Dear Mr. Sage,

After careful consideration of your needs, the Diamond Bridal Agency is pleased to inform you that a bride has been located who matches your unique requirements. All communications have been kept private, as is our policy, and will cease after this missive. We request, for the security of our other clients, that you destroy this message after reading it.

Your satisfaction is guaranteed. To comply with your request for transparency, your bride will arrive on July 21st, she will be delivered directly to you, and her questionnaire has been included. Please do not hesitate to contact me should there be any issue with your bride. Her name is Margaret Hawk, and she understands the stipulations of the agreement.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Alveda Creed, Diamond Bridal Agency

Clint’s leather chair squeaked as he leaned back and stared out the window on the seventy-fifth floor of One World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. He’d tried many times to pull the head of the Diamond Bridal Agency into talking, with no success. Finally, he’d threatened to withhold future payments if she didn’t agree to meet with him. She’d finally made time for him and agreed to come to his office.

Sitting behind him, on the other side of the desk, was the very woman who’d been slipperier than some of his contractors and twice as wily. She’d already made him agree to one too many contractual stipulations regarding silence and privacy that he’d had to turn away for a moment before he got angry. Alveda Creed was an older woman, fastidious in appearance, who wasn’t easily cowed by the glare he’d thrown at her a minute ago. Score one for the old lady.

“Mr. Sage, generally speaking, I never meet with a client. Our bachelors prefer that no one even know our service exists. Just by meeting with you, I put the privacy of many men in danger, including yourself. I don’t wish to lose their business or trust. I’m sure you understand when I tell you that I’ll not be meeting with you again.” Her prim demeanor didn’t falter a bit.

He did understand, better than most, about privacy. His contracts with the Navy had to be kept under the strictest confidentiality. However, he couldn’t relegate something so important as who his wife would be, to one woman without ever actually meeting the matchmaker. This old woman would change his life, hopefully for the better, but there was no guarantee. He was a businessman. Guarantees mattered. He spun back around to face her.

“I understand your hesitancy, but you wouldn’t tell me in your letters about your success rates, or anything for that matter. Just your vague form letter with a questionnaire that’s full of…well, nothing. You have no way of letting me see who is available? How do I know this Margaret isn’t a horse’s ass?”

That wasn’t his real fear, looks could be changed. His real concern with the Agency started when he found they had no website, had refused to even talk by email. The whole agency seemed archaic, and over-secretive. Then he began having concerns about where they farmed their brides. Something didn’t smell right.

The woman laughed, and her old eyes crinkled, but held no joy whatsoever. “There is no choosing, Mr. Sage. The agency has picked a bride for you who matches your every request. I don’t operate a dating website. Most of our brides know they will marry the very day they meet their husbands.”

Clint’s high leatherback chair slammed forward as he leaned over his desk, leveling her with an intense stare he hoped conveyed just how stupid her words sounded to his ears. “You expect me to believe that I’m going to want to marry someone the first time I meet them? On the very day?”

Her smile and confidence didn’t falter. “Yes, I’m saying that exactly.”

The roiling in his gut intensified. “If this agency is so secret, how do women know to apply?” He hoped he hadn’t been engaged in some undercover slave trade company. If any of his competitors got wind of that… But, he could read people, and would know if she was shady, wouldn’t he? He couldn’t get caught in any scheme. If he did, his government contracts would dry up faster than he could blink.

“We never have a shortage of women willing to marry wealthy men.”

That wasn’t what he’d asked, and it made his skin crawl to think he might be marrying some foreign woman looking for a ticket out of poverty. “I think our contract is at an end, Mrs. Creed.” He reached out to shake on it, finished with her and her strange matchmaking business.

She frowned and, though she only took in a shallow breath, her sigh stretched a mile long. “Very well. If you must know, we recruit by very well-placed and vague ads in the newspaper. Nothing digital. If the paper lists their classifieds online, we won’t use them. It’s much easier to destroy paper evidence than digital. I will email if I must, but only to burner accounts that I can destroy at will.”

Did women his age even read the paper? Would he end up marrying someone as old as his mother? He certainly didn’t read anything that wasn’t digital. How could they have a plethora of women if no one ever saw the ads?

“And these women are how old?”

Mrs. Creed puckered her lips in disgust. “All marriageable aged women are accepted…with one exception. We only accept a handful of applicants who are not virginal. Our goal is to avoid the spread of any disease. Being extra careful about that allows us to maintain our privacy. Those who have been with a man previously are thoroughly screened through an extensive medical testing service before they are matched, the great majority are not accepted at all.”

