Page 66 of Westin

DIANE

My life went from bad to so much worse in a few short weeks. Now, there’s no Westin and no hope of getting out.

I wake early, before the men are up, and put on a thin cotton dress to withstand the kitchen’s heat. My hair has to be tied up to keep it away from the grease and smoke. Thomas fired the kitchen help when he married me, so I’m the only cook. I think that was his revenge for refusing to sleep with him. He’s going to keep me isolated and overworked until I give in.

I can outlast him.

I’ll raise him one and hit back too. It’s my new goal to torture Thomas every opportunity I get. I’m careful about it. I had a lot of practice with David. Every crime has to be tiny and leave no breadcrumbs that could lead back to me.

I catch a mouse in the barn and release it in his truck. It makes a nest and chews the electrical wiring.

I put a cricket in his bedroom and lay quietly listening to him curse and tear up the closet looking for it.

I can’t do anything outright to hurt him, but I can torture him so subtly, he never puts the pieces together. I hope he feels like he’s losing his mind.

He fucked up my life, so I’m going to fuck up his until I find some way out of this prison.

It doesn’t take long for it to be obvious he regrets picking me. He thought he could bend me, break me, but he didn’t expect me to show my teeth.

He won’t go back on it. I’m the best free employee he could have. But more than that, he’s afraid if he makes a fuss, Avery will find out he hasn’t fucked me. I can tell it’s embarrassing for him that I won’t sleep with him. He’s so dependent on what his brother thinks of him that he’d do anything for his approval.

So, we exist, locked in a constant, unspoken standoff.

At night, I sleep with that rope around my wrist. In the morning, I get up and cook for Thomas, sometimes Avery, and all the ranch hands. I clean up and have leftovers in the kitchen, rinse and repeat for every meal, until it’s ten at night and I’m still scrubbing pots.

My hands are rough. My back hurts. I’m thinner than ever because I have no time to eat and I’m on my feet all day.

I’m too nervous to eat anyway.

The worst part is the isolation. If it wasn’t for Billie, Thomas’ sheepdog, I wouldn’t say a word to anyone. She belonged to him when I showed up, but he ignored her most of the time. I struck up a friendship with her, and pretty soon, she started sleeping at the foot of my bed. I count myself lucky on long nights she’s there. Sometimes, I’m so ruined by what could have been, I can’t sleep.

I almost ran off and hitched up with a cowboy from Sovereign Mountain. But I didn’t. Now, I have to lie awake and hope that saving Carter Farms is worth it.

Maybe, if I can just get back to the cemetery, I can get some kind of sign to keep me going.

Then, something comes that breaks my bleak world apart. It’s late September when I’m standing in the front hallway staring out through the screen door, and a truck with the Sovereign Mountain emblem comes up the drive.

My mouth goes dust dry.

It has been weeks. I haven’t seen Westin Quinn in over a month. Truthfully, I never thought I’d see him again.

A thrill moves up my spine.

The driver’s side opens, and a big, broad man even taller than Westin steps out. He’s got a gun in his open holster. My eyes drag over him, and I get a chill even though it’s hot out. There’s something about his washed-out blue eyes that seems dangerous, almost foreboding. I know without a doubt this is Gerard Sovereign, the infamous head of Sovereign Mountain Ranch.

Billie bursts past me and starts yapping on the porch. I follow her, keeping my arms crossed tight.

The passenger door opens, and Westin Quinn steps out.

My pulse goes wild—he looks so damn good. His chestnut hair is swept back. He’s in a t-shirt that shows off his torso, just as handsome as he was the day I last saw him at the swimming hole.

Blood shoots to my head.

He never came after me, not all summer long, and now, he shows up today, sauntering out of the truck like he barely knows me. My vision flashes red hot, and I stomp to the edge of the porch. Westin circles the truck, and for a second, our gazes lock.

There’s a warning in them.

Don’t say a word, he’s begging.

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