A Good Move: An Arranged Marriage Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Untitled

  Untitled

  A Good Move

  Jillian

  Gavin

  Jillian

  Gavin

  Jillian

  Gavin

  Jillian

  Gavin

  Jillian

  Gavin

  Jillian

  Gavin

  Jillian

  Gavin

  Jillian

  Epilogue

  Thank you for Reading!

  Also by Rocklyn Ryder

  Excerpt

  Untitled

  About the Author

  A Good Move

  Arranged Marriage Romance

  Rocklyn Ryder

  Magpie Press

  Copyright © 2017 Rocklyn Ryder

  All rights reserved worldwide

  No part of this book may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without permission from the author. The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this book at the authorized online outlets.

  This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales, business establishments, or actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.

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  A Good Move

  Arranged Marriage Romance

  by

  Rocklyn Ryder

  Jillian

  My finger hovers over the "submit" button on the form just like it always does around 11 o'clock on Saturday night after the 3rd glass of wine and just like it always does, it moves to the top of the form and clicks the little x in the corner instead.

  The site closes and I'm left staring at an Instagram account full of pictures of what everyone else is doing on Saturday night.

  My parents are in Oregon, visiting my sister and her husband. Mom's posted 3 thousand pictures of my sister's kids in the last 24 hours, which is saying something since Mom and Dad only got there this morning.

  Brendan has posted about a dozen selfies from the club with any guy who will pose with him and Alli's posts show her doing pretty much the same thing at another club across town.

  That's what I get for having friends who are 5 years younger than me.

  When I scroll through till I find the most recent posts from people my own age, I remember why I need friends who are 5 years younger than me.

  I remember when Shawna got married. My drunken maid of honor speech was a triumphant war whoop about being the "last survivor" followed immediately by sticking my tongue down the best man's throat. Or maybe he stuck his tongue down my throat. I'm not quite sure now but I definitely remember him sticking something else down my throat right before the sprinkler system went off on the hotel lawn at 4 in the morning.

  Now not only is everyone married, but they all have kids.

  I see a photo that Shawna's tagged in and it feels like my heart just got run over by a garbage truck. I recognize the handsome daddy in this picture, smiling at the baby girl in his lap like he's looking at an angel.

  Shit, even Trevor's best man has a baby now. I think ruefully as I flick over to the account of the woman who tagged my friend and scroll through a dozen photos of the guy I had that drunken tryst with the night of Shawna and Trevor's wedding.

  Bryan. I have to read through the names in the comments before I remember his name. Either that's how drunk I was at the wedding, or that's how important Bryan was too me.

  I smile at the thought; a little of column A and a little of column B, I suppose. Back then, we were just two happily single people celebrating the open bar.

  Looks like Bryan got over his vow to remain single for life. He looks really happy in these pictures.

  Which leaves me here on my own with my glass of wine and my finger hovering over the submit button again on Raven Swann's application form.

  I filled the application out months ago, after spending a particularly bad night alone after Lisa's sitter fell through. That was the night I sat at home in my girl's night out jeans and my best casual-but-still-have-great-cleavage shirt and wandered the Internet in search of Prince Charming.

  Turns out, there are tons of matchmaking services out there. Most of them turned out to be just glorified-- and very expensive-- dating sites, but a few of them are pretty serious about marrying people off.

  Raven Swann's site was the one that hooked me. All those testimonials and pictures of happy couples and families that happened because of this Raven chick. That, and Raven's in depth explanation of her process that assured me that I wasn't about to sign a lifelong contract to marry just anyone sight unseen, or volunteer myself into sex slavery for a South American drug lord.

  The online application is just a bunch of questions. It doesn't even require a deposit. There's zero commitment involved with hitting submit so the fact that I haven't gone through with it seems like it might be a sign.

  I mean really, the woman is a marriage broker. She legit finds people who are compatible and sets them up with the explicit purpose of saying "I do."

  If I can't even turn in the free, no risk, no obligation application, maybe I'm not ready for a husband?

  Then I look back at pictures of Bryan holding his daughter in one arm with his other wrapped around his wife and something inside me snaps.

  I could be out at the club with Alli, picking up a random guy for a one night stand or drinking myself into oblivion with Brendan in Westwood, but I'm not. I'm not because for the last year I'd rather be home before midnight, watching old movies in my pajamas than getting drunk and stupid with strangers in a bar.

  Flipping back to Shawna's Instagram and looking at the pictures of her trip to the beach with the little ones earlier today and then flipping back and looking at all Mom's posts of my niece and nephews in Oregon I finally close the app and am left staring at Raven's application again.

  The thing is, I wouldn't rather be home before midnight, drinking wine in my pajamas while I hang off the edge of my bed with African Queen on in the background.

