Accidental Mail Order Bride by J. S. Cooper

Chapter Fourteen

“Good morning, Lucy.”Beau beamed at me as I entered the kitchen. He looked over my outfit which must’ve been satisfactory to him because he nodded. “Ready to check out the stables and the horses?”

“Oh, yes. I am very excited.” I nodded enthusiastically and then looked around to see if Austin was there to mock me. I was surprisingly disappointed that he wasn’t in the kitchen and wasn’t going to join us, but I didn’t want to think about that too much.

“How many hands was the last mare that you rode?” Beau inquired as we exited the kitchen via the French doors and walked down the back porch.

“Sorry, how many what?”

“How many hands?” he said with a small smile. “What size horse do you normally ride?”

“The regular size?” I shrugged.

“Has it been a while since you’ve competed then?”

“I, uh …” I paused and then groaned. “How did you know?”

“Austin told me.”

Of course he had, I groaned inwardly. “To be honest, I never really competed. I just enjoyed reading horse books when I was growing up,” I admitted, feeling like a huge liar.

“Oh.” He was silent for a moment then started laughing. “I was wondering how a city girl entered so many horse shows.”

“Do you hate me?” Was he going to send me packing to New York City?

“Of course not,” he shook his head, his smile genuine. “I couldn’t hate you for that.”

“You must find this entire situation so weird, huh?” I looked at him, searching his eyes.

“Honestly, not as weird as you’d think,” he chuckled as we made our way into the stables. “You forget my mom has been my mom my entire life and I’ve always lived in Montana. A lot of crazy things that go on here.”

“As crazy as your mom sending for a mail order bride for you?”

“Well, I don’t consider you a mail order bride as much as this seems like some sort of arranged marriage.” He made a face.

“Mail order bride is a weird term, isn’t it?” I looked at the different horses in the stable and spied one horse in the far left that was taking a keen interest in me. “I always thought that it seemed kind of sketchy to be a mail order bride.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I don’t know that that’s the best term. But my parents are old,” he laughed. He noticed that I was staring at the horse in one of the stalls. “That’s Sally, by the way. She’s an American Quarter Horse.”

“She’s beautiful.” I made my way to her stall. “Can I pet her?”

“Of course.” Beau walked next to me and reached into his pocket and pulled out some carrots. “Here, feed her these. She’ll love you.” I took the piece of carrot and held it in the palm of my hand and looked into her big brown eyes. Sally was a tan brown with blondish-brown mane and white features along her forehead going down to her nose. She took the carrots from my palm eagerly and chewed on them. “She’s a show horse,” Beau patted her on the head. “She loves going out on the trail as well if you want to ride her.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I felt slightly nervous. She looked like a beautiful horse, but I was pretty sure even a beautiful horse could throw me off.

“Oh, don’t worry. She’s great with beginners.” He smiled warmly. “She’s pretty new to the family, actually. Austin bought her about six months ago.”

“Cool.” I looked around the stalls and studied the other horses and then said casually, “Will Austin be joining us?” I hoped there wasn’t too much hope in my voice.

“Unlikely,” he shook his head. “I think he was heading into town for a lunch date today or something,” he shrugged.

“Oh.” A surge of disappointment filled me and I couldn’t stop myself from asking the next question. “So he has a girlfriend?”

“A girlfriend?” Beau laughed uproariously. “Austin doesn’t do girlfriends. He’s the consummate bachelor of the family. And that’s saying a lot seeing as we’re all single.”

“Oh. Okay.” I wanted to ask more questions, but I didn’t want Beau wondering why I cared so much about his brother.

My phone started ringing and I looked down to see that Olivia was calling me. “Oh, sorry. It’s my best friend.”

“Feel free to answer. I’ll go and grab some saddles.”

“Okay, thanks.” I answered the phone. “Hey, Olivia. How’s it going?”

“Hey, Lucy. I want to know what’s going on. How’s Beau? How’s Austin? How’s everything?

“Oh, well, I’m in the stables right now with Beau and we’re about to go riding.”

“Put me on FaceTime, girl. I want to see what he looks like.”

“I can’t video chat,” I whispered just as Beau came back.

“You can video chat if you want,” he said, acknowledging that he’d heard what I said.

“Oh, well, I mean, I know we were about to go riding. I can always call her back.”

“No,” she whined in my ear loudly. “Put me on video chat.”

“You can put her on video chat,” he chuckled. “It seems like she really wants to see where you are and make sure you’re safe. Sounds like she’s a good friend.”

