Page 87 of The Wrong Ride Home

I braced my free hand against a trailer, feeling the metal hot from the sun beneath my palm.

“I don’t give a damn what people say.”

“Well, I do!” she yelled. “I won’t survive this, Duke! I swear to God, I won’t!”

My stomach dropped. I had heard this before. Felt this before.

A teenager, standing in the doorway of a darkened bedroom, staring at his mother’s lifeless body on the bed, a bottle of pills spilled across the nightstand.

I gripped the phone tighter. “Mama?—”

“I mean it this time! I can’t do this again, I can’t?—”

I cut her off. “You need to calm down. Is Cheyenne around?” I asked about Mama’s housekeeper.

“She’s away. I’m alone.” She began to cry now. “I hate being alone.”

I wanted to throw my phone against the ground and stomp on it. I loved the woman, but she was a pain in my ass. “I’ll come over.”

Her breath hitched. “You will?”

“Yeah, Mama.” Because what the hell else was I supposed to do?

She exhaled a sob, relief flooding through the receiver. “Oh, my baby,” she cried. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me.”

“Just hang in there,” I requested.

After I ended the call, I called my assistant in Dallas and asked her to get me on the next flight out of Aspen. That gave me an hour at the rodeo, and then I had to hit the road to catch my plane.

I found Fiona by the VIP section, a drink in her hand, charming some old white guy with a big belly and a small Stetson.

“Fiona, a word.”

“Excuse me, Preston,” she flirted and beamed at me.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her away to a quietcorner where we’d have relative privacy. “You fucking with me?’

“What?’

“You told my mother?”

She licked her lips. “I talk to her all the time and?—”

“You know how she is.” She knew about Mama’s suicide attempts. “If my mother gets hurt, I’m holding you responsible.”

“What?”

“Telling her we’re breaking up is one thing but shooting your mouth off about Elena, that’s downright criminal and fucking cruel.”

She swallowed. “I…I…I just?—”

“Consider this your notice period. I want you out of my bed and my office, both. Got it?”

A flicker of nervousness crossed her face, but she covered it quick, squaring her shoulders. “I didn’t tell her about?—”

“You knew exactly what you were doing,” I cut in. “You crossed more than a few lines. So, you’re going to quit your job and get the fuck out of my lifeandmy mother’s life. I find out you ever talk to her again; you’ll find out why those who cross me never do so again.”

I turned without another word, leaving her there because I had a flight to catch and a mother to save…again.

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