Million Dollar Cowboy (Cupid, Texas #5)(36)

"Phone reception at the ranch can be spotty."

"He should have at least gotten my texts."

"Maybe he doesn't have his phone."

"Why wouldn't he take his phone? His phone is like oxygen to him."

"Speaking of oxygen, try taking a deep breath, big brother."

"This day has to be perfect, Ky. Casey deserves perfect."

"Calm down. I have an idea where he is," she said. "I'll check it out. In the meantime, chill. Drink some coffee. Or better yet, go back to bed and try to get a couple more hours of sleep. Your wedding isn't until four o'clock. Plenty of time."

"Find him!"

"I'll do my best."

Kaia threw off the covers, upending Dart-the kitty she was fostering-who dropped gracefully to the floor for a morning stretch. Got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, fed all the animals, let the dogs into the fenced backyard, and put out fresh kitty litter.

She made coffee, filled two thermoses to go, and stuck a couple of power bars in her purse. "Later, dude," she told Dart with a quick scratch under his chin and headed out the door.

She climbed into the Tundra and took off. The first flush of dawn pinking the crepuscular sky. She combed her fingers through her hair, trying to tame the thick mass. 

At this sleepy hour on a Saturday morning, it took her less than five minutes to get across town to the Brooklane Baptist Church.

She pulled up to the cemetery. The gates were closed. She parked on the side of the road, stuck the power bars in her back pocket, and got out, balancing the thermoses in each hand.

She slipped the thermoses through the wrought-iron rungs, then climbed the locked gate, dropped down on the paved road in the cemetery, retrieved the thermoses, and headed south.

Long before she reached the tombstone, she spied him, in the muted dawn. He was dressed in the same black clothes he'd worn the night before, kneeling at the grave, his Stetson in hand, looking bleak as a raven in the rain.

She stopped. Her heart tumbled to the soles of her boots, and she almost went back to the truck, reluctant to disturb him.

He raised his head, and his navy blue eyes landed on her.

She painted on a bright smile as if they weren't in a cemetery and he hadn't spent the night at his mother's grave.

He got to his feet. He looked flattened. She wanted to run to him, to hug him and never let go. To tell him that everything was going to be all right. But of course, she did not.

"Mornin'," she chirped. Raised the thermoses. "Look, coffee."

"One for me?"

She nodded, came closer. Handed him the thermos that held heat better than the one she kept for herself, and a power bar.

He took a long sip, grinned like she'd given him gold bullion. "You remembered. Extra cream. No sugar."

"How could I forget? Same as me."

A hooded oriole sang a sharp, nasally "wheet, wheet" morning song, welcoming the rising sun. From a crack in the cement between tombstones, a small striped, whiptail lizard strolled out.

"I see you've had company." Kaia nodded at the lizard.

"He's not much of a conversationalist."

"Best pet for you since you've never been a big talker."

He smiled at that, a pat smile more automatic than authentic. "Archer send you?"

"You didn't come home. He worried."

"How did you know where to find me?"

She shrugged. "Last we talked, you were feeling guilty about punching your dad. Put two and two. Figured you'd come to the place that reminded you of why he deserved punching."

He scratched his head, settled his hat in place. His right eye was less swollen this morning, but it was a striking purple color.

"You're too insightful for my own good."

"How did you get here?"

"Walked."

"In cowboy boots?"

One shoulder went up like a half-mast flag. "I might have some blisters."

"It's fifteen miles from the ranch. It must have taken hours."

The other shoulder joined the first at his ears. "A baker gave me a ride on his way to open the doughnut shop."

"Archer is freaking out. I'm just going to text him and tell him I'm bringing you back." She pulled out her phone, sent her brother the text, trying not to notice how extremely hot Ridge looked in black jeans, black T-shirt stretched over his biceps, black boots, and black hat.

The man in black.

"Ready?" she asked, unnerved to find she was breathless. This was Ridge. She'd known him all her life.

But after last night, after those confounded kisses, after that sweet serenade of humming, she was a bundle of throbbing nerve endings.

"Ready." He put his palm against the small of her back. Bold. Intimate. Perfect.

His hand was big and rough and she could feel the pressure against her T-shirt. Ludicrously, now his touch felt both comforting and petrifying. As if he was righting her on a slippery rug.