Page 57 of The Wrong Ride Home

“Duke, this time I’m really done for the night.” If he wanted to give me a hard time for how I treated his girlfriend, he needed to wait until I could wipe off the image of her on his lap, his hands on her waist, the proprietary way in which she held him.

“Thanks, Ben. And goodnight.” Duke clapped the kid on his shoulder and strolled to the fire.

Ben walked off, whistling under his breath.Duke lowered himself onto the grass beside me. Not too close, but not far either.

For a long moment, neither of us said anything. Finally, he broke the silence. “I came to apologize.”

“Again?” I didn’t look at him, just the fire.

“This time for putting you on the spot.”

“But you wanted to,” I reminded him. “Can’t apologize for something that you did on purpose, knowing fully well you did it to make me uncomfortable, and you succeeded.”

“Can you blame me?”

I turned my head slightly, meeting his gaze.

He grinned. “You’re so self-contained that I’mconstantly trying to find ways to…well, meetmyElena again.”

My Elena!

“YourElena is dead.” I went back to looking at the fire. “She died the day you called her a whore and threw money at her for services rendered.”

“I was angry.”

“Is that another apology?” I wondered, trying my best not to allow the nails of the past to tear through me now.

“You’re a whore like your mother. What was the plan, huh? She fucks my dad and you fuck me? And then what? We’d be one big happy family?”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he murmured.

Now I faced him and let him look at me, wanting to make this crystal clear. “I wantnothingfrom you.”

He sighed.

“Fiona is sorry for how she’s behaved.”

“I’m sure she is.” I couldn’t keep the disbelief from my tone. “If she could talk to Ally, it would be much appreciated.”

“She may not do that.”

“Then she isn’t really sorry, is she?”

Duke rubbed a hand over his face. “Why are you making this so hard?”

“Jesus Fuckin’ Christ, Duke!” I cried out, truly and completely tired. “I’m not the one making it hard. That would beyou. I don’t even talk to you. I do whatever you ask. You say don’t come to the funeral, I don’t. You say pack up and leave; I get ready to do that. You change yourmind and say sell the horses, I say, ‘Aye, aye, Bossman.’ Your girlfriend says sell the cattle, and I say,sure. I couldn’t make this easier unless I jumped off a cliff. Is that what you’re expecting? That I kill myself?”

I was screaming the last part because one moment ten years ago, I’d tried to do exactly that.

“Elena, no.” He put a placating hand on my shoulder. I jerked it away.

“You follow me around, you ask to talk to me, you…what are you looking for?”

“I’m curious about you,” he admitted.

“Let me assuage your curiosity, then,” I bit out. “I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m single. Have never been in a serious relationship. Generally, prefer hookups with out-of-towners. I work here for Wilder Ranch for about a third of what I’d get paid if I worked anywhere else.”

“Why do you do that?”

---