by Jamie Begley
Dustin Porter shoved him back when he tried to help Jo onto the stage. Rider wanted to tear her hands off his shoulders when he easily lifted her, setting her on it.
Gritting his teeth, he stood next to the stage, ignoring Dustin’s triumphant smirk.
Tate and Greer were going to be raising the younger brother’s son if the cocky man didn’t back off.
Rider tried to glower at him like he had been when he had been standing guard at the table, but Dustin was either unwilling or too stupid to understand what he was trying to silently warn.
Rider searched the room, glad Moon hadn’t made it back yet.
“Thank you all for coming tonight.” Lily took the microphone King gave her, standing in front of the stage. “The funds will go into making many children’s Christmas this year, provide groceries to their families, and the backpack meals for the students that are out of school for the holidays. Thank you.” Lily handed the microphone back to King and started organizing the others who were to be auctioned off into a line. He was behind Dustin, and Moon was behind him.
“We’re going to start the auction off with someone the whole town knows. Jolene Turner runs the towing company, so not only are you getting a dinner date with her, but she’s throwing in a coupon for a year’s free emergency towing. Now, who wants to start the bidding off?”
Jo looked like she was about to jump down from the stage and take off at a run. Her luminous eyes looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi.
“I will.” Dustin waved his hand. “A hundred dollars.”
“The tow will cost you more than that. Who can do better?” King rattled off like a master auctioneer.
“Here!” Rider gave a low groan when he heard Moon’s yell from the doorway. “I bid two hundred.”
Another male voice, one he couldn’t see who it belonged to, bid five hundred. It sounded suspiciously like Shade.
Rider didn’t lift his hand, hearing the bids go back and forth between Dustin and Moon until it reached twelve hundred dollars. Moon had gradually found enough space to make it to the stage. At his final bid, Dustin’s face showed he wouldn’t be able to raise it any higher.
Moon’s victorious expression vanished when Lily called out a bid for thirteen hundred.
“Is that fair?” Moon asked King, crestfallen, as Lily gave him a sheepish look at his glare.
“I don’t know. How about it, Lucky?”
The crowd looked toward Lucky, who nodded, while Rider saw Willa elbow her husband.
“It’s not in the rules that the organizers can’t bid. It’s all for charity. Let’s please keep that in mind, and keep it friendly and fun,” Lucky tried to soothe Moon and the crowd.
Moon huffily turned back to the stage. “Fifteen hundred dollars!”
“Sixteen.” Lily’s voice wasn’t as loud Moon’s, but it effectively had Moon bidding until his last bid was two thousand.
Lily started wringing her hands and was trying to look over the crowd for her husband. Again, Moon was about to claim victory. Meanwhile, Jo had been growing paler each time Moon had outbid Lily.
“Two thousand dollars!” King shouted out. “Going, going …”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars.” Rider kept his gaze pinned on Jo as he shouted out his bid.
Murmurs and gasps could be heard throughout the crowd. He didn’t even look when Moon and Dustin both turned toward him.
“Moon?” King’s piercing gaze went to the other man.
“Twenty-eight hundred.”
“Rider, you going to raise that bid?” King shouted out as the crowd hushed to listen.
Jo cast a pleading glance toward Lily, who was motioning toward Willa. Lucky’s wife’s hands went up helplessly, showing she didn’t have enough to give her to meet the bid.
Rider grinned up at Jo wickedly. “I believe I am.”
11
Jo had never prayed for her radio to go off, but she did now as the crowd confronted her to see who would win the date with her. Surreptitiously, she used the folds of her dress to shake the radio to make sure it was still working. Any other freaking time, the radio would be blaring at her. Now, when she needed the distraction the most, it remained silent, not providing her with the excuse she needed to flee the embarrassment of being the center of attention.
Lily wasn’t helping either. She had moved away from the stage in what she hoped was an effort to find someone to lend her enough money to win the auction for her as she had promised.
