What a Bachelor Needs (Bachelor Auction Book 4) (2 page)

It was her.
He was sure of it. Jett Casey stood at the bar and watched as Mardie Griffin – or was it Mardie Prescott – wrangled customers with the ease of long familiarity. Same elfin features and tawny-colored eyes, same smile that had haunted his dreams… and not in a good way. They’d gone to the same high school but they hadn’t mixed in the same circles. She’d had the body of a ballerina, all long lines and mesmerizing angles, and she’d been good at track, he remembered that, but she’d been more interested in pool halls than sport. Her daddy had been a snooker champion who’d taught her everything he knew. And then, rumor had it, he’d refused to let her play competitively because pool halls were no place for women.

With that kind of male influence, maybe it had been inevitable she’d take up with Boyd Prescott. Another one who, in Jett’s opinion, had treated women with far less respect than they deserved.

The last time he’d seen her, Mardie’s mouth had been a bloodied and swollen bee-sting in a too pale face. One of her eyes had been hammered shut while the other had tracked his approach with all the terror of a cornered deer.

She’d flinched at his approach and had tried to wedge herself between brick wall and dumpster. Hiding, but it hadn’t worked.

“I’m okay,” she’d offered next. “Just resting.”

Just king-hit by the human filth who’d fled the deserted street the moment Jett had turned into it. He’d seen the hit, seen her go down. He’d never been able to unsee it.

“Did he take anything? Did he rob you?” he’d asked and she’d started to laugh helplessly, hopelessly, lost in the grip of shock or hysteria.

She’d raised her hand to her head, tried to tuck her fall of chestnut brown hair behind one ear, and faint light had glinted off her wedding ring when her hand had come away gleaming. Her laughter had tapered off into puzzled silence as she’d looked at the blood uncomprehendingly before putting her hand to her head and collecting yet more of it to rub between thumb and fingers.

Jett had called emergency services and asked for an ambulance because she’d seemed so sleepy, so concussed, and she’d
really
panicked then. Tried to get up.

“I can’t,” she’d said, swaying like a willow in the wind, as she’d struggled to her feet. “I can’t be here when they come. I can’t afford it.”

He remembered asking if she’d rather be dead.

He remembered the look in her one good eye as she gave the question some serious consideration, and all the while, as she stared at him, she’d played with the ring on her finger.

“The answer’s no,” he’d growled. “Don’t you think that. Not ever. You’re worth something. You hear me?”

He didn’t think she had.

“Wait for the ambulance. I’ll wait with you and if this isn’t an emergency, they can bill
me
for the service.”

She’d started laughing again. “You should go,” she’d said. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

“Mardie, right? It’s Mardie Griffin? I know you from school.”

She’d started swaying again, until finally he’d told her to lean against the wall, which she did, her swollen cheek to the rough brown brick.

He remembered trying to get her to stay awake and talk to him, staying awake being the most important bit, and to this day he still remembered his silent curses when she began to slip into the grey of not-quite-there.

He remembered moving in and letting her lean on him when she’d threatened to topple over, and she’d been a lightweight beneath her thick winter clothing. Barely present, in body or in spirit, and he remembered telling her all sorts of random information about his own life. How he had four brothers, all older, and how as a kid he’d used to take off into the mountains, on whatever skis were handy, in order to escape all those brothers who were better, stronger, faster, and smarter than him. At everything. He’d told her about his first dog and his last one while they’d waited for help. He’d told her his favorite dessert was cherry pie from a little café on Flathead Lake, and how the first snow of the season was always the best day of the year and that gradually, over the years, skiing had become his thing. A jumble of words meant to keep her conscious and with him and to this day he didn’t know if she’d been listening to any of it, but her tremors had stopped and her breathing had evened out and the blood flow from the wound had slowed to a trickle by the time help arrived, although it started up again when he removed the pressure of his fingers.

He hadn’t been able to help much when it came to identifying her attacker. Male, medium build, fairly tall, hard to tell what kind of complexion given the moonless night and the lack of light in the alley.

