Text Order Bride

Text Order Bride

Kirsten Osbourne

Cover Art by Shaina Richmond

ARe Edition

Copyright 2011 Kirsten Osbourne

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may

not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this

book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each

recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not

purchased for your use only, then please return to allromanceebooks.com

and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of

this author.

This story was revised in on January 12, 2012. In this 15,000 word short

story, Amanda, a home making teacher from Texas, believes that love has

passed her by. She agrees to start communicating with someone her friend

knows in Wisconsin, because she wants children, not because she

believes that there is love out there waiting for her.

When, after two months of communicating, Jason proposes, she agrees,

thinking it is her last chance for a husband and children. Love doesn't enter

into it. Will Jason be able to convince her otherwise?

This is an adult only romance, not a Christian romance.

Kirsten Osbourne’s website is at:
www.kirstenosbourne.com

As she was sitting at her kitchen table grading papers, Amanda heard the

tune that signaled she had a text message. Picking up her phone, she

quickly glanced at the readout. The number was unfamiliar. She clicked

on the message to read it. “Stephanie gave me your number. She said

you might be interested in texting with a lonely farmer.”

Amanda read the message again, and a slow smile spread across her face.

Stephanie had told her that there was a man in her church that she thought

would be perfect for her. This must be him. She quickly keyed in a reply.

“I think I would be interested in texting a lonely farmer, but only if you tell

me your name.”

Stephanie had been her roommate at the small Christian college she

attended. After graduation, Stephanie had moved to Wisconsin, with her

preacher husband, Bob, to plant a church. They now had four children,

one boy and three girls.

Jason was surprised at how quickly he got the alert signaling he’d received

a reply text. He picked up his phone holding his breath. Would she be

interested? He tapped the phone and the message appeared. His face lit

up with a grin. He tapped out a response and sent it on.

He had surprised himself by agreeing to text Amanda, his pastor’s wife’s

friend. He lived in a sparsely populated area of Wisconsin, and just didn’t

have time to go out and meet women. When Stephanie had suggested her

friend might be interested in marriage, he took her number, but didn’t think

he’d ever actually do anything with it. He’d gotten in early this evening, and

as he’d sat on his couch, vegetating in front of the television, he’d thought

about how nice it would be to not be alone anymore. So he’d dug the

number out of his wallet and sent a text.

Amanda picked up the phone again. She’d barely had time to get one

paper graded before he’d responded. “I’m Jason. I understand you live in

Texas? What do you do there?”

She grinned and her fingers flew across the screen as she answered. “I do

live in Texas about an hour south of Dallas/Fort Worth. I’m a homemaking

teacher. Where do you live?”

The answer came back quickly. “Stratford, Wisconsin. Small town not far

from Wausau, if you’ve ever heard of that.”

Amanda hadn’t, so she opened up her laptop and Googled it. It was barely

more than a crook in the highway, but that was fine. It wasn’t like she was

marrying the man. She was texting him. “And you’re a farmer? What kind

of farming?”

“Lol. Dairy, of course. I’m a Wisconsin farmer.”

She grinned. “Do you like farming?” She pushed the papers aside. She

could grade papers tomorrow night. It was Friday night after all. She did a

little more searching on the town Jason lived in.

“I really don’t know anything else. I even studied agriculture in college. Do

you like teaching?”

She thought about that. She’d been teaching for ten years now, and wasn’t

sure how she felt about it anymore. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. I’m at a

point where I need a change.” She hadn’t really realized that before he’d

asked.

“I understand. Have you had your spring break yet?”

“We just got back this week. The kids are all wiggly and don’t want to

learn.”

“Lol. I’m glad the cows don’t get that way.”

“Do you teach the cows?” She smiled to herself as she typed that,

wondering what his response would be.

“Not typically. I wish I could sometimes.”

“What would you teach them if you could?”

Jason grinned as he read the question. What
would
he teach those silly

cows? “I’d teach them to read so they’d understand why I keep having the

vet give them shots.”

Amanda laughed out loud at the thought of cows reading. She’d never had

a full conversation by text message before. She didn’t know the

abbreviations or the jargon. She hated not typing out the full words

anyway. It looked like Jason was the same. Should she ask him to call

her? Would that be too forward? “That would be interesting, I think. If you

manage to do that, would you come to Texas and teach my students how

to sit still?”

“I keep trying to imagine your words spoken with a Texas drawl. Do you

say y’all a lot?”

She smiled. “Not a lot. It is a pretty common word around here, you know.

