Authors: Fiona Knightingale
Lilly was determined to get herself out of the village and out of her life as she knew it. She had no intentions of her future turning out like her mother’s, and her vision would only start to become true if she made it happen herself.
For their dinner, Lilly relit the fire under the stove in the center of the room and put on the large metal pot. She heated up the leftover vegetable soup from the night before and tossed in some extra potatoes and rice to bulk out the vegetables and broth. She tasted it and sprinkled in some fresh grated ginger to perk it up a little. She actually considered herself quite the cook. She was no gourmet chef by any stretch, but she thought that it took a certain talent to make the same meal every night and keep it interesting and appetizing.
In addition to being the creative cook of the family, one of Lilly’s other skills was painting. Her mother shook her head whenever Lilly started messing around with her art, but as long as she paid for the materials herself, no one was going to stop her. Lilly had sold a piece here and there to tourists, and was eager to sell more. It seemed only fair that if she paid or found all of the materials on her own, then she should be allowed to keep any profits they yielded. She was stuck in the cycle of needing to sell more to afford any materials to paint more in order to have more to sell. One of the shopkeepers in the city had made her a different kind of offer, but Lilly never returned to that particular shop, vowing that certain things were not for sell, regardless of how badly she wanted her new life.
After months of scrimping and saving, Lilly finally hitched a ride into the city, and paid a visit to the matchmaker who promised her a better life and a house without dirt as a floor.
After the millionth time that Greyson had heard Ms. March prod him about settling down, he finally threw up his hands, huffed his disapproval, and stormed into his study, nearly slamming the door in Daisy’s little black nose. As only a forty-year-old ex-special forces billionaire can, he threw himself into the office chair in a tantrum. Daisy rested her chin on his knee and blinked quietly up at him. He rested his large hand on her back and shook his head.
“Why does everyone think I need a wife? What’s wrong with just being single and having my fun?”
She whimpered softly.
“I know Daisy, I know. I have you; I have Ms. March; and I have the club when I need it. What could a wife offer that would be better?”
Daisy shook her head to make her ears flap and he grinned down at her, “I agree. Nothing.”
He clicked on his laptop to scan through the junk email that flooded his personal inbox. Most of them were easily deleted since he did not find himself in need of male stimulus pills or home repair or a new mortgage on his house. But one headline caught his eye in a new way.
Are you ready to fill that empty bed of yours?
What an odd headline,
he thought
, and a little too on the nose
. Reluctantly, he clicked on the email with one eye on the door and the other down at Daisy.
“What am I doing?” he asked the poor pup.
All she did was paw at his foot in response, and nose at his hand for more petting.
His eyes carefully read through the email text, apparently it was a matchmaker service specializing in the old-fashioned mail order brides.
Now there’s a thought. Maybe I could actually benefit from that sort of thing. I can tell them what they need to know, even meet them in person if necessary to prove I’m a real guy and some kind of normal, but they don’t need to know about my financial status other than the fact that I am comfortable and financial secure.
He looked down at Daisy and spoke out loud to her. “What the hell am I thinking? A matchmaker?”
She nipped at his fingers for an answer.
“Hey now, young lady!” He withdrew his hand and playfully swatted her rear end.
He gritted his teeth, exhaled sharply, and clicked through the email to the website.
No harm in filling out the form, right?
He thought to himself. He laughed at the mental image of Ms. March’s face when he tells her that although he has not dated anyone in at least a year, he was going to be married.
It seemed to ask all of the normal questions -- height, weight, eye color, hair color, gender, orientation, ethnicity, likes and dislikes, dog person or cat person, and the ever popular, paragraph introduction about yourself plus a picture.
He did not want to use his professional headshot nor did he want to use anything from his military days. He clicked through his hard drive and found a great one of him standing beside his favorite horse with Daisy lying at his feet. He did not consider himself to be a traditionally handsome man, but women seemed to fawn over him, so he could not have been that bad to look at.
The paragraph about him was the most difficult part, he had to word it carefully so that there were no outright lies but so that he did not reveal too much about himself. He read and reread the paragraph until he was pleased, and clicked send.
He shook his head down at Daisy and got up from the desk to pour himself a double Scotch.
“I don’t have to do anything else if it turns out to be a scam.”
Daisy turned away from him in rejection or disgust, he could not tell which one.
Over the next few weeks, he found himself checking his personal email much more frequently; curious about any sort of results he might receive. A few came in, but they all looked to be vacuous and inept Barbie dolls which he had no real time for. Sure, they were fun when he went to his private club for an evening, but that was as far as he would ever take one of them. If he was going to settle down, he wanted someone of substance, someone real like he considered himself to be, and someone who could provide conversation on the porch as well as fun in the bedroom.
The caption of one particular woman stood out.
Comfortable with a paintbrush or a whisk and ready for the next chapter
Sounds promising
, he thought. And he liked the fact that it was focused on what she liked to do and what she was looking for rather than her skills between the sheets. He clicked through the woman’s profile ad and found himself captivated by the face that looked back at him. Her skin was the color of coffee with cream and her sundress was not expensive, almost looked handmade, but was well suited to her full curvy figure. He never figured himself interested in women of color, but he could not look away from the woman’s flashing green eyes or her full lips. His hand moved automatically to click the button to send her a message and his fingers typed out a message that his brain was barely aware of.
