The Hopeful Bride

Troy

Letting out a sigh, Troy Bolton backed up near the ramp and made sure his fishing boat was locked and loaded. He had spent most of the morning in silence alongside his friend Chad Danforth, who also worked maintenance for his family's lodge. His lodge. Now.

Combined they managed to catch a few decent-sized trout and had them currently in a cooler ready to hand off to Taylor, Chad's wife, and cook at the lodge as soon as they got back.

"So," Chad said quietly, as he placed a few items into the cab. This was his third attempt at making small talk since Troy had picked him up that morning. Only this time Chad's shoulders fell in defeat as he cut to the point. "It's a big day. Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really," Troy murmured as he secured another knot.

"Are you even ready to meet her?" Chad asked.

"Suppose so."

"Jesus, could you sound a little more enthusiastic?" Chad teased as they both got into the truck. "By the end of the day tomorrow you're going to be someone's husband. Christ, do you even know what to do with a wife?"

Troy let out another long breath as he turned the key and brought the engine to life. Someone's husband. His jaw clenched. Then he relaxed. He planned this well. Late June was the perfect time to bring a mail-order bride to the Alaska wilderness. In the winter, no woman would want to move to the frozen tundra. So, yes, this was the reasonable thing to do. The logical solution. Had things been different, who knows?

But Chad was right about one thing. What the hell was he gonna do with a wife? He didn't even date. Didn't really have the time for it. Maybe he should have tried harder, taken some time to date some of the local women in town. Attempted to romance them into the role of his wife, convincing them to take on the responsibilities he'd been left with.

But this was how things were. His parents had died suddenly. Here one moment, driving away to some retreat and gone the next. Lost to a bad storm that had caused them to veer off the road. Ice seeped into his veins and he adjusted his grip on the wheel at the memory. His world had stopped spinning completely that day. And just as suddenly he'd taken a breath one day and found himself drowning.

There he was the sole owner of their premier hunting lodge located in a five-hundred-mile radius of backwoods in Alaska. He was going through the motions. Trapped in the day-to-day operation of the lodge. People came out for the quiet, for the experience and mostly because they wanted to hunt. To play a little make-believe a few weeks here and there and then return to their suit and tie jobs with Instagram photos and stories to share.

What was in it for him? He'd always thought he'd get married one day, have kids of his own and hand the lodge down to them like his parents had to him. But running a hunting lodge didn't really leave any time for dating. So why not take a logical approach? He needed help running things, wanted to settle down so why not skip the bullshit and just hire someone.

Troy narrowed his eyes "I'm only getting a wife so someone can help run the lodge, some company would be nice too. I just don't have the time to date."

"You want her to help run the lodge? Troy, I know we've been over this, but you could have just put out a want ad."

"You know as well as I do that the reason this lodge has the same customers coming back every year is because it had a woman's touch. People loved the way Mom made it a place for families."

He didn't mention that that was what he loved about it, too. The place had just felt like home, but lately with his parents gone it just felt like a building.

"There are no guarantees this bride is gonna have a woman's touch, Troy, let alone be able to run the lodge." Chad let out a breath this time. "What if she's ugly, mean, or not a good match for you?"

"I'm not worried about what she looks like. When Lisa and I agreed to the arrangement, it was under the condition that my mail order bride would meet my requirements. Being competent enough to run the lodge was at the top of the list, along with being friendly enough to make the bitchiest customers happy."

Chad narrowed his gaze. "You really don't know what she looks like?"

"No fucking clue."

"That's nuts." Chad laughed. "If you ask me– which you haven't– this whole thing is a bad idea."

"Lucky for me, I haven't asked you then," Troy smirked. "The agency said matches work better when you don't go into it with expectations. It'd be easy to walk away if I knew what she looked like. This way, I'm taking her home regardless if she had blonde hair or black."

"You can still send her back, though, right? If you two don't get along?"

"I can do whatever the hell I want, Chad."

That seemed to shut him up for a moment.

He hadn't gone into this completely blind. He had his lawyer investigate Lisa's company and found proper documentation that she'd been placing brides with well-off men for the last decade. He had transferred over the funds for travel and the student load payment that he agreed to. He would admit, it wasn't the traditional way to go about it, but plenty of men did it this way.

"So," Chad relaxed into his seat with a huff. "Any special plans for tonight?"

"Nope."

"It's been a while since you've dated," Chad said, turning to watch Troy as he kept his eyes on the road. "Take it from me, as an already married man. You need to have a game plan. Women expect them."

"We're not playing games," Troy said with a shake of his head. "No games, no fuss, no mess. She arrives, we get married, that's it."

"That's cold man." Chad raised a brow as he faced forward again.

"It's what I'm paying for."

"Whatever you say, Romeo."

Troy grunted as he turned into the long road that led to the lodge. When he spoke to Lisa he had explained how he needed a woman who was responsible and reliable. A woman who wasn't flighty or flakey. He needed a woman to run his lodge, who needed to be steady and even-keeled.

A woman who knew how to make a house a home. Also, a woman who was not a prude. Because he didn't want some random hook-up. That had never been his style, never would be. He wanted a wife and he wanted her to commit to being his.

And Lisa had promised that the woman she was sending was all of those things.

Which was good because the priest was flying into town tomorrow and that would be that.

Now he just had to meet her.