Chasing The Wild (Crimson Ridge Book 1)

I don’t know how long I stare. But the gorgeous cowboy from town, the very person who paid for my tank of gas, clutches a towel low on his hips, pinning me with a murderous expression.

Nothing makes sense in my mind.

Why is he here?

What the fuck is going on?

He’s got the door gripped so tight in one hand that I can see white ridges on his knuckles, and he looks about one second from slamming it in my face.

We both seem to be caught in some kind of limbo, staring at each other while our minds try to make sense of this situation. His forehead is creased in a way that tells me this is not a pleasant surprise. In fact, there’s so much fuck off energy rolling off his muscled torso that I’m surprised I haven’t been bowled backward down the steps.

This must be his house.

Holy fuck. Is this his ranch?

From the hostile reception I’m guessing he lives out here for a reason. No visitors.

Especially not the unexpected kind.

My mouth is full of sand, and I’m shrinking beneath his glare. Meanwhile, he’s all bronzed skin and a thick chest, with a v extending down below his towel that I definitely should not be tracing with my eyes.

“Layla fucking Birch?!” A slurred shout cuts through the potent tension hanging between us.

My ex-boyfriend, Kayce, barges past the man in the towel like he owns the place. Suddenly, I’m being lifted off the ground in a bear hug and twirled in the air like I’m five years old. “What are you doing here, princess?”

All I want to do is demand to know the same thing. Oh, and this asshole has definitely been day-drinking. Kayce only ever called me that when he’d had a few. Probably me and every other girl riding his dick. I stiffen at the thought of the bitch from the cafe in town.

“Kayce, put me down.” I’m so flustered by what is happening right now I feel like I can’t think straight.

“Oh, shit, sorry. My bad.” He drops me and then slings an arm around my neck, pinning me to his side. My skin crawls with a weird sensation. I know we dated, and we’ve had sex, for god’s sake, but right now, I want his hands off my body.

I don’t want him to touch me so openly.

Especially not in front of this other man.

Kayce beams down at me with that blue-eyed charm turned up to megawatt status. Giving me a look that, for a brief moment in time, used to make me go all gooey inside, thinking that he was looking at me as if I was someone special. Only now, it does absolutely nothing for me.

“Dad, this is my girlfriend, Layla.”

My brain and body separate into different dimensions for a moment.

Dad?

I’m staring slack-jawed, taking in the bare-chested, muscled dream before me, who is glaring right back with darkness in his eyes and a tic in his jaw. My eyes keep drifting to the point where he’s still gripping his towel, and it’s like I’ve stumbled into some kind of cowboy Bermuda Triangle. Mayday. Mayday. All the dials are spinning, alarms are blaring, and a crash is imminent. When this wreckage is found, there will be no survivors.

Wait. No. “Not girlfriend. Ex.” I correct Kayce, strongly emphasizing the word ex a little louder than necessary. Unwinding myself from beneath his arm, I take a step to the side and put some breathing room between me and the younger Wilder man.

His father—holy shit, his father—stares at me with cold indifference. Gone is the charming cowboy from our brief interaction earlier. It’s like he murdered that version of the man I swooned over so easily, and dumped his corpse in the ravine I just drove past.

“We dated briefly.” I offer as a totally unnecessary added explanation. Words feel clumsy and acidic on my tongue.

“Come in. Man, this is so cool. I can’t believe you’re here. I’ll grab us a drink.” Kayce moves toward the kitchen and I feel his father’s eyes lasered on me. I can’t look at him. This is all too much. This day can go fuck itself. I’d like the ground to swallow me up whole, thank you very much.

“Horses need packing. There’s a group arriving in an hour.” The stony-faced man barks after his son, still glaring at me. He seems angry at Kayce, and isn’t moving from the doorway either, effectively barring me from entering his house.

I’m trapped right in the middle of something I don’t want to understand.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll get to it later.” Kayce shrugs him off and I cringe. He’s a dick to his father too, how predictable.

“Later won’t cut it. They should have been sorted out by now. Tonight’s group booked a twilight ride.”

“I got busy.” Kayce wanders back over and attempts to press a beer into my hands, but I shake my head and turn it down. All I want to do is leave his boxes out here on the porch, and get the hell off this mountain.

“Jesus, Kayce.” His father shakes his head and looks like he wants to chew him out but stops himself. I don’t blame the guy, I know the exact feeling.

