Montana (Modern Mail Order Bride Book 2) (19 page)

A
very had flung herself across the bed like a hurt child not allowed to go to the playground.  Tears wracked her body as the shame of what she had done eased through the temporary fog of happiness of finally connecting with a decent man. The pickings at home were so few and attending college had not been an option. Her hope was that Billy Joe would get the writer’s retreat up and going so he could buy out her parents and they could move to a larger city where men with goals lived. Everyone in a 300-mile radius of the Rocking J all wanted the same thing, some land, a herd, and some dumb woman to make biscuits in between pushing out a boat load of babies. 

“I want to paint, Daddy,” she had told her father.

He put a wide handled brush in one hand and a paint bucket full of red paint in the other. “Start with the barn, Avery Jean,” he told her.

Ruby Johnson loved to keep Avery’s hands filled with a tool or something to occupy her every moment. “Your nature is way too high Avery Jean; boys will take advantage of your desire to please them. It’s not a good thing,” she warned her only daughter.

Avery’s two brothers, Jim, and Pembrook were both dead.  Jim, God bless his soul, died in his sleep in his crib.  Pembrook drowned in a swimming accident at the lake one summer with Chad and Billy Joe. She had almost succumbed to the water, too, but Billy Joe made it to her in time; Chad wasn’t able to get to Pembrook. Billy’s Joe’s dad blamed Chad. Brooks Johnson, Avery’s dad, also blamed Chad for many years.  It was the hope of Ruby and Brooks that Avery would marry well.

Hope left the Johnsons when Avery was caught in the barn rolling in the hay with a boy from the football team.  Ruby began to put small doses of salt peter in the lemon aid to tamp down Avery’s nature but she was a passionate young woman.  Billy Joe’s mother went to Billings on a May day when Avery was 17.  She took the budding young artist with her to an art exhibit. Avery left Billings with her first set of art supplies. Billy Joe nurtured the artist in her by sending her books with artist techniques, new brushes, and tubes of brightly hued paints. His hope had been to sell off the cattle and send her to Paris for a month to study.

“Avery,” Zachary said, his hand gently stroking her back. “Are you crying because of what your cousin said or are you crying because you are ashamed of our night together?”

Avery sat up in the bed.  The beautiful makeup smeared, the fake eyelashes were coming off, and black tears ran down her face. Zachary went into the guest bathroom to collect a wet cloth, returning to sit on the bed to wipe her face like a small child who had finished her first ice cream cone.

“I’m not ashamed of our night together, Zachary Peters,” she said.

“It’s okay to call me Zach,” he told her. “Hell, after last night, you can call me anything you want to.”

“I shouldn’t have thrown myself at you, but dadgummit, I wanted a night to myself where I could blow off some steam.  I was holding back since it was my first time and all, so you wouldn’t think I was some horned up sex fiend,” she said.

Zach pulled a pillow over his lap. “You were holding back?” he swallowed hard. “Wait!  What? That was your first time?”

“Yeah, I mean...did I still please you?” She asked.

“Please me? I am ready to put a bullet in Buster to eliminate the competition!”

Avery smiled, a smile so bright it caused Zachary to clench the pillow that was already in his lap. He needed to change the subject or he was going to need to close the door and apologize to his sister later.

“I was thinking,” he started, in an effort to change the subject and slow the blood flow into his pants. “I have never been to Montana, so maybe I can come back with you guys, meet your parents, and work out something with Pecola to let you stay here, study art in New York for the summer or something.”

Her eyes lit up as she rose slowly from the bed, moving to the bedroom door, closing it, and locking it.

“Avery...,” he said to her, holding up his hands.

“You are coming to Montana to meet my folks so I can come back to New York and study art?”

“Yeah, you said that’s what you wanted to do. I mean, if they realize you know someone in New York, and I take care of all your expenses...” he tried to say.  His words were lost as she reached for the pillow, tossing it aside, then the zipper on his pants, pulling it slowly. Zachary’s throat was dry as he grabbed her hands to stop her. “Avery, we can’t...stop it,” he said. “It’s not right, your cousin already thinks I’m taking advantage of you and I won’t disrespect my sister’s house.” Her lips pressed against his. He mumbled out the corner of his mouth as he returned her kiss, “Avery, we can’t.”

“Yeah we can, you just have to be real quiet,” she told him as she yanked at his pants. “When I am done with you, Zachary Peters, you are going to want to have a whole different manner of conversation with my daddy.”

He tried feebly to protest again, but all that was heard was a loud squeal. The pillow which had been across his lap was now in his mouth. Zach bit down hard on the fabric, getting a mouth full of buckwheat as he chomped down too hard and ripped away the covering to prevent sound leaving his face, but she did a special move making him lose it. The squeal was louder this time.

The squeal came from Zachary.

“Shit hell, that feels good!” he cried out.

H
eidi Strom was a pissy little German woman with way too much attitude. No one was ever right but Heidi, regardless if facts to the contrary were raining on her head like golf ball sized hail. Unless she came up with the answer, everyone else was wrong.

In her head, Montana Hart was the side of Pecola who was at least interesting.  Pecola Peters was a nobody to her, with no sex appeal and an overactive imagination with no real basis in reality.  Montana Hart, the last time the agent had spoken with her, was headed to the great state of the same name to do some research.  To think the silly woman had gotten married to some stranger was too much. This would definitely affect her writing style and her sales.  Pecola Peters, along with her redneck heartthrob with the thick pretty black hair, was going to cramp her style plus impact the bottom line of sales.

