Page 5 of Weston

“Toby and Lenord are also helping with the construction training.I didn’t remember until then that you’d all been in the construction business that your parents left you guys.”Rogen told her that it had been in the family for a couple of generations before they’d taken it over.“Lenord said that he missed it but didn’t.He loved the physical part of it but didn’t care for being indoors all the time.I think that Toby loves being inside, but not the physical part.He’s more of a farmer who drives the tractor, though they both make it work for themselves.And a nice income as well.”

As she was getting ready for bed later, she thought about Weston and her family.He treated her well, and she wished they lived closer to her now.Weston and his family were so close that she couldn’t imagine thinking about one of them without the others.They were that tight of a family.She supposed it had a lot to do with their mother and grandfather, but she didn’t ask.She loved having enough of them around so as not to miss her own family at times.

Belinda usually didn’t sleep well in a new bed.But since she’d been living in her own home with her own things around her, she’d been sleeping better.Having Rogen in the house helped as well.She was someone that she could rely on, more so than her own brother and sister, and she would have gone to the ends of the earth for any of the Watsons.More so with Rogen.

Rogen was hard on people.She didn’t hold back on things when she needed to say them.That was something that she’d enjoyed…well, not enjoyed but valued about her after Benson had been killed.She’d been up in her face daily when she thought that she’d been feeling sorry for herself long enough.She’d been right in saying it, too.Belinda knew that the only reason that she was a functioning person was because of Rogen.And she’d never forget that.

When she got up the next morning, Rogen had left to go on a run.That was another thing that she’d forgotten about her was that when she wasn’t working, Rogen ran.It kept her in shape and satisfied her cat when she couldn’t get in a full day on the job.

By the time she’d gotten to the office and opened up, she had four messages for Weston and two for his brother.While Archie was setting up his own office, she suggested that he had his calls forwarded to her so that she could help him out.The man had been so grateful that he’d gotten her a dozen red roses and a box of chocolates as his way of saying thanks.She enjoyed it as it was teaching her some more about the cats that she worked with and had as family.

By noon, when she’d not heard from anyone, she closed up and made her way to the diner to get some lunch.She had been eating at her desk, but Weston had nipped that.He said that she needed downtime as much as anyone did and for her to leave in the middle of something if she had to just to eat.So that was what she was doing when Wills, son of Wrangler, joined her.He was such a wonderful little boy that she decided that he’d make a good companion for lunch.

“Dad gave me money.He said that since I’m working at the pack house that I need to be paid for lunch.I’m helping them pack up the main house so that it can be torn down for a better place.”He snapped his fingers.“Pack house.That’s what it’s called.They have all kinds of books in the place about their kind.I asked Uncle Archie, and he told me that he was still finding things in the leap house before they did the same and started on something new.”

They had an enjoyable lunch, and he walked her back to the mayor’s office.Weston was there but locked up in his offices, so she didn’t bother him.It wasn’t until Rogen came in that she found out that the meeting hadn’t gone as well as they had hoped because she was mated to Weston.

“You’re kidding.”She didn’t look any too pleased about being a mate any more than she’d been for paying double fines.“Weston is a great catch.You remember me telling you about him, don’t you?”

“He’s not happy either.”She didn’t understand that either, as she thought Weston was a great guy.“Yeah, to you.I’m going to have to uproot my entire life just because I’m mated to him.I just got things where I want them.”

“Did he say that to you?Tell you that you were going to have to do that?”It didn’t sound like him, so she was glad when Rogen told her that he’d not.“Good.You should talk to him before jumping to conclusions, Rogen.It’s not like you to do that either.”

Leaving at five o’clock, Weston still did not come out of his office.She thought that she’d give him one more day before she started pounding on his door.It wasn’t going to change things, the two of them being at odds, but she wasn’t going to allow either of them to not bask in the idea of being mates either.Idiots.

Chapter 3

“Where are you?”Weston told his brother that he was in his office.“I’ve heard that you’re not coming out.What is the big deal?So what, you’ve met your mate.Come out and enjoy her.”

“I’m not avoiding her.”Archie asked him what he was doing then.“I’m getting work done so that when she’s ready to leave, I can go with her.She and her family have a life that’s not here.I want to be able to leave here and this office in good shape so that things get done.You should see how much I’ve gotten done.”

