Text Order Bride

Chapter 1

As she was sitting at her kitchen table grading papers, Amanda heard the tune that signaled she had a text message. Picking up her phone, she quickly glanced at the readout. The number was unfamiliar. She clicked on the message to read it. “Stephanie gave me your number. She said you might be interested in texting with a lonely farmer.”
Amanda read the message again, and a slow smile spread across her face. Stephanie had told her that there was a man in her church that she thought would be perfect for her. This must be him. She quickly keyed in a reply. “I think I would be interested in texting a lonely farmer, but only if you tell me your name.”
Stephanie had been her roommate at the small Christian college she attended. After graduation, Stephanie had moved to Wisconsin, with her preacher husband, Bob, to plant a church. They now had four children, one boy and three girls.
Jason was surprised at how quickly he got the alert signaling he’d received a reply text. He picked up his phone holding his breath. Would she be interested? He tapped the phone and the message appeared. His face lit up with a grin. He tapped out a response and sent it on.
He had surprised himself by agreeing to text Amanda, his pastor’s wife’s friend. He lived in a sparsely populated area of Wisconsin, and just didn’t have time to go out and meet women. When Stephanie had suggested her friend might be interested in marriage, he took her number, but didn’t think he’d ever actually do anything with it. He’d gotten in early this evening, and as he’d sat on his couch, vegetating in front of the television, he’d thought about how nice it would be to not be alone anymore. So he’d dug the number out of his wallet and sent a text.
Amanda picked up the phone again. She’d barely had time to get one paper graded before he’d responded. “I’m Jason. I understand you live in Texas? What do you do there?”
She grinned and her fingers flew across the screen as she answered. “I do live in Texas about an hour south of Dallas/Fort Worth. I’m a homemaking teacher. Where do you live?”
The answer came back quickly. “Stratford, Wisconsin. Small town not far from Wausau, if you’ve ever heard of that.”
Amanda hadn’t, so she opened up her laptop and Googled it. It was barely more than a crook in the highway, but that was fine. It wasn’t like she was marrying the man. She was texting him. “And you’re a farmer? What kind of farming?”
“Lol. Dairy, of course. I’m a Wisconsin farmer.”
She grinned. “Do you like farming?” She pushed the papers aside. She could grade papers tomorrow night. It was Friday night after all. She did a little more searching on the town Jason lived in.
“I really don’t know anything else. I even studied agriculture in college. Do you like teaching?”
She thought about that. She’d been teaching for ten years now, and wasn’t sure how she felt about it anymore. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. I’m at a point where I need a change.” She hadn’t really realized that before he’d asked.
“I understand. Have you had your spring break yet?”
“We just got back this week. The kids are all wiggly and don’t want to learn.”
“Lol. I’m glad the cows don’t get that way.”
“Do you teach the cows?” She smiled to herself as she typed that, wondering what his response would be.
“Not typically. I wish I could sometimes.”
“What would you teach them if you could?”
Jason grinned as he read the question. What would he teach those silly cows? “I’d teach them to read so they’d understand why I keep having the vet give them shots.”
Amanda laughed out loud at the thought of cows reading. She’d never had a full conversation by text message before. She didn’t know the abbreviations or the jargon. She hated not typing out the full words anyway. It looked like Jason was the same. Should she ask him to call her? Would that be too forward? “That would be interesting, I think. If you manage to do that, would you come to Texas and teach my students how to sit still?”
“I keep trying to imagine your words spoken with a Texas drawl. Do you say y’all a lot?”
She smiled. “Not a lot. It is a pretty common word around here, you know. I’m trying to imagine a Wisconsin accent when you text, but I’m not sure I’d know one if I heard one.”
He read the words and smiled. How would she react if he just called? It was late, but he knew she was up. He had her number. Would she mind? He took a deep breath and threw caution to the wind, clicking the button to call her instead of sending her another text.
She jumped when her phone rang instead of signaling a text. She’d put his name with his number, so she knew it was him. Why was she so nervous? She put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Amanda?”
