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“Huh?”
Kaz smirked, clearly entertained. “She important to you?”
I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t know whoshewas. Kaz and I didn’t know each other well, but we’d both clocked one another as beingsimilar. We liked money, and we were ruthless in its pursuit.
“She’s the past.”
“If Fiona is the present, you’re better off living in the past.”
Shebegan to dance with the motherfucker. My jaw clenched. Kaz followed my line of sight, watching as the cowboy who was about to lose his head dipped forward, whispering something, his lips close to her skin, making Elena smile.
“The past is complicated,” I murmured.
No shit, Sherlock!
Kaz’s smirk deepened. “Only if you’ve got lingering issues about the fact that she’s the daughter of your father’s mistress.”
I straightened and moved threateningly toward Kaz. No one talked about Maria like he just had, not to my face.
Kaz lifted his beer in surrender. “Easy. Just an observation.”
I breathed through my nose, forcing myself to calm down.
He took a sip of his drink, watching me now as if Iwere a puzzle he was relishing putting together. “You ever heard of Silas and Tansy Hawthorne?”
I frowned. “Yes. They sold their farm to Kincaid.”
“Youknowthem?”
“Knowofthem.”
He smiled like that answer amused him. “You should meet them. Silas was a good friend of your mother’s.”
Something about the way he said it made my skin itch. “What the hell does that mean?”
Kaz shrugged. “It means you should start asking the right questions before you kill your legacy.”
Before I could push him on that, a fight broke out near the bar. Two cowboys swinging fists, knocking over chairs, sending beer sloshing onto the floor. I barely registered it because my eyes had found Elena again. She was now dancing with another sumbitch, their bodies moving slowly to the music.
“Still no problem, huh?” Kaz mused.
I didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
“I’ll be seeing you, Kaz,” I said and then walked up to Elena and went ahead and fucked everyone’s night up.
Well,almost. The only saving grace was that I kissed her.
For the first time in a decade, I tasted her—whiskey and want, fire and familiarity. And just like that, my world tilted. It was the tipping point—the moment the lie I’d been telling myself crumbled to dust.
I’d spent years trying to protect myself from her, pretending I’d moved on, that what Elena and I had wasburied under too much time, too much hurt. But all my efforts had failed for one simple reason—I still loved her.
God help me, I always had, and I knew as sure as the sun rose over Wilder Ranch and set behind those Colorado peaks, I always would.
CHAPTER 23
elena
Rodeo week meant longer hours, more moving parts, no time for bullshit—and absolutely no time to think about Duke kissing me.