Million Dollar Cowboy

by Lori Wilde

He couldn’t help but smell it. It was right under his damn nose. Soft. Floral. And totally irrelevant. He made a big deal of inhaling. “Okay, I sniffed it. Happy now? Can I go?”

  “Take a deep breath.”

  “I don’t have time.” Ridge tapped his watch.

  “Which is exactly why you should take the time.”

  “I’m outta here.”

  “You disappoint me.”

  Ridge gave a stiff-shoulder shrug. “Not the first time. I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

  “Stay.”

  “Why?”

  “You belong.”

  Ha! He didn’t belong here. He’d never belonged here. Hell, truth be told, he didn’t belong anywhere.

  “You’re hopeless. You know that?”

  “Probably,” he agreed, the smell of roses clogging up his sinuses.

  “I give up. The only person who seems capable of getting through to you is Kaia Alzate, and you’re pushing her away the hardest. She loves you, dammit. For once, just let someone love you.”

  “Vivi!” Duke called from the top of the stairs. “The boy wants to leave, let him go.”

  Ridge glanced up the wide double staircase at the end of the entryway. His father was leaning against the banister in his pajamas looking ashen beneath his outdoorsy tan. The bachelor party bruise at his eye was almost gone, but a shadow of color lingered. A quiver of regret seized him.

  His father frowned, studying him hard as if trying to read his thoughts. His hair silvered, his forehead deeply etched with lines. The man he’d once seen as a lion. The man who’d once controlled his life no longer held any power over him.

  So much contention lay between them, so much stagnant water under the aging bridge.

  “He’s got to make his own mistakes,” Duke said. “One day he’ll see where he went wrong, but by then it will all be too late.”

  And as Ridge stood there feeling pity for the old man, he realized with shock, the old man was feeling sorry for him.

  The fourteen-plus-hour flight to Beijing left Ridge wrung out and feeling like chopped liver hash on a stale cracker.

  Or at least that’s what he told himself.

  His head throbbed and his shoulders ached and his butt was numb from so much time in the seat, never mind that he’d flown first-class. It was still too long to be stuffed into a winged metal tube at thirty thousand feet.

  But the truth was, he’d been unable to think about anything but Kaia since he’d walked away from her in the dark.

  Images flipped and fluttered through his mind, quick and vivid, a vision of Kaia in a teeny-weeny red bikini doing the breaststroke in the springs at Balmorhea, an utterly disarming smile on her gorgeous face.

  Kaia in his arms on the dance floor at Archer’s wedding, her face turned up to him, head thrown back, long hair cascading over his elbow as he dipped her in an exaggerated back bend. Her laughter ringing in his ears.

  Kaia in his bed, eyes wide and dark, pale light from the moon falling over her lithe body. The long scar at her hip, that jagged badge of courage, reminding him of how much she’d suffered and just how tough she was.

  Kaia and her golden lips, telling him about the Song of the Soul Mate that had scared him so very much because he believed it too and believing it made him feel so out of control.

  Kaia holding his gaze steady, assuring him that until he could let go of his emotional baggage and forgave the past she couldn’t be with him. An assurance that knocked his heart sideways.

  He loved her and that’s all there was to it.

  When he got to Liu Yan’s headquarters, Phil Rhonstein met him with a toothy smile and a hearty handshake. “It’s solved.”

  Jet-lagged, Ridge blinked. “What?”

  “The contract. Liu Yan’s signing off on it.”

  “How did that come about?”

  Phil went into detail about the negotiations and ended with, “I told you we could handle it.”

  “Good work.”

  “No need for you to be here,” Phil said. “You hired me for a reason.”

  Of course he needed to be here. This deal was the most important thing in his life. “I’m here for six months to train the miners.”

  “You’ve got a team that can do that for you.”

  “I’m here,” he said. “I’m staying. Drop it.”

  “Sorry,” Phil said. “I’d gotten the impression that maybe you’d gotten a social life while you were in Cupid. My mistake.”

