Bachelor-Auction Bridegroom

by Mollie Molay

  “Do you play, too,” he asked softly, seeing Emily as a young girl.

  “A little,” she answered as she closed the keyboard’s lid. “I was only interested in playing popular songs. As a piano teacher, my poor aunt was offended. My giving up piano was a mutual agreement.”

  T.J. sensed Emily was lost in recalling long-ago nights when piano music had eased her troubled young soul. He felt a surge of affection. Thank God for the Aunt Emily’s of the world.

  Visions of a young Emily impatiently practicing scales and sneaking in a popular tune intrigued him. “I never was any good at playing an instrument.”

  Emily eyed him thoughtfully. The time for friendly reminiscing was obviously over. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

  “Just this. Has it ever occurred to you that somehow our lives are entwined? That we have something in common and were destined to meet?”

  She seemed to consider his question before she shook her head and sat down beside him on the couch. “I don’t see how. I’d never met you until two weeks ago.”

  Emily dismissed him with a shrug, but the way she kept eyeing him told him she was just as aware of him as he was of her.

  “I’m sorry you don’t believe me.” The last thing T.J. wanted was to antagonize the woman he’d fallen in love with. Not when he sensed he had her attention.

  She had to believe him, their future depended on it. “I honestly believe the Kirkpatrick business of restoring old buildings had something to do with it. Fate had to have known I was the logical one to help you save the cottage.”

  “Now you’re reaching for it,” Emily answered, her mind obviously made up. “You’ve got it all wrong. It was your brother I actually met, remember? If he’d kept his word, I never would have looked you up. Besides, how could my aunt have known the Foundation for Homeless Children was going to sponsor a bachelor’s auction? Or that I would show up in time to bid on your brother?”

  “It does sound farfetched,” T.J. agreed, “but I’m still convinced our meeting was supposed to happen. And furthermore,” he added, putting his heart and soul into his voice, “I think there’s actually some connection between us.”

  “Ridiculous,” Emily dismissed him with a toss of her head. “I hadn’t even thought of going to the auction until I saw the sign in the hotel lobby. I certainly never intended to spend $350 on a bachelor with the intent to have him pose as my husband. The idea came to me out of the blue.”

  “Aha!” T.J. felt vindicated. It was a sure sign Emily was as mystified over the circumstances of their unusual relationship as he was. “That’s what I mean. Something made you to do it! Right?”

  Emily gazed at him dubiously. It was true. Some voice, some impulse had prompted her to go inside the room where the auction was taking place. The same voice that had urged her to bid on Number 46.

  She remembered the moment as clearly as if it had been yesterday. An embarrassed tingle ran through her when she remembered the way Number 46’s sensuous gaze had affected her. And that her reaction had been tame compared to the way she’d physically reacted the first time she’d glimpsed all six feet of T.J. at the construction site.

  “And how about the motion picture posters we saw in the hotel lobby? Another coincidence?”

  Emily gazed into his winning smile. “Maybe,” she finally said, “but not finding the movie posters behind the bedroom wall.”

  She stood up. “If that’s all you came to tell me, you’d better leave.”

  Instead of leaving as she’d asked him to, T.J. looked as if he wanted to take her in his arms. Wary, she backed away before she found herself there.

  He let loose his killer smile again. “I still think fate brought us together.”

  A shiver ran down Emily’s spine. In some weird way, she found herself half believing him. The idea was frightening. “Please go now,” she said before she made a fool of herself. “I have some packing to do.”

  “Wait a minute! You’re not going home to Placerville, are you?”

  “Yes, at least for a little while. But not before I get a copy of the title transfer and a copy of my aunt’s will.” She opened the screen door.

  T.J. bit his lower lip as he forced himself to say goodbye. If he hadn’t been able to convince Emily they belonged together, it was his fault. He had no concrete proof to back up his theory.

  “EMILY HOLMES?”

  Emily opened the door for the FedEx man. “Nice doorbell you have there,” he commented approvingly. “Kinda reminds me of when I was a kid.”

  “Me, too,” Emily replied. She signed for the package and remained in the doorway as the truck pulled away from the curb.

  The package was from Daniels’s secretary Maggie and obviously contained more than a will or a deed to the cottage. Maggie had come through for her, no doubt at T.J.’s urgings. She had a premonition that her life would never be the same once she opened it.

  Holding the package to her breast, she wandered out onto the porch and sat down on the wooden swing. Swinging gently, she gazed over the canal to catch a glimpse of the ocean that glittered in the afternoon sun. Sailboats appeared on the horizon, their sails open to the brisk breeze. Seagulls glided lazily on the air current.

  The peace and quiet of the moment, broken by a passing pedestrian was in sharp contrast to the excitement of the carnival. If it hadn’t been for the newly built condos next door, the scene could have been the same one she remembered from her yearly visits to her aunt.

  It was difficult to believe that it had been less than a month since she’d come to claim her inheritance, met T.J. and fallen in love with him. And only a few days since she’d sent him away after he’d broken her heart.