Billy Joe helped the woman up from the floor.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked.

“Who are you calling ma’am?” Heidi wanted to know. “And you!  Married? Married!  This is going to impact your storytelling.”

“I think it will make her writing richer,” Billy Joe said.

“What do you know about writing, you oversized cowpuncher?”

“Ain’t no need to be rude, ma’am. I have read Montana’s work and the characters could be richer the plots tighter, and the settings really should be developed as an essential focal point in the stories almost personifying the land,” he said.

“Maybe you do know something,” Heidi said, staring at him with a newfound interest.  Suddenly a loud squeal was heard. “What is that?”

Jameson, the stylist, who had said nothing up to this point, stood there staring at Billy Joe, and spoke softly, his lisp casting a light spray of saliva. “Sounds like someone is getting some,” he said, giving Billy Joe an arched eyebrow.

Billy Joe blinked furiously, trying not to make eye contact with Jameson, frowned twice in distaste.  One was for the squealing in the next room and the other was for the rather scrawny gay man in the fuchsia spandex pants that left nothing to the imagination. He also couldn’t understand the poof of hot red hair that sat atop his head like an umbrella attached to his brain.

“I can’t wait to get my hands on you,” he told Billy Joe.  He slurred the S when he spoke.

“You ain’t gonna touch me!” Billy Joe told him.

“I need to measure you for your tux,” Jameson said as he pulled out a measuring tape. “By the looks of how things are hanging, you are left handed.”

Billy Joe knew exactly what he was talking about; he frowned at him. “I am a 36 waist and a 42 long, you can put that tape away,” he said.

“I also need to condition and trim your hair,” he said.

“My cousin can trim my hair,” he said to Jameson. 

Another squeal came from the bedroom, followed by a muffled groan, a squeak of the bed, and what sounded like shoes hitting the wall.

“If that is your cousin in that room, sounds like she’s going to be too tired to do anything,” Jameson said with a pop of his fingers and a twist.

“I don’t know who you are, sir, but I don’t like you,” Billy Joe said to Jameson.  He looked at Heidi, “I don’t like you, either!”

He nodded his head to punctuate his sentence before making his way to the kitchen, only to be stopped by in the hallway by Zachary. 

“Hey man,” a disheveled Zachary said to him. “Can you call your uncle and aunt to let them know I’m coming back with you guys and I want to have a conversation with him.”

Billy Joe was frowning.  New York was not his kind of place.  How Pecola had survived here was beyond his comprehension and he wanted to go home. But more than anything he wanted to sock Pecola’s brother in his handsome, cousin ruining face.

“I’ll be back in time for the award thingy,” he said.  “Jameson, Heidi,” he said as he walked past the woman.  He intentionally made a wide berth around Jameson; the stylist was known for getting a bit handsy.

“Where are you going?” Pecola asked.

“To charter a plane to Montana and to the jewelry store,” Zachary said as he opened the front door, damn near skipping down the stairs.

“Who’s hungry?” Avery asked as she came from the guest room with a glow on her face and a switch in her hip.

“I hate it here,” Billy Joe said as he made his way to the bedroom.  He kicked off his shoes, laying back on the bed to take a nap. A different ilk of tiredness overtook him as heavy lids closed, dragging him down towards a deep slumber. Tonight was his wife’s shining moment.  He would not take away from her achievement with his desire to kill her brother then putting his body in the wood chipper to feed the fish in his lake.  A soft smile formed at the corners of his lips as he drifted off imagining chunks of Zachary Peters flying through the air as hungry fish jumped from the water to bite and swallow him like chum.

B
illy Joe did not know that Montana Hart wrote more than mail order bride stories. He was also unaware the award she was receiving was not for a romance book but a work of literary fiction that chronicled the journey of cancer treatment with her mother.
The Long Goodbye,
a highly reviewed book, took the top honors of the night. Billy Joe’s chest swelled with pride as she delivered her acceptance speech, thanking all who had voted for her.

“I want to give a special thank you to my brother Zachary, who held our family together on days when I didn’t have the strength to get out bed, let alone care for our mother,” she said to the audience.  The moment was wasted on Billy Joe, who for one second looked at the man favorably until Avery started to fawn over him. Billy Joe found himself frowning again.

“To Heidi, thank you for working hard with me on this one, it was out of the realm of what I normally write, but nonetheless a story that needed to be told,” Pecola said. The German woman, whose shoulders were broader than his, stood up and waved at the crowd as if she were responsible for his wife’s success.

“I also want to thank Billy Joe Johnson, of the Rocking J Ranch in Montana. I have spent the past year in a romance of words with this man. The ranch is one of the most peaceful and serene places I have ever been and it has inspired me to connect with my words, expressing myself in ways I never knew. Billy Joe, I love you. Thank you for everything you have brought to my life and my words,” she said.

Her words did the trick.  The postcard cards the students designed for him at the college were all given away in less than thirty minutes.  Authors whom he’d admired for years walked up to him, calling him by name, wanting to know when they could come out to his ranch. Big name authors. New authors.  Burgeoning writers.

It was real.  It was actually happening.  His wife had turned the key.

M
eanwhile, at home on the ranch, things were taking a downward turn.  Pap made the call he was dreading to place.  This was the first time Billy Joe had gotten to leave the ranch in almost three years.  His little Avery Jean deserved the getaway as well, but Billy Joe needed to know about this; more importantly, he needed to come home.