Lilly stared at the computer screen in front of her in disbelief. It was still hard for her to believe she had been corresponding with this man for several months, and he actually seemed like a nice gentleman. She had not mentioned anything to her mother, for fear of too many questions and too few answers. Not to mention, she was unsure how her mother would react to her daughter talking to some white man from the States.
The conversations had been going well she thought, and he was not a bad looking man from his pictures. It had to be a good sign that he seemed to love the outdoors and his animals. He was noticeably older than she was, but he still looked young enough. She had not been brave enough to approach the topic of finances, but she supposed if he was corresponding with her, then he had to be better off than she was right now.
A mail order bride? Is that really what I’m considering becoming?
Her thoughts raced as she clicked open the latest email. She was glad no one was around her in this little Internet café place, since she ended up staring at the screen with her jaw hanging open.
He was ready to meet her, and wanted to send her the plane ticket. She had barely ever been in a car, let alone some airplane to places unknown.
Guess the time has come to tell Mama about all of this craziness
, she thought to herself.
She’s going to be so upset with me. But I have to decide for my own life, right?
She tapped out a quick email reply, asking for a little time to decide and politely requesting a phone call before making her decision. She knew that she could receive calls there at the Internet café if they designated a certain time. She had always deemed herself a good judge of character, and while the emails had been nice, a phone call could tell her quite a bit about this gentleman.
Greyson smiled to himself at her tentative and polite request. It showed a bit of cautiousness, which he appreciated. He would have been more worried about someone who just jumped all over the chance without thinking it through.
He still was not sure if he was making the right call, so to speak. He had always proceeded with a certain amount of caution himself. Certainly he had taken risks in his life, but they had always been calculated risks. He thought it might be time to tell Ms. March about their impending houseguest and the fact that the guest could be permanent. That seemed the riskiest part of the whole venture.
Lilly wrung her hands in her lap as her mother strode around the main room of the house. She had known that her mother was not going to be happy, but she was not asking permission, merely telling her about the situation. After their heated and awkward conversation, she packed up her few belongings, bid her mother goodbye, and headed back to the city to await her phone call and her place ticket.
Greyson smiled patiently as Ms. March chided and scolded him for a scheme such as this.
“This is
not
what I had in mind when I told you to find a wife Mr. Clark. I had no idea you would go and do such a fool thing as find one on that Internet in there. You have no idea who she is or what her family is.”
“That’s the point Ms. March. She doesn’t know me and I don’t know her. I can almost guaran-damn-tee that she won’t be after my money. I’m sure she thinks I’m some hapless loser who just can’t get a date.”
“Mr. Clark, I never. This is the most fool thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“Ms. March, I wasn’t asking your permission, simply letting you know.”
Much to his amusement, she stormed out of the living room as angry as a scorned wife.
Greyson placed the call as arranged, and waited for the click on the other end.
“Hello?” The island lilt in her voice sounded like music from one simple word.
“Lilly?”
“Yes. Greyson?”
“Hello there.”
His voice sounded rich and deep and soothing. She found herself smiling at the sound as it tickled in her ear.
“So you just wanted to hear my voice before agreeing to anything?”
“Yes sir. I just thought it would make sense. I’ve led a sheltered life, Greyson, so I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“I can understand. I haven’t led a sheltered life by any stretch, but I can understand the fear of the unknown. Like I’ve said, I’ve never been married before, so we are headed into uncharted waters for both of us.”
If her voice sounded like music, her laugh was a symphony.
“So does that mean you accept the offer of the plane ticket?”
She took a deep breath, and whispered “Yes” into the phone.
“Very well then. I’ll overnight it to you, and will see you in a couple of days.”
“Thank you, I will see you soon.”
Greyson met Lilly’s plane a few days later. He knew her instantly -- the full curves of her figure, the sparkling green eyes, and the threadbare sundress with a well-worn backpack over one shoulder. She had a quiet grace and pride about her that muted her meager background.
She knew him as well. He had told her he was a large man, but she had never encountered someone who so fully owned a space like Greyson did. He was well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, bulging arms, deep brown eyes, and a smooth scalp. And he looked like the type of man that owned any room he entered.
“Shall we wait for your luggage?” he asked politely.
“No sir, this is it.” She gestured to the backpack.
“Ah, I see. Very well then. I think we should stop for some dinner before we head out to the ranch.”
“Ranch, sir?”
“Yes, I live almost one hundred miles outside of town so it will take a little while to get there.”
“My whole island isn’t that big,” she laughed.
“Wait ‘til you see the property then.”
He did not want to scare her with what was going to certainly be a culture shock. His home may have technically been a ranch house on a cattle ranch, but it was far from a log cabin on a piece of dirt.
“Do you like dogs?” he asked as they strolled out of the airport into the Arizona afternoon sun.
“Of course, I always wished I could have kept some of the strays that lived around our neighborhood.”
The valet drove up in the shiny black Jeep and she blinked deliberately. Greyson was instantly glad he had not come in any of his high-end luxury vehicles or the poor girl might have passed out.