“Three thousand.”
Rider’s bid had the crowd talking excitedly among themselves as Moon countered his bid.
“Thirty-one hundred.”
The torture of listening to the bids had her wanting to put her hands up and stop the auction herself. Only the thought of making a bigger embarrassment of herself than she was doing now stopped her.
“Thirty-five hundred.” Rider’s bid had Jo taking her eyes off Lily and going to his.
Her palms grew clammy with her nerves. The man she was familiar with was gone; it was as if a stranger was staring back her. Her instinct to flee went into overdrive at the unwavering intensity in his gaze. The casual and lanky pose that characterized his familiar, charming appeal was missing, replaced by a predator who was staking his claim for a tasty meal it was about to devour.
She shook her head as if silently denying the thought, and then looked back at him, only to see his gaze become resolute.
Her thoughts frantically raced for a way to escape the ordeal.
“Thirty-six hundred.”
She wanted to look toward Moon at the sound of his uncertainty, knowing from the sound that he was reaching the end of the money he had available. Rider must have realized it, too, moving in for the kill.
“Four thousand.”
Her shoulders slumped when there was no counter from Moon.
“Four thousand dollars,” King repeated Rider’s bid. “Going, going …”
Every second that tried to delay the end of the auction had Jo holding her breath, praying for divine intervention.
“Gone. Congratulations, Rider. Dustin, you’re next. Hop on up.” King waved for Dustin to take the stage.
Jo was so anxious to get off the stage that she moved to the edge without thinking how to get down. Any other time, she would jump down, but fear of falling onto her knees in front of the audience had her hesitating.
Moon’s helping hand appeared in her sight, and she was about to take it when she was lifted off her feet. Her eyes widened on Rider as he lifted her down to the floor, his hands lingering on her waist.
“Thank you.” The ingrained habit taught to her by her mother had her thanking Rider, but it didn’t stop her from pulling away from his lingering touch.
Scanning the crowd for the person she was searching for, she was about to awkwardly make an excuse to disappear from sight when Rider’s words stopped her.
“I’ll pick you up at six tomorrow night for our date.”
Feeling uneasy, she wanted to refuse and tell him hell would freeze over first before she went out on a date with him, but she stopped herself when Willa and Winter’s ecstatic faces came into view as they managed to squish between Knox and Cash.
“Jo, Rider’s bid was more than we expected for the whole auction!” Winter grabbed her hand, pulling her into a tight hug.
Jo remained mute when she found herself turned to Willa, who was so happy she had tears brimming in her eyes.
“I was so worried—we worried—we wouldn’t have enough money to buy the toys, much less make food baskets. Thank you both so much. I can relax for the rest of the auction and enjoy myself.”
Jo felt like a Grinch on Christmas morning at Willa’s heartfelt gratitude.
“I’ll be ready at six, Rider. Willa, have you seen Lily?”
Willa frowned, looking over her shoulder. “She was just here a moment ago. I’m sure she’ll show up in a minute. It’s so crowded that it’s hard to spot her.”
“If you see her, tell her I’m looking for her.” Jo had a few choice words for her when she found her.
Her dark thoughts were interrupted by the clapping of the audience.
“Congratulations, Carly,” King called out as Dustin jumped down from the stage.
Jo lowered her lashes to observe Rider’s reaction to Carly having the winning bid, then wished she hadn’t when she realized his gaze was still fixed on her.
Her nipples tautened under the shimmering ice-pink bodice of her dress.
Pulling her small jacket closed, she took a step back from the heat that was emanating from his body. Fanning her face, she searched fruitlessly through the crowd again.
“It’s getting stuffy, isn’t it? I’m going to go stand by the door and try to catch a breeze.”
Willa and Winter’s brows rose at her hasty departure.
Rider didn’t move as she tried to move around him, hemmed on each side by Winter, Willa, Rider, Cash, and Knox, she found herself closer to Rider. When the arrogant man bent down, she could have sworn he was sniffing her throat.
