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.