Page 11 of Knot Your Problem, Cowboy (Wild Hearts Ranch #1)

The words land like ice water on overheated skin, dousing the warm feeling that had been building with each constellation, each shared moment of quiet understanding.

Of course. I’m the interloper, the complication in their perfect bachelor paradise.

The temporary inconvenience who’ll be gone in three months.

“That makes two of us.” I force my chin up, summoning every ounce of city-girl brass to cover the unexpected sting of rejection.

Pride is the only thing keeping me steady when my body wants to sway toward him like he’s gravity and I’m a poorly anchored satellite.

“I don’t want any Alphas. I’m not here for that.

Three months to satisfy the will, then I’m gone, back to civilization where the only predators wear suits and the stars hide behind smog.

You don’t have to worry about me getting ideas. ”

Something flashes across his face. Regret? Relief? Pain? It’s gone too quickly to identify.

The kitten chooses that moment to squirm with sudden determination, slipping from my grip like it’s made of liquid rather than fur and tiny bones. Probably bored with all the human drama and wanting to get back to important kitten business.

It lands softly in the grass, immediately crouching for a spring toward the shadows where things with appetites lurk.

Ridge moves surprisingly fast. He scoops the kitten up before it can take two steps, large hands impossibly tender around the tiny body. The kitten, probably shocked by the sudden altitude change, goes limp like a little orange noodle.

“Here,” he says, stepping closer to hand it back.

Our fingers brush in the transfer, and the contact sparks through me like touching a live wire.

Every nerve ending lights up, sending urgent messages to parts of my body that really need to calm down.

This close, I can see details, the darkness and distance hidden, the faint lines around his eyes that speak of squinting into too many suns, the way his pupils dilate as he breathes in, nostrils flaring slightly like he’s scenting me.

He doesn’t retreat.

I can’t move, can’t think beyond the warmth radiating from his body, the way his scent smothers me, and I’m left breathless. We’re suspended in moonlight and possibility, the space between us charged with everything we’re not saying, everything we’re not supposed to feel.

His free hand lifts, moving with dreamlike slowness. A strand of my hair has escaped, hanging across my cheek like it has any business being anywhere but firmly behind my ear. He reaches for it, and I stop breathing entirely, every cell in my body focused on the approach of his fingers.

He tucks the strand behind my ear with incredible gentleness, fingertips barely grazing skin.

The touch is lighter than butterfly wings, softer than whispers, but it burns through me like wildfire.

The point of contact leaves a trail of heat that spreads outward until I’m burning from the inside out.

The world narrows to this moment—his fingers lingering near my ear, the kitten purring between us like a tiny furry chaperone, the sound of synchronized breathing in the vast Montana night. Time stretches like taffy, seconds becoming hours becoming lifetimes.

My thighs clench involuntarily, heat pooling low and insistent in places that have no business responding to an almost touch.

Every Omega instinct I’ve spent years learning to control roars to life, desiring things I can’t name, shouldn’t want, definitely can’t have with a man who just made his disinterest crystal clear.

His hand drops, but he’s still too close, close enough that I notice his pulse jumping in his throat, quick and hard as if he’s been running.

His gaze lowers to my mouth, holds there with a purpose that makes my lips part without my permission, like they’re offering an invitation I didn’t authorize.

“You should go back,” he says, but his voice has gone rough, dropped an octave to a sound that vibrates through my bones like bass through speakers.

“Should I?” The question comes out breathier than intended, like I’ve been running too. Which I haven’t. Unless you count running from good sense.

“Yes.” The word is gravel and smoke and warning, but he still doesn’t move, doesn’t step back, doesn’t do any of the sensible things that would break this spell.

“Why?” I’m playing with fire now and I know it, but I can’t seem to stop.

“Because if you don’t…” He doesn’t finish, but the promise and threat in those unfinished words melt my knees, making me want to know exactly what happens if I don’t.

“Ridge—”

“Go.” This time it’s almost a growl, Alpha command bleeding through this voice. Not quite an order but close enough that my Omega instincts whimper. “I’ll watch. Make sure you get there safely.”

I clutch the kitten tighter, using it as armor against the insanity building between us. The poor thing mews in protest at being squeezed. My legs feel unsteady as I turn away, each step an effort when every cell in my body screams to turn back, to find out what he’s hiding.

The walk back to the guesthouse feels endless.

I’m hyperaware of the inadequate slap of my flip-flops against the ground, the whisper of grass against my leggings, the way the kitten’s purr synchronizes with my too-fast heartbeat.

But mostly I’m aware of his eyes on me, the weight of his gaze across my body, making me want to put extra sway in my walk just to see if he’d react.

At the porch, I can’t resist looking back.

He’s still standing where I left him, a shadow cut from darkness and moonlight and barely leashed want.

He touches two fingers to his forehead in a gesture that might be mockery or promise or both, then fades back into the shadows like he was never there at all.

Inside, I set the kitten down with its family. The mother cat barely pauses in grooming the adventurous sibling to sniff at the returned prodigal. Crisis averted, maternal duties resumed, no thanks necessary.

I move to the window, pressing close to the glass, but the angle is wrong and blocks my view. Is he back on his stump with his whiskey? Walking the property like some kind of midnight guardian?

My body thrums with unused energy, skin too sensitive, every nerve ending alive and wanting. I press my forehead to the cool glass and try to make sense of what just happened .

Ridge doesn’t want an Omega here. His words were clear, unambiguous, as final as a slamming door.

So why did he look at me like I was salvation and damnation wrapped in one impossible package?

Why did one barely there touch feel more intimate than any kiss I’ve ever shared?

And why, despite his rejection, despite my own plans to leave, despite every logical reason to keep my distance, do I suddenly need to know everything about him?

What broke him? What makes him study stars like they hold answers?

What would it take to see him smile, really smile, not just that bitter quirk of lips?

What made him so certain he doesn’t need an Omega? Or is it just this Omega he doesn’t need?

The kitten mews at my feet, probably wondering why its rescue has turned into standing at windows like a Gothic heroine waiting for her brooding hero to return.

“This is your fault,” I tell it. “If you hadn’t needed rescuing, I wouldn’t have just had my world tilted off its axis by a cowboy who smells delicious and looks at stars.”

The mother cat gives me a look that suggests she’s not buying my deflection.

“Fine,” I concede to my feline audience. “Maybe it’s not entirely the kitten’s fault. Maybe I was always going to end up in the darkness with Ridge.”

I think about Orion and his eternal pursuit, about gods who were cruel in their mercy, about cowboys who study stars and push away with both hands what they might want.

Three months suddenly feels like both forever and no time at all.

The really terrifying part? I’m starting to think Ridge might be worth the heartbreak I can already see coming like storm clouds on the horizon.

But maybe, just maybe, some things are worth chasing across the sky.

Even if you never catch them.