Mail Order Farmer (The Walker Five Book 5)

by Marie Johnston

  She continued making her case. “Maybe I could go somewhere I could finish my degree.” Her heart jumped at the thought of getting her dream back, of being able to finally finish nursing school.

  Could she do it? Marry a stranger? Be happy like her friend?

  “I don’t know about this.” Her mom crossed to her and set her hands on her shoulders. “But I do know that I can’t stay up waiting and having small heart attacks every minute you’re late. And I can’t be the reason you go back home to be miserable. And I know you loved university.”

  A beat of doubt went through her. If Ina was on board, this was more than a crazy plan. “And I can send money home.”

  How would she know where to start? She’d heard about different outcomes than her friend’s good fortune. Horror stories whispered in the dark between her and her old friends about someone who knew someone who’d met a guy online and was never heard from again. Or someone who knew someone who knew someone else who’d met a guy online and had become nothing more than his personal sex doll that also cleaned house.

  Meeting a decent husband was one thing. Getting sold into slavery was another.

  Still, there were hundreds of women just like her who did it every year. But there was no way to know how it turned out for each of them.

  Ina shuffled to a chair. Dalisay looked longingly at her room. Her feet were sore, and her adrenaline was waning after her trek home. Rest would have to wait. This was too serious of a topic.

  Did the women who married and moved to America live in a place where they feared being out after dark? And were extra cautious during the day?

  “I still don’t know, Dali.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “We’ll be careful. You’re not doing this alone.”

  Dalisay smiled. “We’ll research the stories of how it went wrong and learn what to look for. There’s a better life out there for us, and we’re going to have to pursue it.” After a ton of research. Just checking it out didn’t mean she’d be married off as soon as she clicked. “If I stay and research, then I can walk home in the morning.”

  A frown passed through Ina’s features. “I don’t like you being up all night, but it might be safer. I’ll go on my days off to check on the men interested in you.”

  This was quite the turning point in her life. Within minutes, she’d gone from jilted bride barely making a living, to woman seeking an American man.

  Because, like Ina, she wanted more for herself, and this city had a way of bleeding a person dry as the margin of middle class disappeared, but spooned a person enough freedom and possibility to make them stay.

  Moving to America, though? With a man? For a man?

  She missed intimacy, and she wanted love, but a stranger?

  “Maybe you’ll find a guy here,” Ina said.

  “How, when I’m working all the time? When there’s a hundred other girls throwing themselves at him?” Could she find a man she trusted?

  Ina sat back with a sigh. “I guess we’re doing this, then.”

  She could do this. For her family, for herself. There had to be a nice man out there to build a life with.

  America, then.

  Chapter Three

  Scowling at the screen, Aaron scrolled through women who’d “bumped” him in the international dating app he’d chosen. Profile pictures ranged from sweet and innocent to holy shit—boobs.

  When he’d first started on this adventure a month ago, he’d spent all his nights researching the process. Narrowing his search down to a country seemed his first major move.

  How does someone say, I’m going to marry someone from Russia. Or my bride will be from Colombia. He found pages that generally outlined what to expect from each country’s women.

  He’d almost abandoned his efforts. This wasn’t shopping for tractors and reading reviews from content customers and pinpointing trouble issues. These were people. One sweeping statement didn’t represent the entire population.

  But he persisted. Because his female friends had already said what they wanted wasn’t him.

  The reports of family values and strong family dedication of Filipina women drew him to a popular dating site meant to pair Filipinas with American men. He fought off another undercurrent of seediness. Reading through blogs and forums, it really seemed like some women were looking for true love with a decent partner and he hung on to that.

  Still, it was one thing to read about a bunch of men saying how faithful and loyal the gorgeous women of the Philippines were, but what did the women have to say? After more than a few hours of searching, he finally deduced that yes, many had built the loving relationship they’d been seeking.

  It heartened him.

