The Brides 0f Purple Heart Ranch Boxset, Bks 1-3

by Shanae Johnson

What was a guy like him doing on a dating site anyway? He could have any girl he wanted with his looks and his intelligence and that smile. Oh, that smile.

  Sure there was the reality of his missing limb. But Sarai forgot about it every time she spoke to him until he brought it up. Which he always did.

  It was as though he wanted to shove it in her face. As though he wanted to make sure she caught it and that he wasn’t hiding it. But it didn’t matter to Sarai. So much about him outshined that one fault.

  Unlike with her where there was so much of her to spread around. Sarai flopped down on the sofa. Her wide load displaced so much air that the magazines on the coffee table fluttered pages open. Spread in the center of the fold were girls she’d known in her modeling career. Their abs were even flatter than the fitness experts.

  Models weren’t meant to have a six-pack. Flat was better than bumps. For years, Sarai had striven to meet that imperfect ideal. But her body kept expanding in ways that were unacceptable to the powers that be in the industry.

  The last straw had been when a casting director had ordered her to consume nothing but water the entire twenty-four hours before she was set to do a shoot. Sarai had done as she was told. She was welcomed onto the set the next day. The clothes hung off her frame in a way that showed her emaciated frame. And then, twenty minutes into the shoot, she collapsed.

  That had been the last time she’d been on a set or walked a runway or even taken a selfie. She’d thought that had been her rock bottom when she’d hit the floor. She’d been wrong.

  Her stomach grumbled at the memory. Or possibly from all the calories burned during that ten-minute warm-up of torture. Sarai hefted herself off the couch and went to the kitchen.

  The contents of the fridge were a forest of green. Fresh, leafy greens. Green smoothies. Green tea. Her stomach grumbled again, this time in protest at the sight. No, that sound was her computer.

  She had an incoming video call. She knew it couldn’t be Reed. He believed she was in Paris, which would mean it was around two in the morning for her in France.

  But this call was from France. The only people who’d be up in France at this time of night were the chic clique coming from a fashion show’s after party.

  Sarai shut the fridge and went over to her laptop. She didn’t bother framing the camera to only show her face. She flopped back in her office chair as her spandex let her rolls hang out.

  “Hey, girl,” Sarai said.

  “Hey, girl,” came a deep voice from across the web. A flash of light filled the dark frame, then a beautiful male face came into view.

  Mason Lee had cheekbones that every woman would die for. His eyes were outlined in sparkling blue liner exaggerating the curve of his Asian features. His glossed lips were spread in a smile as he leaned in toward the camera as though he could peer into the screen.

  “What are you wearing?” he asked.

  “Spandex.”

  His bottom lip pushed up toward his top lip as though forming the top of a question mark. “Why?”

  “I told you I was starting that exercise program today.”

  Mason’s bottom lip pressed harder, curving even more. “Why?”

  Sarai clucked her tongue at him, but his lips still remained in their curved question mark. She fluttered her hands up and down the tight fabric encasing and suffocating her body. “I’m finally trying to lose the weight.”

  “Sweetie, how many times do I have to tell you? Women pay to have the curves you have.”

  “Not in the modeling world, they don’t.”

  “Well, you’re not in this world any longer, are you?”

  “Because I’m too fat.”

  Mason lips reformed their shape. There was no question this time. He was about to start a full-blown inquiry.

  Sarai scrambled to correct her language. “It’s just that time of the month. I’m not feeling like myself.”

  Her best friend didn’t look convinced, but he did drop the crease between his brow. Sarai didn’t need him to become concerned about her. She wasn’t backpedaling into harmful behaviors. She was just having a bad day.

  “You were always far too real to meet the unrealistic ideal of these idiots,” Mason said.

  “Says the man who models for a living.”

  “It’s different for guys, and you know that. They want men with muscles and six-pack abs. They want women who look like little girls or little boys. You look like the full-grown woman you are. You are healthy, and your body functions exactly as it’s meant to.”

