Page 30 of Westin

“Sure. Don’t you have yours?”

“Forgot it back at the bunkhouse.”

“You can borrow mine. Maybe you can look up cures for thigh soreness.”

“Maybe.”

The blonde handed Lea an iPhone in a pink case. She stepped away, turning her back to the fence in hopes that Bowie wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing. She quickly dialed, her heart pounding a little as she waited for the call to be picked up on the other end.

“Hello?” a cautious voice finally answered, one Lea knew almost as well as her own. “Lee?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Oh, thank God! I was beginning to think you weren’t going to call.”

“It’s only noon here, Brother.”

“Yeah, well, I know. But I’m not used to being out of touch with you for so long. You okay? Are you still safe?”

“I’m good. I just… listen, do you remember a few years back when we ran into those guys who liked to bury boxes on private property?”

There was a pause. “Yeah, I remember.”

“They’re at it again.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because this place where I’m at, they found one this morning. Out in an empty field.”

“You’re fucking kidding me! In Colorado?”

“What are the chances—right? I’m afraid these people here aren’t going to let it be, and the owner of the box might come after them. These are good people, Will. I don’t want anything bad to happen to them, you know?”

“I get it, Lee. I know a guy in the Denver office. I’ve already talked to him about you. Maybe he can get up there a little sooner, have a look around.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“So…” Will let silence fall, expecting her to fill it in, but she didn’t, her thoughts still so tangled up in Westin. “Have you seen Fang? What’s going on? Can you talk?”

But Bowie chose that moment to come through the fence to pick another tourist, and his eyes moved quickly over Lea. She dropped the phone to her side so that he wouldn’t see it, but she was pretty sure he had anyway. Yet he only offered her a curt nod before turning his attention on another middle-aged woman, making her day when he bowed to her, offering her his elbow.

“I’ve got to go, Will,” Lea said when she lifted the phone back to her ear. “I’ll try to call you again tomorrow, but if you don’t hear from me, don’t worry. I’m safe where I am.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. You do what you need to do, and I’ll take care of me.”

Lea disconnected the call, walking up behind the blonde to give it back. The woman started to say something to her, but Lea walked off, returning to Gray Lady. She’d just taken a position in her saddle again when she spotted Clint coming in her direction. She was a little worried he was intent on heading out to check on that box, but then he cut off in a new direction, a tool belt tossed over his shoulder. She sighed in relief, deciding to assume that meant she’d convinced Westin, and Westin had convinced Clint.

***

Westin squatted down in front of the firepit and used a small shovel to move the ashes from their last chuck wagon around, trying to see if there was any usable wood left in the pile. There didn’t seem to be, so he stood and shoveled the ashes into a bucket, clearing out as much of the mess as he could before he added new wood, shoving kindling down deep into the pile so that it would burn good and hot when the time came.

He hadn’t liked the notion when Clint and Bowie first came up with the idea of bringing in tourists to make more money for the ranch in the winter. It had been a game Asa came up with, offering the ranch hands a thousand-dollar bonus for the first one who came up with a viable idea. There’d been a lot of ideas, too, each one more outlandish than the last. It was Clint and Bowie’s idea that had won, but Westin—most of the guys, really—hadn’t thought Asa would actually implement the plan. When he did, they all started to wonder just how badly the ranch was struggling.

Lots of ranches were struggling in the modern world. Between animal rights activists and the rising cost of everything from vet bills and drugs to keep the animals healthy to the taxes on the land and the simple expense of heating the barn and the other buildings on the property, it was getting harder and harder to keep a ranch profitable. Asa had seemed like a savvy businessman, though. It had sent a shiver of fear through most of the ranch hands when he’d started this stupid program.

It’d been three years now, and Westin still didn’t like the tourists. Most of them were bored housewives and their oversexed daughters, mostly women over men. There some families, some young kids. Those weren’t so bad. Westin kind of liked the little kids. But listening to the stupid questions some of the ladies asked, the ones who’d never set foot outside of a city and thought a spa was roughing it, drove him up the wall. He dreaded the arrival of the winter season.

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