Taming Alaska (So Not Prince Charming Book 1) Read Free Page B

perspiration from her brow. “Do you know why I married your father?”
    “Because you love him?” Her question catches me off guard but only for a moment. I assumed this trip was to also give me motherly advice concerning my tumultuous breakup. Though I will always love my dad and be his little princess, an hombre like him is not who I wish to marry. Trevor comes from money and a good family, but I left him in the taillight’s red glow of my Porsche.
    “That’s part of it.” She studies me for a moment. “What happened between you and Trevor?” she asks tentatively. “His father was very upset that you left him out in the middle of a field.” She puckers her lips to hold in a laugh.
    My face burns. It’s too embarrassing to tell her.
    “Did you sleep with him?”
    Now my whole body catches fire. How does she know everything?
    “You did,” she says softly. “I was your age when I let some boy talk me into sex.” She crinkles her nose. “It wasn’t very good.”
    “I didn’t get anything out of it, and it was over in the blink of an eye,” I blurt out, snapping my fingers to show her how short. “He blamed me and told me I was too hard to please. He told me he was sleeping with Cassie all this time and that she was much better.”
    “I’ll have a word with his father.”
    “Please don’t,” I say in horror. That would make it far worse.
    “It takes a long time for boys like Trevor to master the art of taking care of a woman, but he’s not for you. Find a nice boy who will treat you like a princess, like Shane O’Flannery.”
    “Him?” I asked shocked. “He knows I’m sixteen, and he handles his silverware like their tools to dig in the dirt with, and isn’t he too old for me?” I don’t think he’s too old, but maybe Mom will let me date an older man.
    Mom smiles. “He won’t be too old in a couple years, and he just turned twenty-one. Women mature physically, emotionally, and mentally faster than men.”
    “Twenty-one and he owns a company?” If he’s that good, what’s he like in bed?
    “Shane’s smart and works very hard. I know he’s rough around the edges, but he’s a good man. He’s ambitious, and he’s going places.”
    I don’t see myself permanently with someone like Shane, no matter how hot the blowtorch he carries.
    Yet Mom settled for Dad, but she started with money. “You could’ve had anyone, Mom.”
    She resembles a classic movie star, blonde, wavy chin-length hair, pale blue eyes, and creamy skin.
    “When I met Fay’s father Benton, I was expected to marry him. Our properties butted up to one another, and together, we’d own some of the best oil lands in Texas. So I did.” Regret shines in her eyes. “He wasn’t a good husband, he drank too much and cheated on me, and our families expected us to stay together, but then he died.” Her face tightens. “I hired Jorge to help me with my garden. He has such a green thumb.” She smiles like someone my age romanticizing over a boy, like I did for asshole Trevor.
    Before I pull back onto the highway, a faded red truck slows as it passes us, probably to gawk at Mom. It doesn’t surprise me though. Men always whistle at her, and she just smiles and waves them off.
    Dust soots the truck’s windows, and it doesn’t have tags, though one could be taped on the inside of its dirty windows.
    She lets out a wistful sigh. “Your father and I spent many days in the gardens, a little brush against his sun-drenched skin here and there, yet he never flirted with me, and then one afternoon, he was planting rose bushes and he said, ‘ Mi madre le encantan las rosas ,’ and he started to cry. He was only twenty and missed his family terribly. He sent most of his money home to Mexico. We made love that night under the stars…at my insistence.” She laughs.
    She’s six years older than Dad and had Fay when she was twenty-four. Her much older Benton died a couple years after Fay’s birth, and I was born a few months