Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
CATALINA
White Christmas lights dangle across the high school gym, sparkling but cheap. Tinsel trying to pass for starlight. Just like everything else about this setup.
The golden floors of the lacquered basketball court glow, pink and white streamers hanging from the rafters at impossible heights.
Volunteers chatter, absorbed in their varied efforts, as tonight’s imminent auction inches closer.
Tables line both sides of the gym, decorated with hearts and other gaudy Valentine’s style decor, though it’s early September.
The smell of warm sugar and berries fills my nostrils from the cotton candy machine, humming as it warms up on one of the many tables lining the edge of the gymnasium.
Behind the tables, scrupulously folded and stashed, brown bleachers provide as much room as possible. Lights twinkle and paper hearts and cupids flutter from the stage at the far end of the auditorium.
Everything about tonight screams meat market. My stomach feels like a pit, wondering exactly what Ambrose meant by a shit show.
High school dances happened in this same gym. Same lights strung up haphazardly, though tonight they sparkle brighter than my awkward memories.
Fourteen-year-old me stood in this very corner pretending to study the scuffed toes of my shoes while my brothers and their girlfriends swayed under the streamers.
The smell of cheap punch and body spray clung to the air back then.
I remember thinking that I’d never belong in a place meant for glitter and twirling.
Tonight isn’t much different. Except instead of sweaty teens, it’s my grandmother’s Auxiliary Ladies whispering like I’m the scandal of the hour.
Gran sits happily with them at a table, working on decorated baskets. They speak in hushed tones, occasionally breaking into laughter and sneaking glances at me.
Mrs. Langley whispers behind her hand and then gives me a wink big enough for the whole gym to see. Her perfume, lavender and mothballs, drifts towards me with her scrutiny.
Great. Soon, the small-town rumor mill will be churning out a breakdown of today’s events. Like a game of telephone, until it returns to me, more salacious and scandalous than it ever started. But that’s far from my greatest concern …
Somewhere in this gym, Ambrose will walk out onto that stage … and I can’t decide if I want to hide under the bleachers or wave an auction paddle like a lunatic.
“Cat, you made it!” Roxy exclaims, rushing forward to greet me. She’s one of about twenty people bustling around the gym to prepare for tonight’s festivities.
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” I answer, stepping forward and holding out my arms as Roxy seizes me.
She hugs as enthusiastically as she does everything else, sunshiny, bubbly, her warmth radiating straight into me. The Wa-she-shu beauty has long, thick, ebony braids, golden-tan skin, and dancing black eyes endlessly sparkling with mirth.
“How are you?” she asks affectionately, pulling back enough to look me in the face without letting go.
“I’m good. And you?”
“So busy. How about we decorate while we talk?”
I nod, following her towards a table she’s taping hearts and cupids to.
Where do I even start after the day I had?
Roxy eyes me. “What’s got you looking like the cat who swallowed the canary?”
We went to school together from elementary through high school, which means she can read me like an open book.
“This day … It was wild! I went home for lunch, but then Dumpling got out when I opened the door. Again.”
“Oh no!”
“Yeah, only this time, the neighbor’s dog started barking. Dumpling bolted, climbed the old pine, and I tried to follow … Let’s just say Gran ended up calling the fire department.”
She chuckles, eyes rounding. “Seriously?”
“Yep. Fortunately, they sent out Ambrose Dutch, you know the—”
“Ambrose Dutch? No! That guy is so …” Her eyes dart around the room, looking for her husband, Hawk. “So adorable. Oh my goodness, and he’s also the sweetest, most generous guy. If you knew how much he donated to the rescue.”
“Seriously?” All I can think of is Dumpling sprawled on his hard, angular chest, and my insistent, though illogical, need to take her spot. Add “envying my diabetic cat” to today’s list of humiliations.
She nods emphatically. “When he first showed up in town a month ago, we were running low on food and various supplies. Without hesitation, he bought everything we needed out of pocket.” Roxy swings her glossy, raven-hued braids from side to side.
My cheeks burn, and I bite down even harder on my bottom lip to suppress the goofy smile that demands claim over my face.
“You should bid on him,” she urges.
I snort. “No way. I’ll donate money and time to the rescue all day long. But bidding on human beings? Not my thing.”
“But he’s gorgeous!”
Too gorgeous for me. The kind of man women write fan mail to. And yet, when his text buzzed my phone earlier, I loved the adrenaline rush of knowing it was only for me.
Hawk saunters up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and planting a kiss on her cheek. “You talking about me again, Wife?” he flirts, his onyx eyes radiating affection.
“Of course,” Roxy agrees with a guilty smile.
“Hmm … With all the small-town bachelors about to line up on the auction block, I’ve got to watch you,” he teases. Roxy may be the town flirt, but Hawk’s her world.
She shoos him off to hang more decorations, and I ruminate on what’s missing from my life. Warm words, kisses heavy with promise, strong arms. Loneliness aches through me.
I tell myself it’s just the decorations, the smell of sugar, the crowd noise. But it’s him. Only him.
Roxy says, “So, back to Ambrose …”
“That’s really about it.” I straighten the pink stack of hearts before grabbing another one to tape to the paper tablecloth. “Oh, and he did offer to look for Dumpling, feed her, and give her insulin because I had to return to work.”
