The Dragon’s E-Mail Order Menage

“So. You’re back. I wasn’t sure you would be.”

“Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I come back?”

“Well, you are leaving, aren’t you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Child, do you really want to play games with me? Do you really want to draw this whole process out for longer than necessary?”

The way her mother was looking at her now, hands on hips and hair sticking out of her messy bun every which way, Maggie knew there would be no point in drawing anything out, even if that had indeed been what she wanted to do. Rose Wallace was nothing if not a practical woman. Maggie felt her insides begin to shrink and bow down to her mother, to revert back to being a child again, but then she lifted her chin, determined that this conversation was going to be different.

She had just made one very adult decision, a decision that was going to alter the course of her life in every way going forward, and if she could do that, well, if she could do that she should be able to speak her choices aloud to her mother. It was more than a “should be able,” in fact. Part of her was sure that she would never be able to move forward in her life if she didn’t do this and do it this way. Sure, she could just slink off into the darkness and have them all wondering where she had gone, send them some kind of a sheepish letter once she was gone informing them of what she had done, but somehow she knew that if she played the situation that way she would never be able to live a full life.

Part of her would always be on that farm, living that exact same life she was trying to get away from. Not that it was a bad life, it was just not the one she had chosen for herself. And she had chosen. She had no idea what it would be like to go off and do a thing like answer a listing for a mail order bride, but she did know that it would be different, that it would be an adventure.

That was what she really wanted. At the end of the day, that was what she craved. Even the idea of adventure made her feel the same way she felt when she looked out at the wild red land of New Mexico with the mountains framing it from behind. It was something that had infiltrated her blood and it would not be denied.

“No, Mamma. You’re right. I don’t want to play games with you. I guess we’ve done that enough over the last two decades, haven’t we?”

“I guess we have.”

Maggie sat down at the dining table, watching her mother bustle around the kitchen crowded with memories and thinking about all of the days of her life that had spent doing this exact same thing. They were good days and she was happy to have had them. Hopefully, given enough time, her mother would find a way for her to be happy for her for finding good days somewhere else.

“So then, things with Damon. Done?”

“Yes, we’re done. He wanted things I didn’t want. We just weren’t on the same page.”

“He wanted to marry you. You think I don’t know that? You think he didn’t talk to your Papa and I before he came to you?”

“No,” she said stunned, “that thought actually never even crossed my mind. He talked to you guys? What did you say to him?”

“Your papa gave him his blessing.”

“And you? What did you say to him?”

Rose Wallace sighed and hung her head for a moment before turning to face her perpetually wayward daughter. She looked older somehow, older than Maggie had ever imagined her looking and the sight was just a little bit unnerving. Of course one’s parents grew older, everyone knew that theoretically, but it was still an uncomfortable thing to be confronted with in any real way, especially the first time. She thought it might get easier after this because she knew she would never be able to shake the feeling she had looking at her mother now.

“I told him that if you would have him, so would I, but not to get his hopes up. I told him it wasn’t what you wanted. That you wouldn’t be around for long.”

Ridiculously, Maggie felt a great wave of anger surge up through her chest as her dragon reared its head and growled in aggravation. What her mother had said had been right, but it had not been her place to speak those words. She should have kept her mouth shut and it made Maggie irrationally angry that she hadn’t. It was an anger that her mother must have seen easily because she shook her head, a mirthless laugh escaping her drawn mouth.

“What, you think I would have done better to throw him to the wolves, blind? You told him no, didn’t you? It was a kindness I did that boy, which is more than I can say for you.”

“Really?” she said, working very hard now not to shout. “Is that so? So you think it would have been better for me to marry him no matter what I felt in my heart? Is that what you would want if the roles were reversed? Because there is no way I would want to be married to somebody who wished that they were somewhere else. I was trying to be kind. I was trying to give him a chance to find a girl to marry who really wanted to be his wife. He’s a good man. He deserves that.”

Maggie could hear her father’s boots moving across the floor overhead and she knew this conversation was about to expand. Her mother and she were both breathing heavily, exhausted with the effort of keeping things from deteriorating into an actual knock down drag out fight. That was how her papa found them, facing off like two boxers in the ring. He looked cautiously from one woman to the next, clearly wanting to choose his words wisely before he opened his mouth to speak.