“On the other hand, now I have to go stand onstage while people bid on me like I’m a racehorse on the auction block.”
Amber nodded. “Now you see why I was happy to help out here this afternoon. If I’m here, I can’t be there. They could pry me from the bar, but they wouldn’t dare mess with the vaccine drive.”
“You are smart. I’m not sure how I let myself get talked into this.”
“It’s probably not your fault. The key with Pearl—and Eiko and Karl, too—is to learn to recognize a certain look they get in their eyes. When you see it, you have to avoid them at all costs. Like, even if it means you have to physically run away.”
“Noted.” Nora chuckled and went off to face her fate. She took a seat in one of the reserved chairs in the front row as she’d been previously instructed.
Eiko was emceeing. She made a big deal about how they were doing bachelors and bachelorettes this year, and she started with Jenna Riley from Jenna’s General, which Nora had learned was a cute, semi-high-end general store on Main that sold maple fudge and homemade dog treats along with the usual Gatorade and newspapers. Nora had no idea what the going rate for a bachelor or bachelorette in Moonflower Bay was, but everyone oohed and aahed when Jenna “went” for eighty bucks to a guy Nora didn’t know who reported that his hamper contained homemade macaroni and cheese made from his mom’s famous family recipe, Greek salad, and lemon bars.
Next up was someone named Charles, who Nora didn’t know but who was apparently a teacher at the elementary school. A merry bidding war broke out between Maya and Elena Gardner, whom Nora had seen at the clinic. Elena won him for 120 bucks and “Pesto and grilled chicken pressed paninis, asparagus, and, for dessert, peak-of-season fresh Niagara peaches, which you can’t argue with because I have type 1 diabetes.” Everyone applauded, including Nora, who, as Elena’s doctor, heartily approved. She thought again how nice it was to actually be able to follow the same patients over time, to keep tabs on their progress and their lives.
“And now we have Moonflower Bay’s newest bachelorette,” Eiko said. “Please join me in warmly welcoming Dr. Nora Walsh to her first Anti-Festival.”
Nora’s nerves fired as the crowd cheered. What if no one bid on her? Maya, who was sitting on an aisle near the front, let out a wolf whistle as Nora walked by.
“We’re so glad to have you in town, Dr. Hon,” Eiko said to Nora as she ascended the stage, and not into the microphone. She seemed to really mean it, and Nora couldn’t help returning her warm smile, even though she was still wary about this whole thing.
Well, it was only lunch. It wasn’t like whatever happened in the next few minutes was going to alter the trajectory of her life.
That’s what she told herself, anyway. In truth, she was suddenly so nervous, her heart felt like it was about to beat out of her chest.
Eiko lifted her microphone. “All right, my friends! This one is a catch, isn’t she? Let’s open the—”
“Five hundred bucks and a Hawaiian pizza.”
What. The. Hell?
Jake. That was what the hell. Who else would it be? Hadn’t she just been thinking he was always there when she needed him?
She got over her confusion faster than the crowd, which was rippling with murmurs and exclamations. He was standing at the back of the seating area, so everyone had to twist around to see him.
She had a clear sight line, though. She could see him, and he could see her. He was staring at her, in fact, and, unlike her, he appeared completely unruffled.
When Eiko raised her mic again and said, “Well, my goodness. We have five hundred dollars on the table. Do I hear any other offers?” the crowd went dead silent. You could hear the seagulls cawing. Nora felt like she could hear her own heart beating. It was still going faster than it should have been, but from a different kind of nerves from before.
The silence went on.
Nora had come to understand that Jake was an almost-mythic figure in town. He was the damaged hermit who never spoke. That didn’t accord with Nora’s experience with him, but she’d watched him in social settings and had heard people talking about him enough to understand that he occupied a certain role in the collective imagination.
So she supposed that was why, when he suddenly appeared at the auction with a too-high bid—when he suddenly appeared at the auction at all—it literally struck people dumb. They didn’t know what to make of this version of Jake Ramsey. They hadn’t known this version of Jake Ramsey existed.
Certainly none of them were going to bid against him. He hadn’t needed to bid five hundred dollars. He could have said five dollars, and that would have been that.
Nora had the idea that Jake didn’t like public scrutiny. She didn’t blame him. Who did, really? Or maybe it was more that he didn’t like public pity, and for him, scrutiny always came with pity. He had once told her he liked that she didn’t walk on eggshells around him.
“Going once…”
As Eiko stretched out the last few moments of the bidding, the silence intensified, became painful. Nora was a little afraid she might expire on the spot before Eiko finally said, “And Jake Ramsey is our winner!”
There had been no instructions regarding what to do after one’s auction. The other “couples” were gathered near the front watching the proceedings, and presumably they would go off and eat their lunches when it was all over. But Jake didn’t move from his spot at the back of the crowd. So she should probably go to him? Even though Eiko had moved on and was in the middle of singing the praises of Dennis Bates, Nora still felt like she was under a microscope. She was a bug trapped on a glass slide, and on the other side of the lens was the entire damn town.
Or maybe it was just Jake, who continued to watch her intently.
