Man of the West by Anna Jeffrey

Author:Anna Jeffrey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance set in West Texas, family saga, series, wealthy hero, sheriff hero
Publisher: Anna Jeffrey Books
Published: 2019-05-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Pat awoke the next morning well after daylight with Suzanne’s tousled head resting on his chest under his chin. He was sore. He felt as if they had made love all night. And they had. He had come more times than he thought possible.

At one point in the night, she had told him she had come to his house to confess she had spent most of Thursday with Mitch, then returned home to Lockett confused and frustrated. She admitted Mitch had asked her to go back to Wyoming with him, had made her a promise that they would get married. His parents remembered her and adored her.

She revealed that she and Mitch had never been married. She told people in Lockett who asked they had been because she didn’t want to bring embarrassment to her dad. Pat wasn’t surprised they hadn’t been married. He had already concluded just from watching the cocksucker on TV that Mitch McCutcheon wasn’t the marrying kind.

Coming fully awake, he remembered he had horses to feed. He eased out of bed, dressed quietly in the bathroom, then went into the kitchen. His partial glass of whiskey still sat on the breakfast bar and hers still sat on the table. He picked up both glasses and poured the whiskey down the drain. Then he put coffee on to brew and trekked to the barn.

The mares were already heading toward the barn. Since it was breeding season, he kept them separated from his stud. He didn’t want to risk an unsupervised pasture breeding episode where one of his horses might get hurt or pick up a reproductive tract infection.

He put out flakes of hay and watched the horses approach, the younger mares following the older one because they instinctively knew she was wiser and more knowledgeable of survival, which was how it went in horse society. Simple. Every animal knew its place. His mind veered to human relationships, which were complex and nobody ever knew for sure what the hell was going on. His education in agri-business and animal husbandry had taught him nothing about that.

He believed he had figured out something though, by watching his own parents and his two older sisters. In every human coupling there seemed to be a giver and a taker, one who loved more and gave more. With his parents, his dad was the giver and his mother took and took, but it was his dad who was the stronger. The same appeared to be true in his sisters’ marriages. He believed he was the giver in his relationship with Suzanne, as he had been in his relationship with Becky. And he believed he was the stronger. Suzanne was the fun, vivacious one, but at the end of the day, she needed him.

For a flicker of an instant, he let himself wonder when she had been with McCutcheon, if he had been the strong one. Don’t go there, Pat told himself and started back to the house.

When he reached the kitchen, she was up, standing in front of his refrigerator, coffee mug in hand.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.