  I want to be in bed with my sexy hubby, after the kids have been tucked in for the night. I want to post pictures of my family's trips to the beach or the zoo. I want my parents to come visit me and spoil my kids rotten while me and my sexy hubby sneak off for a night of adult time in a nice hotel with really good room service and a private Jacuzzi.

  Every time I find myself staring at the submit button, I tell myself I don't need to hire someone to find me a husband. I don't need to pay for dates, I can get a man on my own. So why haven't I?

  Because I'm stubborn, and I'm picky. Every man I've dated in the last year and a half has failed to live up to my expectations from date 1 and I don't give them a chance to change my mind once I've written them off.

  I want a man who looks at me like my sister's husband looks at her. Like Trevor looks at Shawna and like Bryan was looking at his wife in those pictures I saw a minute ago.

  I want the fairy tale and I'm not willing to settle for anything less.

  Maybe if I hit submit on this form and hire a professional matchmaker, I can save myself a lot of misery and the time that's starting to feel like I'm running out of and skip straight to the happy ending.

  Draining the last of my wine probably a
little too fast, I set the glass on the nightstand and stare at the website that's open on my phone with new determination.

  Happy ending here I come, I grin as my finger mashes down on the submit button.

  Gavin

  I thought the guys would give me shit if they thought for a second that I was serious. I wasn't even gonna bring up the fact that I'd already narrowed down my options for who to hire, it's hard enough talking serious to the guys about shit like love and kids without getting into how any of us are planning on acquiring those things.

  Usually, anything beyond what's been hit and what you'd like to hit is too damn deep for the band of assholes I call friends and in a town this size that kind of talk doesn't make for long conversations.

  That's probably why the guys end up waxing philosophic more often than not. There's a limit to how much shit we can shoot before we either talk about serious stuff or call it a night.

  With all of us single as fuck in a town without options, no one's in a hurry to get back home before 10 so it's no surprise the 4 of us end up finding more to say on any one subject than the average bachelor herd of country boys.

  The fact that all of us are looking at the big three oh in the rear view now probably has something to do with it too. Never been in my 30s before, so I couldn't tell ya if men typically start taking things more serious around now or not.

  I'm pretty relieved to find out I'm not the only one that's been putting some real thought into where the hell I'm supposed to find a woman to warm my bed and carry on my name.

  "Mail order bride, 'nuff said," Lyle lines up a shot that goes bad and he adds a string of curse words to his otherwise matter of fact suggestion as he drops the cue on the floor like it bit him on the way to his beer.

  "Nah," Derek says as he takes his turn at the pool table, "you never know what you're getting with those mail order outfits."

  "True," my brother, Abe, mutters from where he's taking his job of keeping the barn wall upright a might too serious, "look at poor Emerson."

  The rest of us all mutter our acknowledgments. We all know the guy, lives in the next county over, could ride a bull like a pro but never managed to be much of a hit with the ladies. He's the only guy any of us have ever heard of in the real here and now that found a bride online.

  She's a cute little Filipino gal that makes some mean egg rolls-- calls 'em something else none of us can remember but they're tasty as fuck-- and she's sweet as sugar but it took her a long time to come around to Emerson's way of living out here.

  "Yeah, they got off to a rough start alright," I laugh as I take a swig of my Bud, "but I don't think she was an actual mail order deal."

  Abe knocks me over the head with his cue, "'Rough start,'" he mimics, "that's puttin' it mild."

  "Yeah, if that's a rough start, I'd hate to see a downright bad one." Derek shakes his head with a grin.

  "Didn't he end up sleepin' in the back of his truck for a couple of weeks?" Abe tries to get the story straight.

  "Yeah," I remind him, "she was sure she'd been trafficked into slavery because she ended up on a farm in the middle of nowhere."

  "Riiight," Lyle says, picking his cue off the floor where he dropped it, "she was sure every man in the states was a rich bastard and she was coming here to wear designer clothes and get mani pedis every day or something."

  "Yeah," I chime in, "she was none too impressed with Emerson's wheat fields and being expected to wash dishes after supper."

  "Didn't she end up calling the cops or some shit?" Abe asks.

  "Think so," Derek agrees.

  "Yeah she did," I shove Derek out of the way and take my shot, "there was a huge hubbub and Emerson camped in his truck because he didn't want anyone to know what a mess things were."

  "Ended up working out though," Derek's voice is softly reverent-- and a might slurred.

  "If you can call being married to Emerson 'working out,'" Lyle huffs and we all have a good laugh at the guy's expense.

  "Yeah well," Derek says, his voice going low and more serious than any of us would have patience with if we were sober, "he's married. They're happy now, got their second little one on the way. He's not in some stank barn loft shooting pool at midnight with a bunch of guys who smell like manure, he's in bed next to a woman that looks at him like he hung the fucking stars now. I'd say he's got one on any of us."