  Sarai knew Mason was doing what BFFs did, trying to make their bestie feel good about themselves. He also knew the things to say and what not to say to trigger her disorder. She wasn’t triggered, just disappointed in her performance with the workout program.

  “Well, you look like you worked up a sweat. How did it go?” he asked.

  Sarai hung her head. “I didn’t make it past the warm-up.”

  Now Mason’s lips formed an O. But not one of surprise. It was a wince of commiseration. It hurt Sarai’s brain just thinking about Mason’s hours-long workout regimen.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Is this for that soldier?”

  She twisted her lips instead of responding. Unfortunately, since the video was live her bestie saw the expression and read her correctly.

  “Sarai, honey, you need to stop hiding behind your laptop. Just go and meet him.”

  For the first time in a long time, Sarai wanted to. She wanted to get dressed up and go out. She wanted to sit across from a man and feel all the jitters and excitement of a first date. She felt that every time she sat down with Reed at her laptop. What would it feel like to sit across from him in real life?

  “You’ve never talked about a guy this much before. And didn’t you say he has no idea what you look like? That means he likes you for you.”

  “We video chatted the other day.”

  Mason squealed with delight. “Rai Rai, if this guy is as great as you say he is, he’ll accept you for who you are, not what you look like.”

  Sarai chewed the inside of her lip, but she didn’t answer. Her grumbling stomach filled the silence. She reached out to hit the mute button too late.

  “What have you eaten today?” Mason asked, his lined eyes turned to inquisitive.

  “I just finished working out. You’re supposed to eat afterward.”

  Mason glared at her.

  “The fridge is stocked with greens.” Sarai’s stomach grumbled again at the thought of the unappetizing green foods awaiting her.

  “Sweetie, you have a habit of going to the extremes sometimes. I just don’t want you to do that now.”

  “I’m good,” Sarai said. “I’m not going down that path again.”

  Mason glared some more. “I worry about you when I’m not there.”

  Sarai and Mason had shared this townhouse for just under a year. But he was rarely at home with all of his bookings around the world. Sarai often forgot she had a roommate.

  “I just don’t want you falling back to old patterns,” Mason was saying. “Maybe you should schedule some appointments with that doctor you used to see.”

  “Mace, I’m going to eat now. I don’t need to see a shrink.”

  “Okay, okay.” He held up his hands, but his lips were pressed up in that curved question mark again.

  Sarai decided she’d rather cut the conversation short over going down the dark path of her past. “I’m gonna go eat, and you need to go get your beauty sleep.”

  “Sleep? Sweetie, I’m in Paris. This city never sleeps. We’re headed out for the after-after party. I’ll call you tomorrow to let you know who got drunk and who slept with whom.”

  They were laughing again as they disconnected the call. Her bestie had nothing to worry about. Sarai had no intentions of taking things to an extreme. But neither did she want to turn the exercise program back on. She got up from her office chair, on wobbly legs that still burned from the ten-minute contortions she’d endured, and
made her way back to the forest inside the fridge.

  Chapter Five

  “I can’t believe there’s such a thing as a beauty blog.” Reed leaned back in his desk chair as he looked at his computer screen. “And you make a living from it?”

  “Yes, I do. I make a full time living hiding the flaws of women and …” Sarai’s smile warmed the low resolution of the screen. She leaned in conspiratorially. Reed found himself pitching forward too. “… and some men.”

  Reed threw his head back and laughed. He was used to being the one telling the jokes, and he did with Sarai. She laughed at all his jokes which was another point in her column. Reed was keeping score.

  The dating app’s algorithm said they were a 98% compatibility match, but Reed wondered if it were actually an even 100%. Sarai was smart; she hadn't made a single spelling mistake or grammatical error in her profile. She was prompt; she always showed up a couple minutes early for their scheduled chats. And she was capable; she ran her own business and, by all accounts, was quite successful at it. Even if Reed didn’t entirely understand it.

