1. Elena

CHAPTER 1

Elena

I watched the man I’d loved my whole adult life kiss another woman deeply, passionately. He was a good kisser. I knew that. For a short few months, he’d been mine. I’d been eighteen and Duke twenty.

He was my first— everything . First love. First heartbreak.

The woman laughed, and he looked at her like she had his heart. I remembered that look well because he’d smiled at me like that— ten years ago .

“Te amo, Mi Cielo.” I love you, my heaven, my everything.

“I love you, Florecita.” Little flower.

We were children—madly in love, adoring of each other. We whispered sweet endearments, held each other through the night, made love, and drank in each other. For three months, we’d been inseparable. Such a short time, and yet, each day, each moment was still embedded inside me.

I’d loved Duke Wilder with all my heart. I still did.

“You sure you want me here?” I asked Hunt, the Wilder Ranch foreman, again .

“Yeah,” he replied again .

He’d ordered all the cowboys and ranch hands to be present when the new owner of Wilder Ranch arrived.

Nash Wilder had passed away, and his funeral was this weekend. He died at the ranch house in his bed as he’d wanted, as I’d promised him and my mother. Neither had wanted to die in a hospital or hospice.

I’d held his hand and soothed him to the end as I had Mama.

“He’ll forgive me, you’ll see,” Nash told me.

“He already has,” I lied.

“He’ll come back, won’t he, Elena? He’ll take care of the ranch.”

“He will, he’s on his way,” I lied again. I knew Duke hated the ranch. He saw it as the symbol of everything that had gone wrong with his family and had broken it.

“And you’ll help him, won’t you?” he pleaded.

“I will, Nash.”

“Promise me.”

Another promise. Another vow. Another heartbreak waiting to happen.

“If he needs me, Nash, I’ll be there for him.”

“He’ll need you. The horses…he can’t…not without you.”

He won’t need me for me but for the horses. It was the vulgar truth. And if Duke needed me, I’d stay. If he said fuck off, Elena , I would gladly leave as I’d wanted to when the boy I fell in love with told me I was a whore like my mother. When he told me that he hated me.

He’d thrown money at me, told me

to take it and go—leave with Mama, leave the ranch, leave his father. That memory burned through me, hollowed me out until there was nothing but ash. And if that hadn’t been enough, being pregnant at that age—confused, lost, and alone—sure as hell hadn’t helped. Losing the baby when I tried to end my own life? That had shattered what little was left.

Couldn’t hold that last part against Duke ‘cause he hadn’t known about the baby or my failed attempt at getting the hell out of the ranch and the planet.

Hunt had been there for me. A brother. A friend. A hand that held mine. He protected me from then on. He never asked what happened to me that I’d lost the will to live. He never asked me whose baby I miscarried. He didn’t tell Mama or anyone else. It was our secret, one we never talked about.

There were whispers about Hunt and me. Of course, there were. Cowboys were worse than a sewing circle when it came to gossip. They could make shit up that could give The National Enquirer a run for its money.

Nash had loved Hunt like a son and warned me not to use my charms on him as I had Duke. The thing was that Nash lost his son, and he never forgave me for my part in that tragedy.

I thought he’d send us away when Duke discovered who my mother was—what she meant to his father, who was then still, for all legal purposes, married to Duke’s mother. But Gloria hadn’t been at Wilder Ranch or with her husband for years. She refused to divorce Nash. She’d never allow him to legitimize his relationship with my mother. Did it hurt Mama? Yes, it did. Did Nash care? No, I don’t think he did. He wanted to keep Duke happy—and he knew that if he ever divorced Gloria and married my mother, he’d lose his son for good. Even though we all understood he already had, and it had nothing to do with me but with Duke, Nash, Gloria, and Mama.

I never asked Mama to leave Wilder Ranch, even though I desperately wanted to run away. I didn’t because I knew she wouldn’t. Mama loved Nash something fierce. She loved him more than she loved me. I knew that. I loved her more than she loved me. I accepted that.

They say love is war, and I had just been a casualty.

I couldn’t leave her, so I stayed.

When she passed, I thought I was finally free—except for the promise she made me give her. But now, all my debts had been paid. Nash was gone, and I knew he’d be buried next to Mama—just as he’d instructed Hunt and me. An empty coffin would be placed in the Wilder family plot at the cemetery, his final and only way of telling Mama that, in the end, he had loved her more than anything or anyone in this world.

Duke walked up the Hunt, and they shook hands.

“This is Fiona Turner, my girlfriend,” he introduced Hunt to her, ignoring that I stood next to him. “Darlin’, this is Hunt Blackwood. He’s the ranch foreman.”

Fiona extended her perfectly manicured hand and shook Hunt’s.

“Ma’am.” Hunt tipped his head politely.

“And who is this? An honest-to-God cowgirl?” Fiona tittered.

