Page 34 of Mail Order Bride

“I have money.”

“I can see that.”

“I can get more.”

“Anything else?”

“Whatever you need, I can get it.”

My head tilts to the side, and I turn toward him. “Like what?”

He dabs at the sweat at his temple. “Women… girls… you name it.”

“I have a woman. But thank you.”

“Maybe,” he says. “But one is never enough.”

“I think I’ll take your word for it.”

“Never trust a pretty girl,” he says, though his tone is mellow and unadorned, which should have been a dead giveaway that things were taking a bad turn.

“You’re about to die, and this is the conversation you want to have?”

He shrugs. “Sure, why not?”

“Put a shirt on,” I tell him, glancing out the tattered curtains.

“Where are we going?”

“To the local bar.”

“Ha. Funny.” He actually laughs. “No, really, where are you taking me?”

“We’re going to get in my truck,” I say. “We’ll finish this conversation there.”

Robinette Mason is easy to get from the hotel room to my truck, which is generally a bad sign. It means he’s conserving his energy. Waiting for his shot. He’s also drunk, which sometimes helps and sometimes doesn’t.

“When it comes to women,” he says, staring out the window into the dark, his voice cold and hard. “Never trust ‘em. Especially not if they’re good looking.”

It’s almost sweet, the way he thinks we’re going to be friends. Except I know he’s up to something.

“I learned that lesson early, and it served me well ever since. One minute, you think it’s just sex, the next she’s got your balls in a salad shooter and your liver on toast.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, I found that out the hard way. The last woman I fell for really did me wrong, like no one I’ve ever known. She was obviously intelligent and looked like a million bucks, but she had the morals of an alley cat. Just thinking about it makes me want to kick myself, but the truth is, I never saw it coming.”

“Never?”

“Nope.” He glances over at me. “When I’d finally figured out what she was all about, she was already making moves on my next-door neighbor. Two weeks later, they were married, and I was eating a bullet to get away from her evil clutches.”

“Sounds rough.”

“Believe me, it was.”

We pull into the cemetery, and I put the truck in park. He keeps talking, “I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but sometimes ugly girls are the best lays because they appreciate you more than the pretty ones. You don’t have to keep your guard up with them. They know they’re unattractive, so they don’t fish for compliments or expect you to worship them like some kind of goddess. Meanwhile, an ugly girl will pull out all the stops, just so she can lie next to a real man for a second in her life.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”

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