Chapter 13
DAISY
June excitedly tugs me toward the stage.
“Okay, so here’s how it works,” she grins brightly, squeezing through the crowd with the practiced ease of a woman who organized all of this.
“Shelby announces each person, bidding starts, highest bid wins. Winners get a dinner date at the Blackstone Inn next Friday—Shelby donated the meals, flowers on every table, the whole nine yards. Very tasteful. Very public.”
She shoots me a devilish grin. “Very non-negotiable.”
“Next Friday,” I repeat. “As in, one week from tonight.”
“That’s generally how Fridays work, yes.”
And sure enough, the bachelor auction is exactly the spectacle I expected.
A local guy named Brent goes first and makes a show of flexing, which gets a roar of laughter and a spirited bidding war between two women who are clearly doing it for sport.
Sam Tucker, who must be pushing seventy, shuffles onto the stage to thunderous applause and does a slow spin that brings the house down.
Mrs. Henderson bids on him herself—fifty dollars she probably doesn’t have—and he tips his hat so gallantly that half the tent tears up.
Then Colt takes the stage, and the place erupts.
He strolls up the steps like he’s done this a thousand times—which, knowing Colt, he probably has—and stands there with that lazy grin and those blue eyes scanning the crowd like every woman in the room is getting a personal invitation to bid.
He tips his hat before rolling his sleeves up one slow turn at a time.
The man knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Two hundred!” A blonde near the front doesn’t even wait for Shelby to open.
“Two-fifty!” Another hand, further back.
Colt points at the blonde. “Hey, Annabelle. You look real nice tonight.”
Annabelle turns the color of a tomato as the woman beside her fans herself with a napkin.
“Three hundred!” A brunette in a denim jacket stands up from her chair to make sure she’s seen.
“Three-fifty!” Annabelle isn’t going quietly.
“Four hundred.” This from a tall raven-haired woman leaning against the bar with the calm energy of a woman who’s been waiting all night for this exact moment.
Colt grins at her. “Claire-bear. I was wondering when you’d show up.”
“Don’t call me Claire-bear in public, Colt Hartley.”
“Yes ma’am.” He touches the brim of his hat with a grin that belies his words. “Four hundred from the lady who doesn’t want a nickname. Do I hear four-fifty?”
“Four-fifty, and he has to cook me dinner too!” The brunette in the denim jacket has edged closer to the stage.
Colt puts his hand over his heart. “Darlin’, I’ll cook you dinner, breakfast, and anything in between.”
June drops her face into her hands. “He’s going to get us sued.”
“Five hundred.” That’s from Claire at the bar, who hasn’t even raised her voice, though she does quirk an eyebrow that’s nothing short of seductive.
“Five-ten!” Annabelle’s upper lip is covered in a light sheen of sweat as she waves her arms, drawing attention back her way.
Colt looks between them like a man watching a tennis match he’s thoroughly enjoying. “Ladies, I’m flattered. Truly. There’s plenty of Colton Hartley to go—”
“Six hundred.” Every head in the place turns at the sound of a new voice from the back, coming from a woman I’ve never seen before.
She’s maybe mid-forties, polished in a way that reads more Bozeman than Blackstone Creek, with her arms crossed, a drink in hand, and the energy of someone who walked in tonight with a plan.
She doesn’t stand. Doesn’t wave. Just says the number like she’s ordering coffee.
Everyone goes silent.
Claire narrows her eyes while Annabelle sits down. The brunette in the denim jacket mutters something to her friend, and they both laugh softly.
Colt peers toward the back, shading his eyes against the lights. “Well now. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“We haven’t.” She takes a sip of her drink. “But I know your name, Colt Hartley. Knew it when you were riding saddle bronc in Pendleton and drawing the biggest crowds on the circuit.”
Colt’s grin doesn’t drop, but his reply comes a beat too fast.
“That was a long time ago, sweetheart.”
“Not as long as you think.” She swirls her drink with a self-satisfied grin. “Let’s make it seven hundred. I don’t like to lose.”
The crowd catches up a second later and the laughter rolls through the tent like a wave.
Colt doesn’t miss a beat. “Sold to the woman with excellent taste and terrifying confidence.” Then he hops off the stage and cuts through the crowd toward her. When he reaches her, he takes her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles, and the crowd just about loses its mind.
West cuts past us in the direction of the bar and deadpans, “He’s going to be unbearable after this.”
June rolls her eyes, though there’s a smile tipping her lips upward. “He already is.”
