Dylan (Bachelors of the Ridge #1) (20 page)

H
e was everywhere
. WTF.

“Kat, sweetie. Can you put this paperwork in the file for the fundraiser?” Glinda called from her desk. I pushed away from the computer on the rolling stool and snatched them from her hand. Right away, the logo from The Continental Divide caught my eye.

“What is this?”

“It’s a food order.”

“Rhetorical question, Glinda. I can see it’s a food order. Why do we have it? I was still working getting quotes from a few places.” When she snorted, my eyes scrolled to the bottom of the paperwork and I gasped. “Holy
shit
. That’s only like … a quarter of our food budget. For everything?”

Glinda hummed, and I stared up at her. Then she nodded, like
yeah, I know
.

“When did you get this from him?” There was absolutely no point in denying that Dylan was behind this. It was his scrawled, left-slanting signature on the bottom of the catering contract.

“He dropped it off while you were on your lunch break. I don’t think he realized you were gone, because those pretty blue eyes of his were searchin’ for something in here, and it wasn’t for me. I can tell you that much.”

I pressed a hand to my heart which was thrashing uncomfortably in my chest. What was he
doing
? First his stupidly sweet text last night and now this? Oh no. He wasn’t going to buy me off. So I stuffed the papers into the file and shoved it down to the end of the desk.

Out of sight, out of mind. That was my new mantra for Dylan.

I waved goodbye to Molly and turned to unlock my car, then stopped up short. It was clean. Like, sparkling, see my reflection in it clean. Possibly even waxed. My eyes narrowed on a scrap of paper tucked under the driver’s side windshield wiper, which was also brand new.

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered under my breath, crumpling the note into my hand.

“Glinda, I know you must have given him my keys.”

She batted her eyelashes and turned away from me. I stomped my foot, growling at her back, which only made her laugh. “Why don’t you just ask him?”

“Because,” I yelled. I cleared my throat when Doctor Ramirez leaned her head out of her office to give me a reproachful look. “Because if I do that,” I said in normal people volume, “then he wins.”

“Oh goodness.” Glinda spun in her chair, folding her arms over her ample chest. “That reeks strongly of crippling pride, sweet cheeks. Wouldn’t you both win if you just gave him a chance?”

“That’s what his whole evil plan is about. Wear Kat down doing ridiculous nice things and she’ll come running back to him.” I huffed. My face was flaming and I fanned a hand by my neck. “Next thing I know he’ll show up with my name tattooed on his ass thinking it’s romantic.”

Glinda hooted with laughter, and I cracked a reluctant smile. “No, he won’t do that.”

I slumped into the chair behind me. “I know.”

“He’d make the first donation for the silent auction before inking himself.”

My head snapped up when she waved a piece of paper. I jumped from the seat and lunged for it. “He did not,” I breathed.

Glinda pulled her hand away, and when I was about to launch over the counter, she pointed a finger at me. “If I give you this, you have to promise me that you’ll call and thank him for it. Because it’s a good one.”

Tapping my foot against the floor, I set my jaw and considered how serious she was. Damn it. I held my hand out for the paper. “I promise.” Then I unfolded the paper and really wished I hadn’t made that promise. “How the
hell
did he get this?”

The Denver Broncos letterhead set off a flurry of butterflies in my stomach, and my eyes skimmed until I got the gist; two seats at the fifty-yard line for one of the games early on in the season, field passes and a helmet signed by Superbowl 50 MVP, Von Miller.

I threw the paper at Glinda and stomped off, screaming behind my hand. What an
asshole
.

In my defense, Glinda never stipulated how soon I was supposed to call Dylan to thank him. I was in my bedroom, Taylor Swift blaring from the speakers on my dresser. The level at which I was playing it probably necessitated a call from our super, but I needed some friggin’ girl power music before I made this particular phone call.

Jumping side to side and punching the air along with the beat, I yelled the lyrics before I pulled up Dylan’s contact information. I hit the power button on my stereo, swamping my room with thick silence that was only punctuated by my heavy breathing. Because apparently girl power showed just how out of shape I was.

I hit send and sat on the edge of my bed, then sprang back up. Nope. That wouldn’t do. I couldn’t sit there. Memories of sweating and grabbing and thrusting and nope, nope, nope.

Just as I was smacking my forehead to jar
that
shit loose, he picked up.

“Kat? Are you there?”

I sank back down on the bed, because his voice. The wall that I’d thought was so very strong around my heart shook a little. Maybe it wasn’t so impenetrable after all. “Yeah. I’m here.”