Great, like drug testing for a job. He kept his eye roll to himself. “You claimed in your original letter that my satisfaction was guaranteed. What happens when I’m not satisfied? Because I can assure you. I won’t be.” He leaned against his desk looking down on the older woman. He doubted Alveda, or her Margaret, ever could. He hadn’t managed to find a wife on his own after ten years of playing the field, how could one old woman with a limited list do what he couldn’t?

“So little faith in me.” She clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “As I told you in the letter, I’ve been grooming a bride for you already. It is highly rare for us to ever do this, but if it would put your mind at ease, would you like to see a photo?”

If she pulled out some air brushed model’s photograph, he’d toss her right out of his office for the fraud she was. “Go for it.”

She unzipped her purse and pulled a 3x5 picture from inside, not generally the size of a photo shoot picture. She slid the image, with bent and faded corners, across the desk to him. It hadn’t even been taken by a professional. It was of a woman sitting on the back of a horse, her dark hair blowing in the breeze. It had been taken when they were still, there was no blur of her face, only her hair. She had a look of mild surprise on her face, her lips open slightly. Though not exceptional, she was pretty.

“Where did you find her?” His first thought was some poor nation where she could send back his wealth. He couldn’t pinpoint just what made him think so, but something looked…foreign. Not to mention, the bent photo could be years old, he had no way of knowing. Though maybe he was just too skeptical of Mrs. Creed and her Diamond Bridal Agency.

“Wyoming.” She eyed him as if she knew his hesitations.

“How did you find a woman from Wyoming?” Since the agency was based out of Texas, he’d assumed his bride would come from there, if she was from the States at all.

Mrs. Creed stood and picked up the photo from his desk, slipping it back into her purse, she then held out her hand. “Do we still have a deal, Mr. Sage?”

He stared at her hand, taking time to think. While he wasn’t certain about her tactics, his curiosity about the woman in the photo begged for his attention and he still needed a bride that he’d had no luck finding on his own. The only way to crack this was to go for it. He shook her hand. “Fine.”

“Good. Expect your bride in three days.”

* * *

Margaret stared at her name on the contract in front of her. Though she’d used a close enough approximation to her real name, everything else on the form was an utter lie. Her home had been in Ukraine and her name there had been Marharyta Havryliuk, changed to the English equivalent, Margaret Hawk. She’d never even been to Wyoming, but she’d read an ad about visiting there when she’d gotten off the plane and it had looked beautiful.

The woman going over the paperwork with her had assured Margaret her name would change soon anyway. Margaret Hawk’s trail would disappear as soon as the agency found her a husband. Her brother wouldn’t be able to find her, and as long as his military connections didn’t help him, she’d be safe. She could start over, be free.

“Miss Hawk? Do you have a photo that we can keep in our files for identification purposes only? They will be kept strictly private.” The woman kept on writing on her lengthy questionnaire. It had taken them three hours to fill out paperwork, get a physical, and then go through the acceptance.

“I only have one.” It probably wasn’t safe for her to keep it anyway. It was just more that could tie her to her old life. She pulled the year-old photo from her purse and handed it to the woman. It was her favorite, of a time when she wasn’t running for her life. When joy was still an option.

“Ah, you like horses?” The woman’s eyebrows rose just barely then she dropped it on the desk and kept writing.

Margaret controlled her voice to stop her accent from dominating. She hoped she sounded like she’d lived in the US for years, that was her goal. “Yes, doesn’t everyone from Wyoming love horses? I’m sure they do.”

The woman wrote more in the file, but the slant of her brow left Margaret wondering if she was being marked down for something, or at the very least the woman was skeptical.

“That’s everything I need for today. Since you’re here for longer than a few weeks, Wyoming being so far away, there’s a dormitory at this address where you can room until we’ve found you a match. When you’re called, one of our agents will buy a new wardrobe for you using the measurements we took earlier. Be prepared to leave at any time. Your groom awaits!” She sounded like she was selling popcorn, not setting her up for life.

Margaret stood and shook her hand, but felt very little. At least she’d have a place to stay until she could find the man who would make sure she never went back to Ukraine again. Safety had become something even more foreign than the soil she walked on.

“Thank you.” She pulled the business card toward her and read the address of the dormitory on the back. “Will I have any say in the man chosen for me?”

The attendant tilted her head slightly and smiled, closing her file and finally paying attention to her. “No, but you needn’t worry. That’s why we spent so much time asking you all those questions. You’ll be set with a perfect match, trust me.”

She hadn’t trusted anyone in years and wouldn’t start with the bouncy blond who’d just tucked her life away in a file that was under one inch thick.