Page 43 of The Wrong Ride Home (Wildflower Canyon #1)

duke

A fter I left my mother’s house, I called Hunt and asked for a favor, which he was more than willing to do.

Fiona had set up a meeting in Aspen with Piper Novak and Congressman Bryce Thornton since I was flying back in, and Piper was flying back out to Dallas.

“Your mother called,” she told me, looking very pissed. She was waiting for me outside Monarch, the restaurant in Aspen where the dinner and meeting were taking place.

This was the kind of place Fiona and I went to when conducting business. High-end and polished—where old money and new money met over dry-aged steaks and overpriced wine.

“You need to stop talking to my mother, Fi.” I sidestepped her to enter the restaurant when she grabbed my arm .

“She said that you are…you are not selling the ranch,” she hissed. “Is that true?”

I looked down at her hand pointedly. She dropped it away from me, her breathing ragged.

Mama and Fiona were used to the easy-going, tolerant Duke.

Oh, they knew who I was and how I could be; they’d seen me treat others this way but never them, so I knew it was a bit of a system shock to both of them.

“Let’s try this again,” I suggested. “You have a question for me?”

She licked her lips nervously. “Are we still selling the ranch?”

We?

“I’m still in the process of making that decision.”

Her eyes widened. “But…but…what does that mean?”

“It’s my ranch, Fiona. A hundred thousand acres of prime land, with assets worth well over a hundred million—these decisions don’t happen without me vetting every damn detail.”

We’d just received an official evaluation of Wilder Ranch, and including the land value, livestock, water rights, and assets, the total worth came in at well over four hundred million.

The land alone accounted for a massive chunk of that—prime ranch country like this didn’t come cheap.

The cattle operation was thriving, the horse program brought in serious money, and between grazing leases, water rights, and a few lucrative contracts, Wilder Ranch wasn’t just valuable—it was a Goddamn powerhouse.

But with that kind of worth came a hell of a tax burden.

The inheritance tax alone was a looming threat, one that could cripple an operation like this if it wasn’t planned for.

Ranchers lost their land that way—forced to sell off pieces of their heritage just to pay Uncle Sam his due.

That was the trap I thought I wouldn’t walk into—that I wouldn’t be stupid enough to fight against. The only sane move, I knew from my experience in land development, was to sell—fund the tax bill with the sale and make a very nice profit.

But now, I was ready to pay the price, even if it meant emptying my trust fund and taking money out of my company. I finally truly understood what Nash had been trying to tell me all these years—the ranch was worth more than a dollar amount on a spreadsheet.

We were seated in a private dining room, and in the fading sun, I could see the Rockies stretched high, covered in fresh powder, and ski lifts running smooth as clockwork through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Did Elena ski? I wondered. I never asked her when we were together—it never came up.

I did ski here in Aspen, in Zermatt, in St. Moritz…

while I doubted Elena even had a passport.

Did she like to travel? I knew so little about her, and a fresh burst of excitement went through me at the prospect of getting to know her again with love and an open heart.

Piper swirled her glass of red wine as she talked to Fiona about a deal her company had just landed. Kaz sat on one side of her, the congressman on the other, both listening with varying degrees of interest. I was wedged between Kaz and Fiona .

The table was round—undoubtedly Fiona’s choice. A subtle power play. No head of the table meant no clear leader, a useful trick when dealing with people who had egos too big to fit in the room.

“That was a good funeral, Duke,” Congressman Thornton said once we were all settled in after ordering.

This man was old-school political power, who shook your hand and robbed you blind in the same breath. Politicians like him were a necessity in the land development business—it didn’t mean I liked him.

There was a lot of small talk, and I participated with the same authenticity as Kaz, who did not make much sense to me.

On one hand, he wanted me to meet Tansy to convince me not to sell the ranch; on the other, he was Piper’s friend and business partner.

There was, I suspected, more to Kaz Chase than met the eye.

Fiona made a joke, and everyone laughed. It wasn’t a funny joke, but we laughed because that’s what you do in such meetings.

On the ranch, Cal Tate would’ve point-blank told her what she said wasn’t funny and to stop trying so hard.