“Yeah, Olivia is my best friend. Okay, hold on, Olivia. I’m going to request a FaceTime with you.” I pulled my phone down and then pressed the button to call her on FaceTime. A second later, I was looking at her. “Hey, you.”

“Hey there, country mama,” she said with a laugh. “How’s it going?”

“Good. But you’re on speaker right now and I’m with Beau so he can hear everything that you’re saying,” I warned her just in case she wanted to ask me something crazy.

“Well, let me see him!”

“Olivia,” I glared at her.

“What?” she chuckled. “I want to see what this guy looks like.”

“It’s okay.” Beau stood next to me and then looked at the phone. “Hi,” he gave a huge wave. “I’m Beau Hamilton. Nice to meet you. You must be Olivia. Lucy’s said so much about you.”

Olivia’s jaw dropped as she stared at him. “Well, hi there, Beau. You’re a good-looking guy, aren’t you?”

He chuckled, and I tried not to cringe. This was so embarrassing.

“Well, you’re very beautiful yourself, Olivia.” He smiled at the phone. “I’m not sure anyone has ever been so forthright with me before.”

“What can I say?” she shrugged. “When I see a good-looking guy, I can’t help but tell him.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Well, you’re absolutely gorgeous. Lucy?”

“Yes, Olivia.”

“You need to marry that man as soon as possible,” she giggled. I groaned out loud then, and then Beau just shook his head.

“So, are you going to come out to Montana to visit anytime soon?” Beau asked.

“I hope so,” Olivia nodded enthusiastically. “I really hope so.”

“Well, we’re about to go riding now,” I chimed in.

“Let me see the horses!” Olivia’s voice was excited. “I’ve never seen horses in real life.”

“Oh my gosh, don’t exaggerate. You’ve seen horses before.”

“Nuh-uh. Only when I watched Black Beauty and that was an old ass movie, so I don’t even know if they really look like that.”

“Really, Olivia?”

“You can show her the horses. That’s okay. We’ve got time,” Beau said. “Why don’t you show her Sally?”

“Ooh, who’s Sally?” Olivia said.

“Sally’s this horse that’s taken a liking to Lucy,” Beau continued the conversation with her and I almost felt like a third wheel.

“Oh, let me see Sally, Lucy.”

“Okay, hold on.” I flipped the camera around and pointed it at the horse to the right.

“Wow, she’s beautiful,” Olivia sighed. “Man, you’re so lucky, Lucy.”

“What do you mean?” I flipped the phone back to look at her.

“You’re having this awesome experience in this new place and I’m just stuck here in the city, working at this horrible store and …” She paused. “Anyway, I’m not going to complain. My life’s okay.”

“You can come visit anytime. You know that, right?” Beau spoke up. “Honestly, we’ve got more than enough room.”

“Yeah, Olivia. You should come if you really want to.” And I meant it. I would have loved having my best friend here. As much as I loved the Hamiltons and was excited to get to know Beau better, everything was so complicated. It would be amazing to have a friend here to discuss everything with.

“Well, I’ll see if I can get some time off and stuff. That would be cool, though. I’ll speak to you later?”

“Okay. I’ll speak to you later. Bye, girl. Let me know.” I hung up the phone and then put it back into my handbag. “Sorry about that. Olivia can be a little over the top.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “She looks really nice.” He paused. “So, is she single too, or …?”

“Yeah, we’re both single.”

“She’s very beautiful.”

“Yeah. I think she could have been a model if she really wanted to, but she’s not into that sort of stuff.”

“Oh, no? What she into?” Beau paused. “Well, listen to me. I’m being all nosy. You don’t have to answer that.”

“No, it’s okay. I like that you’re interested in my friends.” I was about to tell him more about her when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rising. I had a feeling that Austin was somewhere nearby.

“Howdy, y’all,” a deep, smooth voice said, and I turned around. It was uncanny how I’d known he was about to enter the stables.

“Hi,” I said somewhat coldly, not wanting him to know how happy I was to see him.

“Hey, what’s going on, brother?” Beau nodded.

“Dad needs you inside. He’s got a call with the developers in about an hour, and he said you guys need to go over some numbers.”

“Dang it.” Beau looked at me and then looked at Austin. “I completely forgot about that. I just promised Lucy that I’d take her on a ride. She’s taken a liking to Sally, and Sally has taken a liking to her.”

“I guess I could take you if you really want to go,” Austin said somewhat unenthusiastically.

“That’s fine. We can go another time, Beau, when you have time.”