He exhaled, the sound so full of relief that I sat up straighter. The last thing I wanted to do was confuse him, and I just … I wasn’t ready to say the things he probably wanted me to say.

“Dylan, I’m just calling to say thank you for the auction donation. Glinda, umm, she made me promise that I would.”

“Oh,” he replied, not even trying to mask his disappointment.

“It’s very generous. I don’t even know how you managed it, but yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Well, we all do at the clinic.”

“Cole called in a favor. He knows someone in the front office, I guess.”

My shoulders slumped at the formal tone in his wonderful, deep voice. “Cool.”

We were both quiet, me cringing at the fact that I’d just said
cool
in response, and him because he was probably wondering what the hell he was doing wasting time on a stubborn, prideful basket-case like me. Because I knew I was. But that didn’t make it any easier to try and be anything different.

“Kat,” he started. Then he cleared his throat. “I know you’re probably really busy with the fundraiser next week, but can we talk after? We don’t have to meet in person,” he rushed. “Not if you’re not ready. But maybe we can just talk on the phone?”

My eyes burned with unshed tears and my hands were shaking, the one holding the phone making it rattle against my face because of it. Why hadn’t he given up yet? What was in this for him?

Me
. The thought whispered through my head. What’s in this for him is
me.

Insecurity was the most insidious, powerful force I’d ever encountered, but that didn’t lessen it in any way. It pounded against my brain and my heart, wave after ceaseless wave. One tear tracked down my cheek and I sniffled.

“Kat, baby, please don’t cry. I
miss
you.”

“I have to go, Dylan,” I whispered, my voice shaking horribly. Ending the call before I could hear his voice again, I curled up in my bed and let the tears come.

The night before the fundraiser— a silent auction, dinner and dance at a renovated barn just outside of Denver— promised a perfect forecast for our event. It hadn’t rained since the beginning of the week, so everything was lush and green. Glinda, Molly and I were putting some finishing touches on the centerpieces when the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

I heard Brian’s voice calling my name, and I turned slowly, eyes zeroing in on Dylan where he stood framed in the open doorway. His broad shoulders blocked out the setting sun, and it made his whole frame glow in golds and yellows.

Brian said my name again and I blinked over to his friendly, smiling face. “Kat, hey. How’s it going?”

I smiled, I think, and slugged him on the shoulder. “Not too bad. What are you doing here?”

He hooked a thumb over his skinny shoulder. “Dylan needed some help setting up the bar equipment. He’s bartending tomorrow for you, but Lily, Brandy and I are serving.”

Dylan walked past us, carrying a large crate in his hands and absently, I nodded in response to Brian. He kept chattering on about something, but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying. Roughly twelve feet away, on the other side of the makeshift dance floor, Dylan worked silently, his blue eyes never leaving my face.

I swallowed, having quite the hard time breathing at the intensity that I saw in his face. But the thing that made me positively ache was how tired he looked. Tired and so incredibly handsome, with the beginnings of a dark beard on his strong, angled jaw. He must have clenched his teeth, because a muscle popped under his facial hair and I had to turn away.

There was this desire, this relentless humming in my veins that was screaming at me to run to him. To let him swing me up in his arms and make this emptiness in my heart go away. It took me a few minutes to breathe it out of me. Not completely though, I was starting to think that it would always be there.

Glinda said my name and I nodded, giving Dylan my back while I helped clean up the table. I worked that way for the next while, painfully aware of Dylan’s eyes on me, even though I hadn’t turned toward him again.

When the work we needed to do was done, I straightened, pressing a fist in my lower back to try and alleviate the ache that was forming there. My skin prickled when I felt his body heat hovering behind my back.

Glinda’s eyes flicked over my shoulder and she immediately turned and walked away, which made my shoulders slump. I’d either have to turn and address him myself or pray that he was just making a quick pit-stop to like, smell my hair or something.

But he didn’t move. He held behind me, so closely that the heat from his body singed the cotton of my shirt. I pressed a hand to my belly and fought the urge to turn around.

“I can’t do this right now,” I whispered, as much to myself as to him. The quick inhale that he gave me in response made me squeeze my eyes shut, and curl the hand in front of my belly button into a fist.

“Okay,” he said, the words hitting just above my right ear, the hair at my temple fluttering from his breath. Then he gently squeezed my shoulder and walked away. I whipped around, my mouth open to call his name, but he was already striding through the door into the parking lot.

I sank into the chair behind me and dropped my head into my hands.

“
O
h
, honey,” Glinda said in a wobbly voice from behind me, “you look prettier than butter meltin’ on a stack of pancakes.”

