The Wife: Book 2 in The Bride Series Read online

  The Wife

  S. Doyle

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Copyright © 2017 by S. Doyle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The Bride Series:

  Book 1: The Bride

  Book 3: The Lover

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  One

  Ellie

  Two weeks after the storm (aka the day Jake kissed me)

  So that happened.

  Oh. Wait. I should probably catch you up with everything. Well, you remember my dad died, I was underage, so Jake stepped up and married me. We agreed to the arrangement until my eighteenth birthday.

  Except a month before my eighteenth birthday, a major Arctic blast took out half my herd and two thirds of my calves. Oh, and Jake’s old house on the property he was going to buy back—as soon as we got divorced and I gave him the money my dad left him in the will.

  No house.

  No money to buy the land.

  Massively in trouble cattle ranch.

  What did all of that equal?

  No divorce.

  Which meant Jake and I were going to stay married. And you might think what was the problem with that? After all, we did it for sixteen months, no problem.

  Okay, one problem. About a year in I started to have… feelings. Yeah. Those feelings. I fought it. He mostly ignored it, but I could tell he was a little upset about it. He liked me. He didn’t want to hurt my feelings when he… you know… divorced my ass.

  So we pretended I didn’t feel anything, which was fine because the divorce was only a couple of months away. Then he would leave, I would get down to the business of running my ranch, and all those…feelings would fade away.

  Except now we weren’t getting divorced.

  Enter problem number two.

  Jake had kissed me. I had unhooked my karabiner from the safe line and lost my way in the storm. Thankfully, Jake had found me. But he’d been pissed.

  Super pissed.

  Angrier than I had ever seen him. And he’d kissed me. It was hot. It was—well, this is probably going to sound super profound… but the kiss was about life. Two people who had survived, and while the whole feeling thing was weird between us, there was no question we loved each other.

  We were Ellie and Jake. Jake and Ellie.

  Now there was this elephant in the room. Because while the kiss had happened under extreme circumstances which we might have been able to write off, him telling me he wanted to do it again…

  Leading to problem number three.

  We’re married. Jake didn’t want folks to think he would ever take advantage of an underage girl, because he wouldn’t. Except now I was very close to not being underage, and we had kissed.

  You’re thinking sex was the natural conclusion to that day?

  You would be wrong. Instead we’d rented equipment and pulled dead cows out of a pen all day, then buried them in a mass grave. Totally not sexy times. We’d fallen asleep after being dead on our feet and we didn’t talk about the kiss, his stunning confession, and his very real anger at himself for feeling that way.

  Anger that kind of, sort of, leaked out towards me.

  It was not fun times.

  Which gets us to now.

  Two weeks later.

  “I don’t think I understand what that means,” I told Mr. Connelly.

  Mr. Connelly was the Vice President at Heartland Bank. Heartland Bank held the note on Long Valley. I had done some research and had come up with a plan to free Jake. Jake didn’t think the plan would work. Still, he’d come with me to the bank.

  “You’re asking for a loan? Correct?”

  That’s what it means when you go to the bank and ask them for money. We were going to have to do this anyway. We had to buy more cows if we were going to restore the operation within the next few years. Since I was taking a major hit on what I was going to be able to sell at the end of summer, I was going to have to borrow the money anyway. Not a big deal. We had the land as collateral, and that was worth a lot.

  “Yes,” I said, like he was a little thick.

  “And you and Jake and have worked it out and decided to stay married? Correct?”

  I hated the way he said correct after every question. But I was digressing. This was part of the plan. I was just going to borrow more money than I needed. Jake and I worked out the numbers. The least amount we needed to borrow to buy the cows to replenish the herd. Then I added twenty thousand to that number.

  I would pay him his money and we could get divorced.

  Because FYI, being married to someone who didn’t want to be married to you… also not fun.

  Which meant we fought about it constantly, because I apparently was the only one looking for a way out.

  I’d told him he had a hero complex and that he should divorce me.

  He’d told me to shut up.

  I’d told him I was going to divorce him and he had no say in the matter.

  He’d told me to shut up.

  I’d told him about my bank plan, and he’d said it wouldn’t work. And now it seemed it wasn’t working.

  “Uh, does that matter?”

  Mr. Connelly laced his fingers together and gave me what would be my first, but not my last, what I would come to know as the banker smile.

  “Ellie, I knew your dad… well, just about my whole life. He was a good man and he ran a solid cattle ranch operation.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jake had warned me to be polite to Mr. Connelly. I hated that it felt like Jake already knew the outcome when I hadn’t even asked the question yet.

  “So you’ll forgive my… hesitancy in allowing you, a new rancher, to take on a loan of such size without knowing that you’ll have Jake’s experience working beside you.”

