The Sheriff's Mail-Order Bride (The Watson Brothers #2)(2)

“This is going to take some work just to clear out all of the stuff they left behind, to say nothing of the animals’ litter.”

“Not like there is much else to do besides work, is there? You could always bulldoze it down and start fresh. Be a shame though, there’s bound to be some history here and it’s not like you’re in a hurry or anything.”

Rory glanced back at Chance, his left eyebrow raised in question. He wasn’t quite ready to let on about the ad he’d placed in the paper looking for a wife. If Chance could go that route and find someone as nice as Callie, there was hope for Rory. Truth be told, it was the only reason he would contemplate doing something so stupid. It’d worked like magic for his big brother and his Aussie wife, it might just work for him too.

After ignoring the gentle hints from his work colleagues to sign up on a dating site, he’d chewed over the idea of following in his brother’s footsteps before finally biting the bullet. He was waiting to see if anyone else answered and then he’d make up his mind if he was going to go ahead with it. There was always the option to opt out if he got cold feet, but from the sound of her voice he was intrigued.

He’d watched how Callie and Chance fit together as husband and wife and the hole in his heart yearned to be filled with that kind of love and laughter again. Being faithful to his dead wife’s memory could only keep him warm for so long, and that time was quickly fading away. Rory wanted a flesh and blood wife in his bed, not a dream or a trip down memory lane.

From the time he’d met Callie, he’d been impressed with her go-forth attitude. Down on her luck after her parents were killed in a vehicle accident, she’d answered an advertisement Chance had placed in a magazine and travelled halfway around the world to marry a man she’d never met.

It worked for them, it could work for him too if he was half as lucky. He prayed he was because the time was right for change.

Chance nudged him and laughed. “Come on, don’t look at me like that. You know you can do this. Might get you out of the doldrums, too. Give you a new purpose in life. Then you could go about finding yourself a wife.”

*

Gina Taylor drove toward the small town in Marietta, desperately praying for her gas not to run out before she could get to the small cottage that was her only hope of a decent future. Her baby boy, Fisher, slept peacefully in his car seat in the back of the station wagon with bags containing their belongings piled up around him, chubby little hands gripped onto his battered toy dog.

It’d been a long arduous trip from San Francisco to where she was now, and one she didn’t want to make again anytime soon. They’d only stopped for toilet breaks and food along the drive just to stretch her legs and stop her dozing off. The eighteen-hour drive had been more than she’d bargained for, and Gina didn’t have the money for a hotel even if she’d wanted to stop. She wanted to get to her destination and see if she’d made the worst decision of her life or, by some slim chance, the very best. It’d been rash to take this man on his word but what choice did she have? Her savings had run dry. The part-time job had come to an end along with her ability to pay rent on the overpriced rooms in the tumbled-down shack she called home.

Her future had looked bleak until she picked up the day-old newspaper in the laundromat and scanned the pages while waiting for Fisher’s clothes to wash.

It was time for drastic measures and this would have to be the most outrageous thing she’d ever done. Even deciding to have Fisher and bring him up on her own hadn’t given her such a bad case of nerves as this trip had. Every mile she covered, Gina changed her mind. Did she do the right thing? Could this be the worst decision ever? Could she turn around and go back to nothing? She lifted her head as she heard movement from the backseat.

She glanced in the rear-vision mirror. Fisher made sucking noises with his lips, stirring, which meant he would need a diaper change and a drink, so another stop, hopefully the last, was on the cards.

They were just coming into the small town of Marietta, Montana, population 10,541. Plus the two of us, if things go to plan. She was almost at the address he’d given her. Another half an hour or so and they would come face to face with their future. It was too late to back out now even if she wanted to. Gina had made up her mind when she heard him speak over the phone after making initial contact through the mail, even after the grainy photo he sent made her heart buzz. He was very good looking and she wondered again why he would advertise for a wife rather than go on the usual dating scene.

There had to be more to this man than he shared in their conversation. The deep, rich sound of his voice lured her into another time and place. One where she felt safe and secure. As a child, she’d sit for hours listening to her father speak in his slow, deep Southern drawl. A voice that could easily lull her to sleep if she was fretting.

Her future husband possessed the same voice. How incredibly risky to take on a man by the sound of that alone. She didn’t know what her father would think of it if he could see her now. In all reality, if her father was alive, she wouldn’t be in this position. He would have taken her in as soon as he’d found out her loser boyfriend was dead and she was pregnant, alone, with no money. Truth be told, he would probably have insisted she move back home as soon as she found out she was pregnant because he would have cared for her, unlike the man who put her in this position.

Gina pulled the car over at the first safe spot she came to. A small park was set back from the road next to an elementary school and she indicated and pulled over. The small park boasted a playground and toilets and appeared to be empty apart from an old lady sitting on the bench feeding the flock of birds flapping around her feet. Gina stopped the car, got out, and opened the back door just as her baby blinked his big brown eyes wide. He smiled at her in the way that melted her heart.