Page 33 of The Wrong Ride Home (Wildflower Canyon #1)

I hesitated at the door, my hand hovering over the knob. I hadn’t stepped foot in here in over a decade. Since coming back, I’d avoided it completely. But I couldn’t avoid it forever, so, with quiet determination, I turned the handle and stepped inside.

The scent hit me first—cedar, leather, pine. Nash . Like time had settled in here and never left.

The room was spotless—Itzel had probably ensured that. The sheets were crisp, the furniture polished, and there was not a speck of dust anywhere. This made it feel more empty and poignant.

There was no sign of recent life. No warmth. No lingering presence. Except in my mind, because when I thought of Nash, I thought of him here—or in the paddocks.

I rubbed my hand over my jaw, scanning the space. It was just a bedroom—four walls, a bed, and a dresser—so why did it have such an emotional impact on me?

I sat on the edge of the bed and, for the first time in years, I let myself remember my father as more than just the man who had made my mother’s life hell.

“Damn it, Nash. I wish things had been different. I wish…I’d had more grace,” I whispered into the emptiness.

I opened the nightstand drawer without thinking, expecting to find a gun, some old receipts, maybe a bottle of whiskey.

Instead, I found a photograph. I pulled it out slowly.

Maria .

In this picture, she was young, younger than I remembered her. She stood by the corral with a horse at her side, and sunlight caught the softness of her face.

Nash must have taken this himself, I mused. I turned it over. My throat tightened as I read the words written in Nash’s slashing handwriting. "Mi amor, siempre." My love, always.

Nash had loved her the way a man only loves once, I thought.

Like father, like son! And, yet I’d spent my whole damn life hating him for it.

I set the photo down carefully back to where Nash had left it.

Then I began going through everything.

His clothes were still in the closet. They smelled of him and triggered memories of days gone by when I had loved him unconditionally as a child, yearned for him when my mother took me away from Wildflower Canyon, and lived for the days he’d come to visit.

Mama didn’t want me to come here, and I finally put my foot down when I was nineteen and told her I was going to spend the summer with Nash. She’d grudgingly agreed, partly because she’d planned a summer trip to Greece with friends.

I paused at the thought. Had it always been like that? She wanted my attention when she was alone—but the minute she was with someone, she ignored me.

Like when I was thirteen and she spent weeks begging me to stay in with her, telling me she hated eating dinner alone.

She even made me miss a football game. But the moment she was invited by a friend to visit her in Maui, she forgot all about our so-called special nights, leaving me to reheat leftovers while she disappeared.

Or when I was sixteen, and she cried to me on the couch, telling me how hard it was to trust people, how I was the only one who really understood her.

I stayed up with her until two in the morning, reassuring her she wasn’t alone.

But a week later, when I tried to talk to her about something I was struggling with, she waved me off, too busy packing for a last-minute trip to Miami.

In college, it was the same damn thing. During my first semester, she called me every day, saying she missed me, and asked when I was coming home. But when I finally did come back for winter break, she was barely around—off at parties, coming in late, acting like I was an afterthought .

The pattern was so obvious now, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before.

I wasn’t her son so much as a stand-in—someone to fill the silence when she didn’t have anyone else.

And the worst part? I had spent years trying to be enough for her when the truth was, I only mattered when she needed me to.

But knowing all this didn’t change a damn thing. She was my mother, and I loved her. I thought about Elena then, how she loved Maria no matter what—no matter that she put Nash above her daughter.

Both of us had parents who’d not put us first; had that been the draw? Two lost souls finding each other?

I found a box of photos tucked away in his closet, the cardboard edges worn soft with age. Pulling it down, I settled on the hardwood floor and lifted the lid, the scent of old paper and faded ink rising to meet me.

Flipping through the stack, I smiled.

Black-and-white snapshots, Polaroids with yellowed edges, glossy prints from decades past—each one a frozen moment in time. Some were stiff and formal, others caught in mid-laughter, faces turned toward the camera or lost in conversation.

I turned over a photo of myself. I was maybe six or seven, standing barefoot in the grass, grinning with a gap-toothed smile.

My jeans were too long, cuffed at the ankles, and a scruffy dog sat at my feet—Loki.

I’d forgotten about that mutt. The back was labeled in my mother’s looping, elegant script: Duke, summer after first grade .

Another showed me a year older, holding a fishing pole twice my size. My arms strained as I held up a modest catch. The lake behind me shimmered in the late afternoon light. Duke and his first fish . That was right before Mama and I left for Dallas.

Then, a photo of me as a teenager in our home in Dallas. First day of high school.

Had Mama sent these to Nash?

I came across a photo of Mama with a man and…Kaz? A very young Kaz. I flipped it around.

Silas with his Godson .

Was that Silas Hawthorne? I found another photo of the same man but with Nash, Mama and another woman

With Silas & Tansy Hawthorne at our seventh wedding anniversary.

I studied the photo again. Mama stood between a frowning Nash and a smiling Silas. Tansy stood next to Silas, and her face was sullen. She and Mama were probably the same age, as were Silas and Nash.

Who were these people?

I pulled out my phone and dialed Kaz.

He answered on the second ring. “Duke, it’s fuckin’ midnight, and I have company.”

I didn’t waste time. “Who are Silas and Tansy Hawthorne?”

A pause. Then Kaz let out a low breath. “My Godparents. More or less raised me after Pop passed.”

“They from here?”

“They used to be. Left for Aspen for a while. Tansy is still there.”

“Silas? ”

“He passed a couple of years ago.” A long pause. “What’s goin’ on?”

“I…saw some pictures and…remembered you mentioning them.”

“Yeah. Tansy will be here next week. You should talk to her.”

“Why?”

“Not my story to tell, man, it’s hers.”

I grunted. “Come on, Kaz, what?—”

I heard a woman call out to Kaz. He wasn’t lying when he said he had company.

“Duty calls.” He chuckled.

“This cloak and dagger shit necessary?”

“No, but definitely entertaining. I’ll see you at?—”

I ended the call.

I looked at the photo again and wondered what secrets it was hiding.