Page 36 of The Wrong Ride Home (Wildflower Canyon #1)

duke

T he crowd whooped and hollered as another cowboy got tossed clean off a bronc, but it wasn’t enough to pull my attention away from Elena.

She was leaning against the rail, eyes locked on Dixie May.

But it wasn’t the horse that had my blood running hot—it was Maverick Fucking Kincaid standing too damn close, his arm slung around her like he had a right to.

“You’ve got to stop staring at her, man.” Kaz shook his head in mock disgust. “It’s sad, really, how pathetic you look.”

“Fuck off, Kaz.”

Fiona had finally left us alone to handle something else. She’d been running interference on a project in Dallas—something she was damn good at.

I’d already started taking over the Wilder Ranch project from her, and it was the easiest handover I’d ever had—mostly because I wasn’t being particularly thorough.

Deep down, I knew why. I didn’t think I was actually going to sell the place.

And that thought sat heavy in my chest because I had no damn clue what it meant.

“She’s not with Kincaid,” Kaz muttered. “She doesn’t do local.”

“I know.”

Kaz raised an eyebrow. “She’s professional. Everyone wants to hire her.”

“I know.”

“Nash was an asshole to her.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “How would you know?”

“Nash and I had a few beers once in a while. He blamed her for you leaving and never coming back.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Kaz, I know you were born and raised here, but Nash was an ornery bastard who wouldn’t talk about his feelings if he had any with anyone, so why did he with you?”

Kaz shrugged. “People say that I’m like a priest—they tell me stuff.”

“You sounded like you were being very religious last night when I called,” I mocked.

He gave me a salacious grin. “She did call out God’s name several times last night.”

I sighed.

“Nash knew Silas and Tansy—and therefore knew me. I kept an eye on him, Duke. Kept him away from fucked up land deals he sometimes wanted to wander into…well the best I could. Elena managed the fallout when I failed. ”

He had my full attention. “Did he want to sell?”

Kaz took a deep breath. “He had money problems.”

“I can’t see that in the books.”

“Before Elena took over and started to run the place like a cowboy in a whorehouse—fast, focused, and not wasting a damn second where there was nothing but problems.” Kaz looked at his watch and groaned. “Piper will be here soon.”

“You friends with her?”

“No one is friends with Piper Novak. She’s the queen, and we’re all her minions. I do business with her. I don’t fuck her over, and she keeps it clean with me.”

Kaz was about to leave when I put a hand on his shoulder. “What kind of money problems was Nash having?”

Kaz studied me. “You should ask your mother.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “How would my mother?—”

“Gloria has several expensive habits that she expected Nash to take care of.”

Mama was a bit spoiled, but that didn’t lead to Nash having financial difficulties.

“She sometimes borrows money,” Kaz informed me.

I frowned. “You are confusing my mother with?—”

“She has a shopping addiction. You know that, don’t you?”

I stared at him, absolutely confused. “She likes to buy stuff.”

“She can’t afford to buy the stuff she buys, Duke. Cartier bracelets. Million-dollar necklaces? Nash was busting his ass to pay for her habit. ”

I knew that. And I’d wondered more than once if he’d already started selling off pieces of the ranch—quiet, private sales, the kind ranchers did under the radar to keep the community from seeing the cracks. No one wanted to be known as the man losing his legacy.

That’s when my phone rang and wouldn’t you have it—it was my mother.

I sighed, stepping away from the main arena and ducking into the shadows near the horse trailers before answering.

“Mama.”

The moment I spoke, she was already wailing. “Duke, you can’t do this to me! You just can’t!”

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. Here we go.

“What’s this about, Mama?”

She cried out something incoherent.

“Mama, calm down.”

“Calm down?” she screeched, her voice shaking with hysteria. Shit, she sounded just like Fiona when she was screaming. “You’re breaking up with Fiona and for”—she sucked in a sharp breath—“that slut .”

Right!

“Mama, my relationship with Fiona is not your business.” I’d always had problems setting boundaries with my mother—which came from being her life-saver as a kid. But not this time.

She gasped like I struck her. “How can you say that, baby?” She went from screeching banshee to Victorian ingenue .

“Mama, Fiona works for me, and that’s it. She shouldn’t have told you about?—”

“Of course, she should’ve. We talk every day.”

No shit! Well, this was worse than I thought.

“Are you sleeping with that whore’s daughter?”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t ask my mother to check her language when it came to Maria or Elena because I’d been calling them that for years.

“Mama, who I sleep with is also not your business.” I kept my voice calm, cowboy to spooked mare. “And I don’t have a relationship of any kind with…Elena.”

Probably because I fucked up so bad that every time she sees me, she either looks through me or wants to stab me.

“Don’t say her name,” Mama shrieked. “Do you know that she sleeps around? Do you? According to Mindy, she has something going on with Hunt and Maverick Kincaid. She’s a whore.”

“You already said that, Mama.”

But she was past this conversation being a dialog because she went on like I hadn’t spoken. “You think people won’t talk? You think they won’t say the same things about you as they did about Nash?”

I braced my free hand against a trailer, feeling the metal hot from the sun beneath my palm.

“I don’t give a damn what people say.”

“Well, I do!” she yelled. “I won’t survive this, Duke! I swear to God, I won’t!”

My stomach dropped. I had heard this before. Felt this before .

A teenager, standing in the doorway of a darkened bedroom, staring at his mother’s lifeless body on the bed, a bottle of pills spilled across the nightstand.

I gripped the phone tighter. “Mama?—”

“I mean it this time! I can’t do this again, I can’t?—”

I cut her off. “You need to calm down. Is Cheyenne around?” I asked about Mama’s housekeeper.

“She’s away. I’m alone.” She began to cry now. “I hate being alone.”

I wanted to throw my phone against the ground and stomp on it. I loved the woman, but she was a pain in my ass. “I’ll come over.”

Her breath hitched. “You will?”

“Yeah, Mama.” Because what the hell else was I supposed to do?

She exhaled a sob, relief flooding through the receiver. “Oh, my baby,” she cried. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me.”

“Just hang in there,” I requested.

After I ended the call, I called my assistant in Dallas and asked her to get me on the next flight out of Aspen. That gave me an hour at the rodeo, and then I had to hit the road to catch my plane.

I found Fiona by the VIP section, a drink in her hand, charming some old white guy with a big belly and a small Stetson.

“Fiona, a word.”

“Excuse me, Preston,” she flirted and beamed at me.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her away to a quiet corner where we’d have relative privacy. “You fucking with me?’

“What?’

“You told my mother?”

She licked her lips. “I talk to her all the time and?—”

“You know how she is.” She knew about Mama’s suicide attempts. “If my mother gets hurt, I’m holding you responsible.”

“What?”

“Telling her we’re breaking up is one thing but shooting your mouth off about Elena, that’s downright criminal and fucking cruel.”

She swallowed. “I…I…I just?—”

“Consider this your notice period. I want you out of my bed and my office, both. Got it?”

A flicker of nervousness crossed her face, but she covered it quick, squaring her shoulders. “I didn’t tell her about?—”

“You knew exactly what you were doing,” I cut in. “You crossed more than a few lines. So, you’re going to quit your job and get the fuck out of my life and my mother’s life. I find out you ever talk to her again; you’ll find out why those who cross me never do so again.”

I turned without another word, leaving her there because I had a flight to catch and a mother to save… again .