Romance: Luther's Property (44 page)

By: Evelyn Stone

Montana Bound,
A Mail Order Bride Western Historical Romance

© Evelyn Stone, 2015 – All rights reserved

Published by Steamy Reads4U

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
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publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles
or reviews.

This is a work of fiction.
 
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either
the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
 
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, or actual events are purely coincidental.
 
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

This book may not be resold or given away to other
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If you are reading this book and did not
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Thank you
for respecting the author’s work.

Warning

This book contains graphic content intended for readers 18+
years old.

If you are under 18 years old, or are not comfortable with
adult content, please close this book now.

‘May I refill that for you?’

Leila eyes the man who stood in front of her and coolly
shook her head. Like all the men who approached her in parties, he was married
and worse, had a pouch that strained against his shirt. Leila hated nothing
more than excess body fat and the man had plenty of it. His eyes met her cold
grey ones and he fled.

She sighed and returned her attention to the lawn outside,
the floodlights making it appear as a green sea. She felt melancholy as she
nearly always did these days. Her friends and everyone around assumed it was
caused by the death of Horace. They had only been married for two years when he
died in a car crash.

As usual, he was driving too fast and with too much alcohol
in his system. He did not see the sharp corner that loomed ahead and he crashed
right into a tree. He died instantly. It had been a year now and Leila thought
she would go mad with what her life had become. If the stud farm had not been
sold off to cover Horace’s debts, she would be fine, happy even.

She missed her beloved horses. She missed life on the farm,
waking up at the crack of dawn to exercise the horses, showing potential buyers
around and best of all, riding her mare at breathtaking speed over the grassy
plains. Now, her life had become what she had always despised. A lady of
leisure, with money at her disposal to ensure a comfortable life.

The only good thing that Horace ever did for her was
ensuring that she would never lack. Unlike Horace to plan so far into the
future, he had provided a trust fund to ensure that his wife would never lack.
But something told Leila that he had done so to protect himself. He had
gambling debts from every casino in California.

Still, she was grateful that despite losing her home and
husband, she had managed to buy a small bungalow on Whitmore Street and that
she could afford to keep up with the latest fashions. Except that she had zero
interest in all of that. Leila felt as though she was living someone else’s
life.

She was a farm girl at heart and was happiest keeping busy
tending to ranch business. She stifled a giggle when she remembered Horace’s
horror when he had found her mucking out the horse stalls, her feet covered in
muddy boots.

‘What the devil are you doing?’ he had said.

She had smiled sweetly in reply. In disgust, he had turned
and stormed off and in that moment Leila had realized how incompatible she and
Horace were. He was a spoilt child, left with too many toys by his parents, in
the form of the stud farm and plenty of cash. Horace had worked through all
that and by the time of his death and amassed a lot of debt in the process.

Leila was so immersed in her thoughts that she did not hear
anyone approaching her until she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned in a
mixture of irritation and resignation. She was in a party after all and people
were bound to speak to her.

‘Sorry, did I disturb you?’ her friend Susan teased.

Leila smiled with relief. She was in no mood to make small
talk with another married man whose sole interest was getting into her
knickers.

‘I know I’m not the life of the party, forgive me,’ Leila
said.

‘I should be the one apologizing for insisting you come, but
I don’t feel sorry. You spend too much time at the animal shelter as it is,’
Susan said.

Leila contemplated her friend, taller than her by almost a
foot so that she had to look up when speaking to Susan. Her hair was held in a
simple ponytail, with strands of her brown hair falling over her face. Leila
swallowed hard as her eyes scanned further down to the protrusion that was
Susan’s belly. She and her husband James were expecting their first child in
less than two months.

‘How’s the baby doing in there?’ Leila asked.

Susan groaned. ‘It’s like a warzone inside my tummy, who
would think that such a tiny thing had so much strength. With the kicks he
unleashes, he ought to be in a boxing ring.’

Leila laughed. Susan, who had been her friend for almost
five years, heard the catch in her friend’s voice. She touched Leila’s hand.

‘It’ll happen to you too,’ she said gently.

‘Only if I do something about it,’ Leila said. ‘I can’t
stand these married men looking for a fling. I want permanence, my own man.’

‘Did you meet Alan Boyd? He’s a bachelor.’

‘A playboy. He reminds me too much of Horace with his talk
of racing cars and other immature pursuits.’ Leila said with a shudder.

Susan laughed, her tummy shaking along with her shoulders.

‘Does that mean that you’re still determined to go with that
mail order bride thing?’

Leila nodded. ‘I am though I haven’t found someone yet.’

‘I don’t know Leila, you’re young and beautiful and if your
patient, you’ll find someone. Mail order bride is such an outdated thing.’