  She stood, the FedEx package clutched unopened in her arms. Maybe it was just as well, she thought as she turned to go into the house. It was time, long past time, to put dreams aside and to get on with her life. First to go was the childhood dream of going to visit Italy. Her real life was here in Venice, California, with its canals outside her door.

  The hardest to let go of was the dream of a loving husband and children she’d spun after she’d realized she’d fallen in love with T.J. And believed he’d loved her.

  It wasn’t only the subterfuge of letting her believe he was his brother that had awakened her to the real man. Nor his finding the vintage movie posters and not telling her, although heaven knows that was bad enough. Or that he hadn’t realized right away she was a forever kind of woman.

  It was his early hesitancy to commit to marriage because of the responsibilities he said he felt to his adoptive father. And his abrupt changes of heart that had made her feel she was on probation. They had kept them apart on and off and could someday come between them again.

  She went to her aunt’s bedroom and sat down in the oak rocking chair to open the package. A large envelope contained a cover note from Maggie, a copy of her aunt’s will and a copy of the transferred deed. She read the note addressed to her.

  Dear Miss Holmes,

  After spending some time thinking about it, I decided you were entitled to the contents of a box your late aunt left with Mr. Daniels. Please don’t tell anyone you have them until I have a chance to leave Los Angeles and go back to Montana where people are honest and tell the truth.

  Sincerely,

  Maggie Wilson

  Emily frowned. What kind of documents were so private that her aunt hadn’t wanted her to have them until now?

  She opened the small, attached envelope and drew out a handwritten note.

  Dearest Emily,

  You were such a sweet, gentle, and vulnerable child whose life centered around make-belief that I hesitated to give these to you. I wanted you to remain untouched by reality until you were old enough to handle the realities of life on your own. Perhaps I was wrong. But I do want to tell you that you are, and always will be, not only my true grand-niece, but the child of my heart.

  Lovingly,

  Aunt Emily

  Tears were slidi
ng down her cheeks by the time Emily finished reading the note and drew out three official-looking documents.

  First was a birth certificate, hers. “Father—unknown. Mother—Henrietta Bellows, Deceased. Cause of death—Childbirth.”

  A record of a health examination at her birth.

  A certificate of her adoption when she was a few days old by a Vivian and Howard Holmes, her mother and father, was next.

  Emily was thunderstruck. Her heart began to throb as though it would burst. Adopted? Her well-meaning mother and father were not her own? The aunt she’d loved more than any other person in the world and to whom she owed so much was not her real aunt?

  She felt as if a roaring train had threatened to overtake her, to run over her. What was there left to believe in?

  She sat there, slowly rocking away her initial reaction. The shock of realizing she’d been adopted slowly faded. She couldn’t miss the real parents she’d never known. What had happened twenty-eight years ago had no effect on her life now. The only parents she’d ever known had loved her. Aunt Emily had loved and cherished her. What child could have asked for anything more?

  She wiped the tears from her eyes, reached for her aunt’s Bible, held it to her lips and whispered, “Thank you, Aunt Emily.”

  She may have lived in a world of make-believe when she was a child. Chosen a profession that surrounded her with other people’s written dreams and dreamed her own. But now, at last, she felt ready for reality.

  An inner strength surfaced as she thought of her protected childhood and secure future. Thanks to her aunt, she was financially able to follow any path she chose to follow. And, if T.J. was right, she had the right man to help her.

  If she still wanted him.

  A warm glow filled her as she finally began to believe T.J. had been right about some connection between them. She began to understand why T.J. felt so grateful to his father for adopting him and his brother that that gratitude could have influenced the way he’d regarded marriage.

  It was the same gratitude she felt for her aunt for all the loving years she’d given her. It was now up to her to convince T.J. once and for all that that kind of love didn’t ask for repayment.

  She glanced at her watch. Maybe it wasn’t too late to tell T.J. so.

  T.J. WAS STANDING at the door to the fire station talking to Tim when he heard hoots and hollers behind him. The kind of noises that red-blooded men make when they see a desirable woman. He tried to ignore them. He’d been down that road with disastrous results. One beautiful woman to break his heart was enough.

  The whistles continued. “Hang on, Tim. I’ve got to go and cool down the jackasses out there. The way they’re acting, you’d think they’d never seen a woman before.”

  “How do you know it’s a dame?”

  “I know. Believe me, I know.”

  “Wait for me,” Tim answered, his blue eyes perking up. A broad smile curved at his lips. “Sounds as if it’s going to be good.”

  “No thanks. Wait here,” T.J. said, disgusted as hell. “You’ve never met a woman you didn’t like, and I have enough trouble on my hands already. Wait here. I’ll be back as soon as I get rid of her.”

  He turned to go out and throw cold water on his crew, then froze. Golden rays of sunshine glinting in her auburn hair, Emily was coming up to meet him.

  She wore her signature blue slip sundress and carried a small white box in her hand. He felt a strong sense of déjà vu, the past and the present became one.

  “I had the hotel make you a box lunch,” she said, echoing the words she’d first said to him two weeks ago. Dimples danced across her cheeks. The sensuous look in her eyes turned his knees to Jell-O.

