Page 26 of Westin

That was clearly news to Westin, judging by the look on his face. He shook his head, turning his attention to the land before them and the slowly falling snow.

“What about you?” she asked after a few minutes of silence. “Why do you have that little rule about the condoms? Someone try to saddle you with a kid once?”

His eyes were hard when he glanced at her. “Does it matter? It’s just a rule I have. I’m not going to father a kid until I’m ready. Period.”

“It’s a good rule.”

He rolled his shoulders. He seemed determined to allow the silence to fall between them, but Lea liked the sound of his voice, liked provoking him, even when it didn’t really work the way she thought it would. And she liked when he looked at her with those dark-blue eyes.

“I’d bet Miss Dulcie was one woman who didn’t have to worry about where her man was burying his stick, if you know what I mean. She talked about him with such warmth and love that I could only hope to find someone like that someday.”

Westin snorted.

“What? What does that mean?”

“You don’t know how to read people, do you?” He glanced at me. “Miss Dulcie talks about Asa that way because he’s not around to contradict her.”

“You mean their marriage wasn’t as perfect as she makes people think?”

“Far from it.”

“How?”

Westin pulled himself up in the saddle, sitting a little straighter as they continued to move at a slow pace through the early-morning sunlight under a sky determined to powder them with a good layer of fresh snow. He cleared his throat, then sighed.

“Asa was a man’s man, Lea, which means that he did what those kinds of men do.”

“You mean he cheated on her? That sweet woman?”

“That sweet woman was his mistress for nearly ten years before his second wife died and opened the door for him to make her his wife.”

“No kidding!” Lea knew there was a terrible amount of awe in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t imagine Miss Dulcie as anything less than the pious rancher’s wife whom she had appeared to be. She couldn’t picture that sweet woman as someone’s lover, especially not for that long.

“She worked here as a maid in the main house. The story I heard was that her mother was the cook and she practically grew up here. They started their affair when she was in her early twenties. When the second Mrs. Howard was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, it was Miss Dulcie who nursed her until her last days.”

“Wow! Talk about keeping things close to your vest!”

“They were married less than a month after the funeral because by that time Miss Dulcie was pregnant.”

“Did the wife know?”

Westin rolled his shoulders. “If she did, no one ever said.” He glanced at Lea. “And the second Miss Dulcie was his legal wife, Asa lost all interest in her. Clint told me he had a new lover before the baby was born, some girl in town he’d go see twice a week. Rumor had it that he had quite a few girls around town the last couple of years of his life. I even met one once, about a month before he got sick and died. Some redhead who worked for the vet. She’d come out here on some pretense of checking the animals and they’d hook up in one of the stalls.”

Lea just shook her head, lost for anything to say. She’d thought things were dark in the city, but it seemed they were just as dark in the country, but in different ways.

“There’s nothing to do out here,” Westin said in confirmation of her thoughts. “Sex and drugs. That’s the only recreation people have, and they indulge every chance they get.”

“What do you do for recreation?”

Westin didn’t respond right away. He patted his horse’s neck again and adjusted his hat on his head, pulling it down a little more as the wind picked up and began blowing snow into their faces. Finally, he glanced at her, those eyes like stormy seas.

“I don’t think I’d even thought about it until I set eyes on you.”

Lea smiled, taking that as confirmation of all the things she’d already surmised about him and his attraction toward her. She’d get him in bed before this weekend was over; she had no doubt about that.

***

Westin swung his hammer, watching the nail go through the wood and just pop out again when he pulled on the post. The wood was too far gone to hold anything. He’d have to replace it if he had any hope of this section of fence holding anything. He cursed softly under his breath, deciding a little bailing wire was the only thing that was going to solve this issue for the moment. He could feel her watching him as he pulled out a length of the wire and began twisting it around the post and the rail that was refusing to remain attached to it.