  Before Ridge could think of a comeback, Liu Yan walked into the room and work took over. Just as it always had.

  But this time, instead of feeling fulfilled by shoptalk, discussion of the Lock Ridge drilling method left Ridge strangely dissatisfied, and if it hadn’t been the middle of the night in Cupid, he would have texted Kaia.

  By the time the meeting was over, the impulse to text her had passed, and Ridge did what he always did when assaulted by complicated feelings. He threw himself into his work one hundred percent.

  Work.

  It was, after all, his one-and-only salvation.

  Chapter 30

  Dart didn’t come home, and Ridge didn’t call. Or text. Or email.

  Not that day. Nor the next. Nor the day after that.

  Kaia had to let go of them both.

  At first, it made her stomach quiver, the idea that she didn’t have to know the outcome or be in control in order to enjoy the unfolding of life in all its big messy glory.

  Flow. She was water. Just let go and flow.

  Once she got the hang of it, letting go started to feel natural. Inevitable. Freeing. She did not have to know what was going to happen tomorrow in order to enjoy today. Tomorrow was a mystery. The past nothing but a memory.

  At times, though, she’d forget and slip back into the way she used to be. Worrying. Wishing. Hoping. Doing things to distract herself. Working all hours, eating when she wasn’t hungry, listening for the humming in her head that had disappeared along with Ridge.

  Let go.

  Trust.

  If she could do that, everything else would sort itself out. According to Granny Blue, they were destined. The only hitch was Ridge. It was all up to him.

  A week had passed since Ridge left and she hadn’t heard a word from him. Not a call. Not an email. Not a text.

  The man who loved technology had chosen this moment to go for radio silence. And of course, she hadn’t been bold enough to contact him. What would she say if she did? I love you. Come home.

  It was what she wanted to say, but the ball was in his court. He was the one who had to come to her.

  So when her thoughts grew worrisome, when her hopes were too much to bear, she would go see Granny Blue, who told her to simply breathe.

  Pay close attention to how perfectly the air slipped in and out of her lungs. She would go outside and slip off her shoes and dig her feet into the warm sand, feel the grains shift between her toes and just be. She took long walks in the early morning as the sun was waking up, keeping her mind centered on the path and her walk.

  She even stopped watching for Dart. Well, mostly. Her hope could still be seduced by the shift of shadows or the flutter of grass.

  It was becoming automatic. The breathing, the walking, the being. It was easy, when you gave it a chance. Letting go. Why had she taken something so simple and made it so complex?

  Awareness, Granny Blue had told her, was the key.

  Life was really not that complicated when you took it moment by moment, stayed out of the past, and didn’t invent a fictional future. Eventually, as she gained more and more control over her thoughts and feelings, she felt lighter, enlightened.

  But enlightenment was a funny thing. If you thought you had it, you probably didn’t.

  Enlightenment wasn’t some big neon sign glowing in the dark, bestowed by gods from on high. Rather, it was the eventual dawning that all the obstacles you’d been tripping over were of your own making, and only you had the power to dispatch them. Only you held
the key to your own freedom by becoming aware of your mind chatter and how silly much of it was.

  At least that’s what Granny Blue kept telling her, and for the most part, that understanding helped her keep it together.

  But then the dark clouds would drift over her. And the thoughts would close in. The ones she couldn’t walk or breathe away. When the dark clouds came, she knew she had to get out of her own mind, so she submersed herself in animals. When her faith in people faltered, animals always cheered her up.

  One sleepless night, she pocketed a flashlight and liver treats. Made a call to the police to let them know she’d be in the shelter after hours so they didn’t send a patrol car and let herself into the kennels via the side exit door.

  The sound of her key in the lock set the dogs to barking. Barking that filled her head with humming as surely as Ridge’s kiss.

  Stop thinking about him.