Two more bachelors follow—solid bids, good energy, and the kind of community spirit that makes you believe people are fundamentally decent. The running total climbs, and I watch the Hendersons’ faces at the front table, the disbelief slowly giving way to something raw and truly grateful.
Then Shelby speaks over the microphone again. “All right, folks. That wraps up our bachelors.” She pauses for dramatic effect, and the crowd whistles and stomps. “Now let’s hear it for our bachelorettes.”
As the crowd applauds, my stomach sinks into my boots, though thankfully, I’m not first.
A young woman named Brooke goes up. She’s pretty, confident, and comfortable on stage in a way I will never be.
The bidding is warm and lively, and she looks genuinely pleased when a lanky cowpoke wins her bid.
Then there’s a woman named Carmen, who owns the local beauty salon, followed by a barrel racer named Jo-Beth, who gets the second-highest bid of the night after Colt.
Each one buys me another few minutes, while bringing me closer to a stage I don’t want to be on.
June nudges me. “You’re up next.”
“I know.”
“You look like you’re about to be sick.”
My stomach agrees. “I might be.”
“Deep breaths. It’s ninety seconds tops. You stand there and smile. Someone bids and wins, then you walk off.” She squeezes my hand in a way that’s meant to be reassuring, but all I can do is bite back the rising nausea. “You got this, honey. For the Hendersons.”
I nod on an exhale and I close my eyes. The weight of the hat on my head, Dad’s gift to me, steadies me just enough.
For the Hendersons.
Shelby’s voice floats across the tent. “Our next bachelorette needs no introduction for most of you—but I’ll give her one anyway. She spent her summers here as a kid, she’s a journalist out in Denver, and she’s Tom Monroe’s daughter. Daisy Monroe, everybody!”
The applause is immediate and warm. Not the raucous energy Colt generated, but softer. More to do with my dad’s name than mine.
I hear murmurs ripple through the crowd.
It’s Tom’s girl.
She looks just like him.
Lord, it’s been years.
My legs carry me toward the stage. I pull the hat off as I climb the three short steps, holding it against my thigh, and suddenly I can see everyone.
Every face. Every table. The whole town stretched out in front of me, lit by a thousand tiny lights and looking up at me like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
I grip the brim of my hat, eye my boots, and try to remember how to breathe.
“Let’s start the bidding,” Shelby smiles. “Do I hear—”
“One hundred dollars.”
The voice comes from near the bar, gravelly and warm and instantly familiar. Old Dave is standing with his beer raised, his weathered face split into a grin wide enough to crack leather.
“One hundred for Tom Monroe’s girl!” He tips his hat at me. “I’ve remembered a few more details about that roof situation since we last talked, sweetheart. You’re gonna want your notebook.”
The crowd laughs. “I’ll bring two pens,” I call back, and Dave slaps the table so hard his beer jumps. The tension in my shoulders loosens a fraction.
“We’ve got one hundred from Dave,” Shelby announces with a smile in her voice. “Do I hear one-fifty, you guys?”
“One-fifty!” A hand goes up near the middle—a younger guy I don’t recognize, though he has a friendly face.
“Two hundred.” Another voice from another stranger.
“Two-fifty.”
The bids climb in easy increments, the crowd enjoying themselves, nothing charged about it.
Just people opening their wallets for a good cause, and I find myself starting to relax.
Maybe this won’t be so bad. Maybe I’ll get a nice dinner at the Blackstone Inn with some perfectly pleasant rancher and we’ll talk about cattle and the weather and I’ll go back to my cabin and—
“Eight hundred dollars.”
The tent goes quiet.
Not the gradual trailing-off kind of quiet. The sharp, sudden kind—like a needle dragged across a record. Every head in the crowd turns toward the voice, and I helplessly follow their gaze.
He’s standing near the center of the tent, half a head above the people around him.
Dark hair and darker eyes with a jawline that could cut glass and a smile that screams old money.
He’s wearing a sports coat over a button-down shirt and no hat in sight.
The only man in the room who looks like he’d be more comfortable in a boardroom than in a barn.
I don’t know him. But something about his face snags at the back of my brain, and I can’t place it until someone at the table nearest the stage mutters, just loud enough for me to hear: “Holden Blackwood’s biddin’ now.”
The ground shifts beneath my feet.
Blackwood.
The name hits me like a physical blow, and suddenly I can see it—the echo of his father in the line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders. The same family. The same smile. The one I watched from across an auction house while my father’s land changed hands.
And now his son is standing in a tent full of twinkling lights, bidding on me like I’m something that can be owned.
