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But are you the best mother a son can have? That thought always popped up when she praised me for being a good son.
“Okay, Mama, I have to?—"
"Are you all right?" She cut me offagain, and I could hear the unsteady inhale on the other end.
"I’m fine."
"I don’t know why I even asked," she murmured. "You never let me worry about you, do you?"
Because you have enough to worry about.
“Look, Mama, you don’t have to come to the funeral. I’m telling you no one?—”
“I have to, Duke. He was my husband.”
I hated that she never let me talk. Mama was many things, a good listener, she wasn’t.
I closed my eyes briefly. "It’s going to be a spectacle. You don’t like spectacles."
She let out a soft laugh, brittle at the edges. "I’ll be ready…as long as you’re with me, holding my hand."
“Okay, Mama.”
“Son?”
I ground my teeth. Why couldn’t she just say what she had to say instead of me having to pull the words out of her?
“Yes, Mama.”
“Can you…can you make suresheisn’t there? I spoke to Mindy, and she saidshe’sstill at the ranch.”
Mindy Rostock was the wife of Bubba Rostock, who owned a construction company in Denver and had built a freaking mansion in Wildflower Canyon. He’d bought a ranch and had converted it into a private golf course. Nash hated his guts. Mama and Mindy were besties.
“Mama—”
“Is she still there?”
She was talking about Elena. When Maria died, Mama had been thrilled. I, not so much. I’d spoken to Hunt, and he told me she passed away after battling pancreatic cancer. There had been six months between diagnosis and death.
“Nash is drinking all the fuckin’ time instead of being with her,” he told me.
“I don’t want to know about my father’s mistress, Hunt.”
But Ihadwanted to know about Elena. How was she handling it? Was she okay? But I didn’t ask him. I made it a point to not ask about her. I checked up on my father through Hunt, and we shot the shit but never discussed personal stuff.
“Yes, Mama.”
“You have to get rid of her,” she whined.
I wanted to tell her I had tried, but Hunt hadn’t let me, but I would sound like a whiney bitch. But the truth was I had let Hunt twist my arm, and even if he hadn’t, there was no fucking way I’d have let her go with Maverick Fucking Kincaid. Over my dead body. The fact that I was still so possessive about her was all kinds of fucked up.
“Mama, she’s the horse trainer, and I need her to sell the horses for a good price.”
“Can you not find someone else?” she asked petulantly.
Fiona narrowed her eyes and jerked her chin up. I shook my head and mouthed, “It’s fine.”
“I can’t. How about I make sure she won’t be at the funeral?” I offered. It was unfair since Elena had taken care of my father while he’d been sick. Been with him. Been his nurse. But, hell, I couldn’t have my father’s mistress’s daughter at my father’s funeral that my mother was attending, now could I?