by AnonYMous
The next day went smoothly at work, and after getting Winnie from the Center I made her favorite dinner of macaroni and cheese. “How about I treat you to an ice cream after the Open House? It won’t be too late when we’re finished there. We can work in a trip to Scoops on the way home.”
“Yay!” Winnie cheered and I took that as a definite yes.
After dinner Winnie and I joined the crowd of families at the Center. I left Winnie with the high school student in charge of the play area for the event and made my way to her classroom. Mrs. Pilla was busy talking to a small group of parents, and I decided to wait until she was alone to talk to her about Winnie’s problems with her classmate, Sam.
Colorful artwork on the walls caught my eye and I walked over for a closer look. I found one of Winnie’s bright finger paintings and smiled. Winnie enjoys drawing, and my refrigerator at home was covered with her papers.
A tall, good-looking man stood beside me. He glanced in my direction. “Gretchen?”
I looked at him closely, those gray eyes taking me back to my high school days. “Justin?”
He nodded and grinned. “It’s been a while. Last time I saw you, you were headed for college.”
“And you were joining the Marines.” I had a severe crush on Justin all the way through high school, but he ran with a rough crowd and barely gave me the time of day. He was older and rode a motorcycle that my father grumbled about the few times Justin had happened by. Even though I never had a chance to ride on it, I’d been given many lectures about the dangers of those machines and the character of the person doing the driving.
“Mommy,” Winnie interrupted, tapping my leg. “I told Mrs. Pilla you have to talk to her about Sam.” She pointed to the youngster who was standing by Justin’s side.
Justin gave me a funny look. “Sam is my son,” Justin said, putting a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Is there a problem?”
I felt my face flush as Winnie jumped in, “Sam calls me names.”
Justin’s eyes narrowed, but Sam replied, “She’s a wimp, Dad.”
“You know I don’t tolerate any sort of name calling, Sam,” Justin said sternly.
“Andy cut in front of her in the snack line and she didn’t do anything,” Sam reported. “She doesn’t stand up for herself.”
“If it’s important,” I said to both Justin and Sam, “she’ll say something. I taught her to be polite, but assertive at the appropriate times.”
Justin and Sam gave me identical frowns. “And Sam knows not to let other children pick on someone,” Justin said. He looked at his son. “But calling little girls names isn’t his usual behavior.”
Sam looked embarrassed and stared at his shoes. “Sorry, Winnie.”
Winnie smiled and took his hand. “Want to swing?”
He nodded and they went outside. When Mrs. Pilla noticed the children walking outside together, she gave me a thumbs-up.
“Winnie didn’t get that red hair from you, Gretchen,” Justin commented.
I brushed a hand across my straight, blond hair. “From her father,” I said.
Justin looked at my left hand.
“I’m a widow,” I said.
“I’m divorced. Sam’s mom left us right after he was born. We’ve been on our own since then.”
I started to comment, but Mrs. Pilla called my name and I excused myself.
“It looks like Winnie and Sam have become friends,” the teacher commented as we looked into the yard and saw the two children swinging next to each other. “I’ve talked to Sam about his making Winnie unhappy a couple of times, but it seems like you and her father found a better solution.”
“I think Sam was misguidedly trying to help Winnie.”
“He’s really a very sweet little boy. I was surprised that he was picking on Winnie.”
Sam and Winnie raced over to the slide. Sam acted in a gentlemanly manner and let Winnie go in line ahead of him. That made me smile. We talked for a short while longer and then I decided that it was time to leave.
Across the room, Justin was talking to some people. He didn’t look in my direction, so I left and gathered Winnie from the play area.
“‘Bye, Sam,” she said as we walked the short distance to the car. “Sam’s my friend now,” she informed me with pride in her voice.
“That’s wonderful, honey! I’m sure he’ll be a very good friend.”
After I settled her into the back, I put the key in the ignition and turned it.
Nothing.
I tried again.
The same nothing. I pressed my forehead on the steering wheel. Then a knock on the window startled me. Justin and Sam were standing there.
“Trouble?” Justin asked.
“Dead battery,” I groaned, getting out. I told him what had happened the previous morning. “I’ll call the auto club again.”
“I’ve got jumper cables in my truck,” he said. “When you get going, drive over to MJ’s Auto Repair on Delancey. I’ll put in a new battery for you.”
“Are they open this late?”
“I’m the ‘J’ in the shop’s name,” Justin explained before he ran to get his truck. In no time he connected our vehicles and then I followed him to his garage.
While Justin installed the new battery, Sam and Winnie lounged in the windowed office. They were as happy as puppies, eating vending-machine cookies and watching TV.
The large garage was filled with an assortment of cars and motorcycles in various stages of repair. “It looks like you do a good business, Justin.”
He spoke from underneath the hood. “Max is the brains of the outfit. I run the mechanical end of things.”
“As I remember, you did a lot of tinkering on your bike,” I said, then blushed. He didn’t have a clue that I’d watched for a mere sight of him whenever my friends and I drove by his house—which was at least once per week during my senior year in high school.
“As I recall, every time you and your girlfriends went by my folks’ place I had my bike apart for some reason or another.”
