“You know as well as I do that the reason this lodge has the same customers coming back every year is because it had a woman’s touch. People loved the way Mom made it a place for families.”
I don’t mention that that’s what I loved about it, too. The place felt like home, but with Mom and Dad gone it just feels like a building.
“There are no guarantees this bride is gonna have a woman’s touch, Boone, let alone be able to run this lodge. She could be butt ugly and bad in bed—not to mention cook like shit. In which case, you won’t have to worry about me running off with her.”
“I’m not worried about her being ugly—or her sleeping with you. When Monique and I agreed to the arrangement, it was under the condition that my mail order bride would meet my requirements. Being competent enough to run the lodge was at the top of the list, along with being friendly enough to make the bitchiest customers happy.”
Mason laughs, then turns up the music he’s blasting through his iPhone. “Hope you’re right, bro. I’d hate to show up at the lodge and find out your new wife isn’t what you’re hoping for. This whole thing is a bad idea if you ask me.”
“You’re such a fucking prick, you know that? And no one is asking you.”
“Ahhh, you’re already getting defensive of your girl.” Mason slaps his knee, thinking he is so funny. “Honestly though, dude, did you do anything to get ready for your wife showing up today?”
I shrug. There’s only one thing I plan on doing with my woman tonight, and it doesn’t take too much planning.
“Whatever, bro,” Mason says, shaking his head. “But dude, it’s been a while since you’ve had a woman. You sure you’re gonna know where to put it?”
“I know where I plan to put you—out on the goddamn street if you don’t shut the fuck up.”
That gets him quiet, and I step on the gas.
I told Monique I need a woman who’s responsible and reliable. A woman who isn’t flighty or flakey. I need a woman to run this lodge, who’ll need to be steady and even-keeled.
A woman who knows how to make a house a fucking home.
Also, a woman who is ready to fuck. Because I don’t want some random hook-up. Never been my style, never will be. I want a wife, and I want her to commit to being mine.
And Monique promised that the woman she’s sending is all those things.
Which is good, because tomorrow a pastor is flying into town, and I’m gonna make this woman my wife.
Now I just need to meet her.
Chapter Two
Delta
Getting off the plane, I can’t help but wonder if this entire mail order bride plan is just one more thing to add to my growing list of poor life decisions.
Because moving in with a stranger, being his lawfully wedded wife? I have never been more over my head.
Well, except for when I nearly dropped out of high school because someone leaked that I’d slept with the student teacher. Or the time I went to Burning Man with my ex, and somehow ended up in the middle of an orgy with approximately seventeen strangers. Or when I went to Peru and was talked into drinking ayahuasca, and found myself stark naked and doing handstands in the middle of the street.
At two in the afternoon.
I haven’t exactly been the queen of excellent choices. But I knew Everly and Amelia wanted to do this mail order bride thing, for reasons of their own. And as shallow as it may sound, the idea of being some mountain man’s conquest turns me on. Honestly, to be some rough, rich man’s woman makes me feel more than hot and bothered. It all feels like some sort of forbidden fantasy ... and nothing is forever.
Marriage doesn’t equal a lifetime, a ball and chain. Besides, I’m my own woman. No man is ever going to change that.
And so I went along. Am going along. As in, I literally just got off the tiny plane in middle-of-nowhere, Alaska. Alone. I said goodbye to Everly and Amelia at the Anchorage airport and continued flying solo.
If I wanted to back out ... I should have walked away back in the city.
Now? Now I am disembarking the plane and stepping out to a near-empty landing strip where a pickup truck is the lone car in the lot. I toss my carton of coconut water and my empty bag of organic trail mix into the trash. With my travel yoga bag slung over my shoulder, I take a deep breath, attempting to inhale the fresh Alaskan air instead of the overwhelming aroma of anxiety.
Why am I here again? I mean, besides the lure of hot mountain man sex, which has been a growing fascination. What will this man be like? What will he look like? What if he’s the ideal man? I have to find out, have to take a chance. I have nothing to lose.
I never told my friends that when my Grandpa died he actually left me enough money to pay off my student loans, nor that I actually had a friend offer to let me live at his place until I got a job.