Page 39 of Wild Hearts (Ruby Ridge #1)

carter

. . .

F uck it’s hot out here.

The hot Tennessee sun hangs high, no clouds to smother the slicing glare. Heat sticks to my skin, soaking through my shirt, turning the sweat into a second fucking layer. I drag another post into place, dirt grinding in my palms, but my head’s not in it today.

It’s quiet, too fucking quiet.

The snarky, spicy, loud-mouthed woman who’s been living under my roof, haunting every corner of my house with her matcha lattes, convincing me it’s healthy for you, and her whirlwind of chaos, is at work.

Fuck, I miss her.

She took my truck this morning, flashing me that mischievous little grin, the one that wrecks me every time, before peeling out of the driveway like she’s been raised on dirt roads her whole damn life.

I always give her shit about stealing my truck, but hell, I’d hand over the keys every day if it meant seeing that wild, happy smile.

I lean against the wooden gate, taking a minute to breathe. My eyes scan the pasture, catching sight of one of the heifers pacing back and forth. Her belly’s low, swinging heavy underneath her. She’s been ready to calve for days now.

Shoving off the fence, I jog to the barn, grabbing gloves, iodine, and a few clean towels. By the time I get back, the heifer is groaning, her sides heaving with every contraction. I crouch beside her, rubbing her side like it’ll somehow make this easier for her.

An hour drags by before I see hooves, then the slick body of a calf hits the ground. I move quickly, wiping down its nose, clearing its lungs, drying it off as best I can.

Stubborn little bastard, just like his mama. I’m brushing the heifer’s side, checking her over one last time, when my phone starts buzzing in my back pocket.

Thinking it’s Catalina, my heart jumps. I fumble to grab it, flipping it over—fuck.

I stare at the screen, thumb hovering over the answer button, my gut twisting. Part of me wants to toss the phone into the dirt and walk away. He’s barely checked in on her.

God, fuck it.

I swipe to answer, pressing the phone to my ear. “Yeah.”

“Carter,” he says, like we’re catching up, like he didn’t ship his daughter off without warning or explanation. “Just checking in. How’s she doing?”

I blink at the pasture ahead of me, watching the wobbly calf nurse from his mama. “She’s fine.”

He hums. “Fine, like she’s adjusting? Or fine, like she’s acting out again?

” He asks, continues talking, not giving me a word in.

“Has she been spending the money she’s been earning at that shit bar?

Has she asked to come home yet? Is she on her phone too much?

Is she crying? Sleeping in? She’s got a habit of avoiding shit she doesn’t like. Are you making her do chores? ”

I rub a hand across the back of my neck, anger bubbling in my throat at the mention of him calling my brothers bar shit. “She’s doing the best she can.”

“That’s not what I fucking asked.”

I pace across the dirt, heat rising in my chest. “You think you can measure her progress like some checklist? She’s here and she’s trying.”

“Trying doesn’t cut it, Carter,” Vartan says. “She’s had everything handed to her her whole life. You give her too much slack and she’ll go back to old habits. Her time is running out there, and I don’t want that disappointment coming back here if she isn’t fixed.”

My grip tightens around the phone. I picture her sweet face—how some nights she cries herself to sleep, isolating herself, letting the ugly parts consume her, and it kills me every time.

I scoff, the fucking nerve. “You have no idea what she’s fucking carrying,” I grit out.

He chuckles. “I’ve known her for twenty-four long years, Hayes. You’ve known her for five minutes.”

“Yeah, and it only took five minutes to see she’s been fucking hurt.”

There’s a pause.

“Please, enlighten me,” Vartan says.

I shake my head. “You fucking tell me. You’re the one sitting in Los Angeles asking a million fucking questions instead of investing your time to get to know your daughter.

“I just don’t want her to be stupid.”

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “You sent her here to get her shit together, and she’s trying. But you don’t ask how she is, you just want a progress report.”

Vartan’s voice goes colder. “I asked how she was. You said she’s fine. Doesn’t sound like you’re doing your job, Hayes.”

I let out a dry laugh. “My job? You mean the part where I clean up after the mess you don’t wanna fucking deal with?”

“Don’t you dare twist this?—”

I stop walking, my blood is buzzing now. “Don’t talk to me like I don’t see it, Vartan. I don’t know what the fuck you said or did to break her down like this, but you sure as hell aren’t gonna fix it from behind a desk in Beverly Hills.”

There’s silence on the line.

“She’s my fucking daughter.”

