Page 6 of The Wrong Ride Home (Wildflower Canyon #1)

duke

O ne fucking day and she’d all but driven me into a physical altercation with another man.

“What the hell is going on with you?” Fiona demanded, throwing her phone onto the king-size bed that Itzel—the housekeeper who’d introduced herself with a polite smile—had made up so neatly it felt like we were in a hotel.

The whole house had a very manicured vibe that hadn’t been there before.

Maria had made the house feel like a home. I regretted that thought as soon as it entered my head because I’d made a conscious effort to see nothing positive about the woman who had spent nearly a decade and a half in my father’s bed while my mother nursed a broken heart.

Fiona had chosen my mother’s old bedroom for us to stay in.

I’d asked her just to pick a place in the west wing of the house.

I knew Maria and Elena had rooms in the east, but that was when I thought Elena still lived in the ranch house and wanted her gone.

But I also wanted her at the ranch to show her I’d moved on.

Look at my sexy blonde girlfriend, bitch. You’re not in my life anymore. I’ve moved on while you’re still here.

But Elena wasn’t the girl I’d left behind.

This woman was different . She wasn’t bright and cheery, rosy-cheeked, and happy .

This woman was gaunt. Still beautiful as fuck but subdued.

Her eyes weren’t bright; those chocolate brown eyes were somber.

Her body wasn’t curvy like it used to be.

It was wiry, probably because she lived on horses.

Her hands didn’t look soft, and yes, I’d looked at them. They were hands that did work.

Her whole demeanor was the antithesis of who she used to be.

“Mi cielo, make love to me.” She raised her beautiful lips for me.

I knew I’d hurt her when I took her virginity, but she wanted more; she wanted to feel close.

“You’re probably sore,” I managed to say, though my cock was throbbing to be inside her again, feeling her climax squeeze the cum out of me.

“Please,” she moaned, and I was gone.

For three months, I made love to her, made love with her, stayed inside her, next to her. I’d told her I loved her, words I’d never said to anyone else in my life, not even my mother.

Words had power; I knew that, and I gave it all to her. My sweet Elena turned out to be not really sweet when I found out she’d seduced me as her mother had my father.

“I didn’t know, Duke. I promise. I didn’t know.”

“How could you not know that your mother was whoring herself when you lived in the same house,” I thundered.

She wept, repeating, “I didn’t know.”

“Your mother destroyed mine,” I said to her. I threw ten one-hundred-dollar bills at her. “I think that’s payment enough for your pussy.”

“Duke?” She looked at me like I’d stabbed her.

“Cut the act, Elena. Take that money, take your mother, and get the fuck off of this ranch.”

But I was the one who had left when I confronted my father, and he told me that this was none of my business.

He screamed at Elena for being a slut, and I’d liked that, hadn’t I?

Though, now, when I looked back, it seemed unfair and disgusting that a man who was sleeping with that girl’s mother was calling her names for having an affair with his son.

The whole thing was a nightmare out of some shitty talk show from the nineties.

“Duke?” Fiona demanded. “What the hell is?—”

“I need to go through all the fuckin’ paperwork, doll.” I kissed her softly to divert her mind from where it was. Could she feel there was something between Elena and me? “And then we will have dinner at Blackwood Prime.”

Fiona’s phone rang then. “Damn it.”

She took the call as I knew she would. Business first with our Fiona.

I was happy to leave her to it. I went back to my father’s office.

“Senor, would you like some lunch?” Itzel stopped me in the hallway outside the dining room.

“Just something light, Itzel.”

She nodded. She was in a pair of jeans and a white shirt. She looked no-nonsense. She was probably in her mid-forties, and there was a regality to her that Maria had also had. Was she with my father, too? Damn it!

“How about a sandwich,” she suggested.

“That sounds good.”

“Miss Turner has requested a salad. Would you like that as well?”

“Yes, please. Gracias , Itzel.”

I sat behind the old oak desk in my father’s office, the leather chair creaking beneath me. I took it in properly for what felt like the first time since I returned. Earlier, I had been distracted by Elena.

I turned on the Apple laptop. The note on it told me the password: WildFlower . Jesus!

I went through the files and was surprised at how organized everything was. I’d expected a shitshow that I’d have to unravel. My father was an excellent rancher and a terrible businessman. The fact that he’d held onto the ranch was a miracle in itself.

