Alicia's Misfortune (5 page)

Jack Farley scanned the profiles of available women on the
mail order bridal agency website with detachment. He had only one reason for
wanting a wife and that was to give him children. After Clarissa, he had no
wish for emotional entanglements with any woman. The thought of Clarissa filled
him with a dull ache.

Thankfully, his heart seemed to be healing now. When she
first left, tossing her red hair to the side, the pain had almost killed him.
He had vowed to never love a woman again. He turned back to the website. None
of the women on the first page caught his eye. Most of them looked like tarts
with too much make up on.

Why was he doing this, Jack asked himself with annoyance? It
had been his sister Helen’s idea. He had told her everything about Clarissa and
her advice had been to look for someone else as quickly as possible. The longer
he lingered, the more the pain remained. The online mail order bridal agency
had been her grand idea and thinking about it, Jack thought it made perfect
sense.

It would be like a business deal. He would tell her what he
wanted and she in turn would tell him her expectations. If they agreed, then
they could move to the next step. Perfect. No romantic nonsense and any of that
love business. He had no intention of laying his heart out to be hurt again.
This time
he
would be in charge.

He pressed a key for the next page and it was at the bottom
that he saw a picture which blew him away. Her name was Leila Wakefield and she
had smoking grey eyes framed by bushes of eyelashes. He felt a stirring in his
loins, which he dismissed as having not being with a woman for a long time.

He liked her pouty lips and oval face devoid of make-up
except for a little lipstick. She had shoulder length blond hair, which fell to
the sides of her face. Unfortunately, the picture went up to her waist and he
could only imagine the rest of her. She was as different to Clarissa as any
woman and he thought that might be what drew him to her.

His ex-girlfriend had a huge bosom, which he later came to
learn was as a result of the surgeon’s knife and she was short with fiery red
hair. His one condition of his future wife was that she would not be a red
head. Jack now believed the stereotype that they had fiery personalities to be
true.

He read her hobbies. She liked horse riding and reading.
With a dismissive click, Jack pressed ‘message me.’

Dear Leila,

My name is Jack Farley and I live in Lainley in Texas. I
rear horses and train horses for sale. I see that one of your hobbies is riding
horses. You’d like it here then.
 
My
ranch is in Lainley, just west of Odessa in Texas. If you’re interested , email
me and we can take it from there. I’m looking for a committed woman to settle
down with and have children with.

Sincerely,

Jack

He read over the message and satisfied he pressed
‘send’.
 
The message made no promises of
romance just a business deal between two people who could help each other. He
closed the website, deciding he had spent too much time on it. If this Leila
did not work out, he would give up on finding a wife through the agency.

Jack found the ranch’s interactive website and logged in. It
made it so much easier to check on the status of the ranch with a click. The
fifty rooms were eighty percent occupied and he felt happy with that. Not that
he needed the money, but Jack believed in being a success in everything that he
did.

The bulk of his money was from the family. His family,
several generations and counting had been the first to explore oil in Texas.
Their wealth had spread to the banking industry, health and it was as though
the Texan economy was dependent on the Farley’s. Jack’s own pet project was
Ranch J, his pride and joy.

He enjoyed working with horses and over the years his ranch
had built a reputation as the place to buy the finest horses. The restaurant
and the rooms had come by purely as an accident. Numerous people visiting the
ranch had asked about sleeping quarters and that’s how the expansion had come
about. Now Ranch J consisted of fifty en-suite king sized rooms and a
restaurant that could rival any five start establishment.

Jack though concentrated more on the horse rearing side of
the business and left professionals to run the hotel. Satisfied with the
figures from the ranch guesthouse records, Jack switched off his lap top,
stretched and left the house headed for the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of
coffee and carried it to the deck, off the living room.

The deck was the least furnished part of the house. It
contained a simple round table with four chairs. From where he sat, he could
see the stretch of a thousand or so miles that was the ranch property. Jack’s
house stood atop a hill, from where the view of the sunrise was stunning.
Orange light flooded the valley below, as though someone had lit an orange
torch and shone it directly over the land below.

His thoughts turned to Clarissa as they inevitably did when
he saw beauty, such as the sunrise. One thing that was in no doubt was that
Clarissa had been a beauty and she had known it too. She had flaunted it,
wearing short shorts that barely covered her pubes and strolled around the
horse stalls with no thought to the men whose mouths she left drawling.

