Page 1 of The Wrong Ride Home (Wildflower Canyon #1)

elena

I watched the man I’d loved my whole adult life kiss another woman deeply, passionately. He was a good kisser. I knew that. For a short few months, he’d been mine. I’d been eighteen and Duke twenty.

He was my first— everything . First love. First heartbreak.

The woman laughed, and he looked at her like she had his heart. I remembered that look well because he’d smiled at me like that— ten years ago .

“Te amo, mi cielo.” I love you, my heaven, my everything.

“I love you, Florecita.” Little flower.

We were children—madly in love, utterly devoted to each other. We whispered sweet endearments, held each other through the night, made love, and drank each other in. For three months, we were inseparable. Such a short time, and yet every day, every moment, still lived inside me.

I’d loved Duke Wilder with all my heart. I still did.

“You sure you want me here?” I asked Hunt, the Wilder Ranch foreman, again .

“Yeah,” he replied again .

He’d ordered all the cowboys and ranch hands to be present when the new owner of Wilder Ranch arrived.

Nash Wilder had passed away, and his funeral was this weekend. He died at the ranch house in his bed as he’d wanted, as I’d promised him and my mother. Neither had wanted to die in a hospital or hospice.

I’d held his hand and soothed him to the end as I had Mama.

“He’ll forgive me, you’ll see,” Nash told me.

“He already has,” I lied.

“He’ll come back, won’t he, Elena? He’ll take care of the ranch.”

“He will; he’s on his way,” I lied again. I knew Duke hated the ranch. He saw it as the symbol of everything that had gone wrong with his family and had broken it.

“And you’ll help him, won’t you?” he pleaded.

“I will, Nash.”

“Promise me.”

Another promise. Another vow. Another heartbreak waiting to happen.

“If he needs me, Nash, I’ll be there for him.”

“He’ll need you. The horses…he can’t…not without you.”

He won’t need me for me but for the horses. It was the vulgar truth. And if Duke needed me, I’d stay. If he said fuck off, Elena , I would gladly leave as I’d wanted to when the boy I fell in love with told me I was a whore like my mother. When he told me that he hated me.

He’d thrown money at me, told me to take it and go—leave with Mama, leave the ranch, leave his father.

That memory burned through me, hollowed me out until there was nothing but ash.

And if that hadn’t been enough, being pregnant at that age—confused, lost, and alone—sure as hell hadn’t helped.

Losing the baby when I tried to end my own life?

That had shattered what little was left.

I couldn’t hold that last part against Duke ‘cause he hadn’t known about the baby or my failed attempt at getting the hell out of the ranch and this world.

Hunt had been there for me—a brother, a friend, a hand that held mine when I needed it most. From that moment on, he protected me.

He never asked what had broken me, never questioned whose baby I’d lost. He didn’t tell Mama.

He didn’t tell anyone. It was our secret, sealed in silence, never spoken aloud.

There were whispers about Hunt and me. Of course, there were. Cowboys were worse than a sewing circle when it came to gossip. They could make shit up that could give The National Enquirer a run for its money.

Nash had loved Hunt like a son and warned me not to use my charms on him as I had Duke. The thing was that Nash lost his son, and he never forgave me for my part in that tragedy.

I thought he’d send us away when Duke discovered who my mother was—what she meant to his father, who was then still, for all legal purposes, married to Duke’s mother.

But Gloria hadn’t been at Wilder Ranch or with her husband for years.

She refused to divorce Nash. She’d never allow him to legitimize his relationship with my mother.

Did it hurt Mama? Yes, it did. Did Nash care?

No, I don’t think he did. He wanted to keep Duke happy—and he knew that if he ever divorced Gloria and married my mother, he’d lose his son for good.

Even though we all understood he already had, and it had nothing to do with me but with Duke, Nash, Gloria, and Mama.

I never asked Mama to leave Wilder Ranch, even though I desperately wanted to run away. I didn’t because I knew she wouldn’t. Mama loved Nash something fierce. She loved him more than she loved me. I knew that. I loved her more than she loved me. I accepted that.

They say love is war, and I had just been a casualty.

I couldn’t leave her, so I stayed.

When she passed, I thought I was finally free—except for the promise she made me give her.

But now, all my debts had been paid. Nash was gone, and I knew he’d be buried next to Mama—just as he’d instructed Hunt and me.

An empty coffin would be placed in the Wilder family plot at the cemetery, his final and only way of telling Mama that, in the end, he had loved her more than anything or anyone in this world.