  The second she stepped into the kennels and the dogs caught her scent, they immediately hushed and tails went wagging. She went from pen to pen, greeting each dog, rubbing heads and scratching behind ears. Cooing and talking to them like they understood what she was saying.

  “Thinking time is over,” she said to a mixed breed pit bull with an adorable spotted face, and tickled the dog’s nose. “Yes it is. Oh yes it is.”

  The pitty sighed happily.

  She sat down on the floor beside pitty’s pen, the cement cool beneath her bottom. Bit her bottom lip to keep from crying. “Damn it, pitty, how do I stop loving him?”

  The dog sympathized with a soft whimper.

  “Nope. There’s no hope for us.”

  The pitty rolled over onto her belly, pawed at Kaia’s hand through the chain-link wire of her pen.

  “I know. I should have seen it coming. Granny Blue’s romantic legend aside, Ridge is Ridge. I can’t change him. I don’t want to change him. I love him just the way he is. Unfortunately …” Her bottom lip quivered and no amount of sinking her teeth into it could stop her sorrow. “He doesn’t … or can’t … love me the way I love him.”

  The pitty gave her a look.

  “Well, yes, he did ask me to go to China with him. But I turned him down, and now he hasn’t called or texted or emailed.”

  The dog barked.

  “Ahh, so you think it’s my fault? I should be the one to contact him?”

  The pitty wagged her tail.

  “Damn, dog,” Kaia said, tears flowing down her cheeks. “How did you get so smart?”

  The dog looked at her as if to say, “How did you get so dumb?”

  Ten days after he arrived in Beijing, Ridge was dining on a lavish banquet in his honor at Liu Yan’s palace, wishing he was instead at Kaia’s little cottage sharing a delivery pizza.

  He was at the pinnacle of his career, and it meant nothing.

  He kept thinking about his last day in Cupid. What everyone had said to him. Duke. Vivi. Kaia.

  Maybe they were right. Maybe he did use work as an excuse to bury his emotions. Maybe he had been running away.

  It was a concept he kept butting up against.

  From the time he was a kid, he’d always felt the only way to earn Duke’s love and respect was to do something of value. Take care of his brothers. Play football. Be class president. Make money. Build a house. Win trophies. Invent a drilling method. Pilot an airplane. Learn Mandarin.

  Where did it end? When would he be good enough? How much money did he have to have before he felt complete? How many skills did he need to master? How many awards did he have to achieve?

  Why did he have to do things to feel worthy? Who would he be if he just stopped doing?

  The idea was terrifying.

  But it was also freeing.

  What if he didn’t have to constantly produce, produce, produce in order to be loved?

  What if he was already loved, just for who he was?

  Kaia had been trying to tell him that all along. He was loved. Ridge couldn’t seem to wrap his head around it.

  What if he didn’t have to be the best of the best? What if second best was good enough? What if people accepted him just the way he was? And what if other peoples’ opinions of him weren’t so important?

  What was holding him back from fully embracing that notion?

  The answer came to him in Kaia’s soft voice with such clarity that he sucked in his breath and bolted upright in his chair.

  You don’t believe you deserve love.

  “Ridge?” Phil leaned over to whisper. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” he said, but his mind and body were on fire with the epiphany. Could the answer be that simple? Other people hadn’t been rejecting him all along. He’d been rejecting himself.

  His cell phone dinged, letting him know he had a text. Once. Twice.

  But Kaia’s lesson had sunk in. Mr. Yan was his host. He deserved Ridge’s undivided attention. The phone dinged again, but he ignored it until he excused himself from the table. Slipped off to the restroom.

  When he finally pulled the phone from his pocket and checked the text messages and saw they were from Kaia, his heart grew wings.

  I lied, said the first text.

  Intrigued, he scrolled to the next one.

  I’ll wait for you.

  His chest tightened and his heart raced.

  However long it takes.

  He couldn’t exhale. He staggered against the wall to keep from falling over.

  I’ll be here.

  I miss you.

  I love you.

  And the last one.

  I cherish the day when you can tell me you love me too.