  Until Victoria. He’d bumped her, and she’d responded. They’d started emailing until she’d asked to Skype him after a week of correspondence. He’d been a bundle of nerves that first time, but she’d been sweet and giggly. Something had felt off, like the chemistry wasn’t right between them, but since it’d been such a short time, he didn’t want to end it.

  Then she’d laid out the story of her sick mom and her disabled brother and how badly they needed money for her mom’s surgery. So badly that he should wire it as soon as possible.

  He’d been torn. Should he just help her even if he knew she was probably scamming him? After more research, he found that some of these scammers could harvest hundreds of thousands of sob-story dollars.

  With a heavy heart, he’d cut ties and prayed she hadn’t been telling the truth.

  Who could he trust now? Would he wade through profiles for years, getting to know a girl before he found out they either didn’t gel, or that she was trying to milk him for money? He might as well stay in the dismal dating scene of Moore.

  He received notice of a new “bump.” Daisy was the name on the account. He clicked on her profile, the thumbnail of her photo barely visible.

  Her photo expanded, and his heart thudded. She was…enticing. Her smile looked genuine, not a put-on for the camera but more like someone had caught her off guard in the middle of a laugh. Her lips were full and a rich pink, but she didn’t seem to be wearing lipstick. Unlike a few of the profiles where the women had vamped up, Daisy had chosen a natural look.. Her black hair was long and draped over one shoulder, and dark lashes rimmed around her eyes, giving her natural eyeliner. Was her skin as soft as it looked? As luminous in real life?

  She couldn’t be real.

  He stared at the photo too long before he tore his eyes away to read her summary. She worked at an internet café and was willing to move to America if she met the right person. Her extended family lived in the province, but she lived with her mother in Metro Manila, who had moved in with her after her father had died.

  The interests she listed were reading and biking and hanging out with her mother. That was it. No favorite color. Nothing about what she looked for in a guy. Short and to the point, like there was no reason to exert effort beyond that. He could get behind that feeling. Why lay it all out there for some creeper to latch onto and target her with?

  He bumped her back. And waited. It was ten p.m. his time. At thirteen hours ahead, it’d be eleven a.m. her time.

  He waited some more. There was no desire to look at anyone else. He shut the lid and went to bed.

  Chapter Four

  Dalisay looked around. It wasn’t unusual for workers to jump on after shifts. No one was paying attention to her. At this time of night, there were only a few young men and women at the computer terminals. She logged onto the dating site and stared at the number of men who’d bumped her. Many of them were older. She didn’t rule them out, but they didn’t interest her. She sifted through men with sunglasses, men with graying hair, men with no hair, and more until a familiar photo stopped her.

  Yes. He had bumped back.

  She chewed on her lower lip. A. W. was the screen name he went by. What did the A stand for? She’d been searching for a month. Her mother had been searching for a mont
h. Ina gravitated to the older crowd, and when Dalisay protested Ina had insisted that they were likely more financially stable and had less stringent ideas of a relationship.

  Ina hadn’t found A. W., though. The distinct blue of his eyes had stopped Dalisay mid scroll. He lived in Minnesota, and when Dalisay had researched the state, she’d found the scenery was stunning. Green, much like the province, but not as lush and with no mountains. And Minnesota had snow.

  It wasn’t until she landed on A. W.’s profile that the idea of culture shock had set in. This was the first profile that had made her stop to think about uprooting her life. She’d be removed from everything she knew, even the weather. She’d be alone, except for a new stranger she was supposed to marry. Moving to Manila had overturned her life. Going from a quiet, calm life with only the necessities, to the hustle and bustle and excess of city life. How hard would it be to adjust to another country?

  Those were all worries for a different day. She opened A. W.’s message.

  “Thanks for the bump, Daisy. My name’s Aaron if you want to talk some more.”

