Chapter One
Storm
There’s a rumor of a ghost in Courage County. They say he walks the streets at midnight dressed in flannel with a long, unkempt beard. They say he’s the spirit of a farmer who died twenty years ago. I didn’t die back then, but I mind as well have.
I haven’t haunted these streets in the daylight for over two decades. I stick to the shadows, and everyone is happier that way. They see me and there’s only a reminder of the terrible accident. The one everyone blames me for.
Still, I’m not completely alone. At least, not tonight. Ernie and his wife, Lorna are waiting for me on the bridge. The moment I’m close enough, Ernie is throwing his arms around me in a big, bear hug. He and his wife run the diner in town. It’s the best hamburger place in all of North Carolina.
“Lord have mercy, he looks like he hasn’t eaten in days!” She exclaims, shooing her husband away so she can embrace me next.
Five years ago and I barely knew these people. But one midnight walk, I talked their teenage son out of ending everything. I still don’t know how I managed to say the right thing.
Ever since then, I walk this path and they’re here. Always with food and stories and gossip. Never asking me why I’m not among the townspeople. Then again, Ernie and Lorna are long timers. They probably remember the accident. Or at least, the mayor’s version of that story.
“How’s Jeremy?” I sit on the edge of the guard rail. A few more inches forward and I’d fall into the water. Not that it’d be likely to hurt me. Everyone knows this little creek isn’t all that deep.
“He’s doing good. His grades are up. He’s still training hard,” she says as she takes a seat next to me. After that night, I made sure Jeremy received the help he needed. He’s on antidepressants and sees a counselor regularly. He earned a scholarship to his dream college and there are rumors that he’ll be a top draft pick the moment he’s eligible. The thought that he might have missed out on all of this makes something in my chest squeeze tight. I can’t help but wonder what Allie missed out on.
Ernie sits on my other side and passes me a foam carton that’s piled high with my favorites—fried ham, biscuits and gravy, and a generous cinnamon roll.
“You’re spoiling me,” I say as I accept the fork he passes my way. He’d feed me for a lifetime if I’d let him. Hell, I’d never have to cook again if I so much as said the word. Like me, Ernie doesn’t talk much. But he’s expressed his gratitude for what I did a hundred times over in his quiet way.
Lorna launches into a rundown of the latest town gossip. I nod along, listening to the stories about people I used to know. I’m sure my foster brother, River wondered how I knew last week that the curvy woman he was in love with had applied to be a mail order bride. Once I told him about her plans, he marched her right down to the courthouse and married her.
“Oh, and Mayor Banks just had his first grandchild, a beautiful baby girl. He’s retiring to Florida at the end of his term to be closer to her,” she announces.
It’s not the mayor’s first grandchild, but he and I are the only ones left that know it. Too many secrets in this damn town, and it feels like they’re all suffocating me sometimes.
Ernie sends his wife a reproachful glare before quickly changing the topic. “I hear you ran off another bride.”
My grandfather passed away earlier this year. I barely knew the man, thanks to my self-imposed exile. Like me and my foster brothers expected, he left us the Scott Ranch. The only problem is he stuck a damn condition on our inheritance. If we want to claim the land, we each have to marry. The one that doesn’t marry can’t keep his parcel, and we want to keep the place whole. As kids that came from the foster system, it’s important to all of us to preserve our home.
Grandpa even went so far as to sign us up with a mail order bride service. All I had to do was fill out a questionnaire and wait to be matched with my “soulmate”. Two of my “soulmates” have met me already. But I reckon I don’t make that good of a first impression because I haven’t made it down the aisle yet. Not that I care too much.
Yeah, I need a bride. But I don’t see the point in rushing it. I figure if I get married at the last possible minute, I’ll still get to claim my land and I’ll manage to avoid the wedding drama.
“I didn’t run her off,” I counter Ernie. Sure, the woman called me a grumpy cowboy after our first meeting. But no one ever accused me of being cuddly or warm. I pointed this out to Laney, my sister-in-law and the woman in charge of finding me a mail order bride. She didn’t seem all that impressed. “Besides, Laney already found me another woman. She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”
It’s another meeting I’m not looking forward to. This one is coming to my cabin because according to Laney, it’ll help with my tendency to make a bad first impression.
“You deserve a sweet girl,” Lorna pats my knee.
I’m not so sure I deserve anything good, but I’m not about to spill my guts to her. I trust that she’d keep my secrets. Still, after twenty years, what’s the point of talking? I close the foam box, having finished the food. “Reckon I’ll be around.”
“You come to us if you need marriage advice,” Ernie instructs as he takes the box. He and Lorna have had three happy decades of marriage. They’ve raised children and run a successful business. They’ve weathered many storms together and I don’t doubt for a second that there’s a lot they could tell me. But I don’t plan on being married too long anyway.