“Yes. Hi, Jason.”
“Hi there. I had to hear your voice for myself. I hope that’s okay.” His voice was deep and his accent sounded strange. They certainly hadn’t sounded like that on Happy Days.
“It’s fine. I almost asked you to call, but I was afraid I would seem too pushy.”
He laughed softly. Her voice didn’t have as strong of a Southern drawl as he’d expected. “You should have. I wouldn’t have minded.” He paused for a moment unsure of what to say now that she was on the phone. “So tell me what you look like, Amanda.”
She sighed. Here was the killer. In her experience, men liked tiny women. She was an Amazon. “I have blond hair and blue eyes. I’m thin.” She trailed off after that. “What about you?”
“Brown hair. Brown eyes. Pretty boring really. How tall are you?” He sent up a silent prayer that she wasn’t a tiny little thing. He was way too tall to mess with a girl like that.
“Here’s where you quit talking to me,” she said sadly. “I’m six foot two.” She waited for him to tell her he wasn’t interested in keeping the conversation going.
“Really?” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “I’m six six.”
“Are you serious? You’re actually taller than me?” She knew that she probably sounded like an idiot she was so excited.
“I’m serious. I’ve got to meet you now. You need to fly up here and spend a weekend with Stephanie so I can meet you.”
She smiled. “I might be able to do that. After school is out, of course.”
“How ‘bout tomorrow instead?”
She laughed softly. “That’s probably not going to work.”
“Darn. You can’t blame a man for trying, right?”
“I guess not. I wish you’d called me a few weeks ago. I probably could have gone up during spring break.” She hadn’t done anything else. “Do you always have such terrible timing?”
He laughed. “Yeah, I do. Always. I’m cursed!”
They talked long into the night. When he finally glanced at the clock and realized it was after midnight, he mentally kicked himself. He had to work tomorrow, Saturday or not. “I really have to go. The cows need to be milked bright and early.”
“I understand. I really enjoyed talking to you, though,” she said honestly. She was going to be sad to hang up.
“I enjoyed talking to you, too. May I keep texting you? Maybe call again?”
She smiled. “I’d really like that.”
“I’ll text you tomorrow. G’night.”
Amanda set her phone down with a smile. She felt like a girl in high school with her first boyfriend. She thought. She’d never had that first boyfriend in high school. She’d seen how her friends had reacted, though. She knew all the symptoms, and she was feeling them. Yeah, it was just a few texts and a phone call, but they hadn’t had a problem thinking of things to say. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t always be alone. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.
Saturday was errand day for Amanda. With everything she did, she found herself wondering what Jason was up to. Was he working? Eating lunch? Doing his grocery shopping?
She finished grading papers early in the day, and had her lesson plan done for the following week. She ate her dinner alone, as usual, and this time, she didn’t mind it as much as she usually did.
Amanda had moved back to the small town she’d grown up in after college. Her mother had been ill, and she’d felt that it was her duty, as an only child, to take care of her. She’d loved her mother, and nursing her for the last two years of her life hadn’t been a burden. After her mother’s death, she’d thought about moving somewhere else, but where? Everyone she knew, and everything she knew was centered in that small town.
She knew she needed to make a fresh start. As she ate, she decided that this would be her last year teaching in Maypearl. She was going to find somewhere else to live and just start over. She would let the principal know on Monday and start sending out resumes. There was a school somewhere just right for her.
She had just finished washing the dishes when her phone beeped to signal a text message. She almost danced over to where her phone lay on the table. “Hey, did Jason ever contact you?”
Amanda sighed. She’d hoped it was from Jason. She quickly keyed, “Yeah. We spent hours talking last night.”
Stephanie simply replied with, “Woohoo!”
Amanda grabbed a book from the shelf in her bedroom and padded into the bathroom. She ran herself a hot bubble bath, carefully setting her phone on the floor beside the tub. She didn’t want it to get wet, but she wanted to be able to respond if he called or texted.
She was about a chapter into her book when her phone signaled another text. She picked it up and read the screen. “Hi there. What are you up to?”
