Ridge included.
Kaia's pulse gave another sharp hop.
The gift was a crate for the German shepherd puppy that Archer and Casey were adopting from the shelter when they returned from their honeymoon. But ugh. She hadn't fully thought it through. Per usual, excitement had swept her away.
Then again, she'd used the gift as a shield against Ridge's steely gaze. It provided a great excuse not to talk to him until she was prepped.
Seriously? She was not a silly teen with a monster crush on her big brother's best friend. Why did she need to prep to speak to the man?
Why?
Because just seeing him standing there in the sunlight sent her blood swirling the way it always had.
Darn it. Shouldn't she be over puppy love by now?
There ought to be a law. No one man had a right to look so handsomely heartbreaking.
The past decade had been kind to him. More than kind. He'd grown from the lean, skinny kid into full-blown manhood. Big-framed. Rugged. Untamed as ever.
He moved with the predatory grace of a mountain lion on the hunt. Intent, alert eyes and muscles, but with loose limbs and fluid joints. He looked like he should be on a high mountaintop staking in a pennant flag, claiming his territory.
Dressed in jeans, Stetson, suit jacket, tie, aviator sunglasses, and lizard-skin boots, he was part businessman, part pilot, part cowboy, and one hundred percent alpha male. Muscular fingers and scarred knuckles hinted at his roughneck past.
He was both rawboned and polished. Cheeks and jawline sharp, primal. Nose perfectly straight. Eyebrows orderly. It was a dizzying combination of refined poise and rough-edged virility.
Everything about him caused her insides to quiver and her heart to flush. She couldn't have been more surprised if she'd unearthed pirate treasure in the desert.
Oh no. Oh damn. She was in trouble. Felt the truth of it overtake her. Nothing had changed. She still pined for him. How could she not even know it until now?
Stop it. Just stop it.
She was letting her imagination run away with her. All she had to do was steer clear of him until he went back to where he'd come from, and that would be that.
Turmoil over. Crisis avoided.
Except that she had to be around him for the wedding. He was her older brother's best friend and the best man and she was a bridesmaid. There was no way she could avoid him completely.
Chillaxe. No need to flip out. He would only be in town for three days. She could keep her hormones in check. All she had to do was make sure she was never alone with him. Considering all the people who'd been invited to the wedding, that should be a piece of cake.
Armed with a plan, Kaia chuffed out a relieved breath, kicked on the front door with the tip of her boot in lieu of knocking, and called out, "Open up. It's me, Kaia. I come bearing gifts."
Chapter 3
Some days hovered over the desert like God's fist, big and omnipresent, pressing heat into the barren earth until the ground burned with low, undulating energy. Steady as a locust buzz, squirming circuitously across the Trans-Pecos.
Ridge looped his thumb in his waistband, raised his face to the wide expanse of hot blue sky. He could smell the sun.
Relentless.
A pizza oven that blazed mad mirages until the soil smelled of it too, leaving the plants withered and crisped, lizards darting for shade in the cracks, tears drying long before they hit cheeks. The desert had the power to strip a man of everything, even his right to grieve.
An involuntary shudder ran through him and instead of immediately heading into the mansion, Ridge wandered the grounds, stalling.
This wasn't like him, avoiding problems, but here he was, loping along, checking out what had changed, and what hadn't. Looking for Archer, and putting off facing the people inside of the house for as long as possible.
Christ, he'd had ten years. What was it gonna take? Truth? He could have a century and never belong here.
He walked around, impressed by the improvements. He spied a fleet of ATVs in the barn, gassed up and ready to go. Archer had told him the ranch used ATVs now for herding instead of horses, cheaper and more efficient, but it felt wrong somehow. The end of an era.
The ranch hands in the barn greeted him as Mr. Lockhart, so they knew who he was, but he didn't know any of them. They'd always had a big turnover in staff. While the old man paid well, he was notoriously hard to work for. Ridge had no idea how Archer had lasted so long as the Silver Feather's foreman. When he asked his friend about it, Archer would say, "You just gotta know how to sweet-talk him."
Yeah, about that, Ridge refused to kiss the old man's ass. Why should he? He had nothing to apologize for, and no desire to pump up the old man's ego.