He’d not gotten all that done if he was honest with himself.He’d find himself distracted by the smallest things.The sun shining, and he’d wonder if she was enjoying it.The phone ringing—which it did a great deal would have him sitting on pins and needles, wondering if she needed him.

Weston didn’t think that there would ever be a time when she needed him, but he could hope.She was the most capable woman he’d ever met.Asking his brother what he wanted, he saw that there were only two more files that needed his attention before he had to go out and find Belinda again to figure out what else he had to do.

After the first couple of days of him working nonstop in his office, she came in and yelled at him.She scolded him like a child about being immature about having a mate until he told her what he was doing.He could tell that she was pissed off at him, but thankfully, she was able to see what he’d been up to as well.Twenty-three projects were just waiting on approval for them to get started, and he’d have most of the school projects finished up—or at least started before he left for Tennessee for his new life.In the last three days, he’d been focusing all his energy on getting himself in a good place so that he’d be able to leave his family, too.

“Do you have time to go over the contracts for the school board that give you the okay to hire someone to come in and repaint all the walls?”He knew that the school needed a whole new overhaul, but without the funding right now, they had to work with what they had.“Also, I have the okay to purchase new computers for the library.Twenty of them to start and more as the money comes in.”

“Why are they going to the library and not the classrooms?”Weston explained to his brother about the internet not being in the classrooms as yet.“That sounds like a problem that needs to be taken care of first.”

“I agree, but without the funding, then it’s not going to happen.As it stands right now, if we were to tear out the walls to put in the internet in the school, then we’d run into more problems that would be more costly.With everything being tied up with the cash, then nothing is going to happen.”Archie started cursing.“I couldn’t agree more, but until the funds are released, if ever, there just isn’t enough money in the budget to even have the lots plowed this winter without going in the red.”

It wasn’t right that the money was there; it had been found in some offshore accounts from the time that Mayor Hathaway was in office, and they couldn’t use it.The feds were hoping that they’d get it back to their little town in the next five years.Five years was a long time to wait and see if you ever got the money that had been earmarked for so many different projects that hadn’t been done.It was like you could see at the end of the tunnel, yet there wasn’t any movement coming at the end of it.

After talking to his brother about other projects that were going on that needed money, he was disappointed when he told him that they’d have to figure out something so that the town could have some improvements.The only way he could see that was if more businesses were coming in to help out with employment or if they were to raise taxes again in a town that had been down on its luck for some time now.Even the sidewalks needed some improvements before someone was seriously hurt.

He was just headed to lunch when Rogen showed up.She looked pissed off, and he felt his cat curl around him a little tighter.She sat down—really, she flopped down in the chair across from himand asked him what the fuckery he was doing.

“Working.Same as you.”She told him the same thing that Belinda had.He was hiding out.He explained what he was doing much in the same way as he’d done his brother.That he was working so that he’d be ready to go when she was.“You’re not staying here, are you?”

“What do you mean?I’m not leaving until the training is done.”He told her that was all he was doing, and she looked confused.“I thought you’d order me to stay here with you as your family is here.”

“First of all, I’d never order you to do anything.This will work only if we work together, and I’m willing to do that.Secondly, your family isn’t here but there and I thought you’d want to be closer to them.I know that they’re all here now, but it couldn’t be much longer before you’re finished here and want to return home.”She nodded and stared at him.“I more than likely look like I’m hiding from you, but I’m trying my best to finish a job up, same as you would, so that I can go with you when you’re ready to leave.I will admit that I was hiding from you, but that’s only because I was trying my best not to piss you off by annoying you.You seemed to get annoyed easily of late.”

“I thought you were going to demand things of me that I didn’t want to do.”He asked her if she’d met the other women in his family.“I have, but they didn’t seem to have any family that they wanted to spend some time with, so they stayed.I’m sorry if it sounds like I was…well, I was being a bitch, but I didn’t understand why you were avoiding me.”

“As I said, I have been avoiding you on some level.I didn’t want to be a pest.But being holed up in this office is making it so that things can be finished up after I leave, which will benefit the town.I’m hoping to leave it in better shape than when I arrived.”She asked him about the position he was in as mayor.“I’m no longer thinking of running.I want to make a life wherever you are for as long as I can.And make you happy too.”

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