dark, sinfully gorgeous. And R-I-C-H, ladies. Oh, my goodness, yes. Could he be anything else but extremely talented? Ryan? Take a stroll down the runway, please, as I open the bids at…three hundred?”
The bids got to seven hundred quickly, with Ryan stiffly looking out over the crowd, his eyes concentrated on some vague point in the far distance. Marcia had the top bid, and it appeared that no one else wanted to go against the chairperson on this one—not if they wanted to be invited back next year.
And then, as Marcia was saying, “Going…going…” another voice piped up from the rear of the room. “Eight hundred!”
Marcia stopped the gavel in midslam and, with narrowed eyes, looked out into the darkness. “Eight-fifty,” Marcia muttered from between clenched teeth.
“Nine,” came right back at her. Closely followed by a giggle.
Ryan turned at the head of the runway, and started walking back toward Marcia. Interesting. The woman was so sleekly blond, so very controlled. And now, suddenly, her cheeks were flushed, her lips thin with anger.
He didn’t know who had dared to overbid her, but whoever it was, he was certainly enjoying himself, which he just as certainly had never expected to do.
“One…thousand…dollars,” Marcia said, throwing back her head, exposing the length of her throat, the height of her arrogance.
The answer came in less than a heartbeat. “One thousand five hundred. Oh, the heck with it—two thousand even!”
The crowd, which had gone silent, began murmuring, shuffling in their seats as they turned to see who was doing the bidding.
Ryan turned with them, putting a shielding hand to his forehead to try to see through the ridiculous strobe lights.
All he saw was a bright red head and a wide, happy grin as Marcia, bred never to cause a scene, brought the gavel down. “Sold! Please go to the registration desk to write your check and meet your bachelor.”
Applause broke out, as Ryan had brought in the largest donation of the night thus far, and he saw Allie standing right up front again, having appeared there like a genie out of a bottle and clapping for all she was worth, giving out a few good “cowgirl” yells while she was at it.
She’s enjoying this! I’m really going to have to hurt that woman, Ryan thought as he went back through the curtain and accepted the back-slappings and “you dog, you” congratulations of the other bachelors.
As another bachelor stepped through the curtain, this time to the strains of “Young at Heart”—a fitting song for the eighty-year-old George McDonald, chairman of the board of the hospital—Ryan made his way through the crowd in search of his grandmother.
He found her at the registration desk, having gone there right after the bidding on Ryan, she told him, in order to pay for Charlie and arrange their date.
“How…why…what the devil do you think you’re—”
“Oh, Ryan, close your mouth,” Allie scolded. “I’m not looking for romance, if that’s what you think. Charlie Armstrong is the best pediatrician in town, and Jessica’s babies need the best pediatrician. I’m only buttering him up, considering that I’ve heard he’s not taking new patients right now—which will change when we’re done speaking, I assure you. Besides, Charlie is taking Western line dancing lessons, and I want him to take me with him.”
Ryan shook his head. “Do you ever just do anything, Allie? Or does everything you do have a purpose? And, that being said, are you going to let me in on the purpose behind putting me up on that runway tonight?”
Allie reached up, patted his cheek. “I just want you to have some fun, darling. Live a little, loosen up. Ah, and here comes your date now. Isn’t she…different. Be nice, Ryan. She’s probably more fragile than she looks.”
“She’s hardly built like a linebacker, Allie,” Ryan said out of the corner of his mouth as Janna stopped, bent from the waist to untangle her skirt from her boot, showing off the limber grace of form inherent in her long-waisted, dancer-slim body.
“Yes, but that flamboyant coloring, those clothes. I think she’s hiding behind them a little, Ryan, to make up for some courage she lacks. In fact, I’m willing to wager she’s had her heart broken at some time.” She patted his cheek again. “But you’ll fix that, won’t you?”
“I’ll fix—damn,” Ryan ended. He was talking to the air, for Allie was already back in the crowd, hanging on Charlie’s arm and making the pseudocowboy look good for it.
“Hi, again,” Janna said as she walked over to stand in front of him. “Quite the mad bidding war, wasn’t it? I was going to give up, but the auctioneer was so sure she had you that I just knew I had to rescue you. You can thank me later, unless you really wanted to be caught in her clutches for a whole day and evening. Besides, I was also being selfish. You’re the tallest man here.”
“Tall. Yes, you mentioned that before. What does my being tall have to do with anything?”
Janna’s smile dazzled more brightly than the strobe lights that had begun to flash again. Ryan would have looked to the runway to see what was causing the women to begin howling in delight, but he didn’t think he had the courage to see much more of the auction. Not if he had to face whoever was up there across a table at a business lunch anytime soon.
“What does it have to do with anything? Didn’t you read the rules?” she asked. “You’re mine for the day, for whatever—as long as it’s legal, I’m assuming. Well, I need a handyman, and you’re it. And you’re tall because, even on a ladder, you have to be tall to replace the lightbulb in the fixture over my front door. Oh, I could do it myself, but I get sort of dizzy up high, so I’d rather you do it. See?”
“No, no I don’t see. You just paid two thousand dollars to use me as a handyman for a day? You could have hired three handymen for that price. Half a dozen.”
“True, true. But I wouldn’t have this nice charity write-off, now would I? And besides, have you ever tried to find a handyman who just wants to do small jobs?” She threw back her head, showing her own long neck, and it was longer, and whiter, than Marcia’s. “Lots of luck, that’s what I say, trying to find a man like that.” She grinned. “So I bought you.”
“Because I’m tall. Because I can reach the light fixture over your front door. That’s it? That’s your reason?”
She stuck out one leg, and her rather adorable chin, and braced one hand on her hip. “No,” she said, her smile gone. “I picked you because of those killer bedroom eyes of yours. I took one look and wanted to jump your bones, big boy. There, happy now?”
Ryan had the grace to look ashamed, even feel ashamed. “You really do want me to be your handyman for the day. I—I’m sorry I didn’t understand from the first.”
“That’s all right,” Janna said, patting his shoulder, the way he imagined she’d pat a puppy who’d just got nervous on her carpet. She handed him a piece of paper. “Here. This is my address. According to The Weather Channel—if you’re into wild prognostications—this Saturday is going to be a lovely Indian summer kind of day. Perfect for handyman jobs. Be there at 8:00 a.m., okay? Now, I’ve gotta go see someone about a check.”
He pointed toward the registration desk. “You’re going the wrong way. You pay over there,” he told her, still trying to figure out what had just happened to him. Was he happy to have been rescued from Marcia? Or had he just been tossed from the frying pan straight into the fire, as the old saying went?
Janna grimaced, looking as comical as a pretty woman could, which, in her case, was pretty comical. Rather like watching a young Lucille Ball coming down the stairs in a ball gown, then looking into the camera lens and deliberately crossing her eyes. He had to smile, in spite of himself. “I know. But first I have to see…I have to…well, don’t you worry about me. I’ll see you Saturday morning.”
And