  Lyle hides a grim frown with a long pull of his beer and my brother clears his throat.

  "So when is Amazon gonna be deliverin' your girl, then?" I joke at Derek, hoping to lighten the mood up.

  "Go ahead and joke," he almost smiles at me, "but you know as well as I do how hard it is to find a woman who wants to live this life. Most of the local girls hop on a bus straight to LA or New York the day they turn 18."

  "And the ones that don't haul ass out of town right away get married the day they turn 18," Abe points out solemnly, "Face it, little brother, we," he lifts the bottle in his hand and gestures around the room, "fucked up by doing dumb ass shit like leaving high school sweethearts behind and runnin' off to college."

  It's supposed to be a joke, one of those good-natured digs between brothers but it cuts a little deeper tonight and instead of laughing it off I give him a dark scowl, "Tammy and I were never going anywhere together," I tell the room, "she's better off and so am I."

  No one argues. They all know it's true. It's just that my high school girl is the only one that stuck around town. Abe never really was one to settle with one girl for long and now he's paying for it. Lyle and Derek both had solid girl friends in high school but they headed for bigger cities before their graduation caps hit the ground.

  Derek went to LA with his girl friend. Got a job and an apartment that cost more than a month's wages back home, working his ass off in some warehouse night job while his girl went to school in the day and partied at night.

  Can't say any of us were much surprised when Derek's old truck showed back up down at the diner with a sack full of his shit on the bench seat where Patty used to sit.

  "Just sayin is all, man," Derek stumbles and catches himself against the edge of the pool table, "the only way any of us dumbfucks are getting hitched is if we order from the outside."

  "Or leave."

  Abe's words border on sacrilege for all of us and the silence that falls over us is an uncomfortable one.

  Every last one of us was born and raised here. Abe and I are the 9th generation to farm our family's land and Derek and Lyle are every bit a part of their own family farms as the Elders' clan. Leaving isn't an option for any of us.

  Abe and I are the only ones in danger of being the last generation to farm our land, however. Derek and Lyle both have nieces and nephews that will grow up to inherit on their ends. Abe and I are the only kids in the family, for us it's not just matter of keeping our beds warm, we'd both like someone to leave this dirt to someday.

  With me turning 32 in a couple of weeks and Abe already on the other side of 35, we both might be feeling a tad under pressure.

  I'm tired of heading into the city on the weekends, sitting in some bar all night wasting money and time in hopes of meeting the right girl.

  I don't know what my brother's plan is but I'm damn glad to hear the guys talking about mail order brides like it's not the dumbest idea on the planet, because I've already applied with a top notch marriage broker-- and she needs me to provide her with a couple of people to help her pick out a wife for me. And, much as I hate to come clean with this sorry lot of jerks I call friends, these are the guys I trust to do right by me.

  Jillian

  “So, we just wait for her to send us a bunch of profiles and then we pick the hottest guy?"

  Alli sits on the bar stool at my breakfast counter and swivels back and forth with a perplexed look on her face.

  "No," Lisa says, her focus still on Raven's email, "It's not that easy, it says we have to interview each candidate."

  "And there's an exhaustive list of criteria that needs to b
e addressed in the interviews," Shawna says as she bounces 8 month old Dillon on her knee, "It could take months."

  "And remember," Lisa warns Alli, "this is going to be her husband, not some fling."

  "Yeah," Shawna eyes the younger woman with equal scrutiny, "happily ever after, till death do they part-- we have to think about more than just how hot he is--"

  "Or how good a lay he is. I get it!" Alli sounds like she's had about enough of my other two besties' scolding and I'm starting to wonder if it was a good idea to make them work together.

  Thing is, these 3 girls are the people who know me best. If I'm going to trust anyone to choose a husband for me, it's them, and not 2 out of three wins-- I need all three of them in on this together.

  Lisa is my best of besties, we've been together since grade school. She's going to pay attention to all those little details that other people would never think of, like whether or not he'll think sharing a toothbrush is acceptable or if he'll respect a closed bathroom door. She also knows my family, so she'll be looking for someone who fits in-- or, at least, can tolerate the people I'm related to.

  Shawna and I have been friends since college. She only knows the adult(ish) Jilly. She's going to find me someone who's compatible with me intellectually, and is financially stable and is likely to share the same plans for the future.

  But Alli! She's my single and loving it, 24 year old, last semester in college, party like a rockstar, YOLO, girl.

  Where Leese and Shawn are my age, they've both been married for a few years now. They have kids and mortgages and retirement accounts. They are going to take this very seriously and make solid decisions for me, but since I brought them together to explain Raven's process, they've both uttered the words, "sex isn't everything."

  Alli has my back there. She's going to make sure they find me a guy who knows how to rock my world.