One Night Bride by Marika Ray
2
Remington
I nodded my thanks to Wayne, the pilot I’d had with me for as long as I could remember. He’d flown my father around whenever he needed to get somewhere, and when I purchased my first jet for the ranch, he’d been the guy I called to pilot the thing.
“I’ll head out Sunday, the time depending on if I’m still looking at properties,” I informed him, checking my watch and seeing that we’d landed ten minutes early. The runway was quiet this time of the morning, but I knew by late afternoon there’d be jets flying in and out, depositing the rich and not-so-famous for a weekend at the big blue lake.
He nodded his gray head. “I’ll be waiting for your call, sir.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “You don’t have to sir me, Wayne. You’ve known me since I was still wetting the bed.”
He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “When you quit paying my bills, I’ll call you Remington.”
I grinned at that. “Fair enough.”
The wheels on my overnight bag made a racket on the blacktop as I walked toward the tiny private terminal. Even though I was early, if she excelled at her job, I’d find the realtor waiting for me who I’d hired over the phone two weeks ago. Wayne would have delivered my bag for me, but I was a grown man who was capable of lifting my own shit. God help me if I ever got so full of myself to let an older man carry my bag.
A black woman in her late forties with dark hair and a bright red suit waved in my direction as soon as I stepped inside the terminal.
“Mr. Roth?” she asked, approaching with her hand extended.
I shook it and nodded. “Ms. Williams. Lovely to meet you.”
She fell into step beside me, her low heels clacking on the tile floor. “You as well. I have a car waiting at the curb and at least five listings if you’re up for it.”
I sent her a smile, feeling like I was finally taking the steps necessary to realize my dreams. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine, Ms. Williams.”
She wiggled her shoulders when she laughed. “I already knew that when I saw your boots caked with mud, despite showing up on a private jet. Let’s find you your dream house, shall we?”
We took a quick detour to drop my bag off at the boutique hotel I’d booked for the weekend. The views just from the lobby were incredible. Lake Tahoe stretched out into the distance, the water a deeper blue than a sapphire. Dark green pine trees and gray rock jutted out along the rim, making for a picture-perfect postcard. My home state of Wyoming was beautiful too, but Lake Tahoe was something else entirely.
“Think you can find me something with this kind of view?” I asked the realtor who’d stepped to the side while I checked in. The key to my room went in my pocket and I gestured to the car waiting outside.
Her eyes twinkled. “Of course I can. Just depends on how far you’re willing to stretch that budget.”
I shook my head, but shot her a grin. “Isn’t that always the case?”
Her laugh tinkled through the lobby before I grabbed the door for her so she could step back outside. The driver she hired took us around to a few homes along the perimeter of the lake, sticking toward the north side like I’d requested. The first two homes were nice, but neither hit me as what I was looking for. I was a big believer in moving forward with things that felt right. If something felt off in my gut, I backed off.
“Okay, here’s home number three.” Ms. Williams unlocked the front door to a house right on the lake that had been completely remodeled two years prior.
The second I stepped inside, I knew this one would work for me. My phone buzzed, and I looked at the screen.
“Pardon me. I need to get this.” I answered, seeing Ms. Williams venture off into another part of the home while I sat on the staged couch in the sunken living room and looked out the floor-to-ceiling window.
“Yo, Rem. It’s Ruger. Dad just got a call from that new feed store saying we didn’t pay our invoice?” My brother’s voice came through the phone, along with the bleat of a heifer or two.
I frowned. I knew I’d paid that guy. “Let me pull up my invoice when I get back to the hotel. Tell Dad not to call him back. I’ll deal with it.”
Ruger cleared his throat. “I keep telling him that, but retirement doesn’t seem to sit well with that guy.”
I rubbed a hand over my eyes and tried for patience. “I’ve got it covered. You do what you have to do to keep Dad busy and away from his phone.”
“Roger that. Find a place yet?” His voice held an excitement, not only because he knew what this venture meant to me, but because if I got my way, that left him with what he wanted too.
“I think I might be sitting in it right now, but then you called about an invoice,” I grumbled.
Ruger laughed, the big booming kind he always did. Sounded a lot louder on the phone versus hearing it in the middle of thousands of acres of our land back in Wyoming.
“Ranch work is never done, you know that. Go get your house. I’ll hold down the fort here. Later.”
He hung up and I put the phone back in my pocket to glance out at the stunning view. Yeah, I could get used to looking at that. Ms. Williams walked into the living room, a knowing smile on her face. She probably only took me to the first two properties so I’d be properly prepared for this one to knock my socks off. The woman was smart.
“How about I show you the master bath with a thirty-six-jet shower? Or the office with mahogany built-ins?”
I quirked a smile. “Thirty-six jets, huh?”
Trading out my work boots for dress boots, I looked at myself in the mirror in my hotel room. The fancy button-down shirt felt odd when I was used to T-shirts or Henleys I didn’t mind getting dirty. The only thing I wouldn’t compromise on was the Levi’s. This pair was black rather than the faded blue I preferred, so I considered that compromise enough. The restaurant downstairs would either feed the Wyoming boy or I’d take my business down the street. Given how hungry I was, I hoped for the former.
