Million Dollar Cowboy

by Lori Wilde

  “Shh,” he said. “Wait until you get your breath back.”

  She nodded. Buddy and Bess came over to lick her face, thumping their tails and looking concerned.

  “Dart,” she finally got out.

  “What?” He looked confused.

  She swung her legs off the sofa, tried to get up, but dizziness swamped her. Whoa! She sank back against the cushions.

  “Are you all right?” Ridge’s voice was stuffed with concern and his hands were gentle on her body. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine, but … wait a minute. What are you doing here? I thought you went to pick up Duke in El Paso.”

  “I did. I’m back.”

  “So quickly? Why aren’t you still with him?” she asked, hoping he’d tell her he couldn’t stay away from her one second longer than necessary.

  He shifted his gaze, glanced away from her. “We had it out. Big-time.”

  “Over what?”

  “My mother. Vivi. Everything.”

  “That’s good. Right? You finally cleared the air after all this time.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing changed.”

  “Oh Ridge, I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged like a snake shedding old skin, as if it were nothing, as if he wasn’t lacerated inside. But Kaia knew the difference. She knew how desperately he craved his father’s approval, even if he couldn’t admit it, even to himself.

  “I’m leaving,” he said. “I came to tell you goodbye.”

  “Tonight?” She heard tension in her voice, felt it grip and crawl, squeezing her stomach, her lungs, her throat. Moving up to her head, throbbing at her temples. “You’re leaving tonight?”

  “I have to go,” he said. “Immediate problems in China.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s my livelihood, Kaia.”

  “I understand.”

  “People depend on me.”

  “I get it.”

  “It’s—”

  “You don’t have to explain.” She cut him off because she couldn’t bear to hear anymore. He was leaving. She knew it was going to happen. But she’d convinced herself that they would have a few more days together. “I have problems of my own. Dart’s missing. We’ve got to find Dart.”

  “The kitten?”

  “Yes, the kitten. He got out of the house, ran up the tree. I tried to rescue him. He took off. He’s out there. In the night. Alone.”

  “I’ll go look for him.” Ridge straightened.

  “I’m coming too.” She pushed off from the sofa, pushed through the dizziness. “There’s a flashlight on the foyer table.”

  “You fell from a tree. Rest.”

  “I’m fine. Dart won’t come to you. Remember the last time?”

  He put a hand to his chest where Dart had scratched him. “Point taken.”

  “Let’s go.” She muscled past him, headed for the door.

  “Stubborn,” Ridge muttered, but he did not try to make her stay.

  Ridge shone the flashlight in bushes and trees. They searched her entire two-acre lot, calling and calling and calling. Then moved to the back alley, peeking behind Dumpsters, looking over fences into the neighbors’ yards.

  No sign of Dart.

  What if they didn’t find him? What if he was gone for good? Anxiety was a corkscrew, punched into her chest, twisting and twisting. Tighter and tighter the later it got.

  Finally, at midnight, the flashlight battery gave up the ghost, winked out. Plunging them in darkness in the middle of an open field a block away from her house.

  “What do you want to do now?” Ridge asked. “If you want to get a fresh battery and search all night, I’m with you.”

  His words were a comfort. She appreciated the sentiment. But it was temporary. In his mind, he was already gone.

  “You need to go,” she said.

  “I can stay until we find the kitten.”

  “We may never find him. He’s hard to tame.”

  Kaia remembered what Ridge had said when Dart had taken off before. Once a runner, always a runner. She had not wanted to believe that. Had hoped her love would sway him to stay.

  Hope.

  Her greatest strength, according to Granny Blue. But was it also her greatest flaw? Hoping against hope Hoping when all hope was gone. Hoping a kitten would change his stripes. Hoping a man would too.

  Foolishness. Utter foolishness. She could hope until she was blue in the face and it would not alter a thing. They were who they were.

  Both Dart and Ridge.

  She thought of an inane poster Aria had tacked on their shared bedroom wall when they were teenagers. If you love something set it free. If it comes back it’s yours. If not, it was never meant to be.

  “Are we giving up?” Ridge asked.

  Heart scraping the ground, Kaia nodded. “It’s over.”

  “Wait,” he said, moonlight carving his face in silhouette, half light, half dark. “Are we talking about the cat?”

  “No.”

  “Kaia.” He reached for her, his voice dusky as the Milky Way overhead.

  She stepped back, away from his hand, out of range. “You should go.”

  “We need to talk about what you said to me before I went to get Duke.”

  “There’s nothing to say. You’re leaving. You can’t get along with your father. You’ll never be comfortable in Cupid.” You can’t tell me you love me.

  “Come with me.”

  Her heart skip-thumped, bump-bump, bump-bump. “To China?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m returning to A&M in September.”

  “You could come back then.”

  Hope. Hope. Hope. Her imagination flew to China with Ridge, pictured living there with him. How easy it would be. How exciting.

  “No,” she said, shocking herself by sounding so forceful.

  “No?” He looked blindsided. Had he really expected her to say yes?

