The Bridal Path: Ashley by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online

amazement. “Why didn’t she?”
    “I wouldn’t let her. I couldn’t have afforded to pay you. More than that, though, I didn’t want you to see how lousy I was. I had my tender, male pride at stake. You were two years behind me, after all.”
    “I think Mrs. Fawcett is actually very fond of you,” Ashley said.
    “Oh, really,” he said doubtfully. “Is that why she looked so horrified when she saw the two of us together today?”
    “That was because she now knows the juiciest piece of gossip in all of Wyoming and she can’t share it,” Ashley said. “Thank goodness, she’s always disapproved of spreading rumors.”
    “Worried about your reputation?” Dillon asked with a faint note of defensiveness.
    “Of course not,” Ashley said without the slightest hesitation. “I came here to do some thinking. If my sisters hear that I’m at Daddy’s cabin, they’ll be up here pestering me to know why I’m hiding out.”
    “That’s the second time you’ve said something about needing solitude to think. Are you sure you don’t want to talk with an objective observer about whatever’s on your mind? I’m not sure I’d recommend listening to any advice I dole out, but I can be a decent sounding board.”
    Ashley shook her head. “Thanks, but I have to work this through on my own. Now let’s get back to you. What other subjects did you struggle with in high school?”
    The past struck her as safer ground than the present, perhaps for both of them. She had no idea what Dillon’s life was like these days, and for the moment it seemed like a very good idea to keep it that way. She wasn’t sure she was prepared to handle the news that he was one step away from being carted off to jail.
    “All of them,” he said, apparently accepting her reluctance to talk about her own problems. “I wasn’t much of a student. I was too easily distracted, especially in high school.” He sighed dramatically. “All those girls and so little time.”
    “Exactly how many did you make a pass at?”
    His expression sobered. “All of them except you, I suppose.”
    Ashley couldn’t decide whether to be hurt by the admission or incensed by it, even though she’d guessed as much long ago. “Why’d you leave me out?”
    To her surprise he looked as if the question made him uncomfortable. “Dillon?” she prodded.
    “You were different.”
    “A snob?” she asked, thinking of a remark he’d made the night before. It had brought back similar accusations from the other boys she’d kept at arm’s distance then.
    None of them had understood that staying focused on her goal of getting away from Riverton had been paramount. She’d refused to let her feelings for anyone interfere with that. She could see, now, how that might have been misinterpreted by fragile young male egos. Dillon’s ego, however, had hardly been fragile.
    “No,” he said at once, confirming that his ego had never been shattered. Nor had he feared rejection, apparently. His warm gaze met hers and held. “You were special, too good for the likes of me.”
    “Oh.” It was the last thing she had expected him to say.
    He grinned. “You sound surprised. Surely I’m not the first man ever to tell you how special you are.”
    “Maybe you’re just the first one who ever sounded like he really meant it,” she said candidly.
    “I do mean it,” he said emphatically. Then, his expression thoughtful, he added, “I suppose you’ve met some creeps and jerks in your business, though.”
    “More than a few.”
    She toyed with her rice, trying to figure out how to explain so that he would understand. Linc had been a perfect example of the problem. She used him to characterize the type of man she tended to meet.
    “The problem with most of them isn’t that they’re awful people,” she explained. “It’s just that they never really see
me.
They see the face or the figure and never look any deeper than that. Sometimes I wonder…” Her voice trailed off as