Kitabı oku: «Bachelor-Auction Bridegroom»

Chapter One

Number 46 watched the winning bidder slowly make her way to the stage to claim him. She appeared to be a conservatively dressed businesswoman with auburn hair, porcelain skin, and hazel eyes the color of an early morning western sunrise. She might be trying to look all business, but her short skirt and slender, shapely legs gave her away.

Something told him that under her carefully groomed exterior was a sensuous woman. In any case, as far as he could see, she was a dream walking. His spirits perked up. Maybe being “rented” as a date for a day wouldn’t be so bad after all.

He began to have second thoughts as she drew closer. There was something about her determined expression that telegraphed she was the type that played for keeps. The words “for keeps” weren’t even in his vocabulary, and he didn’t plan on adding them. Filled with belated misgivings at having volunteered for a bachelor auction, he fervently hoped his escort duties would be brief.

Receipt in hand, his buyer reached his side and glanced down at the program. “Mr. Kirkpatrick?”

He nodded politely and waited for her to identify herself. She blushed, and to his bemusement, her complexion turned a becoming shade of pink. “I’m Emily Holmes.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Holmes. T. J. Kirkpatrick at your service,” he replied politely. “What did you have in mind for the two of us?”

She blushed again.

He gazed at her quizzically. He may have thought she looked like a dream walking, but something about her body language told him there was more behind her bidding on him than met the eye. “You must have had something in mind when you bid for me. Right?”

Her expression was a study in contradictions. She nodded silently. Something was definitely wrong. It began to dawn on him that maybe being auctioned off to a strange woman hadn’t been such a good idea. Not even for a charitable cause.

He looked over her head at the cashier, who was watching them with interest. “Stay here for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

Her hand reached out to stop him. “Where are you going?”

The note of alarm in her voice and her grip on his arm stopped him in his tracks. “To get your money back for you. It looks to me as if you’ve changed your mind.”

“I haven’t. It’s not what you think,” she protested when his eyes narrowed. “Could we go somewhere private and talk?”

Private. Tim digested the idea for a minute. All of his instincts warned him he was teetering on the edge of deep waters. It was time to set the record straight. “I believe you may have made a mistake, Miss Holmes. Regardless of what this setup looks like, I’m not a professional gigolo.”

“I’m not looking for one,” she said firmly, squaring her jaw. Sparks of anger filled her eyes. “I won you as an escort for a day fair and square, Mr. Kirkpatrick, and I intend to have you face up to your agreement.”

His honor tested, Tim considered falling back on the alternate plan he used whenever his back was against the wall. What had started out as a joke had just lost its humor. A free spirit, the last thing he cared for was to be “won” by anyone, let alone by a woman high on looks and, if she took the auction that seriously, obviously one card short of a full deck.

But first things first. In case he had read the lady wrong, he intended to do the honorable thing. He reached for his wallet. “Here,” he said, offering her a wad of bills. “Keep your receipt. I don’t know what you had in mind, but I’ll give you your money back myself. That way you can have an income tax deduction and your money, too.”

“No, thank you,” she protested, backing away from his outstretched hand. “I don’t want your money. I want you. This receipt tells me you belong to me!”

His thoughts spinning, Tim gazed at his new owner. “Belong” sounded too permanent for his peace of mind. He’d have to see to it that their date was brief and took place where they would have lots of company. After all, how much of a problem could one date be as long as he kept it public? He nodded reluctantly.

Emily considered her prize. He was perhaps six feet tall, had brown hair streaked with gold and blue eyes that spoke of California summer skies. To add to her growing misgivings about her choice, he was decidedly too handsome for his own good.

Fortunately, he seemed to have a sense of humor, or he wouldn’t have offered himself to the highest bidder. Maybe he thought the whole idea of being on an auction block was a hoot. She didn’t.

He wasn’t her type, she thought as she gazed into his wary blue eyes. But nevertheless he appeared to be just the man she needed. He had to have a kind heart, or he couldn’t have allowed himself to be auctioned off for charity. She tried to ignore the uneasy feeling rushing over her. She was uncertain about her choice, but for better or worse, she was going to go with her instincts and hope for the best. Surely, the man must have a better side to him somewhere.

“Belong to you? In what way?” her prize asked cautiously.