My hand stilled right before I could apply my last swipe of red lipstick and my eyes met hers in the bathroom mirror. “I, what?”

But she swiped a finger under her eye and sighed. “I mean it. You look so beautiful, Kat. You should wear red every single day.”

Instead of smiling and thanking her like I should have, I waved a hand in front of my burning face, careful not to mess the finger waves around my face that were held back on one side with a black rose pinned above my right ear. “I can’t breathe in this thing. It’s too tight.”

“You look perfect.”

This time when I turned back to the mirror, I let myself take in my full reflection instead of dissecting myself piece by piece. All day, I’d focused on one thing at a time. My hair once it was done, then my makeup as I applied it. The dress when I pulled it out of the garment bag, and the heels when I tightened the buckle around my ankle.

I
felt
beautiful, which was a big deal to me. When I had found the dress at an upscale consignment shop in Aurora, my face had been bare and my hair still messy from work, but I knew it was perfect for the fundraiser, even if I couldn’t get the complete picture.

The red satin hugged my chest and torso, with wide straps coming up from the sweetheart neckline and curving up behind my neck. The thick band of black lace wrapped around the narrowest part of my waist, and from there, the red flowed out in a swingy skirt that hit right at my knees. It felt vintage and classy and amazing from the second I’d touched it on the padded hanger.

Even if Dylan wasn’t out beyond the restroom doors somewhere, I’d have worn it with the strappy red heels and scarlet lipstick just because it was the first time in my life I’d owned anything as beautiful as that dress.

But he
was
out there, probably behind the bar that was already swarmed with lines of people, even though the fundraiser had barely begun. Anything I was involved in didn’t happen until later, so like a coward, I was hiding in the bathroom under the guise of fixing my lipstick. Which was perfect. Because I’d spent a shit ton of money on that matte stuff that supposedly didn’t budge.

Eff it, I swiped some more along my bottom lip and nodded at my reflection.

Glinda held the door open with an encouraging smile, as she’d been trying to get me to leave that bathroom for the last fifteen minutes.

Bless her heart.

The fact that Dylan wasn’t the first person I saw helped me breathe a little easier. I waved at some clients that I recognized and accepted a hug from a couple that I’d just finished working with about a month prior.

Their small talk was soothing, letting me blank out from the sheer terror of having to get up on the stage in front of so many people. Doctor Ramirez had been firm, every staff member from RMARC would have to get their asses in front of the mic at least once at the fundraiser. She was giving the big pitch, showing the sappy video that would hopefully open people’s wallets, Molly was opening up the silent auction, Glinda was doing the welcome speech, and I would have to announce the total at the end of the night when everything was tallied.

My nerves prickled again as I thought about it, but as I pulled in a deep breath to calm myself, the man in front of me stepped to the side, giving me a perfect view of Dylan mixing a drink.

But he wasn’t looking at the customer. He was looking at me.

And holy yeah, I was looking at him, too. Over his bright white dress shirt, Dylan was wearing a dark gray vest with a gray and white striped tie tucked into it. When I snapped my eyes back to his face, he was smiling at the person as he handed over their drink.

The banging of my heart grew louder and louder at the sight of that smile and that dimple. He was a dangerous, dangerous man when he busted that out. With his hands braced on the bar top, I saw his jaw tighten before he turned his head to me again.

Clearly, he was surprised that I was still watching him. Join the club, dude. I was practically announcing with my eye-stalking that my terrified little heart was still very much in his grasp.

My eyes went hot while we watched each other and my breathing quickened. I couldn’t pretend that I hadn’t thought about him, that I didn’t care about what he’d been doing for me. Because the truth was that I very much did care.

I blinked away from the weight of his stare and said hello to someone who’d just touched my elbow to get my attention. When she walked away, I felt my phone vibrate in the black clutch that I had in my hands.

With shaking fingers, I carefully typed out a reply, keeping my eyes down even as I hit send.

Without lifting my head, I could feel his eyes on me again, but I stubbornly didn’t check to see if I was right. But he didn’t respond right away, so I probably looked like a weirdo staring at her phone in the middle of a fancy event. I was just about to tuck my phone away when it buzzed again, his name appearing on my screen.

Risking a glance up at him, I felt that familiar flutter in my stomach when his bright blue eyes were still fixed on me with an unapologetic intensity. Instead of replying to his text, I smiled at him. Just one little smile.

But the answering one that he gave me was wide and I couldn’t help but laugh a little. Then he winked and went back to mixing drinks.

