Ada had grown into a strong, independent woman, spurred by having lost nearly everything, including her husband and two of her children, at a relatively young age. But she also had a weakness for men, a weakness that she fought, but never nearly enough if she didn't want to lose the fight. She was willing to admit to herself, though, that part of being strong and independent and not controlled by social mores on what a woman's place was considered to be in the early twentieth century was to have her pleasure just as a man would be permitted to have his pleasure.
She had declared her intent to give Pete up as she settled in to her new life in Colorado's Wolf Creek valley and settle for a life with the reliable, staid William Hagen. But when she was honest with herself, she knew she couldn't give up the young, hard body of the man who had driven her across the country in the Shaffer Golden Eagle and who drove her to distraction and ecstasy with his masterful cock.
Nor did Ada give Pete Fair up even after William Hagen had artfully attempted to remove him from the equation. Hagen had done this by giving him a full-time, live-in position at the saw mill a hard ride up the mountainside above the cottage Hagen had built for Ada and that she had named the Brook House in recognition of the brook that ran through the structures basement.
Ada had kept the Golden Eagle that had not lost an axle, and Thaddeus, the other driver, had stayed around—and married Aunt Martha—and therefore could keep the touring sedan in working order for Ada. But she only was able to use it to go back and forth from her cottage to Slater, where she had taken up the duties of post mistress and emporium manager. For transportation within the valley and up to the saw mill, Ada had soon bought her own horse and quickly learned to ride it as well as any range ranch hand. Martha and Thaddeus worked with Ada in the post office and the emporium and were always willing to watch Hugh, so Ada had considerable free time on her hands. Settled once more, she took up landscape painting and had soon rehoned a talent for painting that she had enjoyed in her earlier life.
Ada particularly loved to paint the stream that cascaded down the mountainside from the saw mill camp, and so she frequently rode up to a little glen beside the water in a grove hidden from the road about half way up to the saw mill. The stream gave a little twist here and went over a stone outcropping, and the little meadow area was rampant with color in the spring, when the wildflowers were in bloom. It was a restful place for contemplation, and it was a perfect place to paint. It also was the perfect place to make love. And frequently when Ada went up to the hidden glen to paint, Pete sneaked out of the saw mill encampment and went down to the glen to fuck.
William Hagen was no dummy, however. He soon caught on to Pete's disappearances from the camp and followed him down the mountainside unobserved one beautiful spring day in 1919. He quickly regretted that he had done so. From a hidden spot at the verge of the grove of trees, he saw Ada open her dress to Pete and Pete devour her breasts and belly and her secret triangle with his lips and tongue. Hagen watched, helpless and transfixed, as Pete placed Ada's saddle on a blanket on the ground, and they both became naked.
Laughing and chattering away, Ada sat on the saddle and then reclined back onto the blanket and spread her legs wide, her mound pointed to the sky. Pete laid on his belly with his face in Ada's lap and his arms woven between her legs and the saddle and his hands squeezing her ample breasts. Her moans and little cries of pleasure carried across the glen and assaulted the ears of the observing Hagen. Ada had her fists buried in Pete's hair and she was giving little gasps and groans and, at length, she began rhythmically pumping her pelvis up into Pete's face and then she lurched and her arms stretched out and her fists dug into the multicolored carpet of the Colorado meadow as she orgasmed. Then Pete turned her on the saddle so that her belly was in curve of the saddle and he crouched over her and entered her strongly and stroked down into her until she'd had her second orgasm. Only then did the young buck fill her to his own ultimate pleasure.
Hagen could take no more. He quietly withdrew from his observation point and then fled up the mountainside to the safety of his saw mill.
After that Ada returned to the glen often, but Pete was never there. By midsummer she managed to unobtrusively mention to several of the men from the saw mill who came down to the emporium in Slater that she hadn't seen the man who had driven her family to Colorado around for some time. None of the men could pinpoint when Pete had disappeared, but they all said that one day in spring he was there and the next day he'd gone, without explanation, and no one had seen him since.
William Hagen still came down from the mountain to visit Ada occasionally and to Slater to check on his emporium enterprise there. But just as suddenly as Pete had disappeared, William had stopped what passed for his courting of Ada in the slow move toward his apparent intent to ask her to marry him. For her part, Ada, also cooled toward William. She didn't do so intentionally, really, but there was a nagging worry at the back of her mind about why—and under what circumstance—Pete had disappeared so abruptly.
1919 turned into 1920, and autumn on Wolf Creek turned into winter. For the first time, Ada decided to winter at Brook House, because she wanted to paint a series of winter scenes in the valley. Martha and Thaddeus were more than willing to watch after the store and run the post office through the winter and also to keep the five-year-old, hyperactive Hugh where it was warmer and safer.
Aunt Martha indulged Ada in everything involving Brook House. Martha's money was still on William for Ada's future, and she saw the house that Hagen had been for Ada as a link between the two. She saw the effort Ada put into decorating the house and keeping it spotless as a projection onto what could be between Ada and William, and almost said as much once when she found Ada scrubbing the floor of the living area for the second time in a week.
"I declare, Aunt Martha," Ada had said, "that this house is going to be the death of me."
"If so, one would wonder why you smile so much and hum such happy songs while you are working on it," Martha had given in reply. "And I don't think the house will be the death of you, Ada. I think it will be your release."
William came down from the saw mill encampment one late November day after it had snowed a couple of feet over the previous two days. Although they no longer were as close and comfortable with each other as they once had been, Hagen continued to watch over Ada and ensure that she had everything she needed.