“I want you to come with me and have our picture taken.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “If all you want is a photograph, I guess I can do that.” He straightened his tie, ran his fingers through his hair and grinned. “If you ask me, $350 for a photo seems a little high. But if it’s a souvenir you want, why not? I’m game.”

Emily didn’t have the courage to tell him why she wanted to have her picture taken with him. Not yet, and not before she had her photograph. “Good. There’s an instant photo shop in the lobby. If you’re ready, let’s go.”

She was pleased to see him take a deep breath and shove his hands into his pockets. “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

With her prize beside her, Emily took quarters out of her coin purse, poised her head carefully next to his and looked up into his eyes with a bright smile. When she was satisfied they looked like a happily married couple, she dropped in four quarters and pressed the button that gave her a husband. “There!” she said when the photographs slid out of the machine. “Just what I needed.”

“That’s swell! By the way, thank you for your donation, Miss Holmes,” her partner said amiably as he backed out of the booth. “The foundation thanks you, too.” Before she could stop him, he waved goodbye and started out of the photo shop.

“Wait a minute!” she called after him. “I forgot to tell you I may need you again tomorrow.”

He swung around and stared at her. His wary expression came back. “Tomorrow? You mean the photograph wasn’t enough for you?”

She shook her head. A guarded expression came over her face “Maybe. Maybe not.”

He smothered a groan. His high hopes for a quick getaway dashed, Tim’s heart sank. What she wanted with him was anyone’s guess, but it looked as if she intended to get her $350 dollars worth. “Why not get whatever you have in mind over with today?”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated firmly. She couldn’t tell him she needed one more day to go to plan number two if plan number one failed. Instead, she looked around to make sure no one could overhear her and went on to borrow the street language she’d often heard on television. “A deal is a deal. That is, if you can give a day’s work for two days’ pay.”

He winced as if her challenge hit too close to home. “Of course I can, but to tell the truth, I’m beginning to feel like a lamb being led to slaughter.”

“A lamb?” Her eyebrows rose as she considered the man who looked more like a rogue than a lamb. “Hardly, Mr. Kirkpatrick. You’re the furthest thing from a lamb I can think of. That’s why I wanted you.” She paused long enough for him to get the message. “And by the way, under the circumstances, you can call me Emily.”

“Circumstances?” Instead of looking chastened, he eyed her suspiciously. “What circumstances would that be?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” She reached into her purse for a roll of the peppermints she chewed on whenever she was nervous and offered one to him.

“No, thanks,” he answered, his mind busy working on how to swim out of muddy waters before he got in over his head. He wondered just how soon he could fall back on his tried-and-true backup plan to get out of the way of trouble. “Why tomorrow and not today?”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated firmly, and popped a peppermint into her mouth.

His mind was made up. Emily Holmes was not the woman for him, but he knew just whom she was for. As far as he was concerned, his meeting with Emily Holmes had been ordained. Just the thought made him feel virtuous. “Maybe I ought to give you my business card and an address where you can find me if you need me. Say around noon?”

She took the card and carefully put it in her purse. “I’ll be there.”

PROMPTLY AT TWELVE, Emily showed up at the address noted on the business card T.J. had given her yesterday. She checked the address against the sign in front of the building site and relaxed. T.J. Kirkpatrick, Historical Building Restoration, was a real business. Recalling the calculating look in the man’s eyes yesterday, she’d been half-afraid the card had been a fake.

Ahead of her, four men in dusty jeans and worn T-shirts were busy rebuilding a crumbling red brick wall. A weathered sign across the front of the aging structure dated 1939 proclaimed the building to once have been a fire station. Today it looked more like a private building of some sort badly in need of repair. A dozen more men dressed in jeans, sleeveless T-shirts and helmets roamed over the site. When one man removed his hard hat and wiped his forehead, her gaze unerringly found the man she was looking for. All six feet of him.

She was in the right place.

He was wearing leather boots, worn jeans and a shirt open to his slim waist. Rolled-up sleeves revealed muscular forearms. His brow was beaded with sweat. The faint, dark shadow of a beard covered his tanned face. Clearly in charge of the operation, he was muttering to himself as he dried off his face and turned to check the efforts of the work crew.

Yesterday at the auction, she’d decided he wasn’t her type. Today her eyes widened, and her body warmed at the sight of him.

She’d taken their photograph to the law office yesterday afternoon as proof she was married. To her dismay, she’d been told she had to come up with the man himself.

