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Duke can’t know about this letter. I know you must want to tell him, show him how much you meant to me, but you can’t. I want my son back even after I’m dead, and he won’t forgive me if he knows I loved you like a daughter.
Nash
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized Iwas holding.The pain wasn’t sharp or sudden—it was deep, slow, settling in my bones for the long haul, a lifetime.
I read the letter once again, for the last time, then pulled out my lighter, flicking it open. The flame licked at the edge of the paper, curling it black, turning Nash’s words to smoke. The ashes drifted to the ground, mixing with the dirt, with the land, with Nash, with Mama, with the past, until there was nothing left.
CHAPTER 20
duke
Ialmost followed Elena when she took the envelope Mac handed to her and left. But I knew I shouldn’t. She was going to follow Nash’s wish and read it alone.
“She gonna be okay?” I asked Hunt as we walked Mac to his truck.
“She’s always okay,” Mac replied before Hunt could say anything.
“Is she?” I asked, mostly because I was getting seriously pissed thateveryoneseemed to know Elena better than me—andfelt they needed to protect her fromme.
“Yeah, Duke.” Hunt stopped in front of Mac’s truck. “She’s not the girl you remember. This Elena is tough as nails.”
So, why did she break down by the river because she saw me with Fiona?
I knew the answer to that because no one could hurt her the way I could—and the reverse was just as true. Noone could hurt me the way she could. No one could get to me the way she did. I felt like I was fighting a losing battle, and soon, I’d be exactly where I was afraid to be, at her feet, panting like a dog, begging for scraps.
Ten years ago, if I’d gone back and apologized for being an asshole, she’d have forgiven me—but thistough-as-nailsElena, as Hunt put it, would knee me in the nuts if I even hinted at how much I still wanted her.
“Now, I know the ranch is yours, but Piper Novak? Really, Duke?” Mac shook his head, disgust plain as day as he tossed his leather satchel through the open truck window, landing it on the passenger seat with a thud. “Hell, son, you’d be better off tryin’ to saddle a tornado.”
“She’s putting some investors together to buy the ranch.”
The words felt rancid on my tongue, especially now that I’d heard Nash’s plea to keep my legacy for my children and theirs. He could’ve given it to Hunt, to Elena, to anyone who would’ve saved it—he could’ve split it up so I didn’t have full control, but he didn’t. It was all mine, and he’d done it knowing how I felt, knowing that I’d sell his heritage piece by piece and turn it into the nightmare that would make him roll in his grave.
I didn’t know who the bigger fool was here, Nash for believing that he could change my mind with a letter, or me who was thinking about changing my mind because of that damn letter.
“She’s workin’ with Kaz,” Mac grunted. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah.”
“Watch out for him.”
“What am I watchin’ out for?”
Mac got into his truck and looked out his window at me. “He’s up to somethin’, and I don’t know what. He’s workin’ with the worst of the lot, andyet, he also helped save Bree’s ranch….”
Bree Keaton had recently inherited a ranch that belonged to her uncle, who passed. Considering the inheritance taxes and other shit that came your way with an inheritance, a small ranch like hers should have been buried in debt. But it wasn’t. Because, as the grapevine had informed me, Kaz Chase had stepped in.
Mac ran a hand over his jaw, frowning. “Inheritance taxes alone should’ve gutted Bree. That place wasn’t big enough to sustain itself, not with what she owed. But somehow, she got exemptions, loopholes, reductions—things that don’t just happen unless someone knows how to work the system.”
Kaz had influence and connections. He played every angle. He wanted Bree's ranch saved, so he found a way.
“But then,” Mac continued, eyes sharp, “he turns around and plays nice with people like Piper Novak? With politicians who’d sell their own grandmothers if there was money in it?”
“Kaz always got a plan,” Hunt muttered.
“Yeah, he does,” Mac agreed. “Question is, whose side is he really on?”
In ranch country, when motives were murky, trust didn’t come easy—no matter how much good you did.