Mail Order Bride

Chapter 16

            Now she didn’t know anymore. It was like she was stuck in one of her romance novels or one of the ones she’d read. But this, this seemed so real, not like a book.

            Real… Her life was seriously one-hundred percent, finally falling apart and it was like she was watching it all flash before her eyes.

            Oh God, now she was going to have to go back to New York. Oh, how she loathed New York and everything about it except Chrissie.

            Chrissie! How she missed her. Maybe moving back wouldn’t be so bad as long as she always had Chrissie with her. Her loyal best friend through thick and thin and through hell and high water Chrissie would always be there for her.

            “Anna?” Cassie asked hesitantly. “I’m sorry about what my brother did to you. I’m sorry about Leslie too, even though I can’t control her.”

            Anna finally looked up, and tried to stop wallowing in her own self-pity. She wiped her eyes free of tears, embarrassed that she’d been crying against a truck in the middle parking lot while it was still the middle of the afternoon.

            “It’s okay.” She croaked. “I think that I’ll be okay, maybe once my heart heals from the break going down the middle of it. Although, that may not happen for ten or twenty years.”

            “Oh, Anna I know it hurts really badly, this is what I went through with Clint.” Cassie helped Anna up from sitting position against the truck. “I can’t believe he did this to you. I’m so, so sorry.”

            With a quick flick of her hands against her jeans Anna removed all the dirt from her hands. “Cass, I really don’t want to think about this right now, or else I might crawl into a ball and start sobbing hysterically.

            Cassie looked taken aback, Anna didn’t want to talk about her lying, cheating, @sshole of a brother? “Okay, I guess…”

            Jess finally spoke. “Why don’t we all continue on to Cassie’s doctor and then after were finished there we can go and find Brent and attack him for being a lying, cheating freaking scumbag? Sound good?”

*****

            The sound of truck tires on a dirt road brought him out of his haze. Where Cass and Anna finally home? They’d been gone since God knows when and it was now almost four in the afternoon. What could have been so important that they’d had to make an impromptu trip into town for?

            He didn’t know. Brent had tried to understand the female brain, but unfortunately he was still completely rusty on the subject, and probably would be for the rest of his life. Females were a mystery to his male mind.

            After putting up Mav’s tack up Brent went outside of the barn to see if Cassie and Anna were home.

            Ah, Anna, Brent honestly couldn’t imagine a life without her anymore. She’d wrapped him around her finger, unknowingly and he found that he kind of liked it to be honest.

            When Brent stepped out of the barn, he did not expect to find what he did.

            Leslie Garrison, the woman that had made his life a living hell.

            “Hey, cowboy. I bet you missed me.” She smiled at him seductively.

            Brent probably looked like someone had punched him in the stomach, and he felt like it, too, but he managed to regain his composure rather quickly. “No, Leslie. I honestly can’t say that I have.”