“Seriously? He’s so amazing. Not at all what you’d expect from a Hollywood type.”
“He also sent me this.” My heart skips as I pull out my phone, open his text, and show her the picture. Guilt pricks me, fairly certain this photo is for him and me alone. But how in the world do you keep something like that to yourself?
“Wow,” she exclaims, ebony eyes snapping to mine. “He’s obviously flirting with you.”
My palms sweat so badly I nearly drop the phone on its way back into my purse.
She asks, “Can you imagine the kind of money he’s going to garner on the auction block tonight?”
My mouth goes dry, and my stomach tumbles. I press my lips tightly together, convinced that anything I say will come out like fire and brimstone.
“You look positively green. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just want to get everything done so that this fundraiser’s the best ever.”
“I can’t thank you enough for your help tonight or how you got those donations and baskets from the DMV, County Recorder’s office, and courthouse.”
I shrug. “I see those folks every day, and most have at least one pet, so it was an easy sell, really.”
“Back to your tree rescue by Ambrose. It must’ve been so romantic.”
“More like mortifying. My skirt rode up, so that my underwear was showing … along with all my lumps, bumps, and cellulite. Of all days not to wear shapewear …” My gaze levels on Roxy’s. “Though I suppose that would’ve been another kind of death.”
“Did he say something mean to you?”
“Not at all. He made me feel beautiful, actually.”
“See? He likes you.”
“Maybe.” I shake my head, cheeks in their new perennially overheated state. “But I’m not a big fan of the whole fame vibe, and I’ve got far too much on my plate to bring a man into the mix. Dumpling, Gran, my job, paying off my student loans.”
“So, everything in your life has to be perfect before you’ll accept a visit from Mr. Perfect?” Roxy knits her brows.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about Ambrose anyway.” The words come out pinched, my core revolted by the lie.
She smiles mischievously. “You never did watch SoCal Hotshots, did you?”
I shake my head.
“Here’s a paddle just in case you want to join in on the fun,” Roxy winks, handing me one of the dwindling pile she carries with her.
I squint at the words:
First Annual
Rough & Ready Bachelor Auction
Benefiting Three Nations Animal Rescue
69
Sixty-nine?
“Lucky number,” Roxy says with a knowing giggle.
Of course, Roxy would hand me that one. Kill me now.
“You have gotten so dirty since you married Hawk,” I scold semi-playfully, semi-seriously.
“That’s what a good cowboy will do to you … every time.”
“Ambrose is no cowboy.”
Roxy’s face lights up. “He’s in Wranglers, a button-down, boots, a buckle, and a Stetson tonight.”
“You saw him? How is he?” I hiss, trying to control the pounding of my heart.
Roxy chuckles, glancing around the room. My eyes follow, settling on more than one pack of women prepared to rip Ambrose limb from limb, given half a chance.
I grip the paddle, torn. At least I can guarantee him respect, a quick and quiet date, and nothing out of the ordinary. A far cry from the chaos looming.
“These women are going ga-ga. We’re going to have a riot on our hands.” Roxy frowns
“Poor Ambrose,” I murmur.
“He’s your rescuer and knight in shining armor. That’s got to be worth something—”
“I see what you’re trying to do—”
“Look at those women,” she says, motioning toward the feverish crowd. “Like Morgan Wallen tickets just went on sale.”
The corners of my mouth turn down. “They’re hotter, sexier, know exactly how to seduce. I’m buttoned up, prim, geeky chic … minus the chic.”
Roxy shakes her head. “Please. You’ve never heard of the whole sexy librarian thing before? Some guys are really into that.”
“Me? Sexy librarian? More like DMV worker bee with cat hair stuck to my skirt.”
“There’s only one way to find out while protecting him from …. that.” She gestures around the gym, where women already paw at the auction paddles like lionesses waiting to pounce.
Roxy bustles off to check the stage lights, leaving me clutching the paddle like it’s a weapon instead of cardboard. My mind betrays me instantly.
I picture him on stage. Ambrose Dutch in a button-down, plaid shirt, shoulders broad enough to block out the string lights behind him, his jaw set the way it was when he rescued me from the tree. Except now it’s women, not cats, raising tonight’s stakes.
What would it feel like if all those eyes weren’t on him? If it was just me? If he looked past every other woman in this gym and found me, steady, as though he’d known all along I’d be the one to take him home?
My pulse skitters. And then, reality crashes in. I’m not that girl. The one bold enough to wave a paddle in the air and claim a man who belongs on TV screens, not in my small-town, bookish orbit.
I clutch the paddle too tightly, the thin cardboard bowing under my grip.
My brain screams “no,” reminding me of every reason I don’t belong here, every reason a man like Ambrose could never really see me.
But my body … my body betrays me. It spins the picture clear as day. Ambrose on that stage, broad-shouldered and commanding, his eyes cutting past the crowd to land squarely on me. Miss Geeky Chic. As if he’d known all along.
Heat curls low, dangerous, insistent. Want tangled with dread. I shake the thought away, but it clings, leaving me restless, breathless, and far too aware of the paddle burning in my hand.
The only thing worse than my own cowardice? Watching some sweet, white-haired Auxiliary lady raise her paddle … and win the man who already feels dangerously close to mine.