8. Emma
Eight
Emma
S omehow my aimless wandering had steered me towards the edges of our property line abutting the rambling ranch next door. I wasn’t even fully conscious of where my feet were carrying me until I glanced up and noticed a strange, shadowy figure perched atop the roof of the ranch house’s main building.
A spike of adrenaline zipped through me, my breath catching in my throat as irrational fears took hold. Was someone trying to break into the place? Should I call the Sheriff’s department? The rational part of my brain quickly overcame the fleeting panic. Of course it wasn’t a burglar - it was just the surly ranch owner himself, Ridge.
As my eyes adjusted to the dusky light fading across the landscape, I could just make out the unmistakable silhouette of his body, legs stretched out as he reclined against the sloping shingles. He seemed utterly at peace, face tipped up towards the first blinking stars emerging in the inky evening sky.
Despite the distance separating us, the tension was palpable, flooding my senses in a visceral way. My heart picked up a staccato, tripping cadence against my ribcage as I drank in the rare, unguarded sight of Ridge.
Before I could think better of it, I vaulted over the split-rail fence dividing our lands from the McCords.
I landed on the soft, loamy soil with a muted thud, the rich earth drinking the impact silently. Keeping low in an exaggerated crouch, I skulked closer along the side of the house, straining for a better glimpse of whoever or whatever was perched so nonchalantly overhead.
That’s when the shadow shifted, reclining back fully to stretch out with hands pillowed beneath their head. Even through the gathering gloom, I could make out broad shoulders, a chiseled jawline, and weathered forearms, I took my time to check him out my heart raising it’s beat with every step I take closer to him.
Emboldened by that dogged yearning to extend my momentary refuge, I couldn’t quite resist calling out in a weird, strangled half-whisper. “Hey, Ridge.”
The words scratched their way out with a raspy exhale, as if they’d been ripped straight from the arid depths of my anxious lungs. I immediately tensed, cursing my inability to just slink away silently after satisfying my curiosity like any sane person. Now I’d gone and announced my trespassing presence.
Ridge’s head whipped around in the direction of the noise, eyes narrowing as he searched through the shadows gathering around the hulking house until locating me - a small, fidgeting wraith lurking uninvited on the borders of his private kingdom.
His gaze swept over me in one piercing assessment as the lingering streaks of alpenglow gilded his chiseled features. I didn’t need to see the minute tightening of his jaw to recognize the wariness, the fleeting territorial bristle at finding an intruder before he realized it was just his unassuming neighbor-girl.
“Emma.” The single syllable of my name carried a rasping lilt of wry acknowledgment as some of the tension instantly bled from his shoulders. “What are you doing here?”
His tone wasn’t aggressive, per se. More one of mild, world-weary bemusement at having his isolation so thoroughly punctured. As if simply by existing in his general vicinity, I was disturbing some fragile equilibrium.
Abruptly, I was hyper-aware of what a disheveled, wretched vision I must present - barefoot and wild-haired, with my cheeks still splotchy from crying earlier. In contrast, Ridge cut a figure of utterly unruffled, nonchalant repose. Even upending the usual terra-firma order by claiming the rooftop as his temporary throne, he managed to emanate bone-deep assurance and ease that was utterly foreign to me.
Case in point: I immediately launched into a garbled overexplanation about how I’d been walking - not wandering aimlessly or trespassing, absolutely not - and spotted him, and figured I should say hi…or something.
The torrent of words gushed from me like an overzealous geyser before tapering off under Ridge’s steady, scrutinizing gaze. My cheeks blazed as I ineffectually shuffled from one foot to the other, abruptly conscious of every awkward twist and stumbling stammer in my sad conversational performance.
When the petrified silence stretched to a point that bordered on excruciating, I ploughed recklessly onward. “Mind if I join you?”
The plaintive request emerged in a teenaged squeak, barely audible over the rising symphony of crickets. God, I must look like the world’s most pathetic, touch-starved creep - moping about his property unannounced before practically begging for his attention, no matter how insignificant.
To Ridge’s credit, he didn’t immediately rebuff me or order me off his land, as would’ve been well within his right. Instead, he simply regarded me steadily, seeming to consider beneath lowered lashes before giving a measured nod.
“Suit yourself, Wilting Flower,” was his muted response, the endearment or insult - I couldn’t decipher which - uttered beneath his breath.
Not waiting for a more explicit invitation to trespass further, I clambered through the nearest window and pulled myself up onto the sloping rooftop. Picking my way carefully to where Ridge reclined, I settled myself down beside him, knees clutched to my chest in a loose mimicry of his affecting indolence.
If the close proximity flustered him, Ridge gave no outward sign. His face was once again an inscrutable mask of detached calm as he resumed taking in the evening’s heavenly floor-show silently.
