Afterthoughts

In the room above the bar, Charlie Prince woke early. Seeing the raven-haired woman still sleeping beside him, he grinned. Not a bad night. Good liquor, a nice room, a pretty woman. And all paid for by someone else.

Leaving the bed silently, Charlie pulled on his clothes as quietly as he could. He had no desire to wake her. She might expect a phone call or that they would get together again, and Charlie had no intentions of anything like that. Hell, he couldn't even remember he name! Didn't matter anyway.

The woman was still sleeping when he left the room and closed the door. Downstairs, he looked around for a place to get some breakfast. Otherwise, he was gonna get sick on the way back to the Glen.

In a little diner a couple of blocks down from the bar, he sipped a cup of coffee as he waited for eggs and toast. Thought about the night before. It had been the first night he'd gotten away from the Glen and work since he'd started to work for Ben Wade.

Charlie liked the job. Wade was a man who obviously knew and cared a lot about horses. He paid well too. Charlie was making good money and the boss provided him with a place to stay, a little white frame house that stood at the edge of the Wades' property.

The best part about the job though, had been his close proximity to Mrs. Wade. From the first time he'd seen the boss' wife, Charlie Prince had been smitten. She was pretty, had a soft voice and a nice smile. There were some pretty girls in the Glen, but none that matched her, or so Charlie thought.

Most of his time on the job was spent thinking about her, looking forward to the time she spent at the stables. Charlie had handled a few of her riding lessons himself, when Wade had been busy. He'd loved being so close to her, actually holding her waist to help her mount or dismount her horse.

He had a hard time figuring out her marriage to Ben Wade, though. They didn't seem to fit together at all. Liana Wade was quiet and soft-spoken. She had a gentle way about her.

The boss had a hard streak in him, Charlie could tell. There was an edge to him. Charlie had been in legal troubles himself plenty of times in his life. Could tell when a man had things about him that he was keeping a secret. And Ben Wade had secrets. Charlie had no doubts about that. Secrets that maybe his wife didn't know about.

If he could find out what those secrets were, he could maybe use them to make Liana Wade see that she'd be better off with Charlie Prince than she was with Ben Wade. She might even be really grateful to Charlie for "rescuing" her from such a bad marriage.

Finishing his breakfast and leaving the diner, Charlie looked for a car rental agency to get himself back to the Glen. He had some digging to do back at the Wade ranch.