  Jake’s experience? Horseshit. Jake was only ten years older than I was. Then I realized Jake had something I didn’t have.

  A penis.

  I know. Because I saw it. Naked and everything.

  Not going to lie. I spent a lot of time thinking about Jake’s naked penis.

  “This is because I’m a woman,” I said.

  “Oh, here we go,” Jake muttered.

  “Ellie, no, absolutely not. We would never make any kind of decision based on the sex, race, or sexual orientation of a person applying for a loan.”

  That didn’t sound practiced at all.

  Mr. Connelly continued. “You have to understand we’re a small bank, and that storm was hard for a lot of folks around here. We have to make good decisions. Giving an eighteen-year-old person a significant amount of money on the hope that you can return the ranch to good standing on your own—well, that’s a risk we can’t take. If we knew two experienced persons were working toward that effort, we would be willing to consider a loan given the value you have in the land.”

  I leaned forward to make my point. “I don’t think you get it. He doesn’t want to be married to me.”

  “Ellie, shut up,” Jake interjected. “We’re fine, Mr. Connelly. We’re going to stay marrie
d for the time being. Until we can get Long Valley back to what it was. What happens now?”

  The banker smile was back. Now all of Mr. Connelly’s attention was focused on Jake. Even though it was my ranch and my loan.

  Mr. Connelly walked us through everything that would be required while I sat and basically seethed. Because little did Mr. Connelly know, I ran the money in our house. I would be pulling together all the documents required, filling out the application.

  We left the bank and I allowed my anger to explode as I punched the air.

  “That was bull! That was sexism. Ageism. All the isms.”

  “Get over it, Ellie. That’s how life works.”

  “So unfair.”

  “It is. But it’s done. We’ll get the money, we’ll get the operation back up and running. Today was a good day.”

  I looked at Jake and wanted to scream. We were trapped. Together. For the undefined future. Well, worst case was until I turned twenty-one. My mom had a life insurance policy that when she died my dad put into a trust for me. It wasn’t a ton of money, but enough to pay off Jake and the loan we just applied for.

  “Want to grab some lunch?” Jake asked me.

  Internally I sighed. Three years. It wasn’t that long of a time, but it was also forever. Because now we had the elephant living with us and it didn’t look like Jake had any intention of addressing it.

  “Sure,” I said.

  We made our way to the diner and took our normal booth. Kathy stopped by with smiles and coffee for both of us.

  “What do you think people are going to say?” I asked.

  “About what?” Jake said from behind his menu.

  “About us now that we’re staying married.”

  He shrugged.

  “We could make a statement,” I suggested.

  That got his attention.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Famous people do it all the time. You send out a statement saying what went down. That way there’s no speculation, it’s just out there.”

  “We’re not famous.”

  “We’re famous in Riverbend, Jake.”

  He leaned back in the booth. “Okay. I’ll humor you. What will this statement say?”

  “That because of the storm, circumstances require we continue our platonic marriage of convenience.”

  He laughed. “You want to tell people we’re not having sex.”

  “Yes. I know it’s one of the reasons you’ve been so mad…”

  “I haven’t been mad at you, Ellie.”

  “Well it feels like it, Jake.”

  That had him snapping his mouth closed.

  “Anyway,” I carried on, “I know it bothers you. That people might think that of you. Especially now that we’re going to stay married. If we tell everyone upfront, then it’s out there. As fact.”

  Jake leaned forward across the table. “Ellie we make a ‘statement’ that we’re not having sex and everyone is going to think we’ve been fucking our brains out. We say nothing, then at least it leaves it open for debate.”

  I was not going to think about how I felt after a statement like fucking our brains out. Nor was I thinking about what that might look like. With his naked penis.

  “What are you going to do for three years?”

  “About what?”

  “Sex, Jake. Sex. Are you going to be making more trips to Missoula?”

  “Ellie,” he said with a warning tone. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

  I held up my hands. “Sorry. You don’t get to pull that anymore. I’m going to be eighteen next week. You have needs. I get that. What about me? I have needs too, Jake!”

  It was very unfortunate timing on my part, as Kathy chose just that moment to come by to take our orders. Her expression was as awkward as I felt.

  “Like right now I need a tuna open-melt sandwich with American.” I smiled at Kathy.

  “Got it. Open T with Am. You, Jake?”

  “I’ll do the same.”

  “Yep. Be back in a few. Minutes. It should only take a few minutes,” Kathy said, basically letting us know her schedule so we could plan our sex conversation accordingly.

  Jake just gave me the look.

  “Okay,” I said. “Awkward. Fine. But that doesn’t change anything. We’ve mutually agreed we’re not going to satisfy those needs for each other, so I want to know how we’re going to do this. For three fucking years.”

  “You shouldn’t swear.”

  “Fuck you.”