‘It maybe but it worked back in the day and I’m sure it will
work now. Besides, both of us will go into the relationship knowing what we
want. No games. Besides if it works out, that means that I’ll not be alone for
Christmas.’

‘You’re obsessed with the holidays. Loads of people are
alone, and they manage. Plus you have a running invitation here.’

Leila could just imagine spending the holidays with Susan
and her hubby. They were both wonderful people but she hated to be a third
wheel and their baby was due around that time and the last thing they needed
was a guest. Leila sighed.

‘Do you mind terribly if I run off?’ Leila asked.

‘Before dinner?’ Susan said aghast.

‘Yes, pretty please. I feel lousy and I’m not the greatest
company,’ Leila pleaded.

‘Just this once but I insist that you carry something to
eat. I’ll have cook pack something for you,’ Susan said.

Left alone, Leila’s thoughts strayed to Christmas. Theirs
had always been a magical day, with her waking up at the crack of dawn to raid
her stockings. The holidays were filled with good memories mixed with painful
ones. Barely a year into university, Leila had lost her parents in quick
succession.

Her mother had passed on first from kidney problems while
her father had lasted two months after that. Leila had known immediately that
her dad had died of a broken heart. He parents had loved each other with a
passion and devotion which Leila herself had hoped to find with Horace. It had
not taken her to know that she had made a terrible mistake. With the death of
her father, Leila had jumped into a relationship with Horace and was dazzled by
the night life and good times that he had offered.

Naively, she had thought that once they got married, they
would both settle down into growing their own family. Horace had continued
partying on as though he was a bachelor. Many nights, she slept alone, curled
up into a tight ball of loneliness. Not that when he was home they spoke much.
She had realized to late how little in common they had. The only thing that had
kept her going in those days was the thought of the children that they would
have.

She remembered the night that Horace had told her that he
had no intention of having children.

‘Please, just one,’ Leila had pleaded, tears rolling down
her cheeks at the thought of never holding her own child.

‘This is not up for discussion. Let’s just enjoy our lives.
You only live once you know.’

Days later he had finally admitted to her that he could not
sire children and the knowledge had broken her heart into pieces. He had
contracted mumps as a child and it had affected his fertility. She had thrown
herself into life on the ranch and just when she thought she had come to terms
with it, Horace had gone off and gotten himself killed.

This would be her second holiday since his death. Christmas
reminded her of just how alone she was. Leila had no intention of spending
another holiday alone, even if it took getting a husband through the mail order
agency.

Jack Farley scanned the profiles of available women on the
mail order bridal agency website with detachment. He had only one reason for
wanting a wife and that was to give him children. After Clarissa, he had no
wish for emotional entanglements with any woman. The thought of Clarissa filled
him with a dull ache.

Thankfully, his heart seemed to be healing now. When she
first left, tossing her red hair to the side, the pain had almost killed him.
He had vowed to never love a woman again. He turned back to the website. None
of the women on the first page caught his eye. Most of them looked like tarts
with too much make up on.

Why was he doing this, Jack asked himself with annoyance? It
had been his sister Helen’s idea. He had told her everything about Clarissa and
her advice had been to look for someone else as quickly as possible. The longer
he lingered, the more the pain remained. The online mail order bridal agency
had been her grand idea and thinking about it, Jack thought it made perfect
sense.

It would be like a business deal. He would tell her what he
wanted and she in turn would tell him her expectations. If they agreed, then
they could move to the next step. Perfect. No romantic nonsense and any of that
love business. He had no intention of laying his heart out to be hurt again.
This time
he
would be in charge.

He pressed a key for the next page and it was at the bottom
that he saw a picture which blew him away. Her name was Leila Wakefield and she
had smoking grey eyes framed by bushes of eyelashes. He felt a stirring in his
loins, which he dismissed as having not being with a woman for a long time.

He liked her pouty lips and oval face devoid of make-up
except for a little lipstick. She had shoulder length blond hair, which fell to
the sides of her face. Unfortunately, the picture went up to her waist and he
could only imagine the rest of her. She was as different to Clarissa as any
woman and he thought that might be what drew him to her.

His ex-girlfriend had a huge bosom, which he later came to
learn was as a result of the surgeon’s knife and she was short with fiery red
hair. His one condition of his future wife was that she would not be a red
head. Jack now believed the stereotype that they had fiery personalities to be
true.

He read her hobbies. She liked horse riding and reading.
With a dismissive click, Jack pressed ‘message me.’

Dear Leila,

My name is Jack Farley and I live in Lainley in Texas. I
rear horses and train horses for sale. I see that one of your hobbies is riding
horses. You’d like it here then.
 
My
ranch is in Lainley, just west of Odessa in Texas. If you’re interested , email
me and we can take it from there. I’m looking for a committed woman to settle
down with and have children with.