  That was it. Yes, she wanted to talk more. Her fingers shook over the keyboard. This was the most serious she’d gotten about the whole idea. And that was all it had seemed to be as she and Ina researched and set up accounts and screened prospective husbands. Their thoughts had been steeped in thoroughness and protection. Neither she, nor her mother, wanted to fall for the suave lines of a predator.

  She inhaled and let it out slowly. Just replying didn’t mean she had to marry him. There were still a lot more steps between returning his greeting and meeting him.

  Her gaze landed on his profile photo. The sun blazed behind him, his easy grin making his blue eyes twinkle. Those eyes were mesmerizing with their slight squint. What season was this taken in?

  She distracted herself and searched what season late October would be in Minnesota.

  Almost winter. She shuddered. How warm did their summers get?

  Back on his profile, her gaze swept over his coppery hair and his broad shoulders.

  He appealed to her, there was no denying it. But was this what A. W.—Aaron—even looked like?

  She typed a reply before she could talk herself out of it. The money in savings was draining quickly.

  The reminder spurred her response. She didn’t have much to tell about herself. Reading through other women’s profiles hadn’t made sense: I like sunsets, poems, and romantic walks.

  Please. The sunset was hard to see through the pollution plaguing Manila. She’d rather help her mom roll lumpia than read a poem, and her idea of a romantic walk was having someone with her that would scare off would-be abductors.

  She stuck with the food subject in her reply. Her father used to gush about how her mom’s adobo had won his heart. Dalisay had learned how to prepare all the basics, and she and her mother often competed to make the hottest salsa and laughed over how much their fingers burned after chopping the peppers.

  A cloud of sadness stalled her fingers. If this Aaron was a decent guy, she’d be moving. Not soon, but eventually, and Ina would stay behind.

  Dalisay rubbed her chest. But Ina would be taken care of. A good job, with a roof over her head, and Dalisay would make sure to send money home.

  A hot tear rolled down her cheek as she finished up her message. She’d wait to hear more from him before she asked to chat over the internet. Ina was going to buy a webcam to Skype in case they couldn’t reserve the computers with the cams, or if they weren’t working. Dalisay hated that they had to waste money on that, but her mother had told her to consider it an investment.

  She proofread her message. How inane. She liked her mom’s cooking, cooked herself, didn’t finish university, and yep, she’d like to talk more.

  She hit send.

  Dalisay sniffled. Her discounted time was running out. Ina insisted she use some of her earnings to stay in the café until morning. It blew all of the manager raise she’d gotten, but the relief was almost worth it. If she kept walking home at night, she’d either end up in a nightmare or dead.

  She should check the other profiles and initiate conversations, but she didn’t. The rest of her late night/early morning was spent combing Minnesota facts. She put “Aaron W Minnesota” into the search but nothing useful came out. He might be buried in the results, but it’d only add to her torture of who he was.

  Fighting off her eyelid droop was growing impossible when the sky started to lighten. She logged off, fatigue weighing on her like she’d been running and filling orders all through the night. Those long hours might’ve been a waste of money, but an oddly optimistic sensation followed her home.

  She darted through the streets as traffic steadily increased by the minute.

  When she came through the door of her apartment, Ina stood, slicing peppers at the counter. “What’d you find?” she asked without missing a beat in her food prep. “I’m making an omelet. Sit and fill me in.”

  The muscle-numbing weariness Dalisay had been battling all night dulled to a constant battle of keeping her eyes open. She was home with Ina. Two more nights and she’d have a day off.

  “I made contact. Tentative.”

  Her mom nodded, her mouth turned down in concentration. “With how many men?”

  “One. There were others, but I wasn’t drawn to them.”

  Ina glanced up, one brow quirked.

  Dalisay shrugged, the sense of being interrogated daunting. Ina won that round every time. “This man’s name is Aaron and he’s younger. Closer to my age.”

  “Don’t trust him.”

  “I don’t either, Ina. Not yet.” Something about him, though… No, she had to be careful.

  “I tell you, the older ones are financially stable. They have fewer expectations beyond a happy wife, happy life.”

