King's Country (Oil Kings Book 4)

by Marie Johnston

  I twined my fingers through Bristol’s. Dad went out the front door and I faced my wife. “I guess we’re getting a honeymoon.”

  “I’ve never left Montana.” She squeezed my hand. We’d talked about getting away on short notice, but we’d been too impatient to marry and left it as a conversation for later. My family had our backs.

  I pulled her into my arms. “Are you doing okay?”

  She pressed her lips together, emotion heavy in her eyes. “I thought I was fine not knowing, but . . . I needed that. Your mom was a really special person.”

  I tugged her toward me. “It just so happens that I married a really special person today.”

  Faux surprise widened her eyes. “No way. Me too.”

  I pulled her in and pressed my lips to hers. “I love you, Bristol Cartwright King.”

  “I love you, Dawson King.” She brushed her lips along my jaw. “You’re pretty hot in a tux, did you know that?”

  I skimmed my hands down the back of her silky dress until I cupped her butt cheeks. I gathered the material of her skirt, hitching it higher and higher. “I want to peel this dress off you with my teeth, but first I’m going to take you against the counter in it. What do you think about that, my dear wife?”

  She tapped her chin. “Hmm. I think there’s no better way to put the King–Cartwright feud in the grave than fucking on the island in a wedding dress and a tux.”

  “Time to make it official.”

  Chapter 17

  Kate

  I parked outside of Creek Coffee. I’d messaged everyone for their order. Except for Aiden. He had the same drink everywhere. Coffee. With cream. He didn’t drink coffee often, but when he did, it was the same.

  Breezing in, I nodded at the table of older men who played cards most mornings at the coffee shop. Taya grinned from behind the counter.

  “Kate! Nice to see you. That time of year?”

  I laughed. “Sure is.”

  Grabbing coffee on the morning the guys worked cattle had become tradition. Dawson provided the early-morning brew, and I picked up the midmorning stash. It gave me an excuse to get out of the pens.

  I didn’t mind working cattle. It wasn’t like I did more than wave my arms to keep cattle from escaping the group and avoiding the corrals. An entire day of being with Aiden, except we didn’t get to really talk. An entire day of that dragged on.

  I enjoyed chatting with Kendall, Eva, Savvy, and now Bristol. But the coffee shop offered an escape. A way to feel like I contributed more to the family than waving my arms around.

  Regardless, coming to King’s Creek to hang out with the rest of the family during the spring and fall were my favorite times of the year. Aiden and I tried to drive together. An entire hour with my husband. Often he drove, which meant he wasn’t working. Almost as often, he fielded phone calls, but when he wasn’t immersed in business, I prattled on about work. He listened.

  For a woman who’d spent her youth and adult years listening to others, it was like someone yanked my plug out and nothing but rambling spewed out. The people I dealt with at work. Cool facts I’d looked up during my shifts for the patrons. Gushing over my coworkers’ vacation stories. I was a reference librarian. I had more interaction with patrons than my coworkers, and if any career could compete against the medical field for TMI, it’d be mine.

  “Yeah, I have some, um . . . discharge, coming from . . . Do you have books on STDs?”

  “Can you help me apply for a job? I got fired from the gas station last week because my boss thought I stole money from the till. They think I did it for drug money. But I’ve been clean since my husband caught me in bed with his brother, who’s also his cousin . . .”

  “I need to buy a plane ticket and the print’s so small, can you read it off for me? Here. Here’s my credit card. Just put that in.”

  So, it was nice to have someone listen to me for a change.

  Taya was ready at the register by the time I reached the counter. There was a younger girl behind her, making a smoothie for a drive-through customer.

  “Ready?” I asked, holding my phone with the list of everyone’s request. It was substantial, but I never called ahead. The coffee shop was my solace. It wasn’t that I was a city girl—the trailer park I’d grown up in could hardly count as urban sophistication. It was just that I accepted I wasn’t cowgirl material for more than a couple of hours. I wore the boots for practical reasons, and I’d used them enough that they made me look legit. But the jeans, the hoodies? They weren’t me.

  Or they were more me than I cared to admit. But I’d worked hard to blend into an environment that wasn’t crass and rambunctious and unrefined. I worked hard to remember where I’d come from and to keep from going back. And to convince myself that I didn’t miss it at all.

  I rattled off the orders, paid, and went to sit in the corner opposite the card players. The hazard of a job that was so quiet: I required more solitude during chaotic days. And working cattle with eleven other people was busy, sometimes boisterous, and just a lot.

  Scrolling through my phone, I enjoyed the sunshine streaming through the window. Taya skirted around the counter and sat at the table with me. She slid my mango smoothie over. “Giselle’s getting the rest of the order ready.”

  “No problem.” I pocketed my phone, enjoying one-on-one conversation with someone I didn’t see often but had become friendly with. “How’s it going?”

  “Things are well. Not exactly exciting, but that’s okay when it comes to business.” She crossed one long leg over the other. If only I had half Taya’s grace. But I’d need her graceful body to go with it. Not my padded, sturdy one. “Is everyone in town?”

  “Yes. There’s a big cattle sale and they’re sorting. Getting the rest into winter pastures.” I pressed my lips shut. Dawson’s business wasn’t trade information. I’d start rambling if I kept going. Most people’s eyes glazed over when I spoke too long about a subject. I’d learned the hard way to shut up well before I was ready.

  “I’m so glad things worked out between Dawson and Bristol. After that trust drama, I wasn’t sure.”

  “What trust drama?”

  Taya’s brows shot up. “You don’t know?”

  Apparently not. I switched to business mode. Sometimes I worked with individuals who were too proud to admit what they didn’t know, or were too ashamed to admit what they’d done. The opposite of TMI made my job harder. I couldn’t help them apply for jobs or fill out resumes if they weren’t forthcoming with all the information.

  I used the roundabout method. “You mean with Emilia?”

  Aiden had raced to King’s Creek with Beck last June. He hadn’t said more than Grams had collapsed. Then during the Fourth of July fair, Aiden hadn’t been sure plans were still on since Dawson and Bristol had briefly split up. But when I’d asked him why, he’d said he didn’t know the details.

  Taya knew something. What were the chances my husband had lied?

  I swallowed hard, willing Taya to talk.

  She did. “Yeah, it was shitty how she cornered Bristol and gloated about the trust Dawson’s mom had set up.”

  I knew about a trust that Aiden had received when he turned thirty. We’d been married a little over a year. He’d stuffed it away, said we were doing fine and didn’t need it, and I’d read between the lines. It wasn’t my business, and Aiden rarely discussed anything to do with his mom.

  “Right.” My mind sifted through ways to get more information. I took a long pull of my sweet smoothie while thinking, but Taya wasn’t done.

  “It also seems really weird that his mom would set up a trust like that. Maybe she was afraid her wild boys would never settle down and bribing them with money would do it. I don’t know if I’d make my kids be married for a year before I gave them the payout. But then I don’t have kids. Maybe it’d be different if I did. And I certainly don’t have a hundred million to pass out.”

  I choked on my drink. Sputtering, I grabbed for a napkin. “Sorry.
Swallowed wrong. How much did you say?”

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about stuff that’s not my business.”

  “No, it’s fine. The trust. Right. All the boys got one.” I didn’t know for certain. But Aiden had gotten one. Dawson, apparently. One hundred million? Was she serious? Split between the four brothers—that was a staggering amount of money. Why hadn’t Aiden told me? And what had Taya said about being married a year?

  “I can’t imagine that amount of money, just having four hundred million to split up.”

  I sucked on my straw. Long and hard.

  One hundred million. Apiece.

  Aiden and I were well off. Aiden had been well off when I’d married him. But I’d assumed he worked hard for every penny.

  We were legit millionaires?

  “But Bristol will do good things with that money. Her plans for Cartwright Cattle are admirable.”

  “Yeah. Totally.” The dude ranch. A sobriety ranch. Yep. Good things. My mind circled back to how much my husband hadn’t told me.

  “I’m so glad the rest of you married for love and not for the money though. I know it seemed suspicious at first, that they all married before they turned twenty-nine, but here everyone is, married over a year, and Dawson wanted his trust to go to Bristol.”

  The pieces clicked in my brain. Married for a year. Married before twenty-nine. The money going to Bristol. The drama with Emilia.

  Emilia Boyd wouldn’t want one cent to leave the family. They were all she had left without Sarah. But Sarah had—what, figured that if the boys didn’t want to marry and live happily ever after, that Bristol should be stinking rich? Or would the money have gone to Danny Cartwright? He’d only passed away seven months ago. That would’ve made it more urgent to marry before the deadline.

  Which was their twenty-ninth birthday.

  Aiden’s thirty-third birthday had just passed. We’d met for dinner and then he’d gone back to the office. How. Romantic. But that also meant we’d just celebrated our fourth anniversary. Because we’d married before he turned twenty-nine.

  Same with Beck. And Xander.

  Dawson hadn’t. Had he wanted his marriage with Bristol to mean more?

  What did that say about my marriage?

  My stomach twisted around the cold drink.

  “Everyone got happy endings.” Taya’s grin radiated happiness. Four couples. Together for love instead of money.

  Giselle appeared with two carriers full of drinks. “I’m all done. Want help carrying them to your car?”

  No. I wanted to run out of the coffee shop and find a corner to cry in. I wanted to track down my husband, pull him off the cattle shoot right onto his ass even if it did look chiseled from a perfect slab of marble, and demand answers.

  But I was married to Aiden King. A man who didn’t share more details with his wife than necessary. Not even critical details that affected our marriage.

  “Yeah, I’d love some help, thanks.” The foundation of my world had cracked and crumbled. But I could act like it was just another Saturday.

  Both Taya and her employee walked me to my car. I was parked out front and the card players would watch over the shop better than any security guard.

  Giselle rushed back in. Taya lingered. “Hey, I’m sorry if I was being nosy or gossipy.” She shrugged, her expression chagrined. “It’s not often I get some girl talk, and I end up saying too much.”

  “No. No, anytime.” Seriously. Otherwise I wouldn’t know anything. “Please, don’t beat yourself up. It’s all right. We all care about Bristol.”

  “She married into an awesome family. Hey, next time you’re in town, we need to meet up.”

  “Yes. Absolutely.” I pulled off a friendly smile when all I wanted to do was sob. How could I hang out with Taya? What would I say the next time I saw her? BTW, you totally tipped me off and destroyed the fantasy I’d built around my empty, lonely marriage. My marriage lacking information. My marriage based on a lie.

  Taya went inside and I got behind the wheel. I didn’t drive far. I pulled off into the empty parking lot of the school and stared out the windshield.

  I could go back and pretend nothing had happened. Sunday night, we’d drive home, and I could go back to the way it was. Only I wouldn’t be able to delude myself any longer. About how I waited for scraps of affection from my cold, distant husband. About how a seven-figure salary—and nine figures in the bank from the trust—wasn’t enough to make my husband slow down and spend time with me. I couldn’t return to lusting after him like I had as a teen when he’d first wrestled my brother.

  I’d been in ninth grade. Another introspective freshman had marched to the mat with that rolling gait all the hot wrestlers developed. Like they were stalking their prey, and if it was an opponent, they’d make him submit. But if it was a girl, they’d make her submit without moving a muscle.

  I was that girl.

  He’d looked over me that day. Through me. Most people had. A mousy girl who probably wore an expression that read the same as her shirt: I’d rather be reading. My hair had been down, nothing more than brushed, and my job had been to hover at the sides of the mat and toss down the towel when the time ran out.

  But I’d watched him. The coiled strength. The quiet power. He hadn’t boasted. He hadn’t gloated when he’d dominated my brother, a promising candidate for state champ. Aiden had evaluated him until it was time to wrestle. Then he’d methodically worn my brother down and won. When it was over, he’d shaken hands and walked away. No boasting. No arrogant grin. He’d done what he’d come to do.

  I hadn’t thought much of boys until that day. Before that wrestling tournament, I’d been a ninth-grade girl going on old spinster cat lady. But after that day? I’d catapulted through puberty and came out the other side with only him on my mind. Over a decade later, when he’d asked me out, I’d submitted without him moving a muscle.

  How did I move forward with this new information? I couldn’t ignore his behavior this time.

  Because I couldn’t be Kate King, librarian and overlooked wife of Aiden King, one minute longer.

  _____

  Aiden messed up his marriage. Will Kate give him a second chance at all the romance they’ve miss out on in King’s Queen?

  Thank you for reading. I’d love to know what you thought. Please consider leaving a review for King’s Country at the retailer the book was purchased from.

  For all the latest news, sneak peeks, quarterly short stories, and free material sign up for my newsletter.

  About the Author

  Marie Johnston writes paranormal and contemporary romance and has collected several awards in both genres. Before she was a writer, she was a microbiologist. Depending on the situation, she can be oddly unconcerned about germs or weirdly phobic. She’s also a licensed medical technician and has worked as a public health microbiologist and as a lab tech in hospital and clinic labs. Marie’s been a volunteer EMT, a college instructor, a security guard, a phlebotomist, a hotel clerk, and a coffee pourer in a bingo hall. All fodder for a writer!! She has four kids, an old cat, and a puppy that’s bigger than half her kids.

  mariejohnstonwriter.com

  Follow me:

  Also by Marie Johnston

  Oil Kings

  King’s Crown

  King’s Ransom

  King’s Treasure

  King’s Country

  King’s Queen

  Like hard-working men who are in control of everything but the one they fall for?

  The Walker Five:

  Conflict of Interest (Book 1)

  Mustang Summer (Book 2)

  Long Hard Fall (Book 3)

  Guilt Ridden (Book 4)

  Mail Order Farmer (Book 5)

 

 

 
this book with friends