There was something different about the man today, she thought as she waited for him to notice her. He looked a little older, taller, a bit more muscular and, if possible, more attractive. With his sun-tanned skin and muscular chest showing under his open shirt, he didn’t look to be quite the same man. In the photograph he’d reluctantly taken with her yesterday, he’d been dressed in a tailored suit, white shirt and paisley tie. An immaculate fop.

As a result, she’d spent a sleepless night planning this meeting and its intended outcome. Now that she was here, she was beginning to have her doubts. What she had in mind, coupled with his sexy appearance, made her wonder if she hadn’t gone overboard in her efforts to get his full cooperation. There was a problem. He was still the kind of man a woman liked to dream about, but not the kind of man a woman necessarily takes home with her. After being jilted by her too-handsome-for-his-own-good fiancé, she wasn’t going to go down that path again.

The more she gazed at her target, the more uneasy she became. Yesterday, he’d merely been a means for her to get her inheritance. Today, judging from her physical reaction, he’d turned into a flesh-and-blood man, decidedly striking.

His masculine appearance couldn’t be ignored, she thought. Not when his every move touched off an answering response in her.

She had to be honest and objective. It was her own appearance that was beginning to worry her. Deliberately calculated to draw T. J. Kirkpatrick’s interest and keep it until the task she had in mind for him was safely accomplished, she was afraid she might have overdone her appearance. She sighed and reached for a peppermint.

She might be a librarian whose worldview largely came from books, but she could recognize sensuous attraction when she felt it. And she felt it now. Maybe she would have been better off winning a harmless, ordinary man she wouldn’t have needed to impress. Considering the circumstances, sometimes a woman had to do what she had to do to get her man.

The men scattered over the site stopped to stare when she finally caught their attention. Whistles and catcalls filled the air. One or two waved, another threw down a pail and shovel and started toward her. The look in his eyes was clearly predatory. She fought the urge to leave.

T.J. turned to check out the activity. A studied smile pasted on her lips, a woman stood there looking as if she were poised to run. She was dressed in a wisp of a light-blue summer outfit that covered vital areas and little else. Her silky auburn hair flowed around her bare shoulders, and a single gold chain hung around her neck. A green jade charm dangled from the chain and lay between her breasts. When he could tear his gaze away from the jade charm, he noticed she held a small white cardboard box in her hand.

He took a second, calculating look around and decided he’d better check out the visitor before he had a mini-riot on his hands. He waved off the workmen and sauntered toward his visitor.

“May I help you?” His gaze took in the enticing areas of pink-tinged skin at her neck and shoulders, graceful, slender, bare arms and a body carved to perfection. Pink, manicured toes peeked from white sandals that matched her handbag. To his mind, she was the perfect package of femininity.

The way she affected him made his senses whirl and, in spite of his common sense, his body stir. Speculation as to why she was here in the first place blew his mind. He had to remind himself tempting women like her had no place on a job site. Not that he was a monk when it came to admiring and dating beautiful women, but at the moment he had more important things to think about.

“I told you I’d be here today,” she answered, following his gaze down her dress. She gave a little shrug in an effort to make the neckline of the dress move up a little higher, with no discernible results. When she noticed his growing interest, she shrugged again. To her chagrin, it only made matters worse. She tried a smile. “I figured this dress was more appropriate for this warm weather than what I was wearing yesterday.”

Appropriate? Yesterday?

T.J. glanced over his shoulder at the crew, who were making no bones about their enthusiasm for his unexpected visitor. “Take thirty!” he called before he turned back to his visitor. Behind him, his crew continued to laugh and joke about their visitor. Sure enough, “take thirty” didn’t mean a damn when there was a beautiful woman to look at.

He couldn’t blame them. He was taken by her, too. The brilliant sun overhead shone on fiery auburn hair and cast a golden glow over her very visible porcelain skin. To add to her appeal, when he got close to her, he discovered that her scent was fresh and minty. Pungent enough to sharpen his senses and add to his growing awareness of her charms.

It took a moment or two before his gaze swung to her intriguing hazel eyes. They were filled with questions. So was he.

Why was an attractive, obviously well-bred woman wandering around the construction site? And why was she dressed in an outfit surely calculated to draw male attention?

“Appropriate for what?” he prompted. When she stared wordlessly at him, he went on patiently. There was no use pushing her, and by now, he was in no mood to try. “How about starting with your name, or is it too much to ask?”

