American Boyfriend
Love in Montana
Chance Carter
Contents
Montana
Personal Invitation
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Also by Chance Carter
Montana
My mother never told me much about my dad. I’ve always wondered what kind of dad he’d have been to his daughter. There were never any photos of him anywhere in our house. I have no idea what he looked like except that my mom once told me I had his eyes. She said we both had brown eyes that were so amber they were almost gold.
When I was a teenager and my mom was out late at night, I’d scour the house looking in all her drawers and boxes to see if there was a photo of a man with eyes like mine. There weren’t many places for me to search in our small apartment. We had no attic with secret boxes, no garage, no tool shed. Just a couple rooms.
My mother and I haven’t lived an easy life. My dad was never there to help out, he never even sent a check. I could tell just by looking at my mom that she had a troubled past. Someone had done her wrong, but she always did her best to hide that from me.
We were poor. Dirt poor. There were days we’d open the fridge and find nothing but moldy ketchup. But my mom always made each day special for me. Sometimes love goes further than money ever could. My mom taught me that.
We’ve been close to eviction before too, but my mom was always able to use her charms to buy us another month when she needed to. She did what she could to provide for me, and she did a good job. I mean, I’m alive and I’m healthy. That’s thanks to her.
I feel bitter toward my dad though, for making us live a life like this. But the truth is, I don’t know how different our situation would have been if he was around. Maybe it would have been worse. I always pictured my dad like the alpha wolf of our pack. He was the one who was supposed to look after us and protect us. But maybe he would have screwed up and put us in harm’s way.
As a young girl, whenever I asked my mom about my dad, she’d stare into the distance, then a look of unimaginable love would come over her face. That quickly turned to sadness, and she’d cry. As I grew older, I hoped my mom would open up more to me about her past, but it didn’t come easy.
My twenty-first birthday was last week and she finally talked to me about him. She said she’d been in a relationship with him when she got pregnant, she loved him, and they lived back and forth between Nevada and California. She had to leave him and move to Canada when she was pregnant with me.
She didn’t elaborate on that part. I don’t know why she had to leave. She brought me to the middle of nowhere in Saskatchewan. We disappeared together into the prairies. We have no family up here. Hell, we have no family anywhere. It’s always just been the two of us, and I guess that’s how it always will be.
She told me all this last week on my birthday but she hadn’t wanted to. The only reason she opened up was because she’d just heard some sad news. My dad had been killed. She never knew for sure he was dead but now she did. He’d been killed twenty years ago, when I was just one year old. All those men I’d stared at in restaurants, wondering if they were my dad, trying to decide if they had golden eyes, they never stood a chance. He’d been dead all along.
Twenty years!
The man has been dead twenty years and I’ve been here, wondering every day where he was and if he was ever going to find me.
All those times I asked my mom about him and made her cry, I always thought it was because she just missed him. I figured they’d broken up like any other couple. Maybe he never even knew she was pregnant. It never crossed my mind something more complicated could be going on.
I played a lot of What if scenarios in my head, wondering why my mom always cried. She seemed to love him so deeply, so why weren’t they still together? I thought he broke her heart, dumped her, kicked her to the curb. Now I’m wondering if she suspected he was dead all along?
Did she cry because she knew he was going to be murdered?
Maybe she had to escape to safety in case she got hurt too.
Did my dad even know I existed?
I needed answers. My mom wasn’t going to give them to me any time soon so I’d have to search them out myself. I waited twenty years only to find out he’d been dead all along.
My father is half of who I am, even if I never met him. He didn’t abandon me. He didn’t forget about me. He was dead. Maybe he would have come for me if he could have. I needed to know more.
That’s why I’m sitting on this train right now.
I need to know who my dad was.
I need to know why my mom left.
I need to know who murdered him and why it took twenty years for us to find out.
I hitchhiked for hours through Saskatchewan to get to the border. Then I hitchhiked some more through Montana. In Shelby I got the train south. It’s going to be a long way to Reno but that’s where my search starts. That’s where the answers to my questions lie.
Traveling during the holidays is the worst. The stations are always packed full of people, but it’s worth it to visit my uncle in Montana. It’s one of the best things about living up in northern Washington, that I’m just a train ride away from him.
Family is very important to me. My dad has a really interesting family. It’s not your typical mom, dad, brother, and sister situation. He’s got three brothers, but none of them are actually related. They were all taken in and adopted by the same man.
This guy took in these young men when they were at their worst and taught them about love and values and about being a good person. The brothers are thick as thieves. You wouldn’t know they weren’t related. They even refer to themselves as the Brotherhood.
They’re all as close as any four brothers could possibly be.
That doesn’t mean things were straightforward. My dad disappeared before I was born. My mom was pregnant with me and he left her. He left her for twelve years!