Jack had tried to speak to her about her public displays but
she had laughingly teased him about being jealous. He was a possessive man and
preferred his business to remain his. If a woman was his, he didn’t mind if she
walked in the nude around the house, but once in the view of other people, he
liked his women to dress decently.

He could have lived with Clarissa’s indecency when it came
to dressing, as a matter of fact he had been forced too. Like most arguments
they had, she had won and had continued prancing around the ranch half clad. He
had gritted his teeth every time he saw her and she, the tease that she was,
exaggerated the sway of her walk and bent over unnecessarily in front of his
employees.

That was not her only vice. Clarissa spent money like it
grew on trees. Whenever she went off to town, Jack spent the day with water in
his belly. Then come afternoon, the packages would start to arrive, adorned
with designer logos. He had tried to explain to her the economics of wealth.
The only way to keep your wealth and preserve it for the next generation was to
use it prudently.

His advice had gone in through one ear and out the other and
she had continued to spend it like it was her last day on earth. Another thing
that grated his nerves was Clarissa’s attitude towards his parents. Their house
was on the other side of town and Jack had managed to keep Clarissa away from
them. She would pout whenever he went for dinner at his folks’ alone.

How could he explain to her that while her sexiness appealed
to him, it would not work with his parents? They were conservative and just
nice people. Had she been a more reasonable person, she would have learnt to
dress decently when it was required. As it was Clarissa was stubborn and she
flat out refused to dress down when the occasion called for it. Clarissa had
gone up there on her own, wearing one of her short shorts and spaghetti tops,
three quarter of her tits hanging out.

As his sister Helen had laughingly told him later, their
mother’s jaw had to be picked from the ground after Carissa left. What had
gotten to him was her quick dismissal of his parents as boring old farts. That
and her attitude towards money had left a bitter taste in her mouth. Helen had
told him in no uncertain terms that Clarissa was a gold digger.

The last straw had been Carissa’s announcement that she had
no intention of having children. Jack’s heart had turned to ice. A family was
important to him. He had told her so in a cold voice, which she had dismissed
with a wave.
Children interfered with
your fun, besides what was the point? Why spoil your life?
She had said
this while sidling up to him and giving him her sexiest smile. It did not work.
He shrugged her off. Children were the one thing that he was unwilling to
comprise on.

His parents had kept their counsel to themselves but he had
seen the look they exchanged when he told them that Clarissa was gone for good.
He had laid down the law. No more spending money. Defiant, she had stormed off
to their bedroom, packed all her things and left without a backward glance or
thought.

Being a proud man, Jack never called her or tried to get her
back. She did not contact him either. Sometimes he could almost imagine that he
had dreamt her up. The silence between them continued and he worked at healing
his wounded heart and pride. Helen had come to his rescue with the mail order
bride idea.

The wording of the email was cold; almost as if it were a
business correspondence. Leila frowned. Her eyes moved to his profile picture.
He was ruggedly handsome and she liked his sky blue eyes and the hint of a
smile on his lips. His chest was wide and he wore a white casual shirt with the
top button undone.

To Leila’s shame, she felt her body react at the sight of
Jack Farley. She smiled to herself and decided to answer his email. She would
be just as business-like as he was, though she would have liked some hint of
romance.

Dear Jack,

Thank you for your email. I must say that this is my first
time to look for a partner online and after seeing your profile, I think it was
the right thing to do.

I too seek a permanent relationship and someone committed to
marriage and family. I must tell you from the beginning that I too love
children and I hope to have some in the near future. If you’re not sure about
children, please let me know, as this is something that’s very important to me.

Other than that, I consider myself a pretty simple person. I
admire that you live on a ranch, I did too, before I had to sell it to pay off
my late husband’s debts. I was married for only two years.

Let me stop there and hope to hear from you.

Sincerely Leila

Her fingers trembled slightly as she sent the email. Leila
hoped that she hadn’t blubbered on too much but she needed to let him know from
the start that she intended to have children. People told each other when they
were dating that they liked children only to turn around once married and say
they did not want kids. Leila knew it personally from her experience with
Horace.

Leila logged off and contemplated the rest of her day. It
was seven in the morning; she had cleaned up the house, showered and dressed.
This was what she detested about living in a condo. There was not much to do
with oneself. She resisted the temptation to check if he had replied to her
email.