And he kept his word. Through the dinner, through the silent auction, he kept his word. My phone didn’t go off once for the next two and a half hours, which did odd things to my heart. Because the look that I saw on his face any time our eyes met was pure longing, and it made me wish I was even remotely capable of just walking up to him and starting a conversation.

I missed him.
That
was the problem. A problem that I definitely couldn’t go about fixing during the event, so I shoved it to the side and did whatever Dr. Ramirez needed me to do. And given that it was taking them longer to tabulate the earnings from the silent auction, she wanted me to go ask the deejay to play some songs that might encourage people to dance while they waited.

“I’ll play
Lady in Red
for you,” the deejay whispered far too close to my ear after he’d granted my request.

“Umm, no thanks,” I said with a kinder smile than I was feeling. He opened his mouth to say something else when my phone buzzed in my hand. I held it up and gave him an apologetic look.

I rolled my eyes.

Warmth bloomed in my stomach, and I pinched my eyes shut so that I wouldn’t look at him.

“Damn it,” I said under my breath.

My eyes snapped up and my heart dropped into my toes. Dylan was standing about five feet from me, his hands tucked into his pockets. He gave me a small smile and then made the motion of a zipper in front of his mouth. When he lifted his eyebrows in question, then glanced out at the still-empty dance floor, I heaved out a sigh.

“Fine.” I pointed at him. “But don’t try anything funny with your hands.”

Dylan adopted a mock-hurt expression and held up three fingers in a boy scout salute and I rolled my eyes, which made him smile. His smile held like that when he extended his hand to me. When I placed mine in his, every inch of skin on my body tingled, like I was a bare wire and he’d plugged me into a live electrical socket.

While he led me through the tables and into the middle of the empty floor, I caught Glinda’s eye and glared when I saw her joyful smile. But my glare softened when Dylan turned toward me with a look on his face so vulnerable that my breath stuttered in my chest. Was
that
what love looked like? That tortured, open look in his eyes?

And wasn’t that precisely how I felt every time I saw him or heard his voice since he’d walked out of my apartment? I couldn’t answer that question just then, but it tumbled through my head, matching the beat of the song.

With a smooth motion, Dylan pulled me into his arms, much like he did that first and only other time we had danced together. The height on my heels helped with our height difference, but I still fit snugly against his chest, his chin resting on the top of my head.

When his chest expanded in a deep inhale, I tightened my hold on his back, feeling the flex of his muscles under the layers of his vest and his shirt.

The song rolled along, and Dylan and I swayed gently to the beat. People joined us on the dance floor, but I paid them no attention, just breathing in the clean, masculine scent that surrounded me. When he tucked our joined hands on his chest, bringing us even closer, his breathing changed, like he was having to physically stop himself from saying something to me.

Suddenly, I wanted to cry. My brain was all twisted, like it had dropped by my heart and tangled itself up in my arteries. I couldn’t remember anything, why I’d fought against him so hard or pushed him so firmly away from me.

He was still
here
. He was everywhere, and that said more to me than any words he might have spoken. Dylan wasn’t giving up on me or running away.

The song drew to close and I wanted to scream,
no! It can’t be done yet!
I blinked up at Dylan when he stepped back and the look of raw, visceral pain on his handsome face was enough to mute whatever was going to come out of my mouth. He looked miserable, and I’d done that to him. I’d done that to both of us.

He blew out a hard breath and walked away, yanking my heart out of my chest with his long, purposeful strides. I only made it one step to follow him when Dr. Ramirez laid a hand on my shoulder.

“We’re done, Kat. I’ve got the figures for you if you’re ready to make the announcement.”

I nodded and made my way to the stage. I don’t know what I said, or if it made any sense. But people clapped and cheered when I read the figure off of the cream colored paper in my shaking hand. They probably thought I was shaking so badly because of nerves, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. It was all Dylan, all me. All the things I’d put us through. I walked back down the steps and was stopped by about a dozen people by the time I made it back to my table. I must have answered them, because they were all kind smiles and congratulatory words.

No matter where I looked, I couldn’t find Dylan. Brian was behind the bar by himself, and the table where I’d sat for dinner was empty. My shoulders slumped when I braced the back of one of the deserted chairs.

From my clutch, my phone buzzed again and I fumbled to open the clasp to retrieve it, almost dropping it in the process.

Of all the things he could have said to me, that was the thing that was guaranteed to make me realize that I’d never, ever move on from him. That he’d be etched onto my heart, in my soul, for the rest of my life.

Now I just had to figure out how to show him that.