He didn’t abandon us though. He didn’t leave us high and dry. My dad put us in the care of his brothers. They helped raise me and made sure I turned into a decent young man. I think they did a good job, but of course I’d say that!
When my dad returned twelve years later, I helped him fix up his dad’s old house and then he asked my mom and me to live there with him. I live in Washington now, closer to my uncle than my parents, but we’re all very close.
Close family is great and all but when you’re around so many strong willed people all the time it can start to feel claustrophobic. When it came time for me to apply to school, my mom and dad and all my uncles wanted me to stay in California and live at home. Money’s not the issue, they just all like to be together when they can. So when my uncle moved to Montana, I thought, if he can do it so can I.
A guy’s gotta get out of the nest, he’s gotta go and explore on his own and find out what kind of man he really is. And I gotta find myself a girl. It’s hard to find a girl when you’re always with your family. I chose to go to medical school in Washington. My dad has a cabin there that I live at and commute to campus every day.
I’m just coming off a break from school right now. I used my days off to visit my uncle and his lady. It’s nice to eat some good home cooking. Living alone in a cabin, I don’t eat that great, even though as a doctor in training I should know better. So, here I am at the Shelby station, waiting to get on the twenty-seven that will take me back to my cabin in Washington.
I sit in the waiting area playing on my phone and I faintly hear an announcement through my headphones. I check my phone for the time and look at my ticket. It’s five twenty PM and the train is due in at five twenty-two.
I get up and head to the platform. Everyone else around me gets up and starts doing the same thing. I peer around the crowd. There’s a heck of a lot of people in here. It’s going to be a full train, that’s for sure.
My eyes stop on a beautiful girl.
She’s got soft, glistening, white hair with a touch of lavender in it. It reminds me of the coat of a wolf in the wild. She’s gorgeous and has a beauty unlike anything I’ve ever seen. There’s a fierceness in her eyes. I can tell she’s got fire and passion and determination. I admire that in a girl.
The train pulls into the station and the mass of people start filing onto the train and into their seats. By the time I get up the stairs, there’s no more seats left.
An announcement comes over the speaker.
“Due to the holiday season this train is sold out and may be over booked. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Our staff will do their best to accommodate you and help you find a seat for your trip. Please remove any bags or luggage from seats so others may sit down.”
The other passengers around me all groan. It’s only about forty-five minutes to the next stop, hopefully a bunch get off then, but we’ll see.
I put my bag down and look around. There she is, the she-wolf from the station. She still has that fiery look in her beautiful eyes, standing in the aisle, calm and patient. The crowds don’t bother her a bit. I’m not exactly the best at making small talk with girls, but I can’t pass up an opportunity like this.
“Eh, this sucks doesn’t it?”
She doesn’t look like she hears me so I awkwardly do a little bend to catch her eye. That works. Her gorgeous amber-gold eyes follow me back up.
“Sorry?”
She pulls out her headphones.
“Oh, I just said this sucks doesn’t it?”
“Holiday weekend.”
“Right. So were you visiting family?”
“No.”
I nod and smile. She’s going to be a tough one to get to know, but she’s definitely worth it.
She puts her headphones back in. This can’t be it. I won’t give up this easily.
If my dad taught me anything it’s that you don’t give up. You keep fighting for what’s important, especially when it’s a woman. You can never expect a girl who’s worth her salt to just fall into your lap.
An attendant comes into our car and yells that they’ve got some seats further up the train. We start following him while the whole train rocks back and forth on the track. It’d be nice if my she-wolf lost her footing and fell into my lap, but I’ll be patient.
I can wait.
The attendant leads us to a car with a few empty seats and tells us to sit. I follow close behind my she-wolf to the back of the car and she swoops into a seat with an empty one next to it. I take it and smile when she looks my way.
Once we’re adjusted and comfortable, I bounce my leg, tap my knee, and rock a little with the movement of the train. I look at her, then across the aisle out the window. I want to speak to her but I don’t know what to say.
Finally I look over at her and reach out with my hand.
“Sam,” I say.
She looks at my hand, then up at me. She’s fierce, but then a softness comes over her face and she takes my hand in hers.
“Hi, Sam.”
I smile at her. Blush, even. She’s so pretty.
“So, if you weren’t visiting family for the weekend, what were you doing? What brings you onto this train on the busiest day of the year?”
She pauses and gives the question some thought, like she doesn’t know how to answer.
Does she not know where she’s going?
“I guess I’m going to go see family.”
“And where’s family?”
“I don’t know, Sam.”
“But you’re from Montana?”
“No, I was born in Canada, actually.”
“Oh, cool,” I say. “They have a great healthcare program up there. I’ve never been though, so I don’t know really.”
Ugh. I’m such a failure when it comes to talking to girls. They always seem to have their shit together, like they know exactly what they’re doing and where they’re going. They know what to say. I, on the other hand, blurt out the first stupid thing that pops into my head.
