Page 46 of Westin

“Westin, you said you’ve worked for Golden Sphinx for three years? What did you do before that?” Mrs. Mollohan asked.

“I worked the oil fields in Texas for a few years after high school, before settling back in Denver to attend college.”

“You have a degree?” she asked, the surprise not completely hidden.

“Yes, ma’am. I have a bachelor’s in philosophy.”

There was no hiding the surprise on Mrs. Mollohan’s face this time. She stared openly at Westin like she couldn’t quite believe what he’d said. “Philosophy? As in ethics and critical thinking?”

“Yes, ma’am. We studied many things in depth, such as history and ethics in the law as well as society. In several classes we had very heated discussions over human rights and the legality of a government deciding whether women should be forced to carry an unwanted child.” He rolled his head slightly on his shoulders. “It was quite interesting listening to opinions from such a diverse group of people as those who were in my classes.”

“And what was your opinion? On the whole abortion thing?” Rena asked, smiling sweetly at him, her hand sneaking onto his thigh. Westin quickly arrested her hand, keeping it closer to his knee than anywhere else.

“Well, that’s a complicated subject.” Westin stole a glance at Dominic Mollohan. He was studying his phone, clearly more interested in something on the screen than the conversation or even the food. “I believe a woman has a right to do whatever she wants with her body. Men shouldn’t tell a woman what to do with her body. A man shouldn’t have an opinion until that child is born.” Westin stared at Mollohan as he spoke those words, willing him to look up, to listen. Willing him to recognize his own actions in those words.

He didn’t.

“That’s very enlightened, Westin,” Mrs. Mollohan said. “What other things did you discuss in your classes?”

He rolled his shoulders, falling back a little as Mollohan continued to stare at his phone. “We discussed all the good oldies—Plato and Locke and Nietzsche.”

“Nietzsche?” Mrs. Mollohan looked impressed. “I read some of his work when I was in school, but I’m afraid it was a little over my head.”

Westin tilted his head to one side, adopting a thoughtful expression. “‘Happiness is the feeling that power increases—that resistance is being overcome.’ Or something like that.”

Mrs. Mollohan clapped. “Very good. I always wanted to be the kind of person who could quote a Nietzsche or even JFK, but I could never remember those sorts of things very well.”

“You underestimate yourself, Momma,” Rena said. “You can remember who’s feuding with who, and who just filed for divorce so probably shouldn’t sit together at a dinner party.”

“Oh, that’s just silly stuff. I mean the important things.”

“I think even Nietzsche would agree that people getting along at a dinner party is very important,” Westin argued, earning a smile from Rena.

Their salad plates were taken away and replaced by bigger plates covered with a generous cut of prime rib and a creamy dollop of potatoes. Rena leaned close as they waited for the kitchen help to leave the room and whispered in his ear, “You’re charming the pants off her.”

Westin glanced over at Mrs. Mollohan and caught her shooting her husband an irritated glance as the man continued to scroll through something on his phone. It wasn’t as satisfying to Westin to see the unhappy state of the Mollohan marriage as he might have thought it would be. He felt sorry for Mrs. Mollohan. She seemed like a perfectly reasonable woman, patient and kind. She didn’t deserve to be ignored and talked down to the way Mollohan had done since the moment Westin had walked into this fabled home.

“Dominic, darling,” Mrs. Mollohan said, “why don’t you put your phone away.”

“It’s important. A text from Petey.” Mollohan shot his wife a dirty look. “One of us has to work around here to keep you in all your finery.”

Mrs. Mollohan blushed, her eyes falling to her plate. After a moment, she carefully picked up her fork and touched it to her potatoes, but it was quite clear she wasn’t much in the mood to eat.

“Where did you go to college, Mrs. Mollohan?” Westin asked after a few heavy, silent moments.

She looked up, her eyes telling him without words how grateful she was for a man to take notice of her. She smiled much like her daughter, tilting her head slightly, her dark hair falling over her shoulder like he imagined it must have done when she was Rena’s age and flirting with all the boys who must have orbited around her.

“Northwestern,” she said with some pride. “I have a bachelor’s in literature with a minor in creative writing.”

“Really? Did you want to be a novelist?”

She blushed. “Once. When I was very young and naïve. But your dreams tend to change when life happens.”

“I understand that. I was never really sure what I wanted to do with my life. I was just going from one thing to another, doing what felt good at the time. I’m still not really sure this is what I’ll be doing ten years from now.”

“With a degree in philosophy, I imagine you must not be as challenged as you could be on the ranch.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Some of the boys on Golden Sphinx are actually quite intellectual. One of our guys has a master’s in mathematics.”