Her thumbs tapped out her response. “Just reading a book. You?”
It wasn’t a full minute after she sent the message before her phone rang. “Hello?”
“What book?” Jason asked.
She smiled. “It’s an Amish fiction book that was recommended by a woman at my church.”
“Is it any good?”
“Yeah, so far. I’m only about a chapter into it.” She tried really hard to stay still in the water so that he wouldn’t hear the splashes. She didn’t really want him to know she was talking to him from the bathtub.
An hour later they were still talking. Not about anything important, just chatting and getting to know one another better. Her water was so cold she started to shiver. She needed to either add hot water or get out. She decided to get out of the tub and hoped that he wouldn’t hear her. She moved slowly to a standing position and toweled off before stepping out of the water. He was talking about how he’d come to own his family’s farm, so she knew she had a minute.
As she stepped out, he stopped talking. “Why do I hear water?” he asked.
Darn. She should have muted it before getting out. “Um…yeah. Probably.”
“Are you washing dishes?”
“No.”
“Why did I hear water?”
She sighed. She wasn’t going to lie to him. “I was getting out of the bathtub,” she admitted, her face flaming red.
He was silent for a moment. “You were in the tub the whole time we’ve been talking?”
“Yeah.”
“Now why don’t we have video chat?”
She laughed softly. “Sorry. I should have told you right away and called you back.”
He grinned. He could almost hear her blush. He couldn’t believe there was a woman in her thirties left in this country who could blush. It was refreshing to say the least. “I’m just teasing you. It’s fine.”
She pulled on a bathrobe and went into her bedroom to sit on the bed and talk. She lived in the house she’d grown up in, and had taken over her mother’s old bedroom when she died. Her father had died when she was a small child.
“I don’t mind being teased as long as it’s not about how tall I am,” she told him honestly.
He chuckled softly. “I’m the last one to tease you about your height. I think it’s great.” He paused for a moment, and then said, “I really hope I get to meet you.”
She smiled to herself. She was hoping for the same thing. Easter was coming up in a couple of weeks. “I could fly up there and spend Easter weekend with Stephanie,” she suggested. “She’s been inviting me for years.”
He settled back on the couch and crossed his feet. He loved that idea. “Seriously? You’d do that?”
She thought about it. “Yeah, I would. I could get a sub for the Thursday before and fly up Wednesday night. That way we could have Thursday, Friday and Saturday together. I’d have to fly home after Easter services on Sunday.”
“I’ll pay for your ticket,” he offered.
She shook her head. “No way. I don’t want to feel like I’m indebted to you in any way. I’ll buy the ticket and spend the weekend with my friend. We can see if we hit it off in person as much as we do on the phone.”
“I’d like that a lot.”
She stood up and walked into the living room to search for flights on her laptop. “What would be the best airport for me to fly into?”
“Madison. I could have my friend Steve do the milking that night, and meet you myself.”
“And take me to Stephanie’s house?” she asked. She was more than willing to meet him, but she wasn’t ready to stay in a house alone with a man she’d never met in person.
“Absolutely.”
She typed in the information to fly from D/FW to Madison. She had several friends who would have no problem driving her to the D/FW airport. She found a non-stop and pulled out a credit card, booking it immediately. She knew she should ask Stephanie first, but she could easily get a hotel if she needed to. With no house payment, and a decent salary, she had a good savings account.
“What’s your email address?” she asked. “I’ll email you the flight information.”
“You already booked it?” he asked.
“I had to do it before I lost my nerve.”
He laughed softly. “I understand. I’m really excited that I’m going to get to meet you.”
“Me too.” She smiled to herself, thinking about how excited she was about it. “I’ll have to call Stephanie tomorrow and let her know I’m making a surprise visit.”
He grinned. “I’ll let her know at church in the morning.”
“That sounds good to me.”
He glanced at the clock. “Wow. It’s getting late. We’ll talk again, but for now, I need to go to bed so I can get up in the morning for milking.”
“Okay. It was nice talking to you.”
“You too. G’night.”
“Good night.”