Shock held her still. Then she found her hands on his finely textured gray shirt that had been tucked into his black slacks.
“Excuse me.”
“What perfume are you wearing?”
“Rider, it’s your turn. Let’s not keep the ladies waiting.”
King’s announcement over the microphone didn’t deter Rider as his nostrils flared as if he could smell the agitation that was seeping from her body at the unwanted attraction that was assailing her feminine parts.
She could have sworn on a stack of Bibles that she would never, ever be able to respond to any male, much less the boy toy who was an inch away from her. She would rather be tied down on a rack than admit the truth to herself, despite the proof that her panties had grown damp, and the dress she was wearing had begun to feel like an uncomfortable weight that held her in place.
Though Jo knew her judgment of men had been warped since her attack, there was no way she was going to allow herself to become another of Rider’s women.
Using the memory of the night she had been raped to restore her equilibrium, she moved away from the group.
She must have become oxygen deprived. Jo excused herself as she found a lone spot near the doorway to watch the auction. Each time someone entered or exited, the cold air lifted the fog that had surrounded her, reassuring her that she was back on an even knell.
The cold air wasn’t the only thing that brought her to her senses. Watching the bidding war over Rider helped.
The mass of women who had moved closer to the stage had the men forced to the back. Jo didn’t look at the stage, where he was standing, focusing on the women instead. Even the older married women in the congregation were bidding as their husbands grew angry.
“We have an extra seat at our table. Come and join us.”
Jo hadn’t felt Shade’s approach, too intent on the auction. The biker gave her the heebie-jeebies with the purposeful way he was looking at her.
“No, thanks. It will make it easier if I get a call.”
“No one will be calling. Everyone in town is here.” Shade lightly took her elbow. “Lily wants to talk to you, and I would rather you talk to her with me present. She’s looked forward to this auction, and I would hate to see it get ruined because you’re upset with her.”
Jo found herself escorted through the crowd as Shade walked beside her. She had no intention of denying that she was angry with Lily, pregnant or not.
“She convinced me to be in the auction. The only reason I agreed was because she promised to buy me.”
“Your bid exceeded the money Lily had tucked into her purse. If you’re angry, be angry at me. She had asked me to go to the diner to get more cash from the ATM, but it’s out of order. When I got back, your auction was over.”
She found herself maneuvered into sitting next to Lily, and her anger died away at her sheepish expression.
“I’m so sorry …”
Jo didn’t miss Shade’s hardening expression as his wife began her apology.
“It’s fine, Lily. We shouldn’t have made the plan. Besides, how bad could a date with Rider be?” She tried to ease Lily’s guilt. “Let’s look at the bright side; there are going to be a lot of happy children Christmas morning.”
Lily gave her a bright smile that had her forgetting why she was even angry in the first place. It was impossible to be angry with the woman who didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She could understand how Shade had fallen in love with her. Everyone did, and she was no exception.
Lily held a special spot in most of the townspeople’s hearts from the first time Pastor Saul had introduced her to the congregation as a child whom he and his wife had adopted. Since then, she had grown entrenched in their hearts. Jo could count on her fingers the number of people she could consider a truly good person, and Lily was one of them.
On the other hand, Shade wasn’t. She didn’t need to know particulars to form her opinion on that. It was in the vibes he put off. Despite her father’s assurances that he was a fine person, and the loan he had given her for the truck, her instincts screamed to be wary of him.
She had ignored her instincts the night she had been raped. It had been a hard lesson to learn, but she had learned it. She knew Shade had no interest in her as a woman, but her instincts shouted at her that he did have an ulterior motive for extending the credit. The sooner she could pay the loan back, the happier she would be, and would finally stop expecting for the other shoe drop at what his motive was.
“Not many women would complain about having to go on a date with Rider.”
