The Bachelor's Baby (Bachelor Auction Book 3) (3 page)

Surprised, he glanced around for Meg. How had she known that he’d been raised by a struggling single mom? Or that one of his first stints running a crew of his own had seen him airlifting a kid with a spinal injury to the mainland? His crew had spent a big chunk of their vacation time renovating the young man’s house when he was ready to leave the hospital. This hit all of Linc’s buttons.

“Happy to,” he replied. “What do you need? Pledge money or a pair of hands? I can do both. Let me give you my email. Just tell me where to send a check or when to show up.” He reached into his pocket for his business card.

“A man of action,” Lily said with approval, taking the card and tucking it securely in a side pocket of her purse. “Meg was right. You’re exactly what we’re looking for. Thank you so much for agreeing to pitch in. It will mean a lot to the family. I’ll email you all the details shortly.”

Her overly pleased smile made him feel like he’d just signed a contract with some tricky fine print. A tingle of danger spread across his chest. “What exactly did I just agree to?”

“To be part of the fundraiser.” Her smooth features belonged on a bill collector accepting a long-awaited check. Definitely no take-backs. “At Grey’s Saloon this Saturday. It’s a Bachelor Auction.”

*

“Not funny,” a
male voice growled behind her as Meg reached for a small box off a shelf in the hardware store.

His voice really was a turn on, all heavy and faintly abrasive, yet warm and rounded. Like good scotch, or an heirloom quilt.

He’d still been talking to Lily when Meg had left the grocery store, his neck red, his scowl a firmly fixed mask. Meg didn’t know Lily that well, but had met her through Andie Bennet, who was made of awesome. She trusted Andie’s judgment, even though Lily was rumored to have been a stripper in another life and had only been in town a few years. Meg hadn’t lived here full-time since leaving for college and took all such gossip with a grain of salt. Besides, despite Lily’s sometimes acerbic sense of humor, she struck Meg as the biggest heart of gold walking, especially given the fundraiser she was spearheading for Molly Dekker. Molly was another sweetheart—a kindergarten teacher and single mom whose only son had been injured last fall. Meg had genuinely wanted to help once she heard what Lily was trying to do for Molly.

The fact it had allowed her to lob another snowball in Linc’s direction was icing on the cake.

“What do you mean?” Meg asked with an innocent glance at him that actually made her heart skip as she took in his folded arms and planted feet. He was genuinely mad.

She cleared her throat and made herself face him, even though her blood stung a warning through her veins. At the same time, the worst of her girlish hormones fluttered, filling her with nervous excitement and giddy warmth.

“Why did you set that woman on me?” he asked.

“Lily? She asked me about Blake. She was disappointed to hear he’s engaged. She asked if I could think of any other eligible bachelors in town. I said I had just met a perfect one-date wonder.” Blink. Blink. Blink.

These baby blues had pulled Meg from basement cable interviews of small-time activists to a relief position with a syndicated station. She wasn’t afraid to use them.

Linc was really tall. And had perfected his glower of intimidation. She privately admitted he worked
that
like a hot damn, but she’d made a career for herself in what was still a world heavily ceded to men. Outwardly, she didn’t falter.

“Can you tell me if these are self-screwing?” She held up the box in her hand.

His scruffed beard seemed to bristle as his jaw hardened.

“Oh, you’ve got a handful of screw yourself,” he assured her.

She swallowed back a laugh, pretty sure that would get her into more trouble than she already stood in. Instead, she turned the box over in her hands. She hadn’t had this much fun in ages. “Maybe one nail would be simpler?”

“Why are you so pissed off?” he demanded.

“I’m not, I’m really not,” she insisted. “I think it’s funny.”

“You think tricking me into standing on a stage and have women bid on me like a stud bull is funny?”

“I didn’t think you’d agree,” she defended. “It was an impulse to mention you, since you walked right by us and you’re, I assume, single?”

He narrowed his eyes.

Seriously? He didn’t see the humor in this?

“Look, I just…” She couldn’t explain it. Not without getting into how she’d let go of something today. Found herself again. She felt cheerful and sassy. She wanted to flirt. He drew her.

But she’d made him mad.

“Come on,” she cajoled. “It’s not my fault you didn’t say no. It’s a good cause,” she tried.

“You don’t even know me.” His tone said,
It was a dick move
.

She had to look away. Her cheeks began to sting. She suddenly felt very gauche and juvenile. Rejection was always a tough one for her and all she’d wanted was to keep playing with him. Now he hated her.

“I’m out of practice,” she allowed quietly, genuinely sorry. “Honestly, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Practice?” he repeated. “Doing what?”

Seriously?
She lifted a gaze that let him see how uncomfortable she was, while scolding him for being obtuse.

He let out a choke of disbelieving laughter. “This is you trying to get a man’s attention? Are you twelve?”

She looked away, frowning, trying to hide that her eyes began to burn along with the back of her throat. Pointing Lily at him had been meant in fun, but it was becoming personal and hurtful. She
felt
twelve. Hell, she felt seven, realizing for the first time what it really meant to be adopted: that your ‘real’ mom and dad hadn’t wanted you.

“Look—” she started to say, ready to apologize, but only saw his back. He was walking away.

She might as well have slept with him. This was going to be awful, running into him in future, making her feel this same callow misery. Good thing she was going back to Chicago.

Which was no consolation at all.

Gritting her teeth, she tried to put the whole thing out of her mind, checking with a boy stocking shelves to make sure she had the right screws Blake needed before she took them up to the cashier.