  Finally, finally, he could breathe again. And in that moment, Ridge absolutely knew exactly where he belonged.

  The minute he got out of his plane at the Silver Feather Ranch, Duke was there to greet him.

  He’d called his father when he left Beijing, telling him he was coming home so they could have a long talk.

  “Welcome home, son,” Duke said, and stunned Ridge by giving him a hug.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “Vivi threatened to leave me if I don’t make things right with you this time,” Duke said. “I can’t lose her, so here I am, hugging you.”

  “Is she watching?”

  “On the front porch.”

  “You’ll do anything for her, won’t you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You’re better for her than I ever was,” Ridge said.

  “I know that.” Duke grinned and Ridge didn’t take offense. Not at all.

  They stared at each other, not in hostile tension as before, but in companionable silence.

  Something monumental had shifted.

  Not in Duke, but in him.

  “I’m glad you came home,” Duke said.

  “Glad to be here.” Ridge meant every word.

  “After my heart attack, well, I’ve done some thinking and I want you to know I’m changing my will. I’m leaving the Silver Feather to you. Although I’m leaving the mansion to Vivi of course.”

  “What?” His jaw unhinged. A silver feather could have knocked him over. But this was Duke. Ridge had narrowed his eyes, hopeful but still guarded. “Are you just trying to stir up trouble between me and my brothers? Because I don’t need your money or your ranch.”

  “I know that.”

  “Why then?”

  “You’re my son, what do you mean, why?”

  “You have three other sons.”

  “You’re the oldest.”

  “I’m the bastard.”

  “That doesn’t matter. This isn’t 1854.”

  “You always treated me like it was.”

  “I’m an asshole. Is that what you want me to say? There it is. I’m an asshole.”

  “Well, okay. We both already knew that.”

  “I admit it,” Duke said. “I was furious when your mama got knocked up and put the screws to me for money. I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have. That was wrong. Happy no
w?”

  It wasn’t quite an apology, but it was something. Baby steps.

  “Besides,” Duke went on, “you’re the only one who loves the ranch like I do. Ranger’s a good hand, but his head is in the stars. Remington’s got a chip on his shoulder and a score to settle. And Rhett don’t give a damn about anything he can’t ride. You’re the only one with soil in your blood …”

  “Have you talked to them?”

  “I haven’t. They’ll get their due. I’m not cutting them out. There’s the silver mine and other real estate holdings. But the ranch is yours.” Duke’s voice faltered as if the conversation was taking way too much out of him. “I want you to have it … son.”

  “Thank you …” Ridge hesitated a moment, and then went ahead and grabbed the impulse seizing him. “Dad.”

  Duke looked stunned, pulled a palm down his face. “You called me Dad. You haven’t called me that since you were—”

  “Twelve years old, and we got into our first fistfight. I know.”

  “You don’t have to wait until I die,” Duke invited. “I’m not up to snuff and the doc says I have to take it easy. While Archer is an ace foreman, he’s not family. You did a fine job with the business while I was in the hospital. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I just saw the changes you’d made. Good changes. Changes I should have made years ago and I felt inadequate and put-out-to-pasture and I took it out on you.”

  “Thank you for saying that.” It was odd, hearing Duke admit he was wrong.

  “You don’t have to take it over now. I’m just saying the Silver Feather is your home. If you ever wanted to put down roots, you could.”

  “It’s a generous offer.”

  “But you’re not going to take it.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you heading back to China?”

  “It all depends.”

  “On what?”

  “How all this goes down.”

  “C’mon inside, boy. It’s time we set things right.”

  Chapter 31

  Four hours later, Ridge strode up the flagstone sidewalk at dark. No stars were out. The only sounds he heard were his footsteps against the pavers.

  There were desert sounds too, of course, but his mind didn’t fully register those. Inside that house was the woman he’d been waiting all his life for, and each scrape of his boots took him closer and closer, the sharp slap-slap marking off each step like a promise.