Jo winced that Viper had overheard her choice of words to Lily. As the president of The Last Riders, she expected him to be angry. That he wasn’t showed in the lopsided grin he gave her.
“I’m not like most women.” Jo refused to be embarrassed or pretend she hadn’t meant her words.
“Don’t worry; he’ll probably spend most of the time eating. He has a bottomless pit for a stomach.” Winter had everyone sitting at the table agreeing.
“Order the meat lovers platter and a trio of desserts on King’s menu, and Rider will fall asleep before you can drive him home,” Willa laughingly suggested.
“Or order the special at the Pink Slipper and swing by the Donut Hut. They always put him in a sugar coma.”
Jo didn’t know the name of the woman who had offered the last suggestion. She had seen her in town occasionally, either in the diner or riding on the back of one of The Last Riders’ motorcycles. Either the dark-haired woman had never been in an accident, or her car had never needed a tow, or her only form of transportation was with one of the bikers.
Carly, who was walking past their table on the way to the restroom, paused, standing over the seated woman. “Jewell, I expected you to be front and center to win Rider’s date.”
The diner’s waitress’s snide attitude had the others at the table stiffening, except the woman whose identity Jo was wondering about.
“Why pay for something I can have for free?” Jewell leaned sideways, draping a graceful arm over the back of her chair, lifting her chin to stare straight back at Carly.
Carly looked like she was about to rip every strand of hair out of Jewell’s head. Her lips tightened so much Jo could practically hear her teeth grinding.
“Going, going … gone!” King’s voice over the loudspeaker broke the tense moment. “Congratulations, Aly. Moon, you’re next.”
“Looks like we lost out.” Carly shrugged, moving away toward the restrooms.
The brewing catfight between the two women never materialized.
Jewell turned forward in her seat and began speaking to Diamond as if the brief exchange had never happened.
The encounter between Jewell and Carly only reinforced Jo’s opinion of Rider, as well as the throng of women who trailed after him to the table she was sitting at.
When he went to take an empty chair from ano
ther table to move to the one his friends were sitting at, Jo stood.
“Take mine. I want to congratulate Aly.”
Jo disappeared into the crowd before anyone could stop her.
Aly was flushed with her success. The elegant woman dressed in a sophisticated dress of black velvet looked as excited as if she had won the Heisman trophy.
“Congratulations.” Jo tried to keep from being squished between the Porters and the Hayes as King began the auction for Jessie Hayes.
“For a while there, I thought I was going to have to take a bank loan to win,” Aly gushed.
Lily and Willa had been fanning themselves with the flyers when they had heard the amount of the winning bid. Aly’s four-thousand five hundred-dollar bid had exceeded hers. For that, Jo was grateful. If the bids of the night remained high, then no one in town would be discussing the high bid Rider had made for her.
“I wanted to thank you for this afternoon. I appreciate you letting me use your discount.”
“No problem. Anytime. Seems like we’re both going out with the same man.”
“Yes, it does.”
“We’ll have to see which one of us can convince him into another date.”
Jo’s lips quirked. “That’s going to be a no-brainer. I’m hoping he can convince you to stay in town so you won’t be so anxious to leave after the holidays,” she said sincerely.
A curious expression crossed Aly’s face. It seemed like she was about to say something until Shade came up to them to tell Aly that Lily wanted to talk to her.
A crimson flush heightened the color on Aly’s cheeks.
“I’ll talk to you later, Jo.” The woman went toward the table she had just left as if the hounds of hell were after her.
Jo gave Shade a curious look, sure he had something to do with the terrified expression Aly had veiled when her gaze had swung from Shade’s to Jo’s. Why would Aly be frightened of Shade?
That fortified her resolve to remain detached from anything to do with The Last Riders. She needed to remember that any friendship between her and Rachel and Lily would have set limits she wouldn’t broach. The two women would remain loyal to their husbands, despite any friendship they had with her.