Feeling restless, Leila decided to go to the animal shelter
where she volunteered her services earlier than usual. Leila hated to be idle
and being near and working with horses was a hundred times better than staying
home. She wore fitting jeans and the center’s official blue and grey t-shirt,
and at the door, she slipped on a pair of sneakers.

Rather than use the elevator, Leila opted for the stairs, taking
two at a time. Once downstairs, she headed for the parking lot and slid into
her two-seater. The California sun was already out; warm at this time of
morning, but in a few hours’ time, Leila knew that it would be unbearably hot.
That was the one thing she would miss about California and her friends, though
most of them were had dispersed to different parts of the country.

As she drove, her mind strayed to Jack and her instant
attraction to him. She hoped that he would respond to her email. Something drew
her to him and while the obvious answer was lust, Leila couldn’t believe that
her sole attraction to a man could be his looks. He was very different from
Horace.

Jack’s face possessed a kind of animal magnetism and the way
he held his broad shoulders promised of a skillful lover. Inexperienced as she
was, Leila knew that Horace was not much between the sheets. He had been a
selfish lover, only interested in satisfying his own needs and as soon as he
was done, his style was to roll off her body and fall into a stupor accompanied
by unattractive snoring.

The number of nights she had lain next to him in frustration
was countless. Leila had taken to creeping to the bathroom to satisfy her body
craving for release. It was shameful for a married woman but Leila had no
choice. It was either that, or jump at the first attractive man she saw. She
was a passionate woman and had Horace been more of a lover, Leila would have
enjoyed their intimate moments more.

The shelter was located about ten miles from her condo, and
as she drove through the graveled road, she could smell the sweet scent of hay
mixed with manure. Leila parked her car and headed to the office adjacent to
the café.

‘Morning Maggie,’ Leila called out gaily to the middle aged
bespectacled lady who manned the reception.

‘Hi Leila, you’re in early today but we’re not complaining.
Joe will be glad to see you, we’re a little short this morning,’ Maggie said
briskly.

Leila smiled and signed into the volunteer book. She had
worked as a volunteer since she became a widow. It had kept her going on the
days when she felt like covering herself in a blanket and retreating from the
world of the living.

‘Thanks Maggie, see you later,’ Leila said with a wave.

She headed straight for the stalls where she knew the horses
waited to be brushed down and the stalls mucked out. The two years she had
spent at the center meant that she qualified for level four duties which
included training new riders, but Leila preferred to work at the basics.
Minutes later, she had joined two other volunteers, a young man and a girl,
mucking out the stalls.

With only short breaks for tea and lunch, the afternoon
found Leila taking out the horses to different pastures where they spend the
rest of the day. She laughed gaily when a filly ran straight past her,
determined to find his way out to the fields only to find the gate from the
barn padlocked.

By the time she got home at seven in the evening, Leila was
bone tired. She liked it that way because she had less time to worry about her
advancing age and lack of a suitable marriage partner. There was hope now and
she quickly jumped into the shower. As the hot drops pounded her body, she
visualized Jack and his wide shoulders and she felt her body shudder.

It was strangely erotic to think of a stranger this way, his
arms roaming over her body and Leila found herself groaning in the shower. She
laughed at herself and got off the shower. Her laptop was on the dining table
and after dressing; she turned it on, her heart pounding in anticipation. There
was a message from Jack and she read it greedily, taking in the contents with
surprise.

Dear Leila,

What a pleasure to hear from you. I’m not a man to waste
time once I find what I’m looking for and in this case it is you. You’re very
beautiful and you sound like the perfect woman for me. I would like to invite
you to Texas to spend a few weeks with me. We can get to know each other better
that way and know whether we have a future together.

Please don’t feel worried or frightened, I assure you that
I’m a gentleman and have no intention of causing you harm in any way. Let me
know and I’ll make arrangements.

Sincerely,

Jack

Leila didn’t know what to make of the haste with which the
invitation had come. She thought that the process involved getting to know each
other better via email but it seemed that Jack thought otherwise. She had to
admit that his confidence excited her and aroused her curiosity as to the kind
of man he was.

Before she changed her mind, she wrote off an email right
away and told him she would be happy to go to Texas. He wrote back twenty
minutes later with details of a flight in three days’ time. She got a little
irritated at that. The polite thing would have been to ask her when she
preferred to leave but it seemed that Jack did not adhere to common social
graces.