Montana (Modern Mail Order Bride Book 2)

By

Olivia Gaines

Davonshire House Publishing

PO Box 9716

Augusta, GA 30916

T
his book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.

© 2016 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin

Line Editor: Tessy Lynn

Cover: koougraphics

Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever.  For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.

ISBN-13:978-1530281138 

ISBN-10: 153028113X 

ASIN:

Printed in the United States of America

1 2  3  4  5  6  7  10  9  8

Also by Olivia Gaines

The Slice of Life Series

• The Perfect Man
  
• Friends with Benefits
  
• A Letter to My Mother
  
• The Basement of Mr. McGee
  
• A New Mommy for Christmas
  

The Slivers of Love Series

• The Cost to
   
  Play
  
• Thursday in Savannah
  
• Girl's Weekend
  
• Beneath the Well of Dawn
  
• Santa’s Big Helper
  

The Davonshire Series

• Courting Guinevere
  
• Loving Words
  
• Vanity's Pleasure
  

The Blakemore Files

• Being Mrs. Blakemore
  
• Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore
  
• Dancing with Mr. Blakemore
  
• Cruising with the Blakemores
  
• Dinner with the Blakemores
  
• Loving the Czar
  

The Value of a Man Series

• My Mail Order Wife
  
• A Weekend with the Cromwell’s
  

Other Novellas

• North to Alaska
  
• The Brute & The Blogger
  
• A Better Night in Vegas ( Betas Do It Better Anthology)
  
• Trapped in the Company (The Company Anthology)
  

Other Novels

• A Menu for Loving
  
• Turning the Page
  
• An Untitled Love
  
• Wyoming Nights
  

DEDICATION

––––––––

Because we must believe in the power of love.

––––––––

W
hat am I doing here
?

Pecola Peters found herself standing in a dingy courtroom before a judge in the middle of nowhere Montana getting married to a burly rancher with kind eyes and thick black hair because of two ugly women. Hideous would be a correct term for how the two women looked in appearance but not in temperament, yet they had gotten married – to two good men. Good looking men of means.  For a decent looking woman like Pecola with a horrible dating history combined with two men physically running away from her, such an imbalance in the fairy tale is what pushed her to this ending. Today she was getting hitched.

In Montana.

In the middle of nowhere.

To a burly rancher with kind eyes.

And thick black hair.

A man, who his friends and family called Billy Joe.

“Do you, Pecola Peters, take William Joseph Johnson to be your lawfully wedded husband, keeping only unto him and forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?” The judge was speaking to her with his thin lips and weathered face.  A face so taut it looked as if he’d spent the better part of the night sucking on something tart and unpleasant that snuck up on him in the middle of the morning for a surprise visit.

“I do,” Pecola said with a shaking voice.  She looked around the drab little courtroom to ensure no one else had answered for her. The benches were as weathered as the audience who came to witness the ceremony. Again she searched the room with its peeling wallpaper and pictures of old white judges that hung on the walls like ghosts of lynchings past.

Nope. It was me.  I am agreeing to this; I am actually marrying this man
.

Judge Martin posed the same question to Billy Joe, who seemed right sure of himself as well as the current circumstance. Those kind eyes looked at her and softened her up again. “I do,” he said with pride.

Pride is what got me here. Pride and eavesdropping on those two ugly heifers who encouraged me to make a move and find some happiness. You won’t regret it, they said.  You will find love, they said.

Instead, she found herself in Montana in the middle of nowhere, getting married to a man with thick black hair and gentle eyes who looked at her like a pork chop to a fat lady the day after fasting. He was good looking, though, and he owned a ranch. He had cattle and a good sized ranch house. More than anything William Joseph Johnson wanted to marry her. Billy Joe wasn’t running in the opposite direction from the word commitment; instead, he was hurrying her to the altar.

“You may kiss the bride,” the judge said.  Billy Joe took a happy step forward in cowboy boots that had seen better days, a shirt with a hole in it, and fingertips laced with callouses and these same digits grazed her cheeks. The kiss was soft, horribly gentle with no false promises of what was to come. What kept her rooted to the spot was that when he kissed her, he closed his eyes.  She knew because hers were wide open. 

Watching.

Uncertain.