“No,” I say, my voice low. “She’s a person. A woman who’s doing the damn best she can in a place you threw her into without a parachute.”

“Watch it, Carter.”

“No,” I snap, “you fucking watch it.”

I end the call before he can say another goddamn word. I toss the phone into the dirt at my feet, and my hands shake with a rage I haven’t felt in years.

If he suspects something’s going on between me and Catalina, then so fucking be it. Because whatever friendship we had?

It’s dwindling.

Vartan is a couple of years older than I, and when I had met him in my freshman year of college, before I dropped out, he wasn’t this cold, hollow bastard. He was kind and full of life.

The man I just got off the phone with? Not the same man I met years ago.

Vartan was someone I respected—someone who stepped up when I was drowning in grief, who talked about his wife like she hung the moon.

But ever since money took over, he’s changed.

He isn’t the same man I used to know, I can tell from the way he talks and presents himself.

When he sent Catalina here, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I told myself that keeping my distance was the right thing to do. That staying away from her meant honoring the kind of friendship we used to have.

That thread has been fraying from the start. And after that phone call? It’s hanging by a single, splintered strand.

Catalina isn’t just some woman crashing on my ranch anymore. She’s fire, chaos, and everything I haven’t let myself want in a long fucking time. She fights the world with her chin high and her heart bleeding through the cracks.

Maybe she doesn’t see it—but I do.

I’ve watched her try to make sense of a life she never got to choose. I’ve seen the quiet moments when the weight gets too heavy, where she hurts silently, and all I can do is hold her and be the shoulder for her to cry on.

Whatever loyalty I still have left to Vartan, it’s not enough to keep me from her anymore. Because whatever we were? It doesn’t come close to what she’s becoming to me.

I pace the barn like a caged animal. My boots kick up hay and dust, each step harder than the last, my jaw clenched so tight it feels like it’s about to snap off.

Vartan’s questions are still rattling in my skull, souring every breath I take.

I need to cool the fuck off, before I punch a wall or rip apart the next poor bastard that looks at me wrong.

I pick my phone up from the dirt, not even thinking. I call the only person who can pull me back from the edge.

Her .

The phone rings once. Twice. Then that sweet, sultry voice answers, wrapping around me like a goddamn noose.

“Miss me already?” She’s smiling, I can hear it, that little hint of seduction laced through her words that immediately starts to untangle the tight knot strangling my chest.

I tip my head back, closing my eyes, letting out a breath that’s half a laugh, half a desperate exhale.

Fuck, just hearing her voice is better than any drug I’ve ever known. “I miss you every second you’re away from me, darlin’,” I mumble. “You on break?”

“Aww,” she croons, with a teasing edge. “Look at you, admitting you have feelings. I have ten minutes to spare for my favorite grumpy cowboy.”

That damn smile I’ve been holding back finally cracks across my face. “I’m only sweet for you, baby. Everyone else can go straight to hell.”

She hums, light and mischievous. “Yeah, okay. You just missed the sound of my voice, admit it.”

“Smartass,” I growl, my voice dipping lower.

“Oh?” she purred.“Why don’t you shove your cock down my throat and shut me up then, cowboy?”

I nearly stumbled right there, a ragged sound ripping from my throat. “F-fuck, Catalina,” I grit out, my hand already palming my cock through my jeans, hard as a fucking rock already just from her sweet voice.

She knows exactly what she’s doing to me.

“What?” she says, all innocent and breathy. “I’m bored, sitting in your truck, wet, thinking about you.”

A tortured groan leaves me, one I can’t hold back. “You’re fucking killing me.”

She giggles, that soft, sinful little sound that shoots straight to my dick. Sunshine and sin all wrapped up in one perfect fucking woman.

“You’re the one who called me, cowboy.” She practically sings it.

I grit my teeth, my voice rougher than gravel. “Yeah, I fucking called you. Now why don’t you—fuck, baby—why don’t you slide those pretty fingers down your panties for me. Rub that sweet pussy like the good fuckin’ girl you are.”

She moans quietly, the sound sparking like a match in my bloodstream. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you, baby?” she whispers. “I bet you’re stroking that big cock right now, wishing it was my mouth wrapped around you.”

Fuck I love when she calls me baby.

My hand tightens in my jeans, hips twitching at the image. “Catalina—” I start, voice strangled.

She just laughs, wicked and bright.

“Well, too bad,” she teases sweetly. “I gotta go. Talk to you laterrrrrr.”

The line clicks dead before I can bark out another word.