Potent streaks of mauve and tangerine still stained the western horizon, slowly deepening towards inky indigo and smudges of dusky lilac in the middle distance. In the opposite swath of sky, the first pinprick stars were just hazily winking to life as dusk made its inevitable march towards true night.
It was utterly transfixing, the kind of resplendent natural spectacle I could never hope to capture with pencil or brush, no matter how fervently I tried. Shedding its fiery brilliance from the day shift, the sunset was making way for its celestial counterpart to take the stage, both displays equally breathtaking in their artistry.
In the cocoon of that singular, suspended moment, I felt something inside me unclench, a space opening up where all the choking vines of doubt and self-recrimination had been growing unchecked. Just two weary, dissimilar souls finding peace in the simple rhythms of the earth and sky’s eternal choreography.
My bones practically vibrated with a foreign, indescribable feeling. Was this what true tranquility felt like? I’d spent so long trapped in the labyrinth of my own anxious thought streams, I’d forgotten how to simply exist outside the noise of my own ceaseless inner monologue.
“Why were you crying, Emma?”
The words were spoken without accusation or mockery, colored by a nuanced inflection I couldn’t quite decode - open curiosity tinged with something else, an undercurrent of tender concern that made my pulse stutter. And underneath it all, the unmistakable implication that he’d caught the emotional dishevelment written across my features despite the deepening shadows.
I blinked owlishly at his silhouette, robbed of breath and cogent reply as Ridge finally shifted his full attention my way. The guardian mask had slipped, revealing depths I’d never thought to encounter in his unfathomable forest-green stare.
With his piercing focus now trained squarely on me, I found myself abruptly, viscerally aware of every synapse firing, every minuscule twitch and fidget as nerves danced wildly beneath my heated skin. All the easy tranquility I’d been basking in mere moments before evaporated like ashen smoke scattered to the night winds.
Where did I even start? The harsh indictment from my own mother that I was nothing more than an overgrown child, paralyzed by my own flightiness and flaws? The bone-deep melancholy that maybe she was right - that I was fundamentally stunted, incapable of blooming into the grounded, responsible adult I so desperately longed to become?
My throat worked uselessly as I struggled to articulate any of that into words that wouldn’t immediately condemn me as utterly pathetic in Ridge’s assessing eyes. When my mouth did finally unstick, a sputtered rush of plaintive truth came tumbling out.
“Because…because I can’t seem to grow up,” I confessed in a small voice, unable to meet his gaze any longer. I felt myself wilting beneath the weight of admitting my greatest insecurity out loud for the first time.
To my surprise, Ridge didn’t immediately dismiss me with disdain or deliver a scathing rebuke. His expression remained open, contemplative as he regarded me carefully.
“You are grown up, Emma,” he countered softly.
I peered up at him then, ready to reflexively argue, to rattle off the litany of personal failings and inadequacies that constantly plagued my sense of self-worth. But before I could get a single protestation out, the floodgates seemed to burst open of their own accord.
“No, I’m really not!” The words emerged strained, laced with years of pent-up frustration and doubt. “I can’t seem to keep anything organized or follow through on basic responsibilities. I procrastinate on all the financial reports and inventory checks until the last minute. My mind is always wandering, getting distracted by every new passing fancy rather than focusing on what actually needs to get done.”
I drew a shuddering breath, feeling lighter even as confessional truth kept spilling out in an unstoppable deluge.
“You know, my mom just laid into me again today about being a flaky, irresponsible mess who can’t handle any of the practical duties around the vineyard?” I laughed bitterly at the recollection, swiping at the treacherous moisture gathering in my lashes. “She’s right - I’m just perpetually stuck in this state of permanent adolescence while Ethan and everyone else has their lives completely together.”
For one wild, paralyzing instant, I was certain I’d overstepped some irrevocable line with the torrent of self- pity and vulnerability unleashed at Ridge’s feet. I braced for the implosion of whatever tenuous connection had blossomed between us over the span of our conversation, fully expecting him to recoil from the naked rawnesses now laid bare.
But to his seeming infinite credit, Ridge didn’t retreat behind the stoic, impenetrable walls I’d come to anticipate from him in our limited interactions over the years. In fact, he did something that shook me to my very core.
He reached out and, with feather-light tenderness, brushed away the solitary teardrop that had escaped to trace a shining path down my flushed cheek.
The gossamer caress of his calloused knuckles against my oversensitized skin sparked like a livewire straight to my nervous system. I stilled utterly, rendered immobile by the shock of such unhurriedly intimate physical contact from this man who always seemed to carry himself rigidly apart.
When he finally spoke again, Ridge’s words were measured yet carried a rasping timbre that sent delicious little tremors ricocheting through me from head to toe.