I pull out one of my medical textbooks and pretend I’m going to leave her alone and study.
She looks at my book, reading over my shoulder.
“I’m studying to be a doctor, so I know a bit about healthcare. I’m really just starting my studies though. Are you in school?”
“No,” she says. “Is your book interesting?”
“Not really. Unless you’re into the pulmonary system.”
“You mean like breathing, heart rate, that stuff.”
“Yeah,” I say, impressed. “More or less.”
“I got an A in biology.”
I look at her beautiful face, then let my gaze wander over her delicious curves. I can tell she has some amazing breasts hidden under her shirt. I imagine putting my mouth on them and feel my cock throb.
Not now! Sitting this close to her, she’s bound to notice anything that pops up!
“I bet you did,” I say, still looking at her breasts as they move up and down gently with her breath.
I want her so bad. She’s perfect. Her face is perfect. Her eyes are perfect. Her voice is perfect. Her body’s torture to me. I can’t bear being this close to something so tempting without touching her.
I have to come up with a plan. An excuse to get closer.
“I haven’t learned a lot yet,” I say. “I’m just starting out, but I can show you something fun.”
She looks at me. She doesn’t answer, but I’ve caught her attention.
“Give me your hand,” I say.
She looks at me cautiously. I gesture to her hand and she finally extends her arm out to me. I take her hand in mine and softly trace my fingers up her milky skin, all the way to the elbow. She pulls up her sleeve for me.
I can’t believe I’m touching her. I feel the fire of desire building up inside me.
I place two fingers on her wrist and wait. Then, I look up at her eyes and say, “The good news is, you’re alive. You’ve got a pulse. In fact, I think it’s rising, rapidly.”
She blushes and pulls her arm away.
“What’s the bad news?”
“Well,” I say solemnly, “the prognosis isn’t good.”
She gets that adorable, puzzled look on her face again.
“Well?” she says.
I smile. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you’re so beautiful you’re in danger of breaking my heart.”
She laughs. “I thought the prognosis was going to be bad for me?”
“It’s no laughing matter,” I say. “I’m the one who’s going to die.”
“Well, what are we going to do about it? You’re the doctor. You better come up with a plan.”
I look into her eyes to see if she’s kidding. She’s deadly serious. I’ve never had a moment like this before. I’ve never had a girl just flat out tell me to go for it. I have no idea what to do.
She’s looking at me expectantly and I take a deep breath. If there’s ever been a time in my life for courage, it’s now.
“Well, we don’t have much time. I don’t know where you’re headed but we only have a few hours together on this train. The thought of never seeing you devastates me, so we have to act now.”
She leans a little closer into me and my gaze drops to her cleavage. I can see right down her shirt, between her two, perfect breasts, and all I want to do is reach out and touch them.
“Let’s act,” she says.
My jaw drops. Who is this girl. She really is a she-wolf.
“Well,” I say looking around the carriage for somewhere we can go, “this may seem a little crazy, but I’m thinking you and I should casually make our way back there?”
“To the restroom?”
“I
know it’s not exactly the Eiffel Tower.”
“No it’s not.”
I notice the train is slowing down and look out the window. We’re coming to a stop in some little town. I grab she-wolf’s hand.
“Come on, this is our stop.”
This guy on the train isn’t the type I usually go for. He’s a softie, well-mannered, soft spoken, attending medical school. The kind of guy I usually go for has muscles, scars, tattoos. I’m drawn to guys like that, but they always end up hurting me. It never works out. Either they dump me for another girl, or they get drunk and cheat on me. I’ve had a string of bad men in my life and I know my mom never liked it because she’d cry about that too. She’d tell me she didn’t want me to end up like her. It makes me wonder if my dad was the bad boy type.
This boy is soft, he’s nice, but he’s also alarmingly cute. He must come from good genes. He’s solid, loyal, the complete opposite of the boys I’ve known. He’s got an athletic frame with a good amount of muscle. Maybe he plays football.
His smile is so sweet, like someone out of the movies. He’s like one of those actors who just makes all the girls swoon the moment he steps into the frame. I’m almost afraid to admit it, but this boy could have me eating out of his hands if wants. If he stuck by me for a while, if he accepted me for who I am, if he made me feel safe and secure, I could be his girl.
Even though he’s polite, he has a stronger hold over me than the bad boys I’ve gone for in the past.
And that’s why I follow him off the train. I know it’s crazy. I don’t have much money to spare and I have no idea if the ticket I’m traveling on is transferrable, but in that moment, my hand in his, I feel I can follow him anywhere.
Sometimes, fate comes to find you, and when it does, you better let it into your life.
It’s not exactly a scene from a romantic movie, but I couldn’t be happier. The she-wolf came with me. I couldn’t believe it until we’d watched the train pull away from the station, heading off without us. I still don’t even know her name.
Love in Montana (American Boyfriend Book 7) Page 1