A lot of people were taking advantage of a clear day to run errands. She was standing in line, chatting with the father of a friend from high school, when she felt something nudge her arm.

Glancing, she saw Linc standing beside her, offering the small carrier basket he held. “I think you were looking for these?” He gave her no choice but to accept it.

“What—?” Oh. Nice. A brass nipple. High friction lube. Something called a hickey, a stud finder—predictable—and, very pointedly, a butt marker.

Quite the basket full of hell.

“Are we even now?” she asked as she left her place in line and passed him on the way to hiding the basket on an empty shelf under a yellow clearance tag.

“I could have waited ‘til you were at the counter.” He didn’t turn around when she stepped into line behind him, but two people ahead of them did. One waved at her.

She smiled as she waved back, then drilled holes with her eyes into the chamois back of Linc Brady’s sheepskin coat.

“Are we even now?” she repeated.

He shuffled forward, only half-turning his head to say over his shoulder, “Doubt it. I’m up a few double-entendres. You strike me as the kind of person who wouldn’t let that go.”

She bit back saying,
You don’t know what kind of person I am
, and moved ahead into the space he’d vacated.

“I’m sorry,” she insisted, completely sincere until he handed over his slip of paper to the cashier and glanced dismissively toward her.

“You will be,” he said.

No, she wouldn’t. Not if he was going to be like that. She radiated her ire up at him with enough power to glaze the side of his face.

He didn’t seem to notice, only touched his hat in a thank-you to the cashier as he finished his transaction, then glanced once more at Meg, letting his green eyes hold hers for a pulse-pounding second.

“See you at the auction.” It sounded like an order.

‡

H
e was right.
She was sorry. The minute she saw him, regret soaked into her like a hard rain.

“Oh my Gawd,” she drawled, setting down her gin and tonic with a
thunk
. It spilled across her fingers and she licked her knuckles dry, gaze fixed on the man who’d just walked into Grey’s Saloon and now owned the place.

“Oh my Gawd,” Liz repeated beside her as she followed Meg’s gaze. Liz had ordered soda water with lime, claiming that her role as designated driver was the reason. “Who is that? He looks like a movie producer.” She snatched up the brochure that gave all the details on the bachelors being auctioned tonight.

“He looks like James freaking Bond,” Meg corrected, taking in the charcoal suit that was definitely tailored to thrill. No tie. He’d left his white shirt open at his throat, but he’d shaved his beard so his cheeks were smooth and a small indent in his chin was visible. The heavy sheepskin coat he’d been wearing the other day had disguised a seriously lean, mean body. Linc might have ended up in boardrooms, but his years as a roughneck had shaped him well.

He went straight over to the bottom of the stairs, where Lily was coming down. Lily smiled as she spoke to him, used the cap of her pen to touch the face of her watch on her wrist, then pointed up the stairs. She turned to let her gaze linger on him as he climbed to the upper level. Who wouldn’t?

Meg still hated her a little bit for daring to admire what she had already called in her head. It had been almost a week since their run-in and she hadn’t stopped thinking about him. She still felt foolish, but she was even more attracted now than she had been in those few seconds when they’d first met.

He disappeared behind the handful of men leaning on the rail overlooking the bar. “Did I tell you this used to be a bordello?” Meg asked Liz. “That’s where the ladies used to hang out—pun intended—inviting men to come up and see them sometime.”

“Really? That’s funny. You must know all of the bachelors, then. You and Blake always seem to know everyone,” Liz mused.

“Pardon? Oh, yeah, I guess we do.” She was searching the upper level for a glimpse of Linc but dragged her gaze back to the main floor. It was practically a Marietta High School reunion in here. Dillon Sheenan was behind the bar. Ryan Henderson had just appeared in chef whites. He was auctioning off a world-class meal. Rachel Cassidy was back in town after her divorce, which was great. Female doctors were a godsend for any small town. Rachel was sitting with her sister Susie and the rest of their circle, Lexy and Dayna, and—Oh, hey. Hannah was pregnant. Meg hadn’t heard that, but she looked five or six months along. Good for her.

Beau Bennet walked in with Heath McGregor. She’d always had a soft spot for Beau, not that he knew it or knew her as anything more than one of Andie’s cohorts. The way they’d lost their brother, Ben, in a drowning accident had always stuck with Meg, though. It was the first local news story she’d ever followed and, to this day, she thought about him and Andie when reporting a tragedy, always mindful there were affected friends and families behind headlines.

“It says he’s Lincoln Brady,” Liz read.

“Yeah, um—” Hearing his name made her flick her gaze upward again. “I don’t really know him, but I did meet him briefly the other day. He’s our new neighbor.” And he preferred Linc. Maybe he only let his friends call him that. He probably expected
her
to call him Sir.

Liz gave her a considering look, seeming to read significance in Meg’s fascination with the upper lounge.

Meg dropped her gaze, which was another involuntary revelation of guilt.

“The Circle H guy?” Liz murmured, looking upward herself, head cocked with fresh assessment. “I thought the consensus was that he seemed to know what he was doing, but he looked more like a city slicker. Takes one to know one, right?” Liz added with a self-deprecating grin that wrinkled her nose.

Meg thought he looked like a man intent on making a point as he appeared at the rail to scan the crowded tables down here. His gaze came to rest on her. He had a beer in his hand. No need for a stronger dose of liquid courage, his casual hold on the bottle seemed to say. He was merely whiling his time until it was his turn to climb onto the block.