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We were silent for a beat, getting settled in and then she spoke. “You don’t remember me. You were just seven when we met.”
I smiled. “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Hawthorne.”
“Oh, Lord, that’s my mother-in-law. May her black soul rest in peace. I’m Tansy.”
I liked her. She was down to earth…like Elena.
“My husband and I had a small ranch here in Wildflower Canyon, just a few hundred acres and around a hundred head of cattle. Nothing big, just enough to keep us busy sunup to sundown.”
I stayed quiet because I knew she had something to say, something she believed I needed to know. And after seeing those photographs, I wanted to hear her story.
“Silas and Nash were friends, and so the four of us, your parents and Silas and I, started spending some time together. We didn’t have children and…Kaz came to us a year…after….”
She trailed away, looking mighty uncomfortable.
“Are you alright?”
She took a deep breath. “This is difficult for me. So…I’m going to meander a little, and I need you to bear with me.”
“I can do that.”
She swallowed. “Kaz’s father was a friend of my husband’s, and we adored Kaz. When he died, Kaz came to live with us in Aspen.”
“You sold your ranch to Maverick Kincaid.”
Large ranches were often consolidated. Nothin’ unusual there.
“Yes, we did.”
“Why?”
She swallowed and then, as if making a decision, shrugged. “There is no nice way of saying this, so I’m going to go ahead and just say it.” Her hands rolled into fists. “My husband and Gloria hadan affair.”
I stayed still. A part of me had known this since I saw the photograph, but her words felt unreal. My mother? My sainted mother?Hell no.
“For a year. Silas confessed when Gloria began to pester him to leave me and marry her.”
My jaw tightened.
“He ended things with Gloria, but…she started to stalk him. Followed him around, and eventually, Nash learned of it. He overheard Gloria talking to Silas. He was heartbroken. The man loved his wife.”
“And he kicked her out?” That made sense.
Tansy shook her head. “No, Duke. He wanted her to stay and wanted to make it work with her. He tried damn hard with Gloria. But she didn’t want him—she wanted what was mine. The thing with Gloria was that she always wanted to bechosenover someone else."
I knew this. I thought it stemmed from having a husband who fucked around on you. Of all the things I’d expected, I hadn’t anticipatedthis.
Nash forgave my mother—and never told me about it.
“Gloria wanted to leave Nash, and she wanted him to set her up in Dallas. She wanted to take you with her. Nash wasn’t going to have that.”
I felt my stomach turn. I knew what was coming. I held my breath.
“He agreed to let you and her spend the summer in Dallas. This was when you were nine and….”
I let out a breath like a boxer before the first punch. “That was when she attempted suicide…for the first time.”
He’s down. Duke Wilder is down. That’s a knockout for the ages!