“So what if you struggle with things like organization and finance reports sometimes, Emma? That doesn’t make you any less of an adult.” His tone softened, taking on an almost meditative quality as his thumb continued its soothing ministrations.
“My daughter spent one day with you and she is in love.” His lips curved faintly at the mention of his daughter’s name.
“Hell, sometimes I think she likes you better than her own damn father,” he added with just the faintest hint of sheepish self-deprecation underpinning the words.
Dropping his hand slowly, Ridge shifted his body until we were angled fully face-to-face, allowing the eventide shades and smudges of moonlight to illuminate his strong jawline and arrestingly intense eyes. As he regarded me with that level of quiet focus, I felt utterly transfixed and disarmed.
“And from what Ethan tells me, you helped get that wine distribution deal with the city restaurants off the ground with your creative vision and tenacious spirit. Not exactly the resume of someone stuck in perpetual adolescence.”
My mouth felt arid with shock at his passionate defense of me, this gentle insistence that I wasn’t as stunted or unaccomplished as I constantly saw myself.
Unconsciously, I found myself leaning in just fractionally closer, drawn like a moth to the warmth radiating from Ridge’s understated attentions. When my voice emerged once more, it was a gravelly rasp.
“But my mom..”
Ridge didn’t allow me to finish the thought, cutting me off with a low, soothing rumble. “What your mom said was harsh, and it is not true. I understand that better than anyone.”
A flash of something inscrutable, tinged with melancholy, flickered across his craggy features before dissipating. His tongue darted out to wet his lips before he continued in that same low, hypnotic cadence.
“But here’s the thing, Emma. Being an adult, being truly grown up - that doesn’t mean having to fit a narrow, rigid definition of perfection. It’s not ticking off a checklist of accomplishments or skills or responsibilities.”
He leaned in infinitesimally closer, near enough that I could make out the dusting of silvery stubble feathering his jaw despite the low light. The unexpected proximity sent waves of electrified awareness washing through my nerve endings.
“Being an adult, in my book, is about understanding that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses,” Ridge murmured, his eyes focused with smoldering intensity on my transfixed stare.
“It’s having the wisdom to appreciate yourself…flaws, anxieties, messy unfinished parts and all.” The corner of his sensuous mouth curved upwards in the hint of a rueful smile.
“You think men like me don’t have our own deep reservoirs of hang-ups and failings? That we stride through the world totally put together all the damn time?” He shook his head minutely, sending threads of moonlight gilding across the sharp planes of his face.
“We all have our jagged pieces, Emma. Our stumbling blocks and daily battles others can’t see. What matters is how you stitch yourself back together despite the cracks - how you cultivate the kind of empathy that helps cushion the sharp edges rather than grinding them down to nothing.”
The undisguised emotion gruffening his voice as he neared the end made my throat grow tight. Without consciously meaning to, I found myself floating even nearer until our bodies were a breath away from making contact.
I barely noticed when another traitorous tear escaped, streaking a glistening path down my cheek until Ridge’s knuckles were there again. Ghosting over my feverish skin in another tender sweep, leaving tingles dancing in the wake of his touch.
“You really look like a wilting flower,” he rumbled, the hint of a sad smile playing about his beautifully carved mouth. “with your tearstained eyes and doleful pout, all trampled fragility and defeated grace.” The visual imagery, however poetic, still managed to sting even as his words somehow seemed to enfold rather than diminish me.
Inexplicably, I found myself holding my breath as he leaned in just a fraction closer, near enough for me to catch the clean, earthy tang of his skin and crisp cotton shirt. The unexpected intimacy was utterly disarming, robbing me of even the most basic self-protective instincts.
“But when you’re smiling?” Ridge murmured, each hushed syllable caressing the scant space between us with soft reverence. “You know what you remind me of then?”
My mouth felt too sandpaper-dry to formulate a response, so I simply gaped up at him, utterly transfixed. Whether by the magnetic pull of his hypnotic voice or our sudden propinquity, I couldn’t be certain - everything was a jumble of blurred sensation.
Sensing my speechlessness, Ridge indulged me with a slow curve of rueful mirth before finishing his thought. “Flowers of the first bloom. All dewy, petal-soft promise just beginning to unfurl.” The timbre of his tone had lowered to a hushed, raspy cadence, like the words themselves were objects of reverent beauty being handled with the utmost care.
At the apex of his descriptive flourish, he murmured one final, gracenote word that conjured an achingly vivid image all its own.
“Daffodils.”
I couldn’t stifle the tremulous inhale that escaped me then, the breath whispering out before I could rein it back in.
The ghost of seraphic wonderment flickering across Ridge’s face told me he’d registered my utterly visceral response to his surprisingly poetic turn. Not condescending or mocking, but genuinely appreciative of the seismic verbal impact he’d clearly orchestrated.