Page 104 of Wild Then Wed
And most of the time, I manage to fool them.
But not always.
Tonight, I leave early. Say I’ve got something to do. My mom doesn’t press—just kisses my cheek and tells me to drive safe. I think she knows.
I don’t really plan on going anywhere, not at first. But then I think about the text, about Wren saying she wished I was there.
And I know it wasn’t a big thing. Just a few words. Casual. Still, it stuck.
So I drove. Through the snow. Past the turnoff to my place, out to the Wilding ranch with a cheesecake in the passenger seat and no real idea what the hell I’m doing.
But when she opens the door—barefoot and confused—I’m more than glad I came.
Even if it doesn’t fix anything. Even if it never can.
Ridge’s voice cuts through the room, loud and already half-laughing. “All right. Time for two truths and a lie, assholes.”
The small, petite woman next to him—Miller, I think—lets out a long, slow sigh and tips her wineglass toward her mouth. “Oh God.”
Boone, planted in the corner with Lark curled into his side, doesn’t even look up from his drink. “This won’t end well.”
Across the table, who I assume to be Wren’s teenage nephew grins. “Wait, what’s that game? How do you play?”
Ridge leans back in his chair. “Easy. You say three things—two are true, one’s a lie. Everyone guesses which one is the lie. Winner gets nothing except bragging rights since we’re not betting any money.”
“I hate this already,” Miller says.
“I’m starting,” Ridge says, ignoring her completely. “Let’s see…one, I once made out with a rodeo queen in a Dairy Queen parking lot. Two, I can recite all fifty states in alphabetical order. Three, I have a small, tasteful tattoo of a goat on my left ass cheek.”
A beat of silence, and then Hudson bursts out laughing.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Boone mutters.
“Youwouldmake out in a Dairy Queen parking lot. No class. Sounds like you,” Sage says, wrinkling her nose.
Wren, sitting next to me, leans in slightly. “This is gonna go sideways real fast.”
I laugh under my breath. “Can’t be that bad.”
She looks at me. One of those dry, pointed looks like she’s already clocked how naive that was.
“Okay,” I say, grinning now. “Maybe it can.”
She turns back toward the table, the corner of her mouth tugging up. Her lashes flick downward, brushing against freckled cheeks as she hides the start of a smile.
Her hair is pulled into a loose red ponytail, a few loose strands escaping that skim her cheeks and the curve of her neck. She’s wearing a cropped shirt beneath an over-sized cream cardigan that’s sliding slightly off one shoulder, and black leggings that hug her like they were made for her. Too well. Myeyes drift and catch on the way one leg crosses over the other, the slow, absent rhythm of her foot bouncing beneath the table.
There’s a sliver of skin showing just above the waistband—bronzed, smooth, one of those details that lodges itself in my brain and refuses to leave quietly. I clear my throat, forcing my gaze upward like it costs me something. Maybe it does. I take a long sip of water, the glass colder than I expect, hoping it’s enough to ground me. To shake whatever the hell this is.
I’m supposed to be focusing.
But it’s her, and she’s here, and now my thoughts are all tangled up in places they shouldn’t be.
Ishouldbe focused on the game, but instead, I find myself watching her—too long, too closely—when she isn’t paying attention. When she’s tired, and relaxed in a way that makes everything about her softer, unguarded, quietly beautiful in a way that feels entirely unintentional and all the more impossible to ignore.
God help me.
“Okay,” Miller says, setting her wineglass down with purpose. “What if we play a different game?”