The bastard could run; he’d give him that. The minute Jett had turned into the tiny back street and shouted, Mardie’s attacker had lit away like a rabbit.

Mardie hadn’t been able to describe her attacker either, and when one of the ambulance officers had asked if there was anyone she could call, she’d said no. Jett had looked to her hand, for her wedding ring, only this time her fingers had been bare.

He’d studied her beautiful, broken face again. And wondered.

Maybe this hadn’t been a random act of violence inflicted by a stranger. Maybe this had been a far more intimate betrayal.

“Thank you for helping me.” She’d offered up the rictus of a smile, right before they’d put her in the ambulance.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No!” Urgency sharpened her voice. “I’m good now. I’ll be okay.”

“It’s no trouble.”

“There’s no need.”

“I can call someone from Marietta. Your parents.”

“No.” She’d tried to smile again, and that was just all-round disturbing, this keeping up of appearances. “I’ve got this.”

“Mardie, if you’re in troub—

“Thank you for staying with me. I heard you. I’m worth something. But you need to go now.
Please
. You’ll only make it worse.”

Jesus.

The bitch of it all was he’d done what she asked. He’d walked away. And ended up at the hospital in Bozeman, three hours later, hovering in an antiseptic-grey hallway while James Prescott Senior, esteemed Marietta lawyer, came to collect her.

The distinguished lawman had stood over Mardie as she’d signed herself out of hospital against medical advice, the ink barely dry before he’d been herding her to the door with all the care one might afford an unwanted stray.

Maybe she’d remembered something. Maybe she wanted to press charges.

If she did she might need him as a witness.

Jett had stood, drawing himself up to his full six foot one as they passed by and Mardie had taken one look at him and blanched, telegraphing with every fiber of her being not to speak to her or approach in any way.

So he’d watched in conflicted silence as she’d walked away.

She’d dated Boyd Prescott in high school.

He’d found out the following day she’d married him.

“Casey.”

It took him a while to pull out of that memory and back into Grey’s Saloon and the auction that was about to begin.

“Jett.” Someone elbowed him and he turned to find Buck Thompson, the grizzled cattle auctioneer they’d brought in to run the auction, at his side. “You ready for this, son?”

“Born ready, old man. And don’t you sell me for a nickel either. I’m a prime specimen, willing to offer my backcountry skiing expertise to anyone patient enough to wait six weeks
or
I can give someone one week of handyman work, starting Monday.”

“Doesn’t say anything about waiting six weeks to go skiing with you on the menu.”

“I pinged a knee ligament during the week. It’s a recurring injury.” The doctor had told him, yet again, to stay off the skis for a while unless he wanted to end up in a wheelchair like young Josh over there. The difference being that, this time, with Josh’s circumstances right there in his face, Jett had listened to the good man. “I have to stay off the slopes for a while.”

“Does Lily know you can’t deliver on the services offered?”

“Lily’s edgy already. Why make her sweat it in advance?”

Buck’s stare could have leveled a mountain. “Does that line of thinking
ever
work for you?”

“It’s worked on my sainted mother for almost thirty years. Trust me, things go so much more smoothly when I tell her I’ve been BASE jumping off the side of mountains
after
I’ve done it.”

“You’re right, your mother
is
a saint.” Buck scribbled something on the run sheet on his clipboard. “All right, I’ll now make your lame arse sound like mankind’s gift to power tools. You
can
use power tools?”

“My love of building appliances began many years ago, when I started building mountain cabins with my brothers. We did five of them from scratch – three for the family and two for our neighbors. One of my brothers, Seth, is a builder now and, if skiing hadn’t fallen into place for me, I’d probably be his not so silent partner instead of his silent one. Does that ease your mind?”

And then Lily was beside him, with a look on her pretty features that spoke of an anxiety well beyond what was necessary. “Are you ready? Do you know your mark? Do you know what you’re going to do up there?” she asked.