Without another glance my way, he stalks off to the depths of the house, and I’m left alone with Kayce Wilder, who is double-fisting beers, looking like the cat who got the cream.

“You couldn’t have at least replied to me? I’ve had to drive up a fucking mountain to track your ass down and bring your shit here, you know.” I growl, following behind his long strides across the wooden decking.

He shrugs and doesn’t offer an explanation, or an apology. But that’s Kayce for you. All effervescence and crooked smiles that have enabled him to coast through life without any consequences for any goddamn thing.

“So, now you’ve officially met my dad.” Kayce changes the subject and dumps himself into a chair on the front porch. He readjusts the trucker cap he’s wearing with one hand, resting one of the beers on his knee.

It’s inviting out here, the wooden porch is wide with a railing along the edge and there’s a handful of comfortable outdoor armchairs. From the look of the floor to ceiling ranch sliders further down the far end, the bedrooms must have access out here too. I’m sure the mornings and evenings must be stunning, with the south-facing vantage point getting sun all day long.

But I will not be sitting down.

“He seems nice.” I offer. Shuffling on my feet.

Kayce snorts. “Colton Wilder? Nice? That man is the most miserable old bastard you’ll ever meet. He never leaves this shithole mountain, and it’s nothing but fucking work up here from dawn ‘til dusk.” He tips his beer back.

Ok, so maybe I am smarting more than a little at the way his father completely blanked me back there. He didn’t say a single word to me. Not even a polite acknowledgment that we’d only just met down in town? Maybe the guy is the exact kind of asshole Kayce says he is. It was kind of rude.

It would be typical, that someone so cold could have a place this stunning to call home.

“I dunno, it seems pretty up here, though.” I shade my eyes to look out over the late sun caressing the tall grass in a golden hue, and from here, not only does Devil’s Peak command the horizon, but I see the infamous Crimson Ridge that gives the town its name towering like a shard of reddish-colored rock beyond the dense pine trees.

“Don’t be sucked in. Summer is all soft and warm and flirty right now, but winter is an icy-hearted bitch who wants nothing more than to steal your soul.” Kayce rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “It’s months and months up here with no cell reception, Wi-Fi that drops out every five fucking minutes, and nothing to do but feel like you’re going to go insane in the dark before they reopen the roads in between storms.”

No cell reception, even up here in the clearing? I dig my phone out and see there are still no bars. Well, that at least explains why Kayce was even more useless than normal in replying to my messages.

“Yeah, and Dad’s piece of shit Wi-Fi hardly works. He doesn’t use technology because he’s such a grumpy dickhead, and can’t see the benefit in joining the real world. This place is like a fucking jail or some shit.”

I wrap my arms around myself. “Then why are you here, Kayce?” Why stay if he hates it so much? I want to kick him in the balls for being such a spoiled bitch about it. What I would give to land a job in a place as incredible as this…

“Because I fucked up, princess. I didn’t get a sponsor this season. While I figure out my next move, Dad is cool with me staying here for the rest of summer. If I’m really desperate for money, I figure I’ll stick around and work the winter for him, too.”

“Sounds awesome. Good for you.”

He snorts.

“What isn’t so awesome is how he rides my ass all the time, trying to make up for being a shitty father when I was a kid. We’ve never gotten along. So it’s real fucking peachy, let me tell you.”

Now it makes sense why I didn’t hear him talk about his dad while we were together. Two and two are now adding up as to why the albums in the back seat of my car don’t have a single photo featuring him and his father.

“Well, you could stay with your mom?” I don’t even know why I’m getting into this with him. Kayce Wilder is not my problem. Not my circus to tangle with anymore.

Those blue eyes are hazed with sadness when they land on me.

“Nah. I’m not going back there.” He says it with such finality that I know things really can’t be good if he’d tolerate being here rather than stay with his own mom.

That right there is a feeling I know intimately well.

Swigging back his beer, he kicks his long legs out. My ex looks like he’s settling in for the afternoon, and I don’t have time for this self-indulgent pity party he’s got going on.

I spin on my heel and set off for the steps, calling over my shoulder as I go.

“Put the beer down, Kayce. I need you to come grab some boxes.”

I’m also about done with his shit… and this whole confusing, gorgeous-father-I’m-still-flustered-over situation. I need to get moving, and when I haul-ass out of here in a cloud of dust, I’ll never have to see either of the Wilder men, ever again.