She saw Jules on the bed, sprawled on his back. He was in a deep sleep, his eyes half-open, dreaming. Naked and uncovered. Even though she had slept beside him she had not seen his naked body until now. He had pulled the shade down in a room already dark before he had undressed, and she had felt disappointment. She had seen him shirtless across the pasture at twilight but she had never really seen him unclothed up close. The night her sister died he had crushed her with the weight of his body, his insistence, but he had not let her touch him. He had pressed his palms to her shoulders to keep her at a distance, even as she felt the heat of his legs against hers. The sharp edge of his lower rib cage had been hard against her own, unyielding, almost painful. She had had to push him away to catch her breath and she realized he had been inside of her and she had not even felt his heart beating. When he was finished he had gripped the covers to his armpits before he lit a cigarette. He had fallen asleep that night so soundly he seemed to be sleeping alone.

Now she looked at him, shaken by what she saw. His legs were long and beautiful but his torso was badly scarred. She had seen the faces of many rodeo cowboys, the small, white lines that split the bridges of their noses or creased their lips, the knots of flesh at the base of their hands that had once been their thumbs. Cowboys’ scars were supposed to be sexy, the mark of toughness, but seeing Jules’s old injuries, knowing he had hidden them from her, made Louise aware he had not healed from them, might never heal. She had heard a broken rib cage, if left untended, could carve through a man’s middle and eventually tighten around his torso like a bucking horse cinch. She saw that Jules Bart carried that scar and more. She could see the broken line of his bottom rib, the suckhole scar as big as her fist where a bull horn must have pierced his stomach. He had been wounded. She knew now that Jules had kept himself alone and hidden for many reasons, a man who drank to forget and be forgotten. A man who was not connected to the world that had used him up. Jules Bart had never sought her out. He had only wished to be left alone.