I’m trying to imagine a Wisconsin accent when you text, but I’m not sure I’d

know one if I heard one.”

He read the words and smiled. How would she react if he just called? It

was late, but he knew she was up. He had her number. Would she mind?

He took a deep breath and threw caution to the wind, clicking the button to

call her instead of sending her another text.

She jumped when her phone rang instead of signaling a text. She’d put his

name with his number, so she knew it was him. Why was she so nervous?

She put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Amanda?”

“Yes. Hi, Jason.”

“Hi there. I had to hear your voice for myself. I hope that’s okay.” His

voice was deep and his accent sounded strange. They certainly hadn’t

sounded like that on
Happy Days.

“It’s fine. I almost asked you to call, but I was afraid I would seem too

pushy.”

He laughed softly. Her voice didn’t have as strong of a Southern drawl as

he’d expected. “You should have. I wouldn’t have minded.” He paused for

a moment unsure of what to say now that she was on the phone. “So tell

me what you look like, Amanda.”

She sighed. Here was the killer. In her experience, men liked tiny women.

She was an Amazon. “I have blond hair and blue eyes. I’m thin.” She

trailed off after that. “What about you?”

“Brown hair. Brown eyes. Pretty boring really. How tall are you?” He sent

up a silent prayer that she wasn’t a tiny little thing. He was way too tall to

mess with a girl like that.

“Here’s where you quit talking to me,” she said sadly. “I’m six foot two.”

She waited for him to tell her he wasn’t interested in keeping the

conversation going.

“Really?” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “I’m six six.”

“Are you serious? You’re actually taller than me?” She knew that she

probably sounded like an idiot she was so excited.

“I’m serious. I’ve got to meet you now. You need to fly up here and spend

a weekend with Stephanie so I can meet you.”

She smiled. “I might be able to do that. After school is out, of course.”

“How ‘bout tomorrow instead?”

She laughed softly. “That’s probably not going to work.”

“Darn. You can’t blame a man for trying, right?”

“I guess not. I wish you’d called me a few weeks ago. I probably could

have gone up during spring break.” She hadn’t done anything else. “Do

you always have such terrible timing?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I do. Always. I’m cursed!”

They talked long into the night. When he finally glanced at the clock and

realized it was after midnight, he mentally kicked himself. He had to work

tomorrow, Saturday or not. “I really have to go. The cows need to be

milked bright and early.”

“I understand. I really enjoyed talking to you, though,” she said honestly.

She was going to be sad to hang up.

“I enjoyed talking to you, too. May I keep texting you? Maybe call again?”

She smiled. “I’d really like that.”

“I’ll text you tomorrow. G’night.”

Amanda set her phone down with a smile. She felt like a girl in high school

with her first boyfriend. She thought. She’d never had that first boyfriend in

high school. She’d seen how her friends had reacted, though. She knew

all the symptoms, and she was feeling them. Yeah, it was just a few texts

and a phone call, but they hadn’t had a problem thinking of things to say.

Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t always be alone. She fell asleep with a

smile on her face.

Saturday was errand day for Amanda. With everything she did, she found

herself wondering what Jason was up to. Was he working? Eating lunch?

Doing his grocery shopping?

She finished grading papers early in the day, and had her lesson plan done

for the following week. She ate her dinner alone, as usual, and this time,

she didn’t mind it as much as she usually did.

Amanda had moved back to the small town she’d grown up in after college.

Her mother had been ill, and she’d felt that it was her duty, as an only child,

to take care of her. She’d loved her mother, and nursing her for the last

two years of her life hadn’t been a burden. After her mother’s death, she’d

thought about moving somewhere else, but where? Everyone she knew,

and everything she knew was centered in that small town.

She knew she needed to make a fresh start. As she ate, she decided that

this would be her last year teaching in Maypearl. She was going to find

somewhere else to live and just start over. She would let the principal

know on Monday and start sending out resumes. There was a school

somewhere just right for her.

She had just finished washing the dishes when her phone beeped to signal

a text message. She almost danced over to where her phone lay on the

table. “Hey, did Jason ever contact you?”

Amanda sighed. She’d hoped it was from Jason. She quickly keyed,

“Yeah. We spent hours talking last night.”

Stephanie simply replied with, “Woohoo!”

Amanda grabbed a book from the shelf in her bedroom and padded into the

bathroom. She ran herself a hot bubble bath, carefully setting her phone

on the floor beside the tub. She didn’t want it to get wet, but she wanted to