Chapter One #2
The crowd gasped, delighted.
Aunt Dixie slapped his arm. “You don’t get to say no!”
“I absolutely do when it’s her,” he shot back.
Ashleigh tilted her head. “Afraid of me, Jack?”
“Not afraid,” he said. “Just cautious. Like one is around varmints and snakes.”
“Ouch,” someone stage-whispered.
Ashleigh didn’t even flinch. “Good. Keeps things interesting.”
“Five hundred going once—” Landon started.
“Five hundred and one!”
Lila again.
Jack shot her a grateful look. “Thank you.” He was surprised Lila was bidding on him. He thought she’d moved on to the love of her life, but maybe that relationship had gone sour.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “I’m still deciding if I want you to mow my lawn or cook me dinner.”
Jack smiled. “Well, I can do both.”
“I know,” she said with a wink. Maybe she was just being nice and helping him out so he didn’t have to go out with someone…problematic. He would owe her and that was okay with him. Lila was his friend.
“Six hundred,” Ashleigh said smoothly.
Jack groaned. “This is escalating in a direction I do not support.”
“Six hundred and one!” Marcy called, sounding desperate.
Jack was sort of rooting for Marcy over Ashleigh. Between the two choices of rock or hard place, both women were tricky. Still…
“Six fifty!” someone offered.
“Seven hundred,” Ashleigh said, like she was ordering coffee.
The crowd oohed.
Jack leaned toward Aunt Dixie, who had unconcealed glee shaping her features. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
She grinned even wider. “Oh, immensely.”
Jack shook his head. “I’m being auctioned off like a used truck.”
“A very desirable used truck.”
“Still used.”
She patted his cheek. “But with low mileage.”
Jack blinked. “I don’t think that means what you think it means.”
Landon was taking bids left and right, the bounty for Jack’s bachelorhood growing with each shout.
“Eight hundred!” Lila shouted.
“Eight fifty!” Marcy followed.
Ashleigh didn’t hesitate. “Nine hundred.”
Jack pointed at her. “Seriously. Why?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Because I can.”
“That is not a good reason.”
“It is if I win. I have such grand plans for you, Jack.”
Space potatoes. That was not good.
“Nine fifty!” someone called.
In the crowd, he saw a new female figure moving through the assembled bidders.
A stranger. Well, he’d never seen her before anyway.
She looked for all the world like a powerhouse businesswoman.
Her movements concise and efficient, she parked herself in the middle of the group, arms crossed, like she was waiting for something to happen. For what, Jack did not know.
She was tall and slender. Her short, straight black hair was fashioned in a severe chin bob. The points on either side of her face might be razor-sharp. She wore very unusual violet-tinted spectacles, giving her a cyberpunk vibe.
He stared at her, certain he’d never seen her before. It begged the question, what did she want with him? Maybe he didn’t want to know.
He scanned her features again. Nope. He didn’t know her.
Would’ve remembered if he did.
There was something about the way she stood—still, composed, like she wasn’t part of the chaos at all.
Steady. Calm. Completely unfamiliar.
Jack decided that he was now rooting for her to save him from Ashleigh and Marcy. A vivid pipe dream if there ever was one. She might not bid on him at all. She was probably here to save someone else. He wasn’t the only bachelor who didn’t want to be here.
“One thousand,” Ashleigh called, bringing his attention back to the worry he’d be going home with her. He did not want to. She would not be nice for the entire twenty-four hours. She said she had grand plans for him, for the love of a space potato farm.
There was more hushed conversation in the crowd. A thousand dollars was a lot of money. Aunt Dixie leaned close to Landon and whispered in his ear. That couldn’t be good for him, Jack was certain.
The bidding had died with Ashleigh’s four-figure bid.
Landon said, “All right, then. The bid stands at one thousand dollars, which is a very tidy sum. Do I have any more bids for Jack Grey here?”
The stranger lifted her right arm, her hand in the air, forefinger pointing to the sky. “Two thousand dollars,” she said coolly, as if the sum had merely been dug out of the sofa cushions in her living room.
“Did I hear you right, miss? You just bid two thousand dollars?” Even Landon seemed shocked.