As she passed Maya, she heard another low whistle. Except instead of being a good-natured hubba-hubba whistle from a friend, this one was more like Girl. Holy shit.
As she approached Jake, she raised her eyebrows and shook her head. Smiled despite herself. He answered her with one of his own—also, she thought, despite himself.
She held up her palms. “Dude. What are you doing?”
He shrugged, and his grin became self-satisfied. “Saving you from Jason Sims.”
“The lawyer?”
He stepped closer and looked around, as if to make sure no one was watching or listening.
Of course, everyone was watching and listening.
He took her elbow and steered her away from the crowd, speaking under his breath as they went. “Yeah. Word on the street is he was gonna feed you foie gras.”
“Ew,” she said instinctively.
He held up the pizza box. Her stomach growled. He smirked and hitched his head at a backpack he had slung over one shoulder. “And there’s bourbon in here.”
None of that explained why he’d bid five hundred bucks, but she decided not to overanalyze it. “Well, thanks, Jake. I owe you.” She looked over her shoulder. People were still twisting their necks and looking at them. That feeling she’d had in the hardware store the morning she’d agreed to stand in this stupid auction, of being an animal in a zoo, was back with a vengeance.
“Let’s find somewhere to eat this where everyone’s not watching us,” she whispered.
“Gazebo around front?” he suggested.
“I feel like that’s the first place people will look once this breaks up.”
“You think people will be looking for us?”
“Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, Jake. I know what your intentions were—and weren’t—but you made quite the splash back there. You bid way too much, and…well, you showed up to begin with.”
Something changed on his face—realization dawned. She wasn’t sure about what, just that he looked like he had solved a long-standing mystery. “Oh my God. I played right into her hands.”
“Whose?”
“Pearl’s. She set me up!”
Nora laughed and patted him on the arm. “Poor Jake. Outmaneuver
ed by an octogenarian. Come on. Let’s eat at the inn.”
They went in through the back door, which opened onto the kitchen. She’d been thinking they’d eat at the island, but Karl Andersen was sitting at it with his back to them, doing something she couldn’t see. He’d said earlier that he was staging the awards ceremony from here, so he was probably getting ready. Dammit.
They were trying to get away from innuendo. Being spotted sneaking inside for a cozy, private lunch was not going to help their cause, especially when the spotter was Karl.
Apparently they were due a stroke of luck, though. Karl hadn’t heard them come in. Nora had been leading the way, and she turned and put a finger to her lips. Jake nodded and carefully—and silently—shut the door behind him. They moved excruciatingly slowly across the room, like the air was molasses. It felt like it took forever to get even halfway across the kitchen—at which point she made the mistake of looking at Jake.
His mouth was clamped shut in concentration, and his eyes were open wide—almost bugging out. There was something about giant Aquaman trying to tiptoe lightly that struck her as funny. He must have felt her attention, because he looked over and met her eyes. Soon they were both shaking with silent laughter. He looked like he was trying not to throw up. His chest heaved and his shoulders rose before he got himself back under control. She pressed a palm over her mouth, looked away from him, and kept plodding forward.
The kitchen was connected to the dining room via a swinging door. When they reached it, they stopped as if by silent agreement. Nora wasn’t sure how they should handle this. Should they try to maintain their stealthy but slothy pace or should they push through as quickly as possible and run for it? She tried to remember if the door squeaked when it opened and closed.
Jake decided for them. He grabbed her hand, but only for a second. Once he had her attention, he dropped it and made a quick one-two-three countdown motion with his fingers, his eyebrows raised. We go on three?
It was too bad. She liked his hand. It was big and warm and pleasingly rough.
She nodded in answer to his silent question, but, choking back laughter, she held up a finger of her own. Yes, but hang on a sec. She had to turn her head away for a moment to get herself back under control. She was glad they seemed to be able to communicate via ESP. When she felt like she wasn’t going to burst out in hysterics and undo all their painstaking progress, she turned back to him and nodded.
To her surprise, he took her hand again. He’d taken it to begin with as a nonverbal way to get her attention—she’d thought. And his other was stabilizing the pizza box he had balancing on his forearm. He was standing between her and the door. Wouldn’t he need a hand free to push the door open? Or to do their countdown for real?
Apparently not. He turned so the shoulder of the pizza-box arm was angled toward the door. Winking, he mouthed, “One, two…three.”
A burst of happy adrenaline surged through her as they clattered through the door. “Keep going!” she whispered as they tore through the dining room and skidded around the sharp turn they had to make to mount the staircase.
“Go, go!” he urged, and she let loose a peal of laughter as they raced up the stairs. She couldn’t keep it in anymore.
She hadn’t been thinking about where they were going other than away from Karl. But of course they were going to her room on the third floor. It was the only place they would be guaranteed privacy. They laughed all the way up. Jake had a low, rumbly chuckle that scratched not unpleasantly against something tender inside her.
When they reached her door, she had to drop his hand to fish her key out of her pocket. Well, she had to drop his hand because their little caper was over. Because that was the only reason she’d been holding it in the first place.