The folders were easy to navigate, and someone helpfully ensured that the system had passwords for all the websites and accounts I needed to access. Everything was documented—every deal, sale, and expense.

That alone was a shock. My father was a lot of things, but organized?

Hell no. Nash Wilder had lived on instinct, handshake deals, and gut feelings.

Half the time, he barely remembered what he’d agreed to—which was why I expected a mess.

Instead, I found records so damn meticulous they could’ve run a Fortune 500 company.

Who the hell did this? Not Elena. She didn’t even go to college.

I found Amos Langley, my father’s accountant’s number, on my phone and used the landline to call him.

The man answered on the second ring. “Langley.”

“Amos, it’s Duke.”

“My condolences, son. Nash was?—"

"Yeah, he was," I cut him off as I flipped through a BLM land lease with flawless margins and crisp calculations. "I’m looking through my father’s records, and they’re…too…well, good. Did you do this?"

Amos blew out a measured breath. "No. It was Elena."

I stilled.

"She handled all of it," he continued. "Filed the taxes, balanced the accounts, covered his debts when he made bad deals with worse men. She saved his ass more times than I can count."

I clenched my jaw. "You’re saying she had control of his finances?”

Amos’s tone went cold. "I’m saying she protected him, Duke.”

“I doubt that very much.”

I heard him growl. This was Amos, the calmest man I knew .

“Now, look, I know some of what went down between you, too, but I need you to know that she didn’t have to do any of this. She could’ve let him sink. But she didn’t. And if you’re even thinking about questioning her integrity, then you’ve got your head way up your ass, son."

Something twisted deep in my chest.

It would’ve been easier if Elena was just as terrible as I’d convinced myself she was. I could justify the years of hating her if she was irresponsible, selfish, and incompetent.

But the truth was that Elena had taken care of the ranch. The truth was she’d taken care of him . And it was a hell of a lot harder to hate her knowing that.

“I don’t trust her,” I mumbled, but it was an automated response not rooted in today but in the past.

“Why the hell not?” Amos demanded acridly.

“She’s the reason you got as much as you have in the ranch.

She and Hunt. Fuck they work hard. Nash treated Hunt like a son, but Elena, he treated her like shit.

She didn’t have to do this. Get that into your thick skull.

Is Gloria still driving the Rolls? Still, have that big fuckin’ house with more help than the queen? Still?—”

“Keep my mother out of it.”

“Sure, son, not hard to do since she kept herself out of the ranch but never said no to the income.”

He was right.

I’d expected losses and debts, a mess of unfinished business, and maybe even parts of the ranch already sold off. What I hadn’t expected was this—a well-functioning, profitable operation .

Not that I cared about the state of the ranch.

Not really. What mattered to me was that Nash had taken care of Mama and made sure she lived well.

Not that she’d ever had to worry if Nash reneged on the deal he made with me.

I had a trust fund set up by my grandmother, Margaret Wilder—Nash’s mother—old Texas oil wealth, the kind that lasted.

Nash had been raised in it, molded by it, but my mother?

She’d come from nothing. And she’d relied on him.

Mama was flaky, sure, and a little vain. She liked to swan around like a woman who never had to look at price tags. The house in a wealthy Dallas neighborhood, the staff, the vacations in France—Nash had paid for all of it.

I had to give the old man credit for taking care of her, even after everything. But I also knew it wasn’t just an obligation—it was guilt. Because while my mother was attending charity galas in Dallas, Nash was fucking the maid.

I clenched my jaw, hating the thought, hating how easily I could reduce her to nothing in my mind because she’d been a classy lady despite her relationship with my father.

I ran a hand over my face. My anger and resentment were justified. This place and those people had ruined my mother.

She and I had lived through two of her suicide attempts.

The first was when Nash had asked her for a divorce. He never asked again.

The second was when she’d found out Nash had cheated on her. I didn’t know then who with, and I hadn’t really cared. I had other things to worry about, like coming home to find my mother in her bedroom, cold, barely breathing, pills scattered across the sheets.

I’d been sixteen. Old enough to call the ambulance, stay by her side, and clean up the mess so the world wouldn’t see.

I could still hear the sound of her slurred voice when she woke up. The way she looked at me, as if she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed to be still alive.

That had been the worst part. Knowing she could’ve died. Nash had tried to help after that. He’d come to Dallas, but I’d kicked him out.