I gasped and felt my face burning. He’d noticed!
Of course, I thought. We weren’t very subtle.
My friends knew I liked “the bad boy”—that’s what they called Justin—and made sure my eyes got their fill from a distance as often as possible.
He slammed the hood, those eyes looking serious. “In those days I did a lot of tinkering and wishing I was the kind of guy you’d go out with.” I stared at him, my heart thumping in my chest and fumbled in my purse, searching for my checkbook. Justin wiped his hands on a rag and shut my purse. “Rescuing damsels in distress is part of the job.”
“Your partner might not agree. Unless you have a special account for all the damsels you’ve rescued over the years.”
His eyes twinkled. “There have been a few. And my partner is an old friend of yours. Remember Max Thompson?”
I stared. “Max? I remember he was so shy that he never spoke up in the algebra class we had together.”
“He’s still pretty quiet, but he told me a couple of times that he’d never have gotten through that class without your help. He said he made a pest of himself calling for help with his homework. He ended up getting a degree in accounting.”
A hearty laugh escaped my lips. “And became a partner in a successful business.”
“This is just one of his businesses,” Justin clarified. “He owns Scoops, the ice cream store in town, and also has a small accounting firm.”
I was dumfounded. “Winnie and I were on our way to Scoops when we left the Center. I can’t believe it—shy Max Thompson is a business entrepreneur!”
“People do change,” Justin said. “Too bad I didn’t know that a long time ago. You and I might’ve had a history.”
I looked into his handsome face. “I would’ve gone out with you if you had asked.”
Over my father’s dead body and my mother’s tears, of course, I thought.
“Not many parents let thei
r daughters go out with guys like me. I definitely had an attitude and it showed. Actually, I didn’t straighten out my act until Sam and I were on our own. It’s been up to me to be a provider and a good role model.” He looked toward the office. “I’m making sure Sam can ask out any girl he wants.”
“You’re doing a great job with your son, Justin.”
“Thank you,” he said, taking my hand. “But I don’t want you and Winnie to let a little thing like a dead battery ruin your plans. Why don’t we all go to Scoops? We might run into Max taking over a shift.”
Despite the late hour, the thought of seeing Max dish out ice cream was too good to pass up and I knew Winnie had been looking forward to the treat. Spending time with Justin was something I’d only dreamed about and now it was really happening. “We’d both be delighted.”
“And since I’m an upstanding citizen these days, what do you think about going to dinner tomorrow night?” Justin looked at Winnie and Sam, who were giggling and playing together. “The four of us, of course.”
“Dinner sounds wonderful,” I said, looking forward to a new beginning. THE END
Making a Bid for Love
THE BACHELOR AUCTION
Who will bid $100 for the service of this young man?
Excited about returning home to Salado, Texas, I couldn’t wait to get settled in…until I spied the notices plastered all over the historic town: Bachelor Auction.
Inwardly, I groaned.
It was supposed to have been last Friday, not this Friday! That’s why I had purposefully waited another week before coming home. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear Mom had somehow influenced the City Council to change the date, just to make sure I was home for the big winter event.
In the five years they’d had the annual event to raise money for cancer research, not once had they moved the auction from the first Friday of the month.
My boots clicked on the wooden porch that connected several gift shops on Main Street, as I hurried under the wooden awnings to Mother’s store. Winter fashions in deep burgundy and aqua decorated the windows, and I could hardly wait to share what I had learned in marketing and sales at the university with my mother.
As soon as I stepped out of the bitter cold breeze, my nose and feet numb, the fragrance of cinnamon candles and the warmth of the heated shop welcomed me like a Texas summer’s day, drawing me in. The bell over the door jingled my arrival, but I didn’t see anyone, just a large poster displayed smack dab in the center of the oiled, antique counter proudly announcing: Fifth Annual Bachelor Auction!
If my mother bids on Tommy McCoy again—
Widowed for three years, Mom should have been looking for someone to keep herself company, but every time I returned home, she was determined to find Mr. Right—for me.
I heard rustling behind the counter, and then my mother’s sunshiny face popped up from behind it. “Cynthia, oh honey, I’m so glad you finally made it. Can you watch the shop? I’ve got to see Mabel about baking some chocolate chip cookies for tonight.” Mom skirted the counter and gave me a warm embrace. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could respond, Mom was bouncing out the door, coat in hand, her blond curls flying, her trim hips swaying in her slim jeans. I hoped when I was in my forties I could still boast a figure like hers.
The door slammed shut, and Amy Wenner, a teen that Mom hired just for Christmas but kept to help with inventory, came out of the back room carrying a cardboard shipping box and gave me a cheery smile. “Your mom said you were moving back home for good this time. She said you were going to help her run this place so she could take some trips now and again.” Amy set the box on the counter and glanced at the bachelor auction sign. “Are you going to the auction tonight?”
“No.” I hoped I didn’t sound as grouchy as I felt about it. When Amy gave me another smile, I tried to give her one back.