***
Vanessa
I shift in my seat as the correct exit appears on the interstate. Even once we’re on it, there’s still a little over two hours of travel time. But with every mile, I’m getting closer to my cowboy husband. The one I didn’t want.
“Don’t be nervous,” Gloria tells me, attributing my restlessness to anxiety. She’s been with me my whole life. Ever since my parents realized the treatments for my port wine stain wouldn’t cure it. That’s when they sent me away to live in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere Ohio. There I was to be forgotten, the Preston daughter that never existed.
“I’m not.” It’s a lie and we both know it. But who wouldn’t be nervous in my situation? I’m traveling over five hundred miles to meet a man that I’ve never seen and he’s going to become my husband.
Gloria sighs deeply. “Remember that this is the best of bad options.”
My billionaire father has plans to ship me off to a convent overseas. He’s already set everything in motion and convinced the nuns that I have the emotional and intellectual intelligence of a child. After all, he can’t risk the fact that his eighteen-year-old daughter wants to break out of her gilded cage. Not when he’s about to start the biggest campaign of his political career. Michael Preston for president.
It’s frustrating that even though I’m an adult, he’s still controlling my life. A marriage was the only way that Gloria could think to get me out. I wanted to disappear and start over somewhere new, but she said it wouldn’t be that easy. She started listing all of the documents that we would have to forge and how time-consuming it would be. It was time that we both know I don’t have.
“The best of bad options isn’t exactly a comforting way to start a marriage,” I tell her, barely tempering the anger in my voice.
“Marriages have been started on far less,” she reassures me. “Besides, you might like him. Just remember the most important part.”
My cheeks heat. “I know.”
She continues on as if I haven’t spoken, “You have to consummate this marriage immediately. It’s important that it’s legal and can’t be annulled.”
We both know that my father is going to come after me. He’ll try to force me overseas where I can finally be forgotten. But if I’m married, the whole thing will become a legal mess for him. He’ll be more interested in keeping a lid on the fact that he has a daughter that he’s kept out of the limelight than shipping me off. At this point, I think he’s worried that I’ll talk to the media and ruin his run for the presidency.
“Maybe he’ll be nice,” I muse to myself as I think of my husband. I wonder what he likes to do in his spare time. I wonder if we’ll have anything in common at all. I was given a profile on the man, but I didn’t bother to read it. I need this marriage too much to afford to be picky. Besides, it doesn’t matter. I’m just trading one cage for another.
“There will be time for that later,” Gloria says as if she’s reading my thoughts. She’s been like a mother to me over the years. She might be my father’s employee and the one in charge of my care, but she’s never acted like I was some job she was paid to do. She’s shown me more affection and attention than my own parents ever have.
She’s not supposed to be helping me. But even though she’s never said it, I can tell that she doesn’t think it’s right that I was locked away and forced to be the secret shame of the Preston dynasty.
Absently, I touch the port wine stain that covers almost fifty percent of my face. It’s a deep purple hue and bumpy to the touch. If I’d had the opportunity to go to a private school, I probably would have been bullied over it. At least, that’s what happens to a lot of kids that look like me. I suppose that’s one good thing about being trapped in that cottage for my whole life.
Continued treatments can lighten it in some cases, but after my parents realized that there was no way to cure the seizures or erase the birthmark, they washed their hands of me. I was left to grow up alone with only Gloria for company.
“Do you think I’ll like living on a ranch?” I ask, more to distract myself than anything. Part of me wants to go back to my little bitty cottage. Part of me wants to rebel against my father and tell the world who I am. But if I do that, then what?
He’ll cut me off from any family money and it’s not like I have a job or skills. Other than Gloria, I barely talk to anyone.
The only thing that gives me peace is the knowledge that she read over his profile. She insisted on it, scanning the information to see if he was “one of them funny types”, which was her way of saying a pervert. Whatever she saw must have contented her because she nodded after seeing it and said this match would be a good thing for me.
She pulls off into the grass, in front of a sign welcoming me to Courage County. I’ll walk the rest of the way there. Neither of us want to attract attention in the flashy car. The longer that my dad doesn’t realize I’m missing, the more of a head start I’ll have.
“Anywhere has gotta be better than the convent,” she reminds me. We both know if I go there, I’m not likely to get out. As it is, I’m surprised my father allowed me to stay in that cottage in the woods for as long as he did.
I square my shoulders. “Pass me the map.”
Gloria and I have charted out the path to the Scott Ranch on an old paper map. While it would have been easier to find the way to my cowboy husband with a GPS unit, those can be tracked. Neither of us were willing to risk it.
Before she hands it over, she gives me a tight hug. “You call when you’re safe.”
Tears prick my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Like Gloria said, this marriage will be a good thing for me. It has to be. It’s my only hope.