She nodded only once. No smile. No hint of anything emotional, just business as usual for her.
The energy across the crowd shifted.
Ashleigh’s eyes narrowed.
Jack was worried. Did he know Cyberpunk Chick? He didn’t think so. He studied her further, certain he’d never seen her before. Still, the unknown destination might be better than the rock or hard place he currently faced.
“All right, ladies,” Landon said. “Jack here has just become a high-earning commodity. Does anyone else want to top the current bid?”
Ashleigh Graves raised her hand. Jack’s soul went cold. He did not want to end up with her for a single second, let alone an entire twenty-four hours. No. Just no.
“I would like to double the current bid to four thousand dollars,” Ashleigh said, an evil glint in her eye.
Exclamations of awe rippled through the crowd. Jack was doomed.
Meanwhile, his cyberpunk savior didn’t bat an eye. “Double the current bid once more,” she said, sounding bored. “Eight thousand dollars.”
“Double? Again?” Landon swayed near Aunt Dixie as if he might faint.
“What?! That is insane!” Ashleigh said. She should know, Jack thought.
Ashleigh sucked in a sharp breath and starred daggers at the woman with the violet-lensed spectacles. The stranger didn’t even glance in Ashleigh’s direction.
She acted cold, ruthless and businesslike. Fine by Jack. He’d take ruthless, chilling Cyberpunk Chick over Ashleigh Graves any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Landon looked at Ashleigh, eyebrows raised, silently asking if she was going to top that bid. But she shook her head angrily and stomped out of the group. Probably needs to get back to her flying monkeys, Jack thought. Good riddance.
His focus shifted back to Cyberpunk Chick.
Landon made it official. “Eight thousand dollars going once. Eight thousand dollars going twice.” He paused for effect, then brought up his gavel and banged it down once on the temporary podium.
“Jack Grey, sold for eight thousand dollars to…” The auctioneer called out to the woman wearing violet-lensed spectacles, “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m a proxy bidder for a client.” She moved closer to the stage, the audience parting easily for her as she walked forward. Jack made his way down the three steps off the stage to join her.
Another ripple of whispers went through the crowd as everyone wondered who the secret bidder was. “Okay then,” the auctioneer asked. “Who’s your client?”
A small smile curved her lips. “Sorry, that’s confidential. Let’s just call my client the winning bidder for Jack Grey in this bachelor auction, shall we?”
“Fine by me,” he said with a shrug. To the audience, he announced, “Jack Grey, first bachelor on the block, sold for eight thousand dollars to a secret bidder through proxy!” Landon somehow made it sound more suggestive and mysterious than Jack hoped it truly was.
Landon cracked his gavel down on the wooden podium one last time, like a judge rendering a fearsome sentence on the condemned.
Under his breath, Jack said, “May the court have mercy on my soul.”
Cyberpunk Chick smiled at his grim humor, then led the way to the auctioneer’s assistant, who was handling the contracts and the money.
She scribbled an unreadable signature on the form put in front of her and paid up with cash she pulled out of a sleek backpack.
One Jack hadn’t even noticed she wore slung across her back.
“Have fun, you two,” the auctioneer’s assistant said cheerfully.
Jack figured he was happy because he had eight thousand dollars in the till after only one bachelor had been auctioned off.
It was probably more than the organizers of Aunt Dixie’s formidable fundraising plans expected to rake in for the entire night.
Aunt Dixie was busy extolling the virtues of the next bachelor on the block, Sam Brody, a new deputy who worked in the neighboring town of Old Coot. He passed the payment table on his way to the stage. He looked even less happy to be auctioned off than Jack had been, and that was saying something.
Cyberpunk Chick put a finger on the nose of her glasses, nudged them down and stared at Sam as he mounted the stage.
“Would you rather trade me in for him?” Jack asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.
“Funny. But no. Come on. Let’s go.” She pushed her violet-lensed spectacles back in place and started walking quickly toward the parking lot.
Jack followed, hoping this coming date with an unidentified client wasn’t going to be worse than a clinging Marcy or, heaven forbid, an unforgiving and vengeful Ashleigh.