“No. Austin can take you,” Beau nodded. “He knows Sally far better than me, and he’s actually more of a horse guy than I am. He can take you on one of the trails and show you around the rest of the ranch.”

“I mean, I don’t want to put you out.” I looked at Austin and tried not to roll my eyes.

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to put me out?”

“No. I mean, if you have other things to do.”

“Well, I can spare some time. That’s why I offered.”

I knew that we could go back and forth for the next hour and I didn’t want Beau to be suspicious, so I just nodded and offered Austin my sweetest smile. “Well, thank you very much, Austin. I really appreciate that. Though I thought you had a lunch date or something.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“I thought you were going to meet up with the Hawkins girl,” Beau said.

“What?” Austin looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Where did you get that from?”

“Mom made a comment to me or something.”

“Well, Mom was wrong. There’s no way I’d be going to meet up with her.”

“Okay. Well, I’m going to go and chat with Dad. You guys have fun, okay?”

And with that, Beau left the stables, and Austin and I were left standing there staring at each other.

“So you’ve taken a liking to Sally, huh?”

“Yeah. She seems like she would be a fun ride.”

“Oh, are you going to show us some tricks?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you looking to gallop? Because if you’re looking to gallop, we have a stallion and actually I have an Arabian. He cost me a lot of money, but—”

“No, I’m not looking to gallop.”

“Oh, so you just want to canter?”

“No, I’m not looking to canter. I’m just looking to … go slowly. Trot, maybe.”

“But I would’ve thought someone with all your skills—”

“I don’t have any skills, Austin, okay? I was lying.”

“Yet another lie, Lucy.” He shook his head. “Do you ever tell the truth about anything?”

“Are you ever nice?” I retorted. “I just wanted to try and fit in, and yes, that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have lied, but—”

“But you couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just like you couldn’t help yourself from kissing me?”

“I didn’t kiss you. You kissed me.”

“Oh, yeah?” He took a step closer to me. “But you enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t.” I was about to poke him in the chest when my phone started ringing ago. I grabbed it gratefully and answered. “Hi, this is Lucy. Who’s this?”

“Lucy. It’s Mikey. We need to talk.”

I could feel the blood draining from my face at the sound of my ex-boyfriend’s voice. I wanted to talk to him even less than I wanted to talk to Austin.

“What do you want, Mikey?” I said.

“Where are you?” His voice was loud, and I was pretty sure that Austin could hear it him as well.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Yeah, it’s my business. Where are you?”

“It’s over. I already told you that, Mikey.”

“You don’t end things with me. I end things with you. Once you’re my girl, you’re always my girl until I say it’s over.”

“Well, I told you it’s over, and it’s over.”

“You can’t run from me. You know that, right, Lucy?”

“You don’t intimidate me, Mikey. Just because you’re in the mob, just because—”

“Oh, yeah? You think I don’t know how to—” He started shouting.

Austin snatched the phone from my hand. “Hello. Is this Mikey?”

“Yeah. Who the fuck is this?” I could hear Mikey’s voice change as Austin spoke into the phone.

“This is Austin Hamilton, and I am Lucy’s new boyfriend. So you leave her the fuck alone or I will take care of you, you hear me?”

“What do you mean you’re Lucy’s new boyfriend?”

“Exactly what I said. I’m Lucy’s new man, and I have got rifles and shotguns for days. And if you ever call her number again, I’ll be making sure that I have enough bullets to shut your mouth forever.”

My jaw dropped at his words, and I could hear Mikey coughing. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking—”

As Mikey was talking, Austin hung up the phone and handed it to me. “So, you really dated some winners, huh?”

“You could say that again.” I rolled my eyes.

“I thought you would have blocked him.”

“I did block him. I guess he called from another number that I didn’t have in my phone.”

“So that’s one of the reasons you came to Montana, huh? Running away from him?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I just really needed a change. My mom passed and then that asshole … I just wanted a fresh beginning.”

“Makes sense,” he said. “Makes a lot of sense.”

“What makes a lot of sense?”

“That you would find yourself having to run away from a crazy situation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It just means that you seem like the sort of girl that likes to get herself into trouble.”

“Excuse me? What sort of trouble do I like to get myself into?

“This sort of trouble.”

He pulled me into his arms and kissed me. Instinctively, I wrapped my hands around his neck and kissed him back, pressing myself into his body. I gasped as I felt his hands running down my ass and squeezing. “You’re going to get us both into so much trouble. You know that, right, Lucy?”

“No, I’m not,” I said as I shook my head.

But even I didn’t believe that.