“I’m Elena Rivera.”

She didn’t extend her hand to me, and I didn’t mind. My hands were dirty. I’d been in the stable when Hunt dragged me out.

“Elena.” Duke nodded at me without looking at me, without seeing me.

“Duke.” I was saying his name to him, and I felt everything inside me glow. What a pathetic fool I was that just this tiny reprieve he’d given me in a decade, to stand in front of him and say his name made me feel good.

It was like Mama used to say, ‘ Beggars, mija, can’t be choosers .’

“I’m surprised you’re still here,” he said casually.

I didn’t respond.

“Elena is our horse trainer,” Hunt explained and fell in step with Duke and Fiona, leading them away from me. I waited, stood without moving until he met everyone, and went into the ranch house.

Whew! Well, that went as well as it could!

“The boss doesn’t like you,” Sawyer, a kid who thought because he was six foot two, he was God’s gift and couldn’t understand why wrinkled and old me at the age of twenty-eight didn’t give him the time of day. He’d asked me more than once if I’d like to ride his cock instead of a horse. I didn’t dignify his bullshit with a response.

He wasn’t the only one who tried to get with me.

I was a woman in a man’s world—and not just a man, but these men who were rough and raw and believed a woman’s place was under them or in the kitchen, preferably barefoot and pregnant.

But most of the cowboys I worked with now had come to terms with my presence on the ranch and respected me. I was good with horses. I was damn good with horses. Everyone knew I stayed because of Nash, to take care of him, and not because I had to. I had job offers from all the big ranches from Colorado to California.

I didn’t respond to Sawyer, like always, and began to walk back toward the stable.

“Come on, Elena, what did you do? Try to fuck him?”

He must’ve seen something flash in my eyes because he snickered. “You thought you could compete with that hot stuff he’s got on his arm?”

I smiled easily at Sawyer, masking everything I felt. Hiding was second nature by now—I was an expert at it. The only time I was truly myself was with my horses. Even Hunt didn’t get the real me. He got a version that was more honest than what I gave most people but still guarded. I was like a skittish filly, always keeping my distance, never trusting anyone to stand by me when it really mattered—not even Hunt, not if push came to shove. My own mother hadn’t been on my side—so why would anyone else? That wasn’t cynicism. That was just plain practicality.

"Sawyer, you need to ride to the south end of the pasture and check the fence line—Hunt told you that this morning. If there’s a break, fix it. If not, move the cattle back toward the creek before the heat sets in. And quit wastin’ time."

Sawyer didn’t like getting orders from me, but he did just like everyone else. I was the horse trainer, and that meant I brought a shit ton of money into Wilder Ranch. I was also Hunt’s right hand, which meant I managed a lot of the work done on the ranch, which included telling the cowboys what to do.

"Come on, boy, time to work and keep your yappin’ mouth shut." This came from Roy Taggart. He was in his late fifties and still as spry as Sawyer.

Roy used to have a problem—said I was too soft on the horses, that I’d get someone hurt with all my "gentle nonsense." But that changed the day I took on Ghost, a rank gelding that nobody could get a bridle on without a fight.

Ghost wasn’t just ornery—he was dangerous. He’d thrown three men, kicked a rail clean in half, and bloodied more than one nose. Hunt was close to washing his hands of the animal. But I saw something in Ghost’s eyes, something beyond the wild.

Ghost had been with us for ten days when I decided to take him on since everyone else had given up. I used to just be a ranch hand then, twenty-two, struggling to find my feet.

I walked into the round pen that morning, slow and steady, ignoring the murmurs from the boys leaning on the fence.

Ghost snorted and pawed the dirt, his muscles bunched tight as a spring. I didn’t reach for a rope, didn’t force a halter. I just stood there, breathing deep, letting him feel me, waiting for the moment his ears flicked forward. Finally, I got a twitch.

Then I moved—not toward him, but away. I turned my back and gave him the choice.

Roy scoffed, muttering, "Damn fool girl," under his breath.

But Ghost followed me. One step, then another. He took his time. By the time the sun was high, that big gray gelding had his nose in my palm, his breath warm and steady. When I slid the bridle over his head without a single fight, the fence line went quiet.

That’s when Roy tipped his hat back, squinted at me like he was seeing me for the first time, and grunted, "Well, I’ll be damned."

From that day on, he called me "the horse witch"—half teasing, half because he couldn’t call me a bitch. Hunt wouldn’t put up with that. But I knew his respect was genuine. In ranch country, it was your skill that got you deference, though it took longer to earn it, depending upon what you had between your legs.

I was just about to head to the stable when the ranch house door opened. “Elena, come on in, will you?” Hunt ordered.