  “It’s better to cut bait now. Cleaner.” She didn’t know where the courage to say what needed to be said was coming from. The weak part of her wanted to sail into his arms and cover his face with kisses.

  “But the humming you hear when we kiss … that legend. I thought …”

  “The Song of the Soul Mate.”

  “I thought you believed in it.”

  “I do.”

  “So why are you breaking up with me?” He canted his head, gazed at her in hurt confusion.

  “Sweetheart,” she said as kindly and gently as possible, her heart breaking for him. He truly did not get it. “I can’t break up with you. We were never together.”

  He chuffed out a breath, ran a palm up the back of his neck, looked utterly lost.

  The breeze gusted. Kaia shivered in the darkness, crossed her arms over her chest. “You should go.”

  “If it wasn’t a billion-dollar deal on the line—”

  “It would be something else.”

  “What does that mean?” His voice turned flinty, flat.

  “It’s okay. I’m not judging you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She searched his face, trying to decipher what he was feeling. But he was so good at erecting barriers, hiding his emotions. His eyes were hooded, guarded. Cautious.

  “You hide behind your work and achievements. It’s your shield.”

  He blinked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “Huh?”

  “You use success as a substitute for love and acceptance. It’s understandable, considering where you came from. But the deal is, you don’t even realize that’s what you’re doing. You think being a workaholic is a virtue, not an impediment to what you really want.”

  “And what do I want?” His sarcasm was a knife blade, cutting and cold.

  “The same as anyone else.” She offered him the kindest smile she could muster. “Love. Belonging. You just don’t know how to open your heart and let it come to you.”

  “Got me all figured out, huh?” His eyes empty. Dead.

&
nbsp; “You’ve got this one way of being in the world that has served you well so far. But now it’s stopped working,” she went on. She might as well tell him what she thought. She had nothing left to lose. He was already lost to her unless something shifted.

  A grimace pulled his mouth down, but he said nothing.

  “I love you, Ridge. I love you with all my heart and soul. That will never ever change.” She paused. Giving him a chance to say he loved her too. Holding on to the seconds. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.

  He did not speak.

  All right. He wasn’t ready.

  She inhaled deeply. “But I can’t put my life on hold for you, waiting for you to decide you love me back. And even if you could tell me you loved me, I can’t be with you. Not until you get over this anger you have toward your father. Did he treat you badly? Hell yes. No doubt. No one will argue that point with you.”

  His eyes were a laser, searing her hot and long, but still he said nothing.

  “But you have to forgive him if you want to move on with your life. You have to drop the baggage you’ve been carrying. The baggage you’ve used to push you hard and fast. You’ve built your entire identity on showing him up.”

  Ridge pressed his lips together so tightly they disappeared.

  “News flash, you achieved your goal. You have bested him. You’ve made more money. You’ve made a bigger mark in the world. You’ve reached the pinnacle of success. You’re on Mount Everest. There are no more peaks left to conquer.”

  He was breathing hard and fast, his chest puffing up like a fire-breathing dragon.

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s time to let all that go. It’s time to find out who you are without Duke influencing your every move.”

  God, he was so stoic. Ridge. How apt his name.

  Unbending. Inflexible. Stony.

  “If you really want to be with me, you’ll stay here.” She moistened her lips. “You’ll let your employees do their jobs in China. You’ll forgive Duke and Vivi. You’ll forgive yourself. And in the process, you’ll find out who you really are. And once you find yourself, we can start to build something. If that is what you want. Until then …” She shrugged. It took everything she had inside of her not to show him how much this was killing her.

  “You done?” he asked, tight-lipped and blank faced.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “If I’m wrong, then stay and prove it to me.”

  “I have to go.”

  “I know.”

  “I wish it could be different. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” she said, her heart shattering into a bazillion little pieces. “But you’ve got nothing to apologize for. You are who you are. This is your way. What was it you said to me about Dart? Once a runner, always a runner?”

  He cringed as if she’d hauled off and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. He flinched.

  Then turned and walked away.

  Leaving Kaia utterly broken.

  Chapter 29

  Once a runner, always a runner.

  The words she’d thrown back in his face slammed into Ridge like high-octane pepper spray, burning his eyes, convulsing his throat, stunning his reason with the knowledge that she’d written him off.

  Written them off.

  At the ranch, the lights in the mansion were still on. Ranger and Vivi should have gotten back by now. He wished he could just jump in the Evektor and take off but he had to collect his things.

  The doorbell glowed orange in the darkness. The same doorbell his mother had told him to push twenty-nine years ago.

  He didn’t push it this time. Simply walked right in. Went straight to Duke’s office, grabbed his laptop, briefcase, and Stetson. Headed back to the front door.

  Vivi came into the foyer from the living room. She wore elegant silk pajamas and looked as if she’d been waiting for him. “You’re really leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s after midnight.”

  “There’s a ticking clock. I’m needed in China.” He settled the Stetson on his head, hoisted the strap of the briefcase onto his shoulder, and tucked the laptop underneath his arm.

