both your lives.”
Chapter 28
It was late when she returned from Granny Blue’s. Almost ten o’clock.
Her mind worried over thoughts of Ridge, preoccupied, distracted. She forgot to bar the front door with her foot as she entered and the orphaned orange tabby kitten shot around her ankles into the night.
Sprinting for freedom.
“Dammit Dart!” she hollered, getting knocked down by Buddy and Bess as they chased after the kitten in an exuberant, we-wanna-play-too hullabaloo. “Get back here!”
Right. Like that was happening.
She grabbed hold of Buddy’s and Bess’s collars and wrangled them back into the house, shut the door, and went after Dart.
The half-moon was out, ghostly and white.
She walked around the house, calling “kitty, kitty, kitty,” finally spied Dart scaling the only tall tree in the area. A big Texas walnut growing against the side of the house that someone had planted a long time before Kaia had been born.
Great. How was she going to get him down? She couldn’t trust he’d come down on his own, and leave him be. Not at night. Not in the dark. Too many predators in the desert.
Remembering a trick she’d seen in the old movie Roxanne, where fireman C. D. Bales, played by Steve Martin sporting a fake Cyrano de Bergerac big nose, rescued a cat from a tree, Kaia went into the house for a can of tuna, came back outside, opened the pop-top lid, and set the can underneath the tree.
“Yum, yum. It’s tuna. Dinnertime. Come and get it.”
Dart crawled deeper into the leaves of the tree, eyed her suspiciously, but did not come down. Well so much for that trick. Steve Martin owed her a can of tuna.
“Dart, darling, come down, come down. Kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Dart scooted higher into the tree. So much for her cat seducing abilities. If her sisters could see her now, they’d have a good laugh.
“If you’re not going to come down, I’m going to have to come after you,” she threatened.
Oh yeah? Oblivious to her threats, Dart never looked down, just kept climbing.
She blew out her breath so hard it ruffled the strands of hair that had floated loose from her braids. She went back into the house past Buddy and Bess, who jumped all over her like they hadn’t seen her in ages.
“Yes, yes, good dogs.” She paused to pet them.
She went to the pantry, retrieved the stepladder she kept there. It was just tall enough to boost her up to the first limb of the tree.
Back outside, under the glow of the porch lamp, she steadied the stepladder as best she could on the uneven ground. Thick, gnarled, tree roots poked up and she straddled the ladder between them. Climbed to the top rung. Slung one blue-jeaned leg over the lowest branch.
“Okay, we’re cooking with kerosene now, baby.”
Carefully, she moved to the next limb and the next. After several long minutes, she reached the thin, shaky limb where Dart was perched. Made the mistake of glancing down.
Crapple!
She had to be at least seven feet off the ground.
Don’t think. Keep moving.
Dart, the little bugger, was being darn stubborn. Kaia scooted out as far as she dared on the limb, but the orange tabby edged out onto finger branches.
“I thought we had a deal. I take you in, give you all the love I have and in return, you don’t act like a jerk when I try to save you from yourself.”
“Mew.”
“You know there are night animals that see you as a tasty treat. Coyotes, foxes, owls … If you don’t want to be someone’s midnight snack, I suggest you come to Mama.”
“Mew.”
“No? Is it me? Tell me, where did I go wrong?”
Dart’s tail switched and he buried himself so deeply into the shadows she could barely see him.
“C’mere, sweetheart.” Kaia fished a liver treat from her pocket, hoped he liked that better than tuna, and set it on a knothole in the branch between them. “There’s more where that came from. Consider me your gravy train.”
Dart hunched into a tiny ball, curled his tail around him tight, and stared narrow-eyed at her.
“What? When have I ever done you wrong? Name one time.”
“Mew.”
“Not buying it, huh?”
She heard the rumble of a truck engine, straightened up on the limb, and craned her neck to see who it was.
Archer’s SUV.
With Ridge behind the wheel.
Her heart was a rocket, shooting to the moon. He’d come back!
From her vantage point hidden in the tree branches she could see him, but he couldn’t see her.
Ridge got out of the pickup.
Kaia’s stomach flipped and her chest squeezed tight and her pulse was a wild thing, writhing through arteries and veins.
What was he doing here? Why was he back so soon? Was everything okay with his father?
He sauntered up the sidewalk, headed for her house. He had no idea she was in the tree.
Kaia couldn’t help taking advantage of the opportunity and ogled his backside. She leaned over the edge of the branch, watching his back pockets sway.
Nice, very nice.
He adjusted his Stetson, pushing it back on his head, as if he had something serious to tell her. He rang her doorbell.
She canted her head, appreciating how his tight-fitting Wranglers cupped his muscular butt.
Whew-wee! Perspiration broke out on her forehead and in um … other places.
She let go of the branch with one hand, used it to fan herself.
Dart picked that moment to dash down from his perch higher on the same limb and he came flying toward her, nimble as a squirrel. He ran straight at her, his kitten claws catching in her hair.
She shrieked.
So did Dart.
And the next thing she knew, Kaia was lying on her back on the ground, guppy-gasping for air.
“Kaia.” Ridge knelt beside her. “Speak to me.”
She would if she could, but she couldn’t catch her breath.
He scooped her into his arms, held her close to his chest, and carried her into the house. She waved her hand, trying to get him to wait, to go look for Dart, but he wasn’t paying attention.
“He … he … he …” She wheezed, partially from the air being knocked out of her lungs and partially because she was in his arms.
Gently, he settled her on the sofa, and looked down at her, concern knitting his face.
She nodded, still struggling to inhale with seized-up lungs.