Last year, Mom had bid on Amy’s father because he is an electrician and she needed some new electrical wiring done on the shop—the problem with old buildings is the constant maintenance. I had not been at home that year, so I knew that was the real reason she had bid on Amy’s father. At least she got some work out of him that needed to be done, and it was for a good cause, too. But the year before that, Mom embarrassed me half to death when she bid outrageously for former high school quarterback, Tommy McCoy, then didn’t have a lick of work for him to do. She just kept giving him the time off to take me out.
Tommy and I did not have a thing in common. He kept talking about his football days like some guys talk about their war years—as if nothing else had ever happened in their lives—and I could believe it. He was voted most likely to succeed in high school, but I think it really meant, most likely to succeed at nothing. Heck, he didn’t even know I had gone to the same high school as him! And having free meals at my mother’s home beat having free meals at his parents’. I definitely was less impressed with him than he was with himself.
However, if Mom bid for that loser again, I would make sure he did some work around the place—yard work. Even in winter, he could clean up some dead branches and rake leaves. He wasn’t getting off easily this time.
“Tommy McCoy is in the lineup of bachelors again this year,” Amy said matter-of-factly.
By accident, I let out a small, annoyed grunt.
Amy grinned and opened the box, then began pulling out Texas metal-star napkin rings. “I remember when your mom bid on him a couple of years ago.”
“Yeah, well, if she does it again, I’ll make sure he earns his meals.” At the very least. Maybe if I worked him hard enough, he wouldn’t keep putting himself on the auction block. I figured since his high school football days, the auction was the only other way for him getting attention nowadays. “Who did he work for last year?” I asked, trying to be nonchalant about it while I stuck price stickers on the napkin rings.
“Mrs. Brubaker.”
I raised an eyebrow. She was one of the wealthiest widows in town, but she never wasted a penny on anything. I couldn’t believe she had bid for useless Tommy.
Amy saw my look of skepticism and shrugged. “She got him for the lowest bid there. I guess Tommy had a reputation. Then, she made him paint her house.”
I laughed. “And then she had to have it repainted, no doubt. So who else is on the auction block?” I wasn’t interested, I told myself, except that my mother would be bidding for someone, and if it wasn’t for Tommy, I was sure it wouldn’t be for someone like Amy’s father again. Not when she didn’t need an electrician, and not now that I was home and desperately needed a man in my life. Right.
Amy slipped behind the counter and pulled out a sheet. “Here’s the roster. The guys have listed the kinds of work they’re most capable of doing. Jim Johnson, the plumber, doesn’t want to be doing yard work when his expertise is plumbing. Calvin Delbert said he does painting and wall papering, but isn’t into yard work, either.”
I glanced at the list and was glad most of the guys were Mom’s age. Tommy, of course, caught my attention. But there were two new guys I didn’t recognize.
Amy’s face brightened and she pointed to one of the names. “He’s a senior in my high school class—to die for.”
“Are you going to bid for him?” I teased, though I was kind of surprised that a seventeen or eighteen-year-old would be on the list.
“Are you kidding? I don’t have any money except what I make at your mother’s shop, and I live at home, so why would I bid for him?”
If it had been my mother and I had shown any interest in a guy, she would have bought the teen for me, for sure. But now that I was twenty-two and there was no husband in sight, Mom was becoming desperate—more so than usual. I kept trying to tell her that I was not an old maid at my age, but she insisted she and her mother had married when they were eighteen, and that I was already four years older and not getting any younger. Heaven forbid!
Amy pointed at the other unknown name and said, “This guy’s your age.”
“Great.”
Amy stopped tagging merchandise and looked over at me.
I managed a small smile. “Great,” I said again, only this time in a nicer way.
“Your mom said you knew him.”
Warning buzzers went off in my head. “No, I don’t know him.” I didn’t; I would have remembered someone with a name like James Doffendorf.
Amy shrugged. “He said he knew you.”
“What?” I couldn’t contain my surprise. Okay, so I have a horrible time remembering people’s names, but Doffendorf? I would have remembered. “What does he do in town?”
“You know that collection of old settlers’ homes that people rent out? His father bought them and he manages them.”
“But if he just moved here, how could I know this James who’s my age? Unless I met him at the university when I was getting my marketing degree.”
“Maybe.”
Maybe not. The guy had to be mistaken, but if Mom thought he knew me, she was sure to bid on him at the auction. There was no telling how she’d embarrass me this time.
Sitting in front of the television in the house out back of the shop that night, attempting to avoid the auction, I could hear the creek gurgling as the water swept over the moss-covered stones and the Texas breeze as it filtered through the live oaks. I really tried to concentrate on the Ghostbusters show, but every time the ads came on, I glanced at my watch and wondered who Mom would drag home for dinner. My attention focused back on the television show. In the haunted house, the picture of the Virgin Mary dropped to the floor and the ceramic hands held in prayer shot across the room and broke a lamp, which brought only one thought to mind: visiting the Victorian restaurant down the street where ghosts had been sighted, to see if I could see them too.
But then the ads came back on, and I glanced at my watch again: fifteen minutes into the auction. And then as if a ghost had moved me, I was driving down Main Street to the Civic Center.
I just couldn’t stay away. Number one, I wanted to know who Mom had bid for, and number two, I wanted to see who this James Doffendorf was who thought he knew me, though I suspected Mom would bid for him.