The Marriage Auction: Book One(29)
“Nah.” Noah clapped me on the back lovingly, smiling like a loon. “You’ll be the best man standing by my side when I marry Ruby.” He winked.
I shook my head, and both of us turned to our woman.
“So, what happens next?” She stood straight as a pencil looking every bit the American girl. A Hollywood starlet incarnate.
“We take you home to London.”
Episode 15
Dakota’s Contract
SUTTON
Never in a million years did I think I’d see Dakota McAllister standing on stage dolled up in a sexy getup that made my dick take notice. And to see her baby sister up there as well… Whoo, boy. That’s what we country folk called a twofer. Only I wasn’t here to bid on curvy, sweet Savannah. Nah, that would have been too easy. Besides, in my book, a twenty-year-old was barely kicking the door of being an adult. Now, Dakota was all woman. Her legs for days, four-pack abs, strong arms, and cut thighs that could ride a horse for hours on end were more my speed. I groaned at the carnal thought of those thighs riding my waist as she bucked on top of my cock, screamin’ out my name in nothing but orgasmic pleasure. It was my top fantasy, and I was about to make it come to life.
The Goodalls and the McAllisters were no strangers to one another. We grew up together. Neighboring farms with a solid wooden fence that ran the entire length of both our properties. Though it wasn’t only a fence that ran through our connection. It was generations of betrayal, heartache, and grief. And look at the McAllisters now. Brought low enough by their piece-of-shit daddy that the two most sought-after sisters in Sandee, Montana, were selling themselves to the highest bidder.
When I got word from a friend that Madam Alana had an interesting set of women up for The Marriage Auction, not exactly something a lot of people knew about, I made sure to submit my information so I could be vetted, and I hightailed it to the nearest airport.
I’d never been to Vegas, but when I heard there were two redheaded cowgirls going up for auction and one of ’em was named Dakota, it took no time at all to learn it was Dakota and Savannah McAllister. The story became more real when I found out that young Savannah had broken up with her longtime high school sweetheart and ranch hand Jarod not long ago. Those two were so in love, everyone in town fully expected her to come back from college and marry that boy right away, pop out a couple babies, and live the farm life like every generation prior. And to hear Ms. Dakota was up for purchase… Well, I couldn’t back away from that dangling carrot.
Since the day I laid eyes on her up on top of a horse at fourteen years old, me fifteen at the time, I’d known she was the one for me. She maneuvered that horse as though she was born on one. Something I too had a knack with. When you’re bred on a farm, you learn what it takes to work the land from a very young age. And as I watched her run the line of the fence, her strawberry-blonde hair flying in the breeze under her Stetson, her tight little ass in the sweetest pair of Wranglers, her thighs hugging that saddle… I knew from then on she was the real deal. The exact type of girl I wanted to grow old with. Work the family farm, have babies, the whole nine. I was a fifteen-year-old boy who fell in love at first sight. My future had been sittin’ pretty up on top of a stallion.
And one hundred percent off-limits.
My family’s nemesis was my dream woman.
The only woman I lusted after for more than a decade without any hope in hell of getting a shot at winning her affection. All because of the sins of the generations before me.
On both sides.
Why? Because our families had been at war for three generations. Starting with my grandaddy Duke Goodall Senior. The story went that he was in love with Amberlynn McAllister, the young farm girl next door. They were an item all through school. But when Amberlynn ended up pregnant by another man, my grandaddy was rightfully heartbroken. And yet, he was so in love he was willing to work through the betrayal and raise her kin as his own and marry the girl he loved. Only her father, Earl “John” McAllister, wouldn’t let her see him. He kept his daughter hidden away and refused any and all access to her. One day she was Grandaddy’s girl and they were working toward a future together, and the next she was pregnant, rushed down the aisle, and married to one of her father’s business partners. Amberlynn had made a mockery of their love which led Duke Senior to want absolutely nothin’ to do with the McAllisters or anyone attached to their farm. That was the year the feud started. It only got worse with each new generation.
This went on for decades as the two farms rivaled for cattle purchases, horse trades, business deals, and everything in between.
The feud grew and only got bigger when my father, Duke Junior, was seeing a sweet girl named Carol Lincoln who lived across town. They had been dating for a year when Everett McAllister, grandson of old man Earl “John” McAllister, swooped in and stole Carol away from my daddy. Wooed her relentlessly until she succumbed to his wiles and ditched my daddy to marry Everett, the man who would one day become Dakota and Savannah’s father. My father was so incensed that history was repeating itself, he vowed that he would do whatever it took to take over the McAllisters’ land and shove them right out of Sandee forever.
To this day, decades later, Dad still felt the same. Which meant I was going to have spin some tall tales in order to get my family to accept Dakota as my bride-to-be. But first, I had to get her to sign the contract without seeing me in person, and then win her over. Dakota and I hadn’t seen each other in several years, as I’d been traveling the nation making deals and securing connections for the farm. Still, once she laid eyes on me, she’d eventually recognize me, and the shit would hit the fan. She’d never sign her name if she knew Sutton Goodall, her rival, the family trying to buy out her farm, was on the other side of that agreement. I knew in my heart the only viable reason she’d be here selling herself, taking such drastic measures to secure a lot of money quickly, was because she was trying to save her farm. The same farm her daddy continued to sink into an unfathomable debt.