Farmer Wants a Wife: Love and Friendship, Book 3 (6 page)

“A widower. His wife died a few years ago.”

Susan nodded. “That must have been rough.”

Nolan shrugged, and Susan knew she couldn’t ask more questions without him asking questions in return.

“I have two sisters, both married.”

His expression sharpened. “Older or younger?”

Susan sighed, knowing exactly where this conversation would head. “Both younger than me, married with children.”

“But you’re not married.”

“No.” She’d come close, thought she’d found the one. Twice. And both times she’d regained possession of her trampled heart with her confidence in tatters.

His brows rose, a silent prompt for her to continue. “If I were married, I wouldn’t be on
Farmer Wants a Wife,
” she said. “What do your parents think about you being on a reality show?”

“What do yours think about you?”

“Snap,” she said. “My mother loathes the publicity caused by her delinquent daughter.”

“My mother, on the other hand, is following proceedings closely since she was the one who sent in my application.” His dry tone filled in some gaps. Namely, that he hadn’t come willingly.

“You don’t want a wife?”

“I’m not averse to the idea,” he said. “But I like to do my own choosing.”

“I hear you. My mother and sisters are always trying to fix me up with suitable men when I go home to Hamilton. Blind dates are awkward.”

“On that we agree.”

“I’m like most of the women who applied for the show. I’d like someone to share my life, but if it doesn’t happen I’ve realized that’s okay too. I have great friends—ones who’d go the extra mile for me if I asked for a favor. Settling for second best to make my family happy won’t do much for my contentment.”

He nodded and moved out of the way of a deck hand as the captain backed the ferry up to the wharf. “That’s true.”

Susan disembarked with the rest of the women and moved aside to take photos. She strode back to the hovering group. “Can I take a group shot?”

The women clustered around Nolan. “Say sexy farmer,” Susan said and clicked the shutter when everyone laughed. She examined the shot. “Nice photo.”

“Everyone ready to walk to the summit?” Nolan asked.

“I’d like to catch the cute train,” one of the women said.

A couple of the others agreed and went off to buy tickets. The rest of them started the walk along the scoria paths. Weird lava shapes studded the landscape, remnants of the eruption over six hundred years ago. Native pohutukawa trees poked from crevices and Susan snapped a photo of a rock that reminded her of one of the
Lord of the Rings
movie characters.

Gradually their group broke into twos and threes with a couple of the women sticking to Nolan and peppering him with flirtation. Susan didn’t bother to compete, merely enjoying the walk and stopping to take photos whenever tempted.

But the giggles of the other women eventually intruded and tumbled her back into the present. She shot a glance to her right and saw Nolan grinning down at a shapely blonde—Cherry or Anna. Susan couldn’t remember her name. While the man was smiling, he managed to distance himself as well. Despite putting on a good game face, he didn’t want to be here, she thought. Yet he’d gone ahead with the reality show anyway to please his mother.

Another reason to avoid him.

She did
not
want a mommy’s boy.

Frowning at her discovery, she took a moment to stop and capture the view of the central city and the thrust of the Sky Tower. A penis-symbol for sure. The tower jolted her mind in the direction of men and her current man-drought. There came a time when a vibrator wasn’t enough and only the solid weight of a man moving against her body would dissipate her hunger.

Since she seemed to put her foot in her mouth every time she spoke with Nolan, she’d have to look elsewhere.

But where?

Tyler.

Her inner rebel came out to play. Tyler’s face floated into her mind, his grin, his protective arm around his daughter. Connor vouched for him, and Nolan had confirmed some of the details. Still, she hesitated. He was Nolan’s younger brother, and that felt weird.

They’d continued to correspond—just friendly notes about their interests and their daily routines. Tyler worked hard on his father-in-law’s farm and seemed to be fully involved in his daughter’s life, although he admitted that if it wasn’t for his mother-in-law, he’d be in trouble. He spoke fondly of Eric and Josie, and it was obvious he liked and admired his in-laws.

More telling perhaps was that he seldom mentioned his own parents or Nolan. Instead she learned about fencing, sundry farming chores and Tyler’s painting. He seemed passionate about art.

Aware she was lagging, Susan put on a burst of speed, jogging up to the crest of a small hill. At the back of her mind, she realized she wasn’t even puffing and pride surged with an inner cheer. Julia might act the stern taskmaster when it came to dancing, but all that training was paying off big time.

Finally, their group reached the spot where the train was parked, ready to make the return journey. Susan wandered in the rear, the gravel path crunching beneath her boots. The gravel gave way to a boardwalk, which led up the last rise to the summit. Since it was the middle of the week, most of the other visitors were tourists. Nolan and his harem didn’t attract attention.

“This way, ladies,” Nolan said. “We have lunch boxes for everyone in the clearing over here.”

An assistant—a pencil-thin Asian male—appeared from the direction Nolan indicated and had a muffled conversation with the cameraman before turning to face them. “Ladies, before you eat, Jennifer wants me to organize one-on-one chats for each of you with Nolan. These will be filmed and some shown during Thursday’s show. This will also give Nolan an opportunity to get to know you better and help him to decide who to choose for the next stage.”

“How many of us are eliminated this time?” a blonde asked.

Susan frowned when she realized most of the women were blonde. Interesting.

“Nolan needs to eliminate two today and another three next week,” the assistant said. “We’ll do your interviews in alphabetical order.” He consulted his clipboard. “Elle, you’re up first. We have a private spot set up over here. If you’ll follow me.”

Nolan gestured for Elle—a strawberry blonde—to precede him and the pair followed the assistant.

“Are you nervous?” one of the women asked Susan.

“Not really,” Susan said. “After flashing my butt at the camera, I figure things can’t get much worse.”