She seemed more confident than she had outside the restaurant when she accosted me, probably convinced that once I looked at the bottom line of how much money this deal would bring, I’d be ready to sell.

Not selling wasn’t going to hurt me, even if the inheritance did bleed me some.

The ranch ran 20,000 head of cattle, and between livestock sales, Elena’s horse breeding and training program, and land leases—grazing, hunting, and water rights—Wilder Ranch pulled in over $40 million a year in revenue.

Sure, profits weren’t sky-high—not in an industry where land taxes, maintenance, wages, and operational costs ate away at the margins.

But it was still far from chump change. It didn’t match what my land development company brought in, but the difference was clear—one business carved up the land, and the other protected it.

And then there was the fact that I didn’t need the money.

Fiona put a hand on my forearm after we were done eating to let me know that we’d start the business part of the evening now. I didn’t move my arm away—Fiona would be gone by the end of the night, so I wasn’t worried about her proprietary behavior toward me.

“So, Duke, Piper’s head of finance, a very smart man from the congressman’s staff, and Kaz”—she giggled slightly when she said his name, no doubt, trying to make me jealous— “have been looking at the numbers, and I think you’re going to really like what we’ve come up with.”

She wore a self-satisfied, confident smirk that said, ‘ I’m the smartest person in this room .’

“Best way to make this work”—Fiona tapped her manicured nails against her tablet—“is to separate the parcels. Sell off the grazing land first, then we start rezoning the southern acreage for commercial development, which Congressman Thornton said shouldn’t be a problem.

” She smiled widely at the man, who raised his glass and winked.

“The airport deal is our foot in the door, and once that’s greenlit, the rest will be easy. ”

Piper smirked. “Easy, sure—if we can avoid the red tape.”

Fiona didn’t miss a beat. “I’ve done it before.”

Thornton chuckled. “You saying you know a few shortcuts, Miss Montgomery?”

Fiona lifted a shoulder. “I’m saying I know how to make things move when they need to.”

Piper laughed, low and knowing. “Hell, I’d believe it. This woman could walk through a fire and come out holding a signed permit.”

I wasn’t surprised that Piper and Fiona got along as well as they did—maybe they and my mother could band together and start a book club or something.

Fiona smiled, slow and confident. “It’s all about knowing the right people in the right offices—and knowing what they need to make a decision go your way.”

Piper arched a brow. “Bribes?”

Fiona shrugged. “‘Bribe’ is such an ugly and illegal word. Let’s just say incentives. Expedite fees. A donation to the right campaign. Sometimes, things get held up in environmental reviews, or some city official decides they need a little more convincing. That’s where I come in.”

That was the cost of doing business—and I’d done plenty of it in the past years.

The congressman chuckled. “And here I thought you were just good at negotiating.”

“I am,” Fiona said proudly. “I got the Evergreen deal through last year even when the state was ready to shut it down over wetlands protections.”

My gaze snapped to her.

I had ignored the whispers—falsified environmental impact reports and local officials mysteriously changing their votes after private meetings.

I hadn’t questioned how Fiona spent the discretionary funds, hadn’t scrutinized the fine print.

I’d just enjoyed seeing the bottom line climb, never caring how she made it happen.

But I would now. I’d dig into every shady deal, every corner she’d cut, every rule she’d bent to serve her own ambition.

And I silently thanked Fiona for leading with arrogance—because now, I could get rid of her without worrying about a lawsuit.

Fiona waved a hand. “Same playbook here. Get the right geotech firm to write up a study that says what we need it to say, make sure the zoning board gets a little encouragement, and suddenly, this land is a prime commercial corridor, no obstacles in sight.”

Piper grinned. “That’s what I like to hear.”

“So, all said and done, Duke, you can walk away with two-fifty, maybe even three hundred,” Kaz finished. “After taxes….”

I stopped listening to him.

They wanted to carve it up, sell it off, and bleed every last dollar from the land until there was nothing left but dust and broken promises.

And hell, I’d invited this. I’d shaken hands with these people, shared drinks with them, played the long game so they wouldn’t turn around and screw me with rezoning laws, eminent domain, or whatever loophole they could find to take what was mine. I’d told myself it was strategy. Smart business.