Page 70 of The Wrong Ride Home

“Nope, you hang here and get laid,” I slurred slightly as I swayed. Yeah, that fourth whiskey had been a bad idea. I hooked my arm into Ben’s. “Cowboy, take me home.”

CHAPTER 22

duke

Iasked Kaz if we could meet at The Rusty Spur because I knew Hunt was taking Elena there, “‘Cause she needs cheering,” according to him.

He and I didn’t explicitly talk aboutthe letter,but we’d both been thinking about it. What had Nash said to her? Why had he insisted this letter be read in private while mine was read aloud?

Fiona had asked if she should join mymeetingwith Kaz, and I prevaricated, saying that he and I were just meeting for a drink.

She knew we were ending, and she was making a last-ditch effort to hold us together. She’d tried to have sex the previous night, and I’d told her I was tired.

“I feel like I’m losing you, Duke,” she whined. “Since we came here, you’re…different.”

How was I supposed to tell her that the man she knew hadn’t been real, that the man in Wildflower Canyon on the ranch was the real Duke?

“It’s just a stressful time, doll.”

More lies.

“I feel like you’re not mine anymore,” she pleaded, wanting to connect, wanting us to become the people we used to be—the couple we had been.

Yours? I wanted to laugh at that thought. Honey, I’m not even mine. Can’t you see I belong toher? I have since I first laid eyes on her.

Maybe she could see that truth, and that was why she was insecure as hell. I couldn’t blame her. The man I used to be was more like her, but that man was a façade, and he was peeling off layer by layer in Wildflower Canyon.

“Here is where your roots lie, son. Here is where your thirst is quenched by tapping into the reservoirs deep below the land,” Nash told me once.

That was his way of explaining why he could never leave, why he couldn’t be transplanted. Dallas, or any concrete jungle for that matter, would starve him of what kept him alive. He wouldn’t survive anywhere else—his roots ran too deep in this land. Mama and I had lived in a world of glass towers and manicured lawns, but Nash? His world was wide-open skies and earth that held history in its bones.

“You look like shit,” Kaz told me as he handed me a beer after I settled in next to him, leaning against the bar, my back to the bartender, my gaze firmly locked onher.

She’d seen me. I’d felt her gaze on me. I always knew when she was there, like an electric current running through me.

“I feel worse,” I remarked.

The bar was packed, loud, and full of cowboys—dust on their boots, sweat on their collars, beer in their hands. I’d been in enough places like this to know how the night would end—with a few black eyes and someone getting tossed onto the sidewalk.

And if that motherfucker talking to Elena would not stop touching her arm, he’d be the one getting tossed.

“You wanna tell me what your play is here, Duke?” Kaz was relaxed and dressed like everyone else, though his jeans cost more than most people’s rent. But then, so did mine. Two rich blokes pretending to fit in—though my roots were here, and as soon as I stepped on the land, it was like they’d connected to my insides, which had begun to throb with need.

I blew out a measured breath. “It’s not complicated. Sell the ranch. Take the money.”

“You sure?” He studied me.

I looked away from a smiling, slightly tipsy Elena. “Yeah, Kaz, I’m sure. The question is, what doyouwant?”

He grinned. “Same thing you want, bud. Sell your ranch. Make some money.”

“Then we’re on the same page.” I took a sip of the beer, my eyes drifting back to the woman who had a leading role in my dreamsandnightmares.

“I don’t think you’re as sold on this as you pretend to be,” Kaz stated.

Now, he had my attention. “Why would you say that?”

His eyes drifted to where mine had been. “So that’s the problem.”

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