Million Dollar Cowboy (Cupid, Texas #5)(44)
When that song finished and the band broke into "Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy," the women cheered and the dance floor flooded with boot-scooting line dancers. Kaia shot a glance at Ridge, but Vivi was already claiming him, taking him by both hands and dragging him into the fray.
And boy, the man could dance!
Her jaw dropped.
Kaia sat watching and clapping, enjoying being a spectator, but then Duke came and without even asking, spun her out of her chair, not taking "no" for an answer.
"You're dancing with me, girly," he announced.
Not wanting to make a scene at her brother's wedding, she helplessly joined Ridge's father on the dance floor, but she couldn't shake the feeling she was a pawn in the middle of some grudge game between Vivi, Duke, and Ridge. And that was a triangle she wanted nothing of.
Duke's black eye was as vivid as Ridge's and he was sweating and pausing to mop his face with a handkerchief.
That song faded and the notes of the next tune started up. "Angel Loved the Devil." A waltz. She was certainly not going to slow dance with Ridge's father.
She opened her mouth to tell Duke she needed water, but before she could get a word out, there was Ridge standing beside his father. They stared at each other with mirrored black eyes.
"I'm cutting in," Ridge stated, not asking permission. Damn those Lockhart men and their high-handed ways.
Duke hardened his chin. "I was here first."
Kaia sank her hands on her hips. "I'm not a pork chop. I'm not dancing with either one of you. Zeke . . ." She reached for the ranch hand who was passing by. "Dance with me."
Zeke grinned like an opossum and took her up on the offer. Leaving both Duke and Ridge looking put out. Good. Served 'em right.
But she couldn't help watching Ridge over Zeke's shoulder. And when he smiled, damn her hide, she smiled right back.
"You're going to blow it with Kaia," Duke said to Ridge.
"I didn't ask your opinion."
"It's for the best that you do blow it. She's a good girl. Doesn't need the likes of you fouling her up."
"Screw you, Dad."
"Back at you."
"We're such a lovely family."
"When I saw you getting cozy with her I thought, now there's a Titanic romance. Gonna hit an iceberg and sink quick."
"Why would you say something like that?"
"Because I know you. The minute things get tough, you take off. I know you don't think you do it. I know you tell yourself tall tales about why you run away, but the bottom line? You don't show up for life. That's why you shouldn't get cozy with her. She deserves someone who'll stick around."
Ridge turned his jaw to marble, tightening his muscles until they quivered with repressed anger. "We're not getting cozy."
"You think I'm blind?"
"I think you have no right to weigh in on anyone else's romance."
"Touché," Duke said mildly, surprising Ridge with a mashed-potatoes voice. "She is gorgeous. You've got good taste."
"Back off."
"I'm married, you idiot," Duke scoffed.
"I don't trust you. You have a history of stealing my girlfriends."
"If Vivi was so easy to steal away, she wasn't yours in the first place." Duke snorted like a longhorn lost in a mesquite thicket. "There's one thing you fail to understand about me and Vivi, son."
Ridge prickled at the word son. "And that is?"
"I love her."
It was Ridge's turn to snort.
Duke thrust out his chest. "And she loves me."
"Whatever you need to tell yourself."
"It might not be the most functional relationship in the world," Duke admitted. "But it works for us. We've been married ten years, and still going strong."
"Angling for husband of the year?"
"Smart-ass."
"I inherited it from somewhere."
"Your mother's side."
Ridge narrowed his eyes. "As if you knew the first thing about my mother."
Duke stared at Ridge, his face pale beneath his tan, eyes red and exhausted. "You think I'm hard? Boy, you don't know the meaning of the word. Try having my old man for a father. Compared to that, you got lucky. You got cream puff."
"I know, I know. Gramps used to beat you with a bullwhip."
"I got the scars to prove it." Duke yanked his shirttail from his pants and lifted up the hem to reveal a crisscross of old scars striping his back. "I don't hold it against him though."
"No?"
"My father knew this was a harsh land and you had to be tough to make it in the Trans-Pecos."