A thin woman in a threadbare flowered dress began to play the wedding march as Billy Joe placed her right arm into his left one and drug her suitcase behind them out to a pick-up truck with a Rocking J on the door panel. He hefted the suitcase up and over the side of the vehicle into the truck bed and it landed with a thud.  The same thud landed in her chest as he opened the door and all but shoved her inside. Her heart drummed heavily when he looked over at her with his tender eyes and smiled.

“I ain’t never been with a black girl before,” he told her as he put the truck into drive. He peeled away from the sidewalk, spraying bits of dirt and gravel onto the witnesses who attended the wedding.  One lady looked at her with sympathy as the truck rolled away.  Mary Megan, the woman who was both her bridesmaid and maid of honor, waved at her with a tear-soaked hanky.

Three men, who were missing teeth, gave a whoop from the sidewalk, yelling behind the vehicle, “Don’t wear her out too much, Billy Joe. There’s a dance on Saturday night! You want her to be able to walk!”

Billy Joe’s cellular rang as he held the steering wheel with one hand while wrangling with his pocket to find the phone. “Yep?” he said into the line.

The vehicle slowed as he came to a four way stop. A frown covered his face as he hit the turn signal and made a right and then another right and one more, bringing them back to the courthouse.  The same three men were still on the sidewalk when the old truck pulled back up to the curb.  Evidently he had forgotten to pay them all for attending a wedding that was only missing her angry daddy holding a shotgun.

Each man was given $10 and the judge $25.  Margaret Mae wanted nothing more than to be invited to dinner once Pecola “got all settled in.” The men, on the other hand, were having quite the time making fun of her new husband.

“He been out yonder so long, I am sure one or two of them sheep probably are looking mighty sexy to him!” the man with the extra-large front tooth chimed in. He reminded Pecola of the cartoon baby with just the one big sweet tooth dangling over his bottom lip. It didn’t aid his standing in her eyes when he slurped up drool that was dangling from the tooth.

The second man said, “Yeah, I’m sure he has a name for those two sheep.  He probably calls them Friday and Saturday so he don’t get’em confused which one he is choosing for the weekend!”

The third man didn’t get to say anything because Pecola reached down and took off her shoe, throwing it with all her might out of the window and busting him in the mouth with it as the truck rolled away for the second time.

Billy Joe looked at her again with those same kind eyes and smiled extra big. “Just don’t get mad when I don’t go back and get your shoe,” he told her.

Her eyes went to the side mirror and saw the third man using her shoe in a most unnatural manner. “I don’t want it...ever...don’t bother...he can keep it!”

The truck, which was probably older than she was, trundled along the roadways with smooth precision as her new husband glanced over at her. He seemed to be having a great deal of trouble keeping his eyes on the road and off her boobs.

“You ain’t a virgin, are you?” he asked her.

Pecola choked on her own spit. “What? I...what sort of question is that?”

“A good one.  I want to know if you ain’t been with a man...because I ain’t never been with one of those either,” he said with a grin.

She could not help scowling as she responded tartly, “With a man or a virgin?”

“You are funny.  A virgin,” he said.  He thought about it for a minute. “I ain’t ever been with no man either. And don’t plan to,” he said with an extra nod of his head. He acted as if the nod was a punctuation on the sentence.

Suddenly the stupid white dress she was wearing became too tight, her breathing became shallow, and she woke up on a couch in what appeared to be a farm house with no air conditioning.  The tender eyes were watching her as he pressed a cool cloth to her forehead. Pecola struggled to sit up as she took a mental inventory to make sure her panties were still on and her dress wasn’t up over her belly.  Billy Joe lent her a hand.  In his other hand, he held a cold glass of lemonade that he put to her lips.

“Drink. The cool and sugar will help balance you out.  You ain’t ate nothing all day, have you?” He asked.

She shook her head no.

“Mary Megan and the gals from the lady’s auxiliary fixed us up some food.  By the looks of it, we have enough to last us all week.  I guess them hearing you were from New York, they were figuring you couldn’t cook,” he told her.

“What did they make?” She asked, her stomach rumbling loudly.

“Fried chicken, fried pork chops, fried potatoes, some baked squash casserole, and biscuits so light and fluffy you would swear they were made by an angel,” he told her.