"Saw that write-up on you in the Wall Street Journal." Duke cinched the saddle on Majestic.
Ridge raised an eyebrow, waiting for a tart rejoinder.
"You didn't mention a word about me," Duke said.
"I did not. Why should I? I made it on my own. Besides, Bridgette Alzate taught me that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
Duke snorted again.
Anger heat pushed its way up Ridge's neck. Do not rise to the bait. He's an alligator waiting to attack. Anything you say can and will be used against you. "Got something to say?"
"Gave you my DNA. You're welcome."
"If I could give it back, I would."
Duke laughed a fat, wet sound like mud sucking around bogged work boots. "I imagine you'd like to shove it down my throat."
"The thought has occurred to me."
"Congratulations." Duke bobbed his head up and down once, as if he were reluctant and rusty at praise. "You took my DNA and ran with it. You achieved what you set out to do."
Ridge cocked his head, closed one eye against the glare of the sun coming through the open stable door, and gauged his father. Tried to puzzle out his angle.
"How's Vivi?" he asked, poking the bear.
Duke tightened his lip. "All in a fluff over this weddin'."
"Archer told me you built a wedding chapel on the east forty."
"Vivi's idea. Renting the chapel out for weddings brings in more money than hunting leases. Who knew?"
"You've stopped the leases?"
Duke rolled his eyes. "Vivi's liberal claptrap. Don't kill Bambi, wah, wah."
"And you went along with it?"
"Some things ain't worth getting in a snit over."
Ridge couldn't help grinning. Duke was bending over backward to please his trophy wife. "Hey, keeping her happy must be working for you. You've managed to hang on to her the longest of all your wives."
"It ain't all gumdrops and roses, but this one's gotta stick. I'm too old to start over."
"What? No tick-tock of her biological clock? She's thirty-two. There's gotta be a countdown. Ready to become a daddy again?"
"Hush it." Duke's eyebrows bunched together above his hawkish nose. "Last thing I need is another squall bag."
"You should try for a girl," Ridge teased, enjoying watching his father squirm. "I always did want a little sister."
"You're enjoying this."
"Immensely."
"Gloatin' bastard."
"Yep."
"I need to get up to the chapel."
"Turning on that air conditioning and all."
Another long stretch of silence, but this one was less tense than before. Something had shifted.
Duke grunted. "Good to have you home."
This was as close to saying I'm sorry for stealing your girl as Duke was ever going to get. Good enough.
Hey, shocker of shockers, coming home didn't feel as bad as he'd feared. But he didn't trust this feeling or his father.
Not by a long shot.
Chapter 4
"You're late," Mom hollered above the beehive hum of female voices gathered in the mansion's enormous kitchen.
"You said to be here at seven," Kaia hollered back, looking for a place to set the doggie crate. There wasn't a spare scrap of real estate unoccupied by gifts or brunch fixings or purses.
Her mother pointed at the clock. Seven-ten.
Kaia offered up an apologetic smile. "I almost died, remember."
Mom sank her hands on her hips. "That was two years ago. You need a new excuse."
"But you're really, really happy I didn't die."
Mom came across the immense kitchen to wrap her in a hard hug while Kaia was still holding on to the package. "I'm really, really happy you didn't die." She rested her chin on Kaia's shoulder. "Did you bring the hash brown casserole?"
Kaia cringed. Oh crapple. "I left it on the counter. I'm sorry. You want I should go back for it?"
"We've got more food than we can eat," Casey, the bride-to-be said. She was standing at the island folding breakfast sausages into triangles of crescent roll dough for pigs in a blanket, and looking gorgeous in a short blue cotton dress with Van Gogh sunflowers on it.
"I really don't mind," Kaia offered.
"No worries. Do not go back for it. The minister will be here at eight for the rehearsal and it will take us that long to get everyone up to the chapel." Casey piled a freshly wrapped sausage on a platter.
"Ridge is here," Kaia blurted.
Those three words brought the entire room silent.