Duke walked up to Hunt, and they shook hands.

“This is Fiona Turner, my girlfriend,” he introduced Hunt to her, ignoring that I stood next to him. “Darlin’, this is Hunt Blackwood. He’s the ranch foreman. ”

Fiona extended her perfectly manicured hand and shook Hunt’s.

“Ma’am.” Hunt tipped his head politely.

“And who is this? An honest-to-God cowgirl?” Fiona tittered.

“I’m Elena Rivera.”

She didn’t extend her hand to me, and I didn’t mind. My hands were dirty. I’d been in the stable when Hunt dragged me out.

“Elena.” Duke nodded at me without looking at me, without seeing me.

“Duke.” I was saying his name to him, and I felt everything inside me glow. What a pathetic fool I was that just this tiny reprieve he’d given me in a decade, to stand in front of him and say his name made me feel good.

It was like Mama used to say, ‘ Beggars, mija, can’t be choosers .’

“I’m surprised you’re still here,” he said casually.

I didn’t respond.

“Elena is our horse trainer,” Hunt explained, falling in step with Duke and Fiona, leading them away from me. I waited, stood without moving until he met everyone, and went into the ranch house.

Whew! Well, that went as well as it could!

“The boss doesn’t like you,” Sawyer, a kid, who thought he was God’s gift because he was six foot two and couldn’t understand why wrinkled and old me at the age of twenty-eight didn’t give him the time of day.

He’d asked me more than once if I’d like to ride his cock instead of a horse.

I didn’t dignify his bullshit with a response.

He wasn’t the only one who tried to get with me.

I was a woman in a man’s world—and not just a man, but these men who were rough and raw and believed a woman’s place was under them or in the kitchen, preferably barefoot and pregnant.

But most of the cowboys I worked with now had come to terms with my presence on the ranch and respected me.

I was good with horses. I was damn good with horses.

Everyone knew I stayed because of Nash, to take care of him, and not because I had to.

I had job offers from all the big ranches from Colorado to California.

Like always, I didn’t respond to Sawyer and began to walk back toward the stable.

“Come on, Elena, what did you do? Try to fuck him?”

He must’ve seen something flash in my eyes because he snickered. “You thought you could compete with that hot stuff he’s got on his arm?”

I smiled easily at Sawyer, covering everything I felt. Hiding had become second nature—I was an expert at it. The only time I ever felt like myself was with my horses. Even Hunt didn’t see the whole me. He got a version more honest than what I showed most people, but still carefully guarded.

I was like a skittish filly, always keeping my distance, never trusting anyone to stand by me when it really mattered—not even Hunt, not if push came to shove. My own mother hadn’t been on my side—so why would anyone else? That wasn’t cynicism. That was just plain practicality.

"Sawyer, you need to ride to the south end of the pasture and check the fence line—Hunt told you that this morning. If there’s a break, fix it. If not, move the cattle back toward the creek before the heat sets in. And quit wastin’ time."

Sawyer didn’t like getting orders from me, but he did just like everyone else.

I was the horse trainer, and that meant I brought a shit ton of money into Wilder Ranch.

I was also Hunt’s right hand, which meant I managed a lot of the work done on the ranch, which included telling the cowboys what to do.

"Come on, boy, time to work and keep your yappin’ mouth shut." This came from Roy Taggart. He was in his late fifties and still as spry as Sawyer.

Roy used to have a problem—said I was too soft on the horses, that I’d get someone hurt with all my "gentle nonsense." But that changed the day I took on Ghost, a rank gelding that nobody could get a bridle on without a fight.

Ghost wasn’t just ornery—he was dangerous. He’d thrown three men, kicked a rail clean in half, and bloodied more than one nose. Hunt was close to washing his hands of the animal. But I saw something in Ghost’s eyes, something beyond the wild.

Ghost had been with us for ten days when I decided to take him on since everyone else had given up. I used to just be a ranch hand then, twenty-two, struggling to find my feet .

I walked into the round pen that morning, slow and steady, ignoring the murmurs from the boys leaning on the fence.

Ghost snorted and pawed the dirt, his muscles bunched tight as a spring. I didn’t reach for a rope, didn’t force a halter. I just stood there, breathing deep, letting him feel me, waiting for the moment his ears flicked forward. Finally, I got a twitch.

Then I moved—not toward him, but away. I turned my back and gave him the choice.

Roy scoffed, muttering, "Damn fool girl," under his breath.