Page 2 of Mountain Man's Mail Order Mix-Up
I was nearing the end of my patience, but whatever was happening here, I was pretty sure it wasn’t her fault. I just needed to get in touch with my groom and make sure he was going to pay for a place for me to stay, like he’d promised.
“It’ll be fine,” she said, staring at the screen.
Was she talking to me or herself? My stomach churned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You’re seriously making me nervous.”
“Okay, so…there’s been a little bit of a mix-up.”
She stepped away from the keyboard and looked directly at me. The smile hadn’t returned, but at least she wasn’t frowning anymore. She was breathing deeply, slowly. Trying to calm herself, maybe?
“It seems two women are matched to the same guy.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. She had to be mistaken. There was no way?—
“I’ve been talking to Reilly,” I said quickly. “He’s paying for my stay here, and we’re getting married Sunday. It’s all good.”
Her head started shaking slowly, subtle at first, then more aggressive. “No.”
“No to what?” I asked. “Staying here? Marrying him?”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “None of the grooms know they’re getting married. I fixed each one up with the perfect bride. And every weekend, one will arrive in town. Only this weekend, two brides are arriving, and I have no idea what to do with the extra one.”
This made no sense. “You’re saying Reilly has been talking to two women?”
“Reilly hasn’t been talking to anyone,” she said. “All the messages you exchanged came from me.”
I stared at her, uncomprehending. The sweet texts that came every morning. The photos. The compliments. They hadn’t come from him. They’d come from this woman.
“I left everything,” I whispered. “My job, my home, my friends, my family…”
I trailed off. I hadn’t given up all that much, actually. I’d lost my job right before signing up for the service. It wasn’t that I was looking for a sugar daddy. But I could no longer afford my tiny apartment or the ramen noodles I’d been surviving on long before the job loss.
Coming to a small town like this meant opportunity. I could find work. Maybe wait tables at the pancake place or clean rooms here at the inn. I could even help this woman—whatever it was she was doing.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “But it’s going to be okay. You got here first, so you get dibs.”
Dibs. On a man. Like he was the chocolate eclair in a box of a dozen donuts.
“Let me just…” the woman said.
She looked back at her monitor. Her nametag caught my eye. Bobbi.
“Yes, that’ll work,” she said. “I’ll just wiggle some things around and make everyone happy. Room 233. Your fiancé will be here at seven.”
My fiancé. Those two words echoed in my head as I wandered in circles, trying to find the elevator. There really should’ve been a sign with an arrow. I finally found it way down a hallway of rooms to the right.
My plan was to rest until my date, but five hours was a lot of time to kill, and I knew one thing that would calm me down. Even though it was just after two o’clock, a glass of wine was exactly what I needed right now.
There was just one problem with that idea. The likelihood of finding wine in the walkable area near the inn? Yeah, not likely at all. Even if the pancake restaurant was still open, the chances of finding wine there were slim to nothing.
Bobbi was nowhere in sight when I returned to the lobby. So I hiked my crossbody bag into place and pushed open the front door of the inn. And there it was, like it had been planted by the gods just for me.
The Soda Jerk,a sign read. It was posted on a building that had not an ounce of the charm of the one I’d just exited, which was odd, considering the pancake place next door was an identical match. I’d have guessed that old, rundown building had been there first, but the inn hardly looked brand new either.
I crossed the parking lot, stopped, looked both ways—nothing coming—and rushed across the street. There was a steep hill to my left, and I couldn’t see beyond it. If a vehicle came barreling over it, I wouldn’t see it until it was too late.
I stopped at the edge of the parking lot and stared at the scene in front of me. Only one vehicle in the parking lot, and that one was off to the side of the building. It was a gigantic pickup truck. I’d assume the restaurant was closed, but it was hard to miss the neon open sign in the front window.
