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CHAPTER 27
elena
“Ican’t find Hunt.” Duke came into the makeshift Wilder Ranch office, which was behind the main barns—a temporary setup thrown together for the rodeo.
All the big ranches had such a space. It was nothing fancy, just a converted storage room with a battered wooden desk, a few mismatched chairs, and a metal filing cabinet shoved against the wall. A whiteboard leaned precariously in the corner, covered in names, ride times, and notes scrawled in red marker.
The air smelled faintly of stale coffee that had been sitting in the pot too long, which it had been. A rodeo schedule and a wrinkled map of the grounds were tacked to the wall, alongside a clipboard stacked with entry forms and payout sheets.
“He took Widowmaker to the vet. She was favoring a leg,” I explained.
Duke nodded. “I have to go.”
“Okay.”
He looked angry. Furious. His hair was mussed up like he’d raked through it a few times.
“I have to go to Dallas.”
“Okay.”
He sighed. “That’s it?”
I shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”
Are you coming back? Will I ever see you again? Will it be another ten years before I do?
I realized that even when he looked at me with hate, it gave me pleasure because he was at leastlookingat me. The past weeks had been torture, but they’d also been bliss because my man was around, and I could steal glances of him, filling up the empty spaces inside of me.
Why didn’t love die? Our love had become sick and toxic, but it was still alive—throbbing, painful, alluring.
The air all but crackled with energy when he took a step toward me.
“I ended things with Fiona.”
He did?
“She called Mama.”
Of course, she did. I could see Fiona getting along well with Gloria. They were two peas in a pod if the pod was for manipulative bitches.
“And Mama is freaking out. She told her I was…with you.”
“Why would she say such a foolish thing?” I tucked my hands in my jeans so he couldn’t see they were shaking. He was close. So close. A couple of steps, and Iwould be in his arms. It had been so long since I’d been in the arms of someone who loved me.
He doesn’t love you, Elena. Stop daydreaming.
“I…she’s threatening to…and….”
He’d told me of the two times Gloria had tried to kill herself. I had been heartbroken for him to have to go through something like that and hated Gloria for being so selfish and hurting her own child this way. I didn’t know then that she’d not tried to kill herself because Nash left her—it was because she wanted to leave NashwithDuke, and he wasn’t going to let that happen. But that woman always found a way to get what she wanted by screwing around with the men in her life. Frail and fragile, Gloria.My ass.
“I’m sorry, Duke. That’s a huge burden for you to carry.”
He took another step toward me, and my breath rattled in my chest.
“I don’t want to go.”
He looked like the boy I loved.