I didn’t want to go in. I hadn’t been in since Nash passed. I’d been all but lived there for the last two months of his life because he fired every nurse or home help we hired. I’d slept in his room on a chair many nights, and sometimes, when I allowed Hunt to give me a break, I went back to the bunkhouse and collapsed.

Nash was an ornery man, and that didn’t change ‘cause he was dying; in fact, he dug his heels even more. He wanted Duke with him, and he pushed hard to make that happen, except to call his son himself ‘cause Duke didn’t take his father’s calls.

Hunt called Duke, who’d told him he was too busy to come around.

Nash had nagged me. “ Call Duke. He’ll listen to you .”

The man was delirious. Duke would rather carve me out and sell my body parts as pig feed before he’d listen to me. Instead, I lied to Nash that Duke was on his way. When Nash became delirious with pain and morphine, I lied some more and told him Duke was just a few miles away. He forgot what I said, and knowing Duke was coming for him made him happy. I lied to a dying man until he died. I lied to him that Duke had called and forgiven him for everything; he was just caught up in the snowstorm. Nash could look out the window and see the relentless pounding from the snow, and that helped him live in his make-believe, feverish world.

“Why?” I asked wearily.

“Boss wants to talk to you,” Hunt informed me with zero inflection, telling me nothing about what the fuck I was walking into when I took off my hat and went up the short stairs to the porch of the ranch house.

He led me to Nash’s office.

The office smelled of old leather, cigar smoke, and dust—like time had settled in and refused to be moved. Heavy oak bookshelves lined the walls, filled with ranch ledgers, worn paperbacks, and a few bottles of whiskey tucked between them. The desk, a hulking beast of dark wood scarred from decades of hard living, sat in the center of the room like a throne.

I’d worked there when Nash hadn’t been able to. Took care of everything from paying bills to managing the inventory to…basically managing the ranch business . Hunt could do the day-to-day, but ask him to look at an Excel sheet, and he was liable to throw you out of the window.

Duke looked as stiff as the chair he was sitting in, shoulders squared, jaw set tight. He was built like his father, but where Nash had been all fire and fury, Duke was cold steel. He didn’t fidget, didn’t look away, didn’t offer so much as a nod in greeting.

Thank the Lord, Fiona wasn’t there! Her absence settled in my chest like a small mercy. I didn’t have the energy to see them together, not anymore.

“What exactly do you do here?” His voice was like a door slamming shut.

Hunt growled. “Duke, we talked about this.”

“I want her to answer,” Duke demanded, his nostrils flaring.

He looked good—too good, in a way that made it worse. Duke had always been handsome, but at thirty, he carried himself with the kind of authority that money and success carve into a man. He wasn’t a cowboy by action but by blood. Even in a suit, he looked rugged—like the land still had its claim on him whether he wanted it or not. Broad shoulders, sharp jaw, the same storm-dark eyes that once made me believe in forever. At twenty, he’d been all restless energy and reckless kisses, a wildfire I barely could hold on to. At thirty, he was something else—controlled, distant, untouchable. A man who built empires instead of fences, who had no use for the girl I used to be or the woman I’d become.

I didn’t let it rattle me. “Whatever needs doing.”

“What does that mean, Elena ?” he asked. The way he said my name was an insult, and I could all but feel Hunt’s temper rise. I didn’t want him to get into a fight with Duke. I never told him about Duke and me, but I knew he knew. He’d been there when it all went down, even if it happened behind closed doors.

“I train horses. I do all the paperwork. I am Hunt’s right hand.”

He looked at Hunt and his lips turned into a sneer. “Are you now? I thought Dad didn’t want any fucking between his hands .”

Hunt hissed, but before he could say anything, I took a step to stand in front of him. “Is there more information I can give you about the work I do here?”

His lips pressed into a thin line. “No. But whatever you do here, you’re done. Pack up and leave.”

Hunt sucked in a sharp breath beside me. “Duke?—”

I didn’t wait for the argument. I nodded once and turned on my heel, walking out, hoping Hunt didn’t think he needed to fight my battles. There was nothing left to fight for. I’d promised Nash I’d stay if Duke needed me. And I would have. But Duke didn’t need me. He was kicking me out of my home, the only one I’d known since I was eight years old. He must hate me more than I could imagine, and I’d imagined plenty.

I was halfway to the ranch house door when Duke’s voice snapped behind me.

“You’re going the wrong way. Empty your room. Now .”

I didn’t stop, didn’t turn, didn’t even let him see his words hit me. He still thought I lived under this roof, like I was some ghost of the past he needed to exorcise. But I’d stopped being that girl a long time ago.

Behind me, Hunt’s voice was edged with anger. “She doesn’t live in the house, Duke. She’s in the fuckin’ bunkhouse.”

I kept walking—faster, now. Because if I slowed down, I wasn’t sure what would give out first—my pride or my heart. I’d thought it was too broken to shatter again, but apparently, I was wrong.

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