  Yes. She was a perfect fit to be Mrs. Reed Cannon. Or Mrs. Austin-Cannon, if she preferred. Whatever she wanted to call herself, she was definitely taking his name.

  “So, Sarai with an I …”

  “Yes, Reed with two E’s?”

  He looked up at the screen and smiled again. They’d only known each other for three weeks but they already had a running inside joke. Instead of the traditional spelling of Sarah with an H, her name ended in I. Reed was more often a last name instead of a first name, and traditionally it was spelled with an I instead of two E’s.

  In her profile, Sarai explained that her mother was of Middle Eastern descent; Saudi Arabian to be exact. And that’s where the nontraditional spelling came from.

  “You know,” she said, “I almost didn’t click on your profile when I saw that you were a vet. I didn’t think you’d want to date anyone with my heritage. Even though I was born here in America.”

  “I hold no ill will to the people of Afghanistan and Syria or any country in the Middle East. The peoples’ countries have been taken over by radicals. Many of those citizens are just good people trying to live their lives.”

  When Reed had joined the army, helping people wasn’t the first thing on his mind. He enjoyed the order that was inherent in the armed forces. The chain of command made sense to him. With the analytic mind he had, they’d put him in charge of tech. He’d been in Afghanistan helping to set up the communications system in a rebuilt community. He’d been working on setting up the new school for the children when the explosion happened that took his arm.

  He crossed one arm over his chest. His fingers rubbed at his forearm, then caught the stump of his injury. “I was helping set up the internet when this happened.”

  Reed held up the stump to the computer’s camera. He watched Sarai carefully as her gaze shifted on the computer screen. She blinked slowly and cocked her head slightly. Reed held still under her perusal. He felt the phantom sensation of his left-hand clenching into a fist.

  “Does it hurt still?” Sarai asked.

  Reed shook his head, wishing he could make his nonexistent fingers unball from a fist. But in his mind, his nails dug into his palm and the pain was real. “I didn’t feel it when it was severed. And I didn’t feel much after.”

  Sarai’s gaze shifted back to center. She was looking directly at him again. She said nothing. She only waited.

  He liked that about her. She didn’t fill any silence unnecessarily. She didn’t say anything cliché. It was another point in her favor. She was an excellent listener.

  “Is that a dog barking?” she asked.

  Reed bent down and scooped Soldier into the palm of his hand. The little Chihuahua weighed so little that it was easy to balance him in his palm. “Sarai meet Soldier. Salute, Soldier.”

  Soldier balanced on Reed’s lap. He sat back on his hind legs and lifted his solitary front paw. Like Reed, Soldier had lost his left arm, allowing him the ability to still salute.

  Sarai giggled with delight. “How did you two find each other?”

  “He’s not my dog. He belongs to the wife of one of the other soldiers here. We kinda took to each other.”

  “I can see why,” Sarai said, leaving a long pause before filling in the silence. “You both have very serious faces.”

  Reed chuckled. He liked this girl more and more. Soldier stuck out his tongue and panted. Reed understood the sentiment.

  “Listen, Sarai,” Reed began again, trying to determine the right order of the words to ask her the question he’d been dying to ask since their first typed chat. Even then, with only characters standing in, she’d captured his full attention. “I’d love to see you.”

  Her gaze dipped down. Her smile loosened. “You’re seeing me now.”

  She’d said she’d been burned before by the world of online dating. He had too. Women who were not who they said they were were a dime a dozen behind a computer screen. Then there were those that said they were okay with his shortcoming, as he liked to call it. Then they showed up and couldn’t stop staring. Or they asked ridiculous and sometimes lewd questions, like what could he attach to his arm.

  He’d taken his time with Sarai. But his time was running out. Reed had less than two months to court Sarai, woo her, and convince her to marry him.

  He’d said on his profile that he was looking for a serious, long-term relationship. But he hadn’t said how soon. Nor how serious.

  “I want to take you out,” he said.

  “I told you, I’m out of town.”

