Million Dollar Cowboy (Cupid, Texas #5)(85)

Ember's voice softened. "You heard it when he kissed you, the Song of the Soul Mate?"

"I don't know," she whimpered, but nodded fiercely, tears pressing at the back of her eyelids. "No. Yes. Maybe."

"I'm getting mixed messages here," Ember said, reaching across the seat of the Tundra to touch Kaia's arm. "Is this a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I don't know," she wailed again.

"Can I help?"

"Talk me out of this."

"How?"

"Tell me it's not true. Tell me there's no such thing as soul mates. Tell me it's nothing but ringing in the ears. Tell me it's a silly myth, and the only reason I heard the humming was because I wanted to hear it."

"You love him," Ember said.

"That's not what I asked you to tell me."

"You love him," Ember repeated, this time empathically. 

"What is love?" Kaia backpedaled, in way over her head.

"You've loved him for a long time."

"Childhood crush. Infatuation. That's not love."

"It's more than that, and you know it."

"What if this humming, a belief in a soul mate, is just some form of mental illness?" Kaia asked. "You have to admit, it is a little crazy."

Ember studied her. "What if it isn't? What if it's all true?"

What if?

Kaia's stomach quivered. What if she and Ridge were mated? Fated? Put together by some universal force before they'd ever come here? Hands trembling, Kaia pulled over to the side of the road, put the truck in Park.

"Could you drive home?" she asked her sister, overwhelmed by the notion that they belonged together on some cosmic level beyond her control. It was fanciful and silly, but she couldn't shake the bone-deep feeling it was true.

"Sure, yes, for certain. But I think you need a hug first." Ember undid her seat belt and reached across the seat to hug her.

She dropped her head on her oldest sister's shoulder. "I should never have let things get this far. I should never have gone to bed with him. I tried to tell myself it was casual, it didn't mean anything, just sex-"

Except the sex had been top-of-the-mountain spectacular. So earthshaking spectacular in fact that it was easy to forget all the little steps leading up to it. Tending Ridge's black eye after he rescued Atticus from getting kicked by Majestic, the meaningful looks he'd sent her from the altar at the wedding, how he'd gotten her to open up about her stalker, the fun they'd had at Balmorhea, how he had the capacity to forgive his father and Vivi after they'd done him so wrong.

Small signs of the kind of man he was. Wounded but trying his best to heal, just as she was. Struggling to find how they fit. Yearning to show how much they meant to each other through actions and deeds.

"Have you told him about the Song of the Soul Mate?" Ember asked. "Have you told him you love him?"

Slowly, Kaia shook her head. "I . . . I can't . . . I can't be the first one to say it."

"Why not?"

"What if he doesn't feel the same way about me?"

"The way he looks at you-"

"What if it's just lust on his part?" Kaia said. "What if I spill my guts and tell him I love him, and then he has to try and let me down easy."

"But what if he feels the same way and he hasn't told you because he doesn't feel like this is the right time with all that's going on with his dad and his business?"

What if he did?

"Wouldn't you rather know for certain one way or the other?" Ember said. "If he doesn't love you back, then you can grieve and move on. If he does, well, wow, happily ever after. Because there's nothing worse than not knowing where you stand. You're frozen and can't move forward."

Ember was right. She was mired in quicksand over her feelings for Ridge. But was this the right time to tell him how she felt with his father so sick? He and Duke had a lot to work through. Their relationship was in shambles, but his father could be dying. It was time for them to make peace, and she shouldn't get in the way of that.

What would it hurt to wait for a bit? Give him the space he so obviously needed right now? She'd lose nothing by waiting except that she'd have to stay trapped in limbo for a little while longer.

She'd waited twenty-six years to fall in love. What were a few more days?



The next two weeks were hectic. Immediately after Duke's quadruple bypass, he suffered some serious complications-a life-threatening infection, blood clots in his legs. But the old man was tough and he fought hard.



       
         
       
        

Ridge was proud of him for that. Duke might be a hard man to love, but he was strong and determined.