All good questions that he’d heard several times already this evening. “Lil’, I am primed and ready. I find the spotlight and stand in it, looking downright biddable, while Buck here tells everyone exactly how good I am and what I can offer. Looking forward to it. You’ll get good money for me, guaranteed. I’m very special.”

Buck snorted. Jett grinned. He was comfortable using swagger and bravado to coax smiles from nervous skiers, but Lily still looked unaccountably uptight. “I have four older brothers and I’ve been stealing their limelight since the day I was born,” he told her. “You have no idea how often they’ve threatened to sell me. This is like a dream come true for them.” There, right there, was the smile he’d been looking for. “Being the competitive soul that I am, I figure that if I’m going to do this I may as well do it right. Buck here has my full permission to make a meal out of me in order to warm up the crowd and crack those fat wallets open. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Right. So. Right.” Lily took a step back. “I’ll just go and…

“Sit,” supplied Jett helpfully.

He and Buck watched her retreat in silence and then Buck tilted his hat back and cast his eye over the assembled crowd.

“If it helps any, that’s my brother Seth over there in the far corner. He swore he’d start the bidding if no one else did,” Jett said.

“Thought he wanted to sell you?”

“He does.” Jett caught his brother’s eye and grinned widely. “I never said he wouldn’t buy me back.”

“Well, in that case…” Buck headed for the podium and the microphone and moments later a spotlight lit up the hastily concocted stage area. Right there. That was Jett’s mark. Anticipation slipped through him, warm and familiar. This wasn’t exactly an Olympic podium but these days he’d take his limelight where he could find it.

And then Buck began to speak.

“Folks, a hearty welcome here this evening and our thanks to Grey’s management for the opportunity to hold this here inaugural great Marietta bachelor auction in the saloon because it sure beats holding it at the stock yards. You know the cause, you know the reason. We’re here to make life a little easier for young Josh and his mother, Molly, and to this end we are putting some of the finest bachelors this district has to offer at your disposal. There’s something for everyone here this evening, folks, and I’ll be taking bids from anyone who so much as twitches. You have been warned. Payment is required immediately upon sale and if you haven’t already registered your details and picked up a bidding number, I suggest you do so now because table numbers do not count. Are you ready?”

The crowd roared its assent.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce our first bachelor for the evening, Olympic gold medalist and current alpine world ski champion, Jett Casey.”

Jett stepped into the spotlight, stood tall and grinned at the old rogue whose job it was to sell him.

“He’s thirty years young and comes from the next valley over – unless of course he’s winning races, because in that case we fine people of Marietta have no problem whatsoever claiming him as one of our own. Last I heard tell; he was skiing off the side of a mountain with a parachute strapped to his back, because he needed to get back home in time to build his sainted mama a mountain cabin retreat that very same afternoon. He’s offering to take you on a backcountry ski trip, ladies and gentlemen – and I guarantee it’ll be a journey to remember. But I was talking to him earlier, folks, and should anyone
not
be interested in risking life and limb in service to extreme skiing, you can have him for one week and one week only as a handyman around the home. Remember that mountain cabin he built his mama? We’re talking five-star dwelling here people because when this boy decides to do something he doesn’t hold back. Two gold medals, one silver, three bronze, two World Championships. We’re talking courage and strength, and a driving will to succeed. A heart that’s more than a match for his ego…and, ladies and gentlemen, that ego is big.”

Jett nodded agreeably. All true, all big, and all his.

Come and get it.

He caught his brother’s big ass grin and figured he may as well play it up given that he was never going to live it down. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, rocked back on his heels and summoned his smuggest smile.

“Look at those teeth, look at that muscle. Pity he’s not a bull, because then I could retire and live for a year on my sales commission. Alas, he’s just your average Montana born bachelor.”

Did old Buck
ever
draw breath?

Because it didn’t sound like it.

“Backcountry skiing or a handyman for a week. Either way he’s yours for the taking. Do we start the bidding at five hundred, five hundred dollars for a very good cause, you tell me, five hundred, madam? Yes. We have our first bid of the evening and a generous bid it is. I’m looking for another one, thank you, there it is.”