  “But when you get back next week?” Reed watched her throat work. He wasn’t imagining their chemistry. He knew they could be something more, something real if they could just meet in real life. Unless there was a reason they couldn’t meet in person. “Sarai? Is there someone else?”

  Her eyes flashed up to the screen. Indignation in the light green of them. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  A small smile played at the edge of Reed’s mouth. “I’m sorry. I just really like you, and I want to take this to the next level.” Heck, he wanted to take it to the final level.

  “We can see each other when I’m finished -I mean. We can see each other when I get back.”

  “So, next week?” Hope filled his heart.

  She squirmed on the screen. “It might be a little longer. I’m working hard, trying to … finish. But that doesn’t mean I want to stop seeing you online, while I’m here, in this place.”

  Reed sighed. It would have to do. He could wait another week, a couple weeks if necessary. The moment she set foot back in Montana, he would sweep her off her feet. Metaphorically speaking since he only had one arm. Because he knew, without a doubt, that he wanted there to be nothing more than a hyphen between them.

  Chapter Six

  Sarai leaned back in her ergonomically correct chair. It squeaked, springs protesting the move. She ignored the sound in light of her new progress.

  She hit post on her latest blog entry about finding your perfect shade of blush. Her last entry got over five thousand likes in just a week. She had a couple hundred comments on the post as well. Sarai had a knack for helping others enhance their outer beauty with the perfect shade or right accessory just by looking at their profile pictures.

  She was feeling good today. She’d been doing well this whole last week. She’d made it further and further through the exercise video. Last night, she’d even made it to the end and was still standing … leaning against the sofa was more like it. But she was on her feet.

  The greens in the fridge hadn’t spoiled. She’d actually eaten them. They’d just needed a bit of spice, and olive oil, and a pinch of honey. With a bit of Middle Eastern flare, the field fare was edible. She’d even begun practicing mindful eating again like her doctor had taught her too.

  Food was nourishment for the body, mind, and soul her psychologist used to tell her. But she’d be the first to admit th
at it tasted better with a bit of curry powder and cinnamon.

  Her stomach grumbled now in the middle of her work day. Sarai saved her work and rose from her chair to answer its call. Mason had worried she would slip back into old, destructive patterns. He had nothing to worry about.

  Coming from a world where she had to fit into the small sample-sized dresses made for mannequins, Sarai was often surprised she’d made it out of the modeling world with only a few scars. Unlike the other models during her tenure, Sarai hadn’t developed bulimia or anorexia. Her affliction had been a bit different.

  She passed Mason’s bedroom door on the way to the kitchen. The door was ajar, likely the wind from last night. Mason liked to sleep with the windows and curtains thrown wide open. He never minded being on display.

  Sarai reached in to pull the door closed when she caught sight of someone in the room.

  There was a woman she didn’t recognize standing in front of Mason’s floor to ceiling mirrors. Her skin was tanned golden, as though she’d just come from the sands of Arabia. Her shoulders were elegant and proud, holding up a full bust. Her waist curved inward and then her hips flared out like the belly dancers her mother used to socialize with in Sarai’s youth.

  Sarai gasped, surprised to see that she was looking at herself. Had she changed so much since the last time she’d stood before a mirror? She’d learned in therapy that she didn’t see herself as others did. She hadn’t been in front of a full-length mirror in years.

  It was only when she looked in a mirror that she had a problem. That’s why there was only a hand mirror in her room and no full length mirror in her bathroom. Mason, on the other hand, had mirrors everywhere in his room, which was why Sarai avoided her roommate’s private sanctuary like it was a bawdy house.

  Intrigued by what she saw, Sarai took another step into Mason’s room and then another. She walked on the balls of her toes, tip-toeing quietly into the room, as though afraid to spook her own reflection.

  Sarai stood before the mirror and stared. It was like looking at a long lost friend. Granted, her top was flattering as it displayed her angular collar bones. And the leggings she wore held the rolls of flesh at bay. She wasn’t flat everywhere as the photographers and designers desired.