“My name is Emily Holmes. I told you that yesterday,” Emily answered, tearing her gaze away from the cleft in his chin. “As for what I have in mind, that’s what I came here to tell you. Just as I promised yesterday.” She glanced over at their audience and took a deep breath. “Is there someplace where we could talk privately while you have lunch?”

He glanced at his watch, shrugged and smiled. Heck, it was lunchtime anyway—or close to it. “I usually wait for a food truck to show up. Either you’re early or they’re late. At any rate, I didn’t brown-bag it today.”

She thrust the white cardboard box at him. “I didn’t want you to miss your lunch hour so I had the hotel kitchen put together a box lunch for you.”

“Thank you. A free lunch is something no hungry man would pass up.” He wiped his hands on a large bandanna he took from his pocket, glanced around the building site and finally pointed to a small grassy area shaded by a single tree. “Hang on while I find something for us to sit on. I wouldn’t want you to soil that outfit.” He cast a lingering glance at her cleavage before he strode away.

Emily bit back her reply and waited while he found, dusted off, and set up two empty crates under the tree. She might be a little underdressed, but at least she had his attention.

A lunch truck sounded its horn and drew up alongside the construction site. The crew cheered and headed for the truck.

“Lemonade?”

“Yes, thank you.” She took a seat and watched while T.J. ambled over to the truck and ordered two bottles of lemonade and a cup filled with ice. She’d never met a man quite like him. The sun glinted off his warm brown hair. His stride was confident. Yesterday at the auction, he’d appeared to be attracted to her. She hadn’t been interested, but today, for some reason, the feeling had become mutual. Not even her ex-fiancé had affected her this way. She shivered at the thought.

T.J. bantered with the truck driver and crew until he had them all laughing. Embarrassed at her own reaction, she didn’t know which got to her more: the sound of his easy laughter, or the way those tanned muscles rippled on his chest as he swung his hands.

Either way, T. J. Kirkpatrick could probably charm the birds right out of the trees, she mused as she watched him wave goodbye and stride back to where she waited. When he winked at her, she began to have second thoughts.

Somehow T. J. Kirkpatrick didn’t look to be the kind of man who would go quietly wherever she led. Maybe it would have been easier if he weren’t every woman’s walking dream. She’d have to remind him she’d won him fair and square and that this visit was strictly business. And, while she was at it, she’d remind herself he was the right man for the role she had in mind for him. Nothing more. When her need for his time was over, he’d be expendable.

T.J. handed her a cold bottle of lemonade and a plastic cup filled with ice. He opened the box lunch and looked inside. “Great! Two ham-and-cheese sandwiches, coleslaw, carrot and celery sticks, pickles and chocolate cake!” He looked at her for a long moment, then smiled. “Not bad! Not bad at all!”

She wasn’t sure he was still talking about the lunch.

To her discomfiture, he took a swallow of lemonade before his gaze raked her from the top of her head to her toes. “Let’s see now, Miss Emily Holmes. To begin with, you act as if we’ve met before. I don’t think so. If we had, I’m sure I would have remembered you.

“To add to the mystery, you show up here dressed in a way clearly calculated to rob a man of his common sense. You bring him a lunch designed to soften him up. And, to top it off, you haven’t stopped shivering since you got here.” He gestured to the tree that cast its shade above them. “Considering it’s ninety degrees in the shade, you can’t possibly be cold.” He stopped to contemplate her in a way that made her blood run swift and hot. “So, Miss Holmes, if that’s your real name, you must want something from me awfully bad.”

Mesmerized by the sound of his voice and the vein that throbbed at the side of his throat, Emily found herself lost in the magic of his masculine persona. She would have reached for another peppermint to calm her nerves, but she couldn’t move. The problem was the cat had gotten her tongue, butterflies were waltzing around her middle, and her mind had gone blank.

Still, the moment she’d planned down to the smallest detail had arrived. From the look in the man’s eyes, she’d obviously reached the point of no return. It was now or never.

She nodded helplessly.

He took another deep swallow of lemonade, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and eyed her thoughtfully. “So, Miss Holmes, just what is it you want from me?”

Emily swallowed hard and took a firm grip on her emotions. If the man thought she was out of her mind, so be it. “I—I want you to be my husband.”