  That made him smile. “Okay. You’re saying we need new rules. But do we have to do this now and here? At Frank’s?”

  “No,” I allowed. “I only wanted to put it out there that we can’t run away from the conversation. And the kid card no longer applies. Next week I’m an adult and I want to be treated that way.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine,” I returned. “Speaking of, what are you getting me for my birthday? We don’t have any money left, so you’re going to have to be creative. Like baking a cake would totally count this year.”

  “I’m not baking you a cake.”

  “I love cake.”

  “I’m not baking you a cake,” he repeated.

  “Because men don’t bake? Some of the world’s most famous pastry chefs are men.”

  “I don’t bake because I burn stuff.”

  “Well, you have to get me something. I am your wife.”

  Weird. I used to throw that line around all the time as a joke. Now it didn’t feel anywhere as funny.

  “I have an idea, but it’s a surprise.”

  I clapped. I loved surprises. I especially loved guessing what the surprise was going to be.

  “Just so long as it’s not practical,” I reminded him. Wire cutters for Christmas. What had he been thinking?

  “Yep.”

  Kathy came back with our tuna melts, and luckily we were back on to the basics of the ranch and the myriad of things that still needed to be done to clean up from the storm. There we sat. The two of us at Frank’s, where it was now officially concluded we would remain married for the next three years.

  Yep. Me and my husband (not really), Jake. In our booth at Frank’s.

  Two

  Jake

  April

  Here’s something that sucks. Once the attraction switch goes on, you can’t turn it off. The desire, the want, it’s always there. You can use your brain to control your dick, but you can’t stop your dick from wanting what it wants.

  In some ways, Janet had been right. I’d been pretty smug about the whole living with Ellie thing. I felt sure that as a good man—and I thought of myself as that, influenced more so by Ellie’s father than my own useless one—that I wouldn’t have any impure or lustful thoughts about a girl who was both young and vulnerable.

  And I didn’t.

  Until I did.

  Now, I can control my actions. I can tell myself not to think about her in that way. I can work myself until I’m so bone-weary tired every night that sex is the last thing on my mind. That had been working pretty well so far.

  Except tonight was Ellie’s eighteenth birthday. Her real present was still waiting for her at home—I faked her out with the no-present thing this morning and told her I was taking her out tonight instead as her gift. And it was a gift. Tonight was Under Twenty-One Night at the country line dance bar I had brought Janet to a year ago. And tonight I was here with Ellie.

  She and Chrissy were dressed up in their tightest jeans and cutest western shirts, shaking, kicking, and stomping their asses all over the place. Meanwhile I stoically stood in the corner, sipping on a beer and letting them have their fun.

  I watched her. She was beautiful. Graceful and smooth on the dance floor. With a smile so wide any guy would turn his head to see it. She’d suffered so much tragedy in her short life, but Ellie was filled with this bright light.

  It made her glow.

  But of course I could do nothing. And say nothing.
I had managed to avoid our needs talk, but now I was seeing maybe it had to happen. Maybe there needed to be rules.

  Because as I was standing here stoically in my corner, I watched as other guys her age asked her to dance. I watched as guys my age asked her to dance. I stayed in my corner. I didn’t say a thing—mostly because I knew who she was going home with tonight. But I burned inside.

  When the one guy’s hand moved down her back toward her ass. When the other guy had her pressed up against his chest as he moved her around the dance floor. When that last guy bent to say something in her ear and she tipped her head in a way that made me think he was going to kiss her neck.

  All of it was gut-wrenching. It sucked because I couldn’t control it.

  Nope. Once the switch was on, it stayed on. There was no going back.

  That kiss had changed things. That day had changed things, too.

  Now I was stuck in this marriage, platonic of my own choosing, lusting after my wife, who was dancing with other guys.

  I should ask Ellie where she would put that on the scale of one to ten of suckiness, because I was going with a solid nine.

  The last dance ended and the girls peeled away from the crowd. Ellie searched the bar for me, and it felt good when her eyes landed on me. Like it was important to her to know I had her back.

  She bounced over, tipped her cowgirl hat back on her head, and tried again.

  “Come dance with me.”

  “I don’t dance,” I replied. Just like I had every other time she asked.

  “I’ll show you the moves. It’s so easy, and you’re in a line of people so it’s not like you stand out or anything.”

  I turned to her friend. “Chrissy, what one particular thing do you know about me?”

  “You don’t dance,” she said, then giggled. It was a funny giggle. Like a drunk giggle, even though she was wearing the pink wrist band which announced her age.

  “I don’t dance,” I told Ellie, and then I watched as Chrissy swayed a bit on her feet.

  That wasn’t dance swaying. That was drunk swaying.

  “Shit.”

  “What?” Ellie asked.