  T.J. swallowed hard. He was hungry all right, but it wasn’t for the contents of the box lunch she carried. It was for the taste of her, the feel of her in his arms, the minty scent that had never left his thoughts.

  Behind him, he heard Tim whistle.

  “Get lost,” T.J. said over his shoulder. The last thing he wanted was to have Tim anywhere near Emily. She belonged to him.

  “Don’t I even get a proper introduction?” Tim replied with a laugh as he came up behind T.J. “I was the guy that got the two of you together.”

  “No,” T.J. replied, without taking his eyes off of Emily’s shining green eyes. “It was Emily’s aunt who accomplished the miracle. You were just the means to put it into action.”

  “That’s okay,” Emily broke in, smiling at his brother. “I’d like to thank you, Tim. After all, you’re going to be my brother-in-law.”

  T.J. dropped the blueprints he was carrying. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. “He is?”

  Emily nodded. A mischievous smile that proceeded to light up T.J.’s world covered her face. “That is, if you still want me.”

  “I did, that is, I do.” Having Emily at close quarters again was doing a number on him. All he could think of was how to gracefully get her somewhere private.

  “First, we have to talk.” She gazed around the site and motioned to the lone tree. “Over there?”

  “Sure,” he answered, but his high spirits dropped a notch. The fact that she was here was a good omen. The fact that she still wanted to talk, wasn’t. He tossed the blueprints to Tim. “Let’s go.”

  Emily made herself comfortable on the crate below the tree. Sunlight filtered through the tree branches. “First, I have something to show you.” She took an official document out of the manila envelope she carried and handed it to him.

  T.J. scanned it swiftly. “A birth certificate. Yours?’

  “Yes,” she answered. “It came with this.” She took another document out of the envelope. “I think this explains why we thought there was some connection between us.”

  T.J. studied the Certificate of Adoption issued by the Foundation for Homeless Children and signed by the Superior Court of California. Then he looked at her, the flush of color on her cheeks, the threat of tears in her eyes.

  “That’s mine, too,” she said softly. “And furthermore, when I visited the foundation to ask about it, I saw my aunt’s portrait in the lobby. She was not only on their board of directors at the time we both were born, she heavily endowed the foundation. Maybe, she was behind both adoptions.”

  T.J. dropped to the vacant crate beside her. “My God,” he muttered. “That’s the connection.”

  Emily nodded. “I called my mother, and she confirmed it. She also said she agreed with my aunt not to tell me about it until I was grown.” She smiled ruefully. “She said they didn’t have the heart to tell me because I was such a vulnerable little girl. I told her I wasn’t a little girl anymore.”

  T.J. took her hands in his. “No, you’re not. You’re an intelligent, beautiful, caring woman. The woman I love. So, how about it. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes.” She went into his arms with a happy smile.

  “Wow!” He grabbed Emily, lifted her arms and swung her around in the air to the accompanying sound of whistles. “Are you ready to get married? Tomorrow? Or better yet, today?”

  Emily put her arms around his neck, inhaled his scent of sunshine and shaving lotion and laughed breathlessly. “Be careful, Tom,” she said, clinging to him. “My feet can barely touch the ground!”

  “They’re never going to,” he said, laughing up into her star-filled eyes. “Not as long as I have anything to say about it. From now on, Em, we’re going to fly together. That is,” he added as he captured her lips with his own, “if you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready whenever you are,” she whispered into his lips.

  Two days later, they did.

  Epilogue

  “Em, sweetheart, wake up.”

  Emily groaned and burrowed deeper into her husband’s arms. “Why?”

  “Because today is our anniversary, that’s why,” he answered. He kissed the tip of her nose, nuzzled her in the sensitive spot behind her ear. “We’ve been married ten months today. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
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  Emily smiled drowsily and ran her hand over his cheek. Warm tingles of happiness ran through her. “You have to be the only man in the world to want to celebrate his wedding anniversary every month.”

  “Maybe so,” he answered as he investigated a dimple on her cheek. “But it’s fun reminding you.”

  “You don’t have to remind me.” She rubbed her hand across the gentle mound in her middle. “Emily Marie has a way of reminding me every day.”

  To Emily’s delight, Tom slid down her flimsy nightgown to put his cheek on her middle. “Hello, Emily Marie. This is your father speaking. I just wanted to tell you I can’t wait to meet you.”

  Emily ran her fingers through Tom’s hair and pressed him close to their unborn child, a child who was lucky to have him for a father.

  “My two Emilys,” Tom murmured. He slid back up to return her embrace. Cathedral chimes sounded outside the window. White doves cooed and fluttered against the horizon. “I hate to break this up, sweetheart, but the real Venice is waiting for us.”

  Emily looked out the curved window where cathedral spires appeared against a blue sky, where the voices of gondoliers drifted upward. As a child, she’d wished to come here, and now her husband had granted that wish.

  “This is Venice, Italy,” she said softly. “But you’re right. The real Venice is back home.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-6795-7

  BACHELOR-AUCTION BRIDEGROOM

  Copyright © 2001 by Mollie Molé.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.