The woman chuckled. “I saw that. I felt bad for you and at the same time I was glad it wasn’t me.”

Susan clicked a photo of the women as they opened their lunches. “I wonder what sort of questions Nolan will ask us.”

“I hate to think,” the woman said.

Elle appeared on the track and ambled over to the group. “Cherry, you’re next.”

“What were the questions like?” Susan asked.

“You have to pick a sealed envelope then Nolan opens it and reads out the three questions.” She giggled. “He asked about my first kiss.”

Cherry went off and came back, her cheeks scarlet. “He asked if I enjoyed sex. If that portion airs on television, I’m going to be mortified. My parents watched the first show. My grandparents. Oh, Jasmine. It’s your turn.”

Susan’s gut did a nasty buck, her confidence sailing in an arc to fall to the pit of her stomach with a crash. Oh, goody. She had a sex question to look forward to, and she’d have to wait until the end because her surname was Webb.

Jasmine returned, grinning. “Your turn, Maxine. He asked me to tell him about my favorite sexual position.”

Susan felt her mouth drop open and snapped it shut. The questions seemed to becoming more personal. “What did you say?”

“Reverse cowgirl,” Jasmine said. “That’s what the couple in the erotic romance I’m reading was doing, so I went with gut instinct and lied. I’d better warn my parents about this next segment of the show, but I guess they did say the show would be adult rated.”

“As long as they don’t expect to film us having sex,” Susan muttered.

Maxine returned, shaking her head. “Lucy, you’re up.”

“Tough question?” Susan asked.

“He asked me if I’d be willing to let a man tie me up. I said no way, no how. If there was any tying up, I was the one who was gonna be doing it. With all the hype about that BDSM novel, he was probably disappointed with my answer,” Maxine said.

“Wow,” Elle said. “I think I lucked out with my question. Talking about a first kiss is much easier.”

Foreboding shot to new heights in Susan. She watched the remaining girls disappear to meet with Nolan then it was her turn for questions.

“Why do I feel as if I’m about to appear before the firing squad?” she asked Nolan before she remembered that blasted cameraman. She shot a quick glance at the camera and sure enough, she saw a smirking mouth beneath the camera housing.

She sank onto the picnic blanket, relieved when she didn’t suffer any clothing malfunctions.

“Are you nervous?” Nolan’s eyes laughed at her.

“Should I be?” she countered.

His mouth twitched. “Since there was only one envelope left, I opened it before you arrived.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Bring it.”

The cameraman sniggered.

Nolan flashed a grin before his gaze went to a single sheet of white paper. From where she sat, she couldn’t read the questions.
Blast
. “Question number one: do you prefer your men to wear boxers or briefs?”

Okay, that wasn’t so bad. “Neither,” she said.

There was a moment of startled silence. The cameraman made a choking sound behind his camera.

“You prefer commando?” Nolan asked.

“Well, I can live with commando some of the time because, I mean, it’s
so
convenient when you’re in a hurry.” Where on earth was this coming from? She was channeling her inner bimbo—that was clear. “But mostly a man should wear boxer-briefs. You get great support plus you look good,” she said, her sugar-sweet tone daring him to take umbrage at her reply.

Nolan’s lips quivered again, and he cleared his throat. “Great answer. Uh, the next question—this one is mine because I’m curious. I’ve done some research on your burlesque. I know your dancers do the fan dance at the club. How many garments are you left wearing at the end of the fan dance?”

“Are you trying to get me to admit I’m a stripper?”

“Answer the question, please.”

“The object of the fan dance is to titillate and make those in the audience wonder if they’ll catch a glimpse of the dancer’s body. Part of the dance is removing the top without revealing extra skin to the audience.”

“Do you do the fan dance?”

Susan sucked in a quick breath. Curse the man. “Yes, I am one of dancers at
Maxwell’s
who do the fan dance.”

“Which means you’re technically a person who takes off their clothes to entertain,” he said in a silky voice.

Why bother arguing? “That is correct.”

“How do you get off the stage without anyone seeing your scantily clad body?”

“I’ve answered more than three questions, but for your information—I leave the stage when the curtain comes down. The only people who are backstage are the other dancers and my friends. I do not flaunt my nudity.
Maxwell’s
is a decent club with a good reputation, and we have so many applicants to join our dance team we don’t have to advertise.”

“Hmm,” Nolan said. “I still don’t understand why you’d want to live in the country when it’s obvious your job skills require an urban setting.”

Susan bit back the tumble of words that battered her brain in a demand for freedom. She took a deep breath. “Smug, arrogant men are not a turn on.”

The cameraman let loose one of his chuckles and kept right on filming.

“Is that all?” Susan demanded. “I want to take more photos before we have to leave to catch the ferry.”

“One last question,” Nolan said. “What is your biggest sexual fantasy?”

She cringed a little inside. Her mother would watch this. She’d probably laugh, but that wasn’t the point.

“Cat got ya tongue?” The daredevil gleam in Nolan’s eyes told her he expected her to balk.

“I think sex should express the love between a man and a woman. There should be passion and lust, but those emotions should be tempered with honesty, caring and laughter. If I were honest, I’d have to say that my biggest sexual fantasy would be to please my partner in bed. The pleasure should flow in both directions.”

“But that’s not a fantasy, is it? You’re sidestepping the question.”

Susan’s hands clenched in her lap and heat layered on top of layer in her face. “All right. I fantasize about being alone on an island with one special man. We play hide and seek, but there’s an edge to the game because if he captures me within half an hour he gets to spank me and tie me up so I’m at his mercy. That’s his favorite kink,” she added. “Me, I’m determined to outwit him because in return I get a sexual slave for the rest of the day who will do whatever I want, get me off how I want. Would you like more detail?”