“Eight hundred from Mr. Blackwood,” Shelby announces. “Do I hear eight-fifty?”
A tentative hand goes up near the middle. “Eight-fifty.”
Holden doesn’t even look at them. “A thousand.”
The hand drops and no one else budges. He just topped Colt’s winning bid without flinching, and the casual bidders who were having fun with this five minutes ago have scattered into the wind.
Holden catches my eye and smiles charmingly. The kind of smile that’s been practiced in mirrors and deployed on hundreds of women who probably found it devastating. I feel nothing but the cold crawl of nausea up the back of my throat.
“Do I hear eleven hundred?” Shelby tries, but the silence is absolute.
My nails bite into the felt of the hat brim. The stage lights are too hot and the tent is too small and a Blackwood is buying my time with the same ease his father bought my birthright.
I want off this stage.
I want to be anywhere else.
“Going once.” Shelby’s voice reaches my ears as though from a distance while I stare straight ahead. My eyes are fixed on a point above the crowd where the string lights disappear into the branches of an apple tree as I tell myself to breathe.
It’s fine.
“Going twice.”
It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fi—
“Fifteen hundred.”
The words come from the back of the tent. Low and steady, spoken with the kind of quiet authority that doesn’t need volume to fill every inch of the space.
I know the voice before my eyes begin to search for the face.
Wyatt.
He’s moved from the tent pole where I last saw him with Shelby. He’s standing near the back now, alone with his shoulders squared and his hat low.
His eyes find mine across the crowd, and my breath hitches.
Because Wyatt Hartley doesn’t do this. He doesn’t speak up in crowds.
He doesn’t draw attention to himself. He doesn’t put a single thing he feels on display for anyone to see.
I’ve watched him all week, deflecting, shutting down, retreating behind walls so thick I couldn’t find a handhold.
This morning he couldn’t get me out of his office fast enough.
An hour ago, he was standing across this clearing, letting another woman fix his collar.
But now, he’s looking at me like I’m the only person in the tent.
The murmur that moves through the crowd is low and electric. People glance at each other. At Wyatt. At me. I can feel the questions forming in real time—the gossip gears of Blackstone Creek grinding to life.
Did you see that?
A fifteen-hundred-dollar bid?
From Wyatt Hartley?
Holden turns and finds Wyatt in the crowd. The easy smile doesn’t falter, but the calculation behind it shifts as the whole town holds its breath to see what happens next.
But Wyatt isn’t looking at Holden.
He’s looking at me. He hasn’t stopped looking at me.
“Sixteen hundred,” Holden counters. His tone is still light, but the leisure has disappeared from his voice.
Wyatt doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t shift his weight. Doesn’t break eye contact with me for a single second.
“Two thousand.”
The crowd audibly gasps, and it’s the kind of collective intake of breath you feel in your chest. Two thousand dollars at a Blackstone Creek fundraiser is the kind of number that turns heads and starts rumors and gets talked about at Sunday dinners for years.
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel my pulse in my fingertips, in the soles of my feet, in the base of my throat where the air won’t come fast enough. His green eyes are locked on mine, and the expression on his face—
It’s not the stone wall. It’s not the careful blankness he wears like a second skin. It’s cracked wide open, and it’s the most honest I’ve ever seen Wyatt Hartley look in my entire life.
The man standing in the back of this tent with three hundred people staring and two thousand dollars on the line—that man isn’t looking at me like I’m a problem. And I don’t know whether to be relieved or furious.
The whole tent is still. The band has stopped playing. Even the kids have gone quiet, sensing the shift in the air the way animals sense a coming storm.
Holden lifts one hand. An easy, deliberate concession, like a man folding a poker hand he was never going to win. He steps back with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and melts into the crowd like he was never there at all.
“Going once.” Shelby’s voice has gone strange, as though she’s witnessing something she wasn’t prepared for.
My eyes haven’t left Wyatt’s. I couldn’t look away if the tent caught fire.
“Going twice.”
His chest rises. Falls. His hands are still at his sides, but his fingers flex once—a tiny, barely visible movement, like he’s stopping himself from reaching for something.
The gavel comes down.
“Sold.”
The word echoes through the tent, swallowed up by a rush of applause, whistles, and the band scrambling back to life like nothing just shifted on its axis.
And I don’t hear any of it.
I’m still standing there, rooted to the spot, my fingers tight around the brim of my hat, my pulse a live wire under my skin.
Two thousand dollars. For one dinner.
For me.
And the most terrifying part isn’t what he did. It’s that I would have paid double just for the way he looked at me as he did it.