Sincerely,

Jack

He read over the message and satisfied he pressed
‘send’.
 
The message made no promises of
romance just a business deal between two people who could help each other. He
closed the website, deciding he had spent too much time on it. If this Leila
did not work out, he would give up on finding a wife through the agency.

Jack found the ranch’s interactive website and logged in. It
made it so much easier to check on the status of the ranch with a click. The
fifty rooms were eighty percent occupied and he felt happy with that. Not that
he needed the money, but Jack believed in being a success in everything that he
did.

The bulk of his money was from the family. His family,
several generations and counting had been the first to explore oil in Texas.
Their wealth had spread to the banking industry, health and it was as though
the Texan economy was dependent on the Farley’s. Jack’s own pet project was
Ranch J, his pride and joy.

He enjoyed working with horses and over the years his ranch
had built a reputation as the place to buy the finest horses. The restaurant
and the rooms had come by purely as an accident. Numerous people visiting the
ranch had asked about sleeping quarters and that’s how the expansion had come
about. Now Ranch J consisted of fifty en-suite king sized rooms and a
restaurant that could rival any five start establishment.

Jack though concentrated more on the horse rearing side of
the business and left professionals to run the hotel. Satisfied with the
figures from the ranch guesthouse records, Jack switched off his lap top,
stretched and left the house headed for the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of
coffee and carried it to the deck, off the living room.

The deck was the least furnished part of the house. It
contained a simple round table with four chairs. From where he sat, he could
see the stretch of a thousand or so miles that was the ranch property. Jack’s
house stood atop a hill, from where the view of the sunrise was stunning.
Orange light flooded the valley below, as though someone had lit an orange
torch and shone it directly over the land below.

His thoughts turned to Clarissa as they inevitably did when
he saw beauty, such as the sunrise. One thing that was in no doubt was that
Clarissa had been a beauty and she had known it too. She had flaunted it,
wearing short shorts that barely covered her pubes and strolled around the
horse stalls with no thought to the men whose mouths she left drawling.

Jack had tried to speak to her about her public displays but
she had laughingly teased him about being jealous. He was a possessive man and
preferred his business to remain his. If a woman was his, he didn’t mind if she
walked in the nude around the house, but once in the view of other people, he
liked his women to dress decently.

He could have lived with Clarissa’s indecency when it came
to dressing, as a matter of fact he had been forced too. Like most arguments they
had, she had won and had continued prancing around the ranch half clad. He had
gritted his teeth every time he saw her and she, the tease that she was,
exaggerated the sway of her walk and bent over unnecessarily in front of his
employees.

That was not her only vice. Clarissa spent money like it
grew on trees. Whenever she went off to town, Jack spent the day with water in
his belly. Then come afternoon, the packages would start to arrive, adorned
with designer logos. He had tried to explain to her the economics of wealth.
The only way to keep your wealth and preserve it for the next generation was to
use it prudently.

His advice had gone in through one ear and out the other and
she had continued to spend it like it was her last day on earth. Another thing
that grated his nerves was Clarissa’s attitude towards his parents. Their house
was on the other side of town and Jack had managed to keep Clarissa away from
them. She would pout whenever he went for dinner at his folks’ alone.

How could he explain to her that while her sexiness appealed
to him, it would not work with his parents? They were conservative and just
nice people. Had she been a more reasonable person, she would have learnt to
dress decently when it was required. As it was Clarissa was stubborn and she
flat out refused to dress down when the occasion called for it. Clarissa had
gone up there on her own, wearing one of her short shorts and spaghetti tops,
three quarter of her tits hanging out.

As his sister Helen had laughingly told him later, their
mother’s jaw had to be picked from the ground after Carissa left. What had
gotten to him was her quick dismissal of his parents as boring old farts. That
and her attitude towards money had left a bitter taste in her mouth. Helen had
told him in no uncertain terms that Clarissa was a gold digger.

The last straw had been Carissa’s announcement that she had
no intention of having children. Jack’s heart had turned to ice. A family was
important to him. He had told her so in a cold voice, which she had dismissed
with a wave.
Children interfered with
your fun, besides what was the point? Why spoil your life?
She had said
this while sidling up to him and giving him her sexiest smile. It did not work.
He shrugged her off. Children were the one thing that he was unwilling to
comprise on.

His parents had kept their counsel to themselves but he had
seen the look they exchanged when he told them that Clarissa was gone for good.
He had laid down the law. No more spending money. Defiant, she had stormed off
to their bedroom, packed all her things and left without a backward glance or
thought.

Being a proud man, Jack never called her or tried to get her
back. She did not contact him either. Sometimes he could almost imagine that he
had dreamt her up. The silence between them continued and he worked at healing
his wounded heart and pride. Helen had come to his rescue with the mail order
bride idea.