  “Excuse me.” Vivi glared. “You’re needed here. Your father just came home from the hospital after openheart surgery.”

  “You and Ranger have got it covered. And I’ll help pay for the home health nurse.”

  “Duke doesn’t need your money.” Vivi’s eyes flashed anger. “He needs you. He could have died. You should spend time with him. Make amends.”

  “I have nothing to make amends for.”

  “No? How about the fact you can’t forgive?”

  “He’s never asked for my forgiveness.”

  “You have to give him time.”

  “I don’t have the time to give.”

  “I never thought of you as a selfish man until now,” she said.

  “So now I’m the dick?”

  “Your father is a proud man, but he knows when he’s wrong. He regrets the way he treated you. Truly he does. If you stay, we can fix this. We can be a real family.”

  He laughed harshly. “With you as the mom? No thanks. We can skip that little fantasy.”

  “You’re being a jerk.”

  “Yeah well, I’m not the only one.”

  “I know your father is not an easy man to love,” she said. “He’s a hardheaded, opinionated, control freak, and he refuses to back down even when there’s solid proof he’s wrong. Come to think of it, he reminds me a lot of you.”

  Ridge shot her a cool stare. In the dim lighting she looked done in. Maybe she really did have feelings for the old man beyond the value of his wallet. Had he misjudged her all these years?

  “You are more like him than you care to admit,” she went on. “That’s why the two of you haven’t been able to make peace.”

  “If we’re so much alike,” Ridge said, “why did you pick him over me?” It wasn’t that he’d ever wanted Vivi back, but it had been eating at him all these years. Why had she thrown him over for his father? Why had she stayed with Duke? He’d never expected them to have longevity.

  “You mean besides the fact that I fell in love with him?” she asked.

  “Why did you fall in love with him? What does he have that I don’t?”

  “Darling,” Vivi said in a surprised drawl, as if he should have known her motives. “For one thing, you didn’t love me, and we both know it. And, for another thing, at the end of a long day, your father knows how to put work aside, cut loose, and have fun. Can you blame a girl for wanting to kick up her heels a little?”

  “I know how to have fun,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in his voice.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But do you ever do it?”

  Yes. Yes he did. With Kaia. He’d had more fun with her since … since …

  Ridge ran a hand over his chin. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d so much fun.

  “You’re so busy making money that you don’t stop to consider why you’re making it,” Vivi went on. “Money is just a tool. It’s not a reason to get up in the morning.”

  “I disagree,” Ridge said.

  “I know.” Vivi sounded sorry for him. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m with Duke.”

  “Don’t hold back on my account. Let me have those punches.”

  Vivi let loose. “I was nothing to you but arm candy. A trophy. Something you could show off to your friends.”

  “I …” He opened his mouth to argue, but she was right.

  “Hey, I’m not blaming you. I loved how you spent money on me. But the relationship had run its course. Served its purpose.”

  “You could have just told me that instead of bedding my old man.”

  “I’m deeply sorry for how I handled things,” she said. “It still eats on me. You deserved better, and you deserve an apology from both of us. I know you probably won’t get one from Duke, but I swear to you, from the bottom of his soul, your father reg
rets what he did.”

  “You’re assuming he has a soul.”

  She touched his arm briefly, dropped her hand “I truly am sorry.”

  “Better late than never, I suppose,” he said, softening toward her.

  “Although, be fair, you never did give us a chance to apologize. You packed up your things without hearing us out and cut off all contact with your father and me. I understand why you did it. You were hurt and angry. I don’t blame you. But by not giving us an opportunity to apologize, well, we didn’t get a chance to heal either.”

  That startled him. He’d never considered that they were hurting too.

  “Well hell, Vivi, thank you for that,” he said because he didn’t know what else to say, and damn, if he didn’t feel a little bit better.

  “When will you be back?” Vivi said, folding her arms over her chest.

  “Don’t you get it?” The briefcase was heavy against his shoulder, but he wasn’t putting it down. He needed to get out of here. Now. “I’m not coming back.”

  “The work, right? It’s always about the work.”

  “What else is there?” he asked, not to be sarcastic but because he truly had no idea.

  Work was the one thing that had never failed him. Never let him down. Or disappointed him. He could not say the same for the people in his life.

  “On their deathbed no one wishes they’d worked more,” Vivi said.

  “Someone might.”

  “No one does.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Wait right here,” Vivi said.

  “I gotta …” Ridge jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing in the direction of his plane, and he already had his hand on the doorknob. “Trail. Hitting it. Tell Duke goodbye for me.”

  “Stop!” she said so firmly and succinctly he did indeed stop.

  “What is it?”

  She reached over, plucked a white bud from the get-well rose bouquet sitting on the foyer table and thrust it under his nose. “Smell this.”

  “What for?”

  “Because in all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never once stopped to smell the roses, Ridge Lockhart.” She shook the rose until a couple of petals peeled off and floated to the floor. “Smell it!”

  “It’s a figure of speech. You’re not supposed to literally smell the roses.”

  “Yes, you are. Smell it.”