Page 6 of Mail Order Bride

A curious pair of eyes peer at me from beneath pink silk and red hair.

“Hey, cowboy,” she whispers seductively.

“Are you alone?” I ask, scanning the room, searching her rosy flesh for any sign of deceit.

“’Course I’m alone,” she tells me as I brush past her, bolting the door behind me. “I was expecting you.”

Her first lie. It won’t be the last. “Good, I can’t stay long.”

She rubs up against me like an alley cat. Her ample chest spills out of her nightie, and she presses it against me gently. “When do you ever?”

“A guy named Ray is going to come by in about an hour. I need you to give him this.” I set the cooler on the floor.

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t think you want to know.”

I take a couple of bills from the man’s wallet and lay it on the nightstand. “For your trouble.”

Then I glance at the door and back at her.

“I don’t understand you, Cowboy.” She trails her fingertips down the front of my shirt. “Why are you always paying me to sleep with your friends, never you?”

“What can I say? I’m a good friend.”

Layla glances at the money on the nightstand. “The best.”

She takes a closer look at the money and rubs the tip of her finger across the corner of the bill. “Your generosity is more than enough compensation, considering that most of the men who visit me are usually ill-mannered creeps with disgusting habits.”

“Don't ever tell anyone I pay your room and board. Tell ‘em you earn it with your... talents,” I say.

Layla flashes a coy smile. “I like my privacy too, Cowboy. That's why I prefer to deal with men like you who want to pay me for being quiet.”

“Right.”

Her eyes wander over my sweaty T-shirt, dirty jeans and cowboy boots. I draw her in by tossing her a crooked grin and then glance out the window again as if to check for Ray. I only see speeding cars driving on the highway, but at least two buildings have views of this motel parking lot and anyone could be watching from those windows. “That guy… Marvin or something…”

“Merle.”

“Sure.” I sweep the curtains closed. “I don’t suppose he’s bothering you anymore.”

“Haven’t seen him,” she says, scrunching her nose. “He just up and disappeared. Like the last guy.”

“It’s probably for the best.”

She eyes me suspiciously, and then winks. “Probably.”

Chapter Four

Joel

Ifeel lighter without the extra pair of hands and feet weighing me down. Not to mention the teeth. Mother Nature takes pity on me, but by the time I reach the house, her patience has run out. I’m making a second trip from the truck to the barn when the rain begins falling in large pellets, shooting droplets that promise of more to come. The drops strike the earth hard and fast, leaving black craters in the dirt. Thunder cracks and rain slams into me like bullets from an M60 machine gun, turning my clothes into a soiled mess.

As I dart across the lawn, a gust of wind whips theAlmanacfrom the top of my pile and into the air. I almost let it go. I would have, had I not come out of the barn to find that it had blown back into the yard and had plastered itself against the old oak where I’d buried Red two days ago.

The ground there is still soft, and the tilled dirt quickly turns to mud. The cross I made has keeled over in the wind, not unlike Red herself, though she fought the good fight.

I walk over, fix the grave marker, and pick up theAlmanac, brushing it against my thigh to shake loose the dirt and the water.

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