Million Dollar Cowboy (Cupid, Texas #5)(22)

"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 spread. 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?"