Wow, though, she missed it. Like, already. But also in the broader sense. She missed physical touch. Affection. She should probably wonder how much of it coming from Rufus in recent months—years?—had been genuine, but going down that road wasn’t going to be productive.
“Well, we showed him,” Jake quipped, his eyes twinkling. “We should be spies.”
That was another thing she missed: being in cahoots with someone. Feeling like it was you and your coconspirator against the world. It had been a long time since she’d had that with anyone, unless you counted the illicit pizzas she ordered for Maya.
Jake ran his liberated hand through his hair. Which drew her attention to both that damn hand and his ridiculously attractive hair.
Heat pooled low in her belly.
She had thought she was going to be dead inside for a long time. Or at least for the five months Erin had informed her was her allotted get-over-Rufus window. But in fact, like on that night on Jake’s deck when she’d laid her head on his shoulder, it suddenly felt like something inside her was waking from a long hibernation. Something she’d thought was dead had been only, it turned out, dormant.
She sighed and glanced at Jake as she unlocked her door. He grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her.
He was only doing it because, like her, he was enjoying the echoes of their covert operation.
Right?
His eyes slid down her body, but he jerked them back up, like he’d been caught doing something wrong.
She looked down at herself. She’d tried to spiff herself up for the auction, so she was wearing a dress. It was a wrap style that closed in front like a robe. It was low cut—lower than the dresses she wore at the clinic—but she was pretty flat chested, so the cleavage effect wasn’t as dramatic as it would have been on someone else. But things had gone a little askew during their dash upstairs, and the V had shifted so she was showing quite a bit of side-boob on one side—one of the downsides of small breasts was that there wasn’t a lot of terrain there to keep the necklines of dresses like this one from shifting out of place.
All the mirth had gone from Jake’s expression. His eyes were no longer twinkling. But they hadn’t returned to normal, either. They were doing…something else.
Well.
“Jake?”
He went into the tiny room and set the pizza on the dressing table. “Yep?”
She wasn’t really sure how she had the guts to ask what she was about to ask. Maybe because he wasn’t looking at her. He was unloading a thermos from his backpack—that must be the bourbon.
She followed him in and closed the door behind her. “You know how you don’t have room in your life for a relationship?”
He froze with his back to her, the thermos in one hand, its cap in the other. She thought back to the first time she’d laid eyes on him, at the salon. She’d thought of it then like a record scratch, a sudden interruption in the normal soundtrack of her life. This felt like that, too. Like the record of their friendship had been playing as normal, the needle traveling in an orderly fashion along its groove. But now she was going to ask him a question that would jostle the needle, and somehow they both knew it, even though she hadn’t actually said anything yet.
The room shimmered with tension as he slowly set the thermos and cap on the dressing table and turned. “Yeah?”
She swallowed hard. “What about sex? Do you have room in your life for sex?”
He looked at her for a long time. Another thing she’d thought earlier about Jake was that he did companionable silence well.
This silence was not companionable.
Crap. She had majorly effed up here. What the hell had she been thinking? Clearly she hadn’t been, otherwise—
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
She blinked, unable to move anything besides her eyelids as those four words, delivered in his gruff baritone, unleashed a tsunami of exhilaration, fear, and lust inside her body.
She was so focused inwardly, on tsunami abatement, that she hardly even perceived his approach until he was there with a hand on one of her cheeks and his mouth on the other.
The hand was familiar. As when she’d had it in her own downstairs, it was warm and a little bit rough. It was big
, too. With his palm at her jawline, it covered the whole side of her face, and his fingers extended up past her hairline.
His lips were warm and a little bit rough, too. He’d pressed them to the middle of her other cheek and was now dragging them down her throat. Her pulse was so strong there, she worried she was coming across like a lust-addled idiot.
He took a step closer. He’d been touching her face with his hand and his mouth, but now their bodies were aligned. His free hand snaked around her waist and pulled her against him.
He was hard. He was really hard. It was unmistakable, right there against the soft center of her belly. She could only surmise that he’d done that on purpose, that he wanted her to feel him.
“Now?” she croaked. “We’re doing this now?”
He pulled away, and she immediately regretted the question. Because it had made him pull away. She’d lost the lips and the hand and the heated hardness.
A slow, semiwicked smile blossomed on his face. “Did you want to schedule it for later?”
“No. I mean, maybe. I mean maybe also later.” His brow knit. She was making a hash of this, sending mixed signals. She cleared her throat. “Jake. Let’s have sex now, but maybe also later, if that ends up being something we both want to do.”
He got the trying-to-hold-back-laughter look from before as he pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows.
“Do you have a condom?” she asked.
“Why would I have a condom?” He did laugh then, as if the idea of his being in possession of a condom was so preposterous, the only reasonable response was to laugh.
She rolled her eyes but she laughed, too, and it went a long way toward easing her nerves. “I don’t know. Don’t you have a bunch of them in a bag made of leather you tanned yourself from a deer you killed yourself?”
“Do you have a condom?” he countered.
“Why would I have a condom?”
“I don’t know. Because you’re young, hot, and single?”
“You think I’m hot?”
He raised his eyebrows and glanced pointedly down at the rather impressively sized bulge at the front of his jeans.
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