  “I don’t want to write off this guy until I know more.”

  “Dali, we’re running out of time. The older guys are safer.”

  “But the traffickers know that and maybe those profiles are fake.”

  Ina paused mid-chop. She nodded and continued dicing the tomato. “You still need to try. Did you bump any of them back?”

  Dalisay worried her lower lip. All those hours spent on a state and not a man. “I was looking up Minnesota. It’s where Aaron’s from.”

  Ina rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. “Dali.” She chopped some more, her mouth in a flat line. Dalisay squirmed in her seat. “Fine. What’d you find about Minnesota? Where is it?”

  She couldn’t stop her grin. Life in the city had relaxed Ina in many ways. Like she could only take so much stress and had to pick and choose where to put her worries.

  Dalisay unloaded all of her Minnesota knowledge as she jumped in to prepare the rice to go with the omelet. Her mother nodded but didn’t interrupt.

  When Dalisay was done, breakfast was ready. They sat to eat at their small square table. Ina led the prayer and they ate. Moments like this brought back fond memories of attending mass as a family. Since Ina had left Solano, she hadn’t found a new church. Another strike against her in Sally’s eyes.

  The last bite was gone when Dalisay’s eyelids refused to stay up any longer. She had to be up soon for her shift. “Ina, I must sleep.”

  “Go. I’ll clean up. But, Dali, I will go with tomorrow to see this Aaron, and after work you will bump more of those older men.”

  “Yes, Ina.”

  The few hours of sleep went by too quickly and she was up again and heading back to work. Ina joined her on the bus ride to the café, her tote bag clutched close to her body. In the café, Dalisay trotted back to the kitchen while her mother got settled at a terminal.

  Dalisay dropped a tea next to her mother. Ina glanced up in surprise.

  “It’s on me,” Dalisay said. The woman had slept less than she had.

  “He’s a farmer,” Ina said in a whisper.

  Dalisay’s gaze switched to the screen. Ina had logged in already and had read through the mess
ages. Dalisay’s heart jumped at the sight of his smile. Did he have a sense of humor?

  A long message was laid out under his photo.

  She sucked in a breath and looked around. “Is that from him?” Leaning down, she skimmed his message.

  He was a farmer who worked with his family. The foods he grew were listed, along with the menagerie of animals on his farm. Sunflowers, wheat, soybeans, cattle, and sheep.

  “Horses?” she squeaked. Oops. She straightened and looked around. New customers were coming in. She’d have to wait to linger over the information he gave.

  “He sounds promising, but Dali. A farmer.”

  “He’s not Peejong,” Dalisay whispered and went back to work.

  She didn’t want to get her hopes up, had to stay aware of the dangers, but if it helped her get through a long shift on a few hours of sleep, then she would let the fantasies flow. Because as she daydreamed about an idyllic life with a handsome farmer, Ina was bumping older men.

  ***

  Aaron unsaddled Twitty, the bay stomping his hooves. Twitty was the best cutting horse he’d ever had for cattle, but he could be stubborn and ornery, like everyone else in Aaron’s life. Today, they’d only had to move cattle to the winter pasture, but Twitty had exerted what control he could to cut cattle off from the entrance. The horse wanted out of the elements and back in his pasture. Aaron did, too, but Twitty’s behavior didn’t speed up the process.

  The wind sliced across his face. His complexion was probably as ruddy as his hair after being exposed to the cold all day.

  Lucas had called to go out, but Aaron had passed. Drinking wasn’t doing Lucas any good and Aaron didn’t want to enable him. That was as good of an excuse as any to trade messages with Daisy for the last week. She’d asked to Skype. To chat at a good time for her, he would have to be camera ready by one in the morning. He’d asked about phone calls or apps, but she was limited with her phone’s capabilities.

  With the other girl, Victoria, she’d Skyped whenever was good for him, but Daisy said she worked in the evenings. He believed her.