Page 17 of Wilder Heart

“There’s no need, boss,” Wilder said, turning to look at Cash with a carefully smooth expression. “He can feel however he wants. I’m just here to do a job. I won’t take anything he says personally.”

“I’ll make sure he leaves you alone,” Cash replied. “We’re all here to do a job, and I don’t like seeing him air his grievances with you in the workplace.”

“Technically that was at the dinner table,” Wilder quipped.

Cash bit back a smile. “Nonetheless, it shouldn’t have happened. I don’t think he will, but if he tries to approach you again, I’d like you to let me know so I can deal with him.”

Wilder shrugged one shoulder. “He was right, in a way. I did treat his sister like shit, probably. I’m understandably no one’s favorite person. If I could’ve gone somewhere else, I would have.”

Cash’s chest tightened at that, but he wasn’t sure why. It shouldn’t make a difference to him where Wilder went or why. He barely knew the man. But still… “Whatever happened with his sister was a lifetime ago. Like he said, she’s married and happy now. It’s time to let go of high school grudges. And I doubt you treated her like shit.”

“No, it’s true. I didn’t realize it, but I wasn’t particularly…” He paused to think of the right word. “Thoughtful, I guess.”

“What teenage boy is?”

Wilder huffed out a halfhearted laugh. “The truth is—” He stopped, glancing at Cash. His palms rubbed up and down his thighs nervously.

“The truth is?” Cash asked, glancing between Wilder’s careful gaze and the narrow trail he guided the truck down.

Wilder cleared his throat. “The truth is, I dated Rebecca because I thought I had to. I thought I needed to blend in.”

Cash’s hand tightened around the steering wheel. “Blend in? Why?” He knew why. Heknewwhy. But he wanted to hear Wilder say it, and he was pretty sure Wilderneededto say it for his own reasons.

Wilder’s deep blue eyes were cool, calculating. “Because the last thing I needed was for my father to find out he had a faggot for a son.”

Cash’s jaw clenched hard at the slur. “Don’t call yourself that.”

Wilder’s expression lightened somewhat, like Cash’s anger at the word cheered him. “That’s what he called them. Us, I guess. I learned pretty early on that nothing good would come of letting him find out the truth. So I hid it by dating Rebecca. I even thought I could maybe learn to like her. She was a nice girl. But all I did was use her to keep him off my back.”

“He sounds like a piece of shit,” Cash said bluntly.

Wilder’s smile was all teeth. “Oh, he was.”

It was on the tip of Cash’s tongue to say he was glad Wilder did what he did, but he stopped himself. That was a path best left untrod. He didn’t know the situation well enough to make that kind of statement, even if he had a general idea.

“I don’t blame you for doing what you had to,” Cash said. “I get it.”

“You do?” Wilder asked doubtfully.

Cash smiled lopsidedly. He supposed reciprocation was only fair. Wilder had shared something personal, and now Cash should do the same. “Yeah. Growing up bisexual in Mississippi was not exactly easy.”

A grin bloomed slowly on Wilder’s face. “You? Bi? Really? I never would’ve guessed.”

“I beg your pardon,” Cash teased. “You ain’t supposed to judge books by their covers.”

“Well, forgive me, then,” Wilder replied. “Big strapping cowboy like you. I would’ve bet money on you being straight as an arrow.”

“Not so much. This arrow’s got a nice, queer little curve to him.”

They both laughed. “And Mississippi, huh? How’d you wind up in Montana?”

“Oh, I traveled for years. Got out of the swamp when I was eighteen. Bought a cheap camper and a cheaper truck and hit the road. I followed rodeos for a while, doing whatever work needed doing, then found my way out here in the west where the big ranches are. Bounced from ranch to ranch until I found Blackwood looking for help online when I was twenty-five. Too intriguing a job to pass up, and here I am, seven years later.”

“Seven years.” Wilder looked out the windshield, his body rocking gently with the truck. “What are the odds you’d find this place right after I left it.”

There was even more to it than that. Lain wouldn’t have put out the job listing for help if their father had been alive and well. The only reason Cash was hired at all was because Wilder had gone to prison. Cash wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t.

Wilder’s mind must have been traveling a similar path, because he murmured, “It’s funny how things work out.”

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