I’d spent the last few hours ass deep in paperwork that had to be filled out to start the new foundation I’d been dreaming about for years. Unfortunately, I couldn’t put all my effort into it until I’d also solved the little problem about the family business, Roth River Ranch. Mom and Dad were leaving it to Ruger and me, and they expected us to make it our career. The only way we could forfeit running the damn thing was to get married. Mom was a sucker for true love and secretly hoped it would find her two headstrong sons. She said if either Ruger or I found our true love and wanted to walk away from the ranch, we could.
So I intended to find a wife all right. Maybe even tonight.
But true love could kiss my ass.
I’d lost track of time, but still had a half hour before my dinner reservation. The bar downstairs was loud and packed with people, the dim lighting just adding to my irritation. Thing was, it wasn’t in my best interests to head back upstairs for room service. I’d already decided that any of the ladies around my hometown of Glenrock would be completely unsuitable for my purposes. For many reasons, with the biggest being their mamas had conditioned them to break the glass ceiling by simply landing a rich ranch owner for a husband. I couldn’t stand the simpering women who gathered around like flies on horseshit. Plus, they wanted romance with flowers and dates and poems of professed love. I’d serenaded a calving Hereford a time or two, but couldn’t see myself doing that for a woman who was using me for money.
I just needed a willing woman to sign on the dotted line and I’d hand the ranch over to Ruger, who actually wanted to run the thing. Then we could go our separate ways.
A single chair at the bar opened up as I stepped past the hostess station. I sat my ass down faster than I fell off that bull I tried to ride as a dare in high school. That bad decision was the source of the one and only broken bone I’d ever had.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, already wiping down the bar and setting a drink menu card in front of me.
“How about a glass of Macallan, if you have it?”
What the hell, I was here to celebrate moving forward with my foundation. Might as well live a little, even if one glass cost more than all the beer I drank last month. The bartender didn’t even blink an eye. The amber-filled glass slid my direction, and he moved down the bar to take another order.
A gaggle of women in dresses that left absolutely nothing to the imagination moved behind me in a cloud of perfume that might choke a guy if he wasn’t careful. They peeled off into a glass-contained room in between the bar and the dark recess of the restaurant. The blonde, the one with a white sash across her chest, clapped her hands like the queen of England. If I squinted, I could see the sash read Bride To Be, despite looking ready to hook up with the first guy who looked at her twice.
Swiveling back to look at the mirror behind the bar, I took a first sip of the whiskey, savoring it. I would not be fishing from that pool. I didn’t need a wife that badly. Problem was, my list of women who wouldn’t work as my temporary wife was getting longer by the day.
By the time I’d drained the first glass and flicked a wrist at the bartender for the second, a warm body pressed against my right shoulder.
“Sorry, but all the chairs are taken,” a voice whispered in my ear, exasperated and more than a little bit fuzzy around the edges like this wasn’t her first trip to the bar.
I swiveled my head to gaze straight into light brown eyes framed by thick black eyebrows. My gaze trailed south to take in full lips tinted in a subtle pink that made my jeans feel tighter than normal. I wanted to look even further south, but called upon years of being a gentleman to keep my eyes above her neck. Her tongue darted out and wet her lower lip.
“You can squeeze in anytime,” I said under my breath, meaning every word.
She smiled at me and I couldn’t help but stare. The smile was genuine, not practiced or contrived like the ones I usually got from women. She broke our gaze and turned to the bartender, who was all too happy to rush over to take her order. With her back now to me, I took in the long, straight black hair, the bright pink dress, and the legs that went on for miles, ending in those shoes women wore that made a man envision something dirty.
Her thigh pressed against mine, the edge of her dress landing just below the swell of her ass. My fingers itched to reach out and touch that tan, smooth skin until my hand disappeared beneath her skirt.
Damn. I shifted uncomfortably, wishing for the well-worn Levi’s I’d taken off earlier. This woman was hot. Probably not at all the right girl for my fake-yet-real-wife plan, but something about her made me want to enjoy her, if only for tonight. She swiveled back to me as the bartender made her drink.
“Are you busy?” she asked suddenly.
I glanced down at my watch, seeing it was time for my dinner reservation. “Just heading into the restaurant for dinner. Why?”
She licked her lips again, and I couldn’t help but stare at the movement. “This is going to sound crazy, but would you mind if I joined you?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but she cut in. “See that blonde in there?” She tilted her head subtly to the private room where I’d seen the gaggle of women go. The blonde with the sash was standing at the head of the table, gesturing wildly as if telling a story while the rest of the table ate dinner. I nodded, holding back a grimace in case that was her friend.
“She bugs the ever-loving shit out of me,” the woman stated adamantly.
I grinned. “I bet I can guess why.”
The woman smiled at me, laying her hand on my leg. There was a single gold ring around her middle finger, sparkling with tiny diamonds all the way around. “Guess.”
I tilted my head and sucked in a deep breath, already having fun when I least expected it. “She looks high maintenance. She likes the sound of her own voice. And from the ring on her finger and the sash, I’d say she’s very vocal about how wonderful her fiancé is when he’s probably at a strip club right this second with another woman on his lap.”
The dark-haired woman beamed at me right before she grabbed my shirt and pulled me so close I saw the flecks of gold in her brown eyes.
“Have dinner with me?” she whispered just an inch away from my lips.