The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal

by Anna Erishkigal

  The song ended. Adam's eyes grew darker, his expression tender and filled with yearning. I tilted up my head.

  Kiss me, Adam. Please kiss me, and we'll see where it all ends up?

  "Rosie," he murmured.

  His mouth descended towards my own.

  A flash of light interrupted our kiss. Adam stiffened, and we both looked to the cameraman who'd caught us in a kiss which had not quite been consummated. The light from the camera flashed again, capturing our look of annoyance and surprise. The aggressive blond news anchor we'd avoided earlier shoved a small microphone-recorder into Adam's face as her photographer sidekick snapped yet another picture.

  "Mr. Bristow? I hear you just put on quite a show, beating up some poor guy who tried to dance with your date? Do you care to make a statement?"

  Bloody hell!

  Adam shielded me with his body as the flash on the camera click-click-clicked.

  "No comment," Adam said. "If you want a statement, go question the police."

  "You were in court in Sydney yesterday, weren't you?" The manner in which the reporter said it implied it had been for something insidious.

  "On a civil matter," Adam said. "It's all a matter of public record."

  "Rumor has it you divorced your wife because her father refused to reimburse the landholders along the Condamine River in Chinchilla?"

  "No comment."

  "When will your divorce become final?"

  "No comment."

  "This is the first time you've been seen in public with a woman who is not your wife, Mr. Bristow," the reporter said. "Does this mean you've decided not to reconcile with Eva Jackson?"

  Adam's expression hardened.

  "Yes," Adam said. "It's over. Now please leave us alone."

  A small thrill of elation rippled through my entire body. Not getting back with Eva Jackson. Adam had just declared it to a television reporter!

  The reporter turned and shoved her microphone into my face this time. She gave me that same, fake Machiavellian smile my mother always used to con somebody into giving her what she wanted.

  "And who is this stunning young woman you felt inspired to defend?"

  Adam signaled one of the burly-looking men wearing earpieces. The security guard hurried over.

  "Excuse me, Miss," the guard said to the reporter. "The media is barred from interviewing guests anyplace except for the red carpet and the lobby. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave the room." He herded the audacious reporter and her photographer out of the dance hall.

  Adam put his arms around me and lay his chin on top of my head with an exasperated sigh.

  "I just can't seem to get a break, can I?"

  I held him, but the spell had been broken. My wild brumby stallion had trotted back out to the edge of the paddock. He placed his finger beneath my chin. His expression filled with remorse as he ran his thumb across my cheek and paused with it resting on my lip. It was, I understood, the kiss he wished to give me.

  "I am still a married man, Rosie," Adam said softly. "Until I am free, I cannot legally follow my heart."

  Tears welled in my eyes.

  "You've been separated for almost a year," I said. "She's moved on. Why can't you?"

  Adam grimaced.

  "Divorce is … messy. I'd like to say I've given clear signals, but the truth is, until I met you, Eva and me … let's just say a few times I succumbed."

  I nodded, for what else could I say? Adam was an old-fashioned dinosaur, and old-fashioned dinosaurs didn't get involved until they were legally divorced from their lawful wives.

  "I'm really tired, Adam. Can we just go home?"

  He kept his arm around me as he escorted me out past the now-empty red carpet, waited for the valet to fetch his car, opened the door and did not shut it until he was certain I'd buckled myself in. We drove home in silence, but as soon as he turned onto the highway, Adam reached across the dark seat, found my hand, and placed it on the gear shifter underneath his own. Our relationship had just taken an odd turn. He didn't want to kiss me, but he did want to court me and hold my hand. Why, of all the men in the world, had I fallen for a throwback to the 1800's?

  "Why did you leave Eva?" I finally asked.

  His hand stiffened, but he didn't pull away.

  "What's your impression of Eva?"

  "Spoiled, selfish, and she loves to be the center of attention."

  "I didn't leave her for any of those reasons," