by Stuart, Amie
I frowned at the laptop, thinking that must have been one hell of a concussion. What in Heaven's name was I thinking?
I was thinking I wanted to write him.
I sighed and went in search of the website we'd been on last night. Many clicks and scrolls later I sat rereading the ad. Did these things even work? What made such a normal-sounding man place a personal ad? Pic available upon request.
All I could do was ask, right?
I couldn't believe I'd even consider it—answering a personal ad? Looking was one thing but replying to an ad was another. And if Jace found out...I shuddered. He'd never, ever let me live it down. I might not know a ton about relationships, but I knew I was a good judge of character, even over the internet, and there was something earnest and sincere about the ad that got to me.
I signed up for a free trial, then clicked on the appropriate buttons and typed a note as fast as my bad shoulder would let me, fully aware of time passing. Aware that any minute now Kane would show up with my lunch.
Dear ArtZee,
I've never answered a personal ad before, but yours caught my eye. It sounds like we both want the same thing, love and commitment. I'm short and athletic with black hair and blue eyes. I was born and raised in Montana, and grew up on a ranch.
And I'm a washed-up rodeo cowgirl. A cripple with a crooked nose. Maybe you saw my bone-crunching, replay-worthy wipeout on ESPN? This was stupider than letting Daddy train me to ride broncs, but he sounded sweet. After another fifteen minutes of teeth gnashing, I decided to fall back on my accounting degree—that I'd barely gotten and never used.
I'm 26, and currently live and work as an accountant in Vernal, Utah. I know that's a long way from Texas, but I'm willing to relocate if the circumstances are right. I look forward to hearing from you… Jessa
I scanned it again. Did people really meet this way? My email sounded kind of weak but it would have to do. He probably wouldn't write back anyway. Right? But just in case, I backspaced and replaced "Jessa" with "Hope"—my middle name—and added one last thing:
P. S. I'm also a virgin
The sound of boots in the hall caught my attention. With a trembling finger, I clicked 'send' and watched it hurl into cyberspace. There. A few more taps and I opened up an online game website.
Kane stepped in the doorway and shook the bag in his hand. "Hungry?"
I smiled up at him, praying he didn't notice how skittish I was. "I could eat a little something."
"I expect you to eat a lot of something."
I ate my rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes and a double order of broccoli like a good girl. John Kane was one of the few people who could get away with ordering me around or calling me by my full first name—Jessalyn—and live to tell about it.
From all accounts, he'd always been a loner on the circuit, and that weather-beaten face hid a heart of gold that few people took the time to see. Despite all the rumors about us, we'd never had that kind of relationship, but the ladies couldn't seem to get past his dark, wavy hair and intense green eyes. I'd realized long ago that John Kane wasn't interested in sharing—at least not his past.
He used to laughingly tell me he'd crawled out of a Louisiana swamp and onto the back of a horse. I'd quickly set aside my curiosity and been happy to have another friend. He fell someplace between a big brother and an uncle and we'd spent many a Thanksgiving and Christmas together at his place on the Texas coast, digging our feet in the sand, or in Vernal, sipping spiked eggnog and trimming the only scraggly tree we were able to find. He wasn't just my best friend but one of the few men on the circuit who treated me as an equal, and that had won him my undying loyalty.
"How was your therapy?"
"Fine. How was your New Year?"
He looked tired, too. Too much New Year's Eve revelry, I supposed. "Just another night to get drunk and stupid."
I snorted, thankful I hadn't put that forkful of broccoli in my mouth. "You're just saying that so I don't feel bad for being stuck here."
"Speaking of stuck, what do you have planned?"
My future again. "I don't know." I dropped my fork and swallowed the lump in my throat, my eyes suddenly hot. I didn't even know where to begin.
"Heard from your dad?"
"No."
Kane was the only one who knew just how badly Daddy had hurt me over the years.
"Want me to talk—"
"No! Don't you dare—promise me, Kane!" Daddy was a lost cause. He'd obviously washed his hands of me, so I'd do likewise.
"Jessalyn, it's not right, him leaving you here like this, and I don't like it—" he held up both hands in surrender, "—but I promise."
Chapter Two
Zack
Bluebonnet, Texas: Just after New Year's
With shaky hands, Zack Boudreaux clicked his browser shut and sat back with a low, fretful groan at the sound of boots on his front porch.
Today was the first time since he'd placed that damned personal ad that he'd had a chance to check in, and the sight of all those responses filling his inbox had initially put him in a panic. He'd barely worked through a quarter of them before his eldest brother breezed in on a late-afternoon gust, slamming the front door behind him.
Tim always did have lousy timing.
"Where's Rene?" He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in the pocket of his Carhartt work coat.
"In with Travis." Zack pointed a thumb toward the living room where his niece and son had spent the afternoon watching movies. This time of year, it was too cold and wet to do much else.
"I need to get her fed. I got a date tonight." He smiled and waggled his eyebrows.
"When don't you?"
Tim wheeled around, surprise clear on his face. "Well, ain't we feeling sassy today. Jealous?"
"Whoever she is, I doubt she's worth being jealous over," Zack shot back.
"Whatever, man." He rounded up his daughter and then headed home. Zack sighed as he turned back to the task at hand—his email. Tim might have been the poster child for tall, dark and handsome, but his taste in female companions left a lot to be desired. This round definitely went to Zack. Rare, but not unheard of.
His chuckle faded as he tried to make sense of the replies he'd received.
He blamed his bad mood on Marina's Christmas card. Travis's mother had included a photo of his new baby sister—bringing the total to two siblings—and enclosed a letter asking if he was dating and how Travis was. He'd hesitated to write her back because it seemed pointless and cruel. She loved their son but could never be a part of his life. Even so, Zack knew he'd eventually give in and write her back like he always did.
But it was her letter that had given him the idea of placing a personal ad. As if getting married and having more children hadn't crossed his mind, too. Searching close to home for a wife was out of the question. Boudreauxs in Bluebonnet were like Kennedys in Massachusetts, without all the money and scandal. The last local girl he'd dated, at his mother's less-than-subtle suggestion, had started hinting at moving in on date three. He didn't do bars because he worked in one part time and he didn't get to San Antonio that often.
Fifty-eight replies in four days from married women, tramps who promised to act like virgins, non-virgins who were indignant for a wide variety of reasons, and men. Zack chuckled thinking of the angry notes he'd gotten for even mentioning the "V" word. Feminists had demanded his head and more than one man had demanded his Man Card. He hadn't literally meant a virgin. Even he knew how crazy the idea sounded. And God help him if his mother ever found out he'd placed a personal ad—or anyone else for that matter. Maybe trying to find a nice girl on the internet had been a bad idea.
Or, at least, he'd thought it sounded crazy, he thought as he stared at yet another email. From a virgin no less.
A twenty-six-year-old virgin who lived in Utah. Utah?
Zack groaned again, running his hands through his hair. He had an hour to eat, get changed, drop Travis off and get to the bar. He stretched and re
ad Hope's reply again. She was willing to relocate and she was open to a long-term relationship. He'd just have to write her back later.
He shut down his laptop, then went to check on Travis. His four-year-old son lay sprawled on the living room floor, an oversized pillow between him and the rough wool of a Navaho rug. Thumb firmly seated in his mouth, he lay watching Space Jam—again. Zack chuckled quietly, hopeful and curious about the woman from Utah. Travis deserved more than a slightly-distracted father, busy uncles and a cranky grandmother. He deserved a mother and siblings. Real siblings that he could grow up with.
"Trav," he said softly.
Travis rolled over and grinned up at him, pale green eyes shining. He'd inherited so much of his mother, her eyes, her sable hair and olive skin. Zack didn't have time to be maudlin, though, they needed to get moving. "Dinner in five, young man. Go wash up."
"Yes, sir." Travis nodded, speaking around the thumb still firmly seated in his mouth.
Zack headed for the kitchen. From the smell of it, his tuna noodle casserole was ready.
***
"You're late, Oak," Rowdy hollered as Zack headed across the bar's empty dance floor.
"Yeah, yeah."
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night Rowdy, Zack and his brother, Ty, played at the Bluebonnet Dancehall. Zack enjoyed making music almost as much as art, but didn't care much for the late nights because of Trav. The worst part, though, was Thursday's open mike night.
Stepping up onto the minuscule stage, Zack quirked an eyebrow at Rowdy and set his guitar case on the piano bench. They were nearly the same age and had the same stocky build but Rowdy's extra height made him resemble an oak tree much more than Zack did. "I'll go home...if you want."
"Hell no," Ty piped up from behind his drums. "If we have to suffer, you do too!"
All three men laughed. They'd been playing at his aunt's dancehall on and off since high school. A year ago their female lead had gotten married and pregnant in quick succession and the band had been searching for her replacement ever since—thus the open mike nights. It seemed as if every woman from Waco to the Gulf coast, whoever thought she could give Reba McIntyre a run for her money, would sing. Or something like it. Zack and his bandmates considered it torture, and would have gone to private auditions long ago, but the audience loved it, so Aunt Susie insisted they keep it up.
"Let's get this over with," Rowdy sighed, strapping on his bass.
Aunt Susie bustled around behind the bar that covered most of the far end of the dancehall. Waitresses hustled around setting up barstools around the outside of the dance floor and lifting benches off the long picnic tables. Before the night ended someone would dance with the wrong someone and there'd be a fight—or three. With a sigh of his own, Zack tossed his coat aside and opened his guitar case.
The singers were worse than ever, and that said a lot. There was a redhead from San Antone who thought she could sing like Kelly Clarkson. She couldn't. Then there was Trixie Barnett, a local girl who likened herself to a young Faith Hill. She breathed just fine, it was her singing that fell short. Mandy Johnson did her very own rendition of Any Man of Mine. She hit all the notes, it was the extras she threw in that caused problems. As it was, the band had to contend with the usual boos and good-natured catcalls to go with their aching ears. When Zack announced their last break, the unruly crowd nearly raised the roof.
He skirted the dance floor and waded through the thick crowd to the bar, ready to sit, cool off and pour at least a gallon of water down his throat. With a nod, he accepted a glass from the bartender whose flirtatious smile made him squirm.
He spun around on the stool to face his aunt, who gave him a hard-eyed stare, as if to say, "Well?"
Dressed in jeans and a red pearl snap shirt, with her long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked closer to the bartender's age than her true age of somewhere the other side of forty.
He shook his head and said, "Is it me or are they worse than normal?"
"It isn't you. I've got severe hearing loss," Ty replied from his other side.
"So help me God, if I have to play one more Carrie Underwood song…" Rowdy finished with a look that made them all laugh.
"You think you've got it bad? I think my bouncers have broken up a record number of fights tonight."
"Must be the cold weather." Rowdy took a pull off his beer and eyed the crowd. "Everyone's restless from being stuck indoors."
"Well if it's gonna have this effect on the—" Zack paused to shudder "—singers, none of us are gonna last."
"Zack, sweetie, will you help me close up?"
He nodded but wasn't fooled by his aunt's sugary-sweet tone. He knew there was a lecture in his future.
Come 3:00 a.m. Zack found himself trapped in her office, helping her count cash and listening to her gentle, well-meant nagging.
"When are you going to settle down and give me some more nieces and nephews?"
"Oh look at the time," he replied, standing with a laugh.
"Now, now I was just standing here thinking what a good-looking, sweet thing you are and how you'd make some woman a fine husband."
"Do you ever say stuff like this to Tim?"
"Tim would not make some woman a fine husband," she replied with a snort of amusement. A swat on the arm and her 'get serious' brought him in line. Eyebrows raised, lips pursed, her Boudreaux-blue eyes fairly pinned him against the rickety office chair he sat in.
"Zack," Susie began again.
"Aunt Susie," he interrupted, flashing his dimples at her.
"Stop it! Now be serious. I want you to do something for me."
"Load the ice bins?" he asked hopefully.
"No, I made Tim do that earlier. His punishment for dancing with that Brenda Sue Moore." Susie shuddered, wordlessly conveying her feelings about the trashy young woman.
Zack snorted with laughter, "You did not!"
"Yes, I did. Now listen, I want you to reconsider going out with Beth Ann Murphy." Before he could protest, she held up her hands. "She's sweet, a hard worker and she's got two kids. All I'm asking is for one date."
He sighed, but before he could say another word, Susie spoke again, "Just…think about it."
He knew his aunt loved him and meant well, and she was right. Her head bartender was a very pretty, very nice woman, but he just wasn't interested.
***
With Travis staying at his grandparents' house overnight, Zack could sleep in, though he usually didn't. He'd much rather get up early and paint while it was quiet.
After a shower, he headed for the refrigerator and grabbed one last beer to wind down with. Cold bottle in hand, he came around the corner into the dining room where the computer sat. He should have used the other doorway and resisted the temptation that had hit him the minute he got home. He eyed his laptop, thinking of all those replies. It was late, and he needed to get some sleep, but ten minutes couldn't hurt. On that thought, he gave in to the urge and took the three steps necessary to reach his desk. He punched the power button, suddenly anxious to check his mail. The fan spun up and a logo appeared on the screen as he settled in the padded leather chair and stared out the now-dark window. A few clicks later, he'd logged into the personal ad site and pulled up the email from the woman in Utah.
He clicked on 'reply' and filled the email with as many questions as possible while giving away as little personal information as he could. Just in case she was a nut.
Another week of painting, wading through some of the crazy responses to his ad, and riding fence in cold, wet January rain went by before Hope finally wrote him back—and added a photo. He'd been really curious about the girl in Utah, despite the distance.
He read the email thoughtfully, wondering what kind of woman answered a personal ad. Not that he had much room to talk. He'd placed it.
She apologized for not writing sooner, saying she'd been busy playing catch-up after the holidays.
...Outside of ranching or farming there's not muc
h work to be had in a town of seven thousand. So I went looking for a change of scenery. I suppose Utah might seem like a funny place to spread your wings, huh? But the weather's better here, the scenery is gorgeous and I'm closer to my godchildren, Lizzie and Frank.
He chuckled into his cup. She was right. It was funny. But the fact that she'd chosen to live close to her godchildren said a lot about her and he liked that.
P.S. I'm the brunette
He scrolled, cautiously eager to see what she looked like. Then he leaned forward and stared, thankful he didn't have a mouthful of coffee.
She was gorgeous, stunning, beautiful.
A wide-eyed Hope stood beside a blonde, a large kitchen knife in hand and a brightly decorated cake in front of both of them. Judging from the balloons and streamers behind her it was a kid's birthday party.
Dressed in jeans and a plain t-shirt, she still managed to tickle his artist's fancy. She was petite with a tiny waist, full breasts and lush curves. Her long dark hair fell loosely over her shoulders to frame a face he itched to draw. Creamy golden skin and high cheekbones gave way to full lips and straight teeth. He smiled at her slightly crooked nose, thinking the gods had apparently decided something so stunning needed at least one minor flaw. Arched, dark eyebrows and thick lashes framed summer-blue eyes. Incredible eyes, a light, attention-grabbing shade of blue that'd be hard to forget.
But something wasn't quite right. Her eyes looked...sad. Briefly, he wondered if it were possible to look sad and laugh at the same time. He typed a quick reply and attached his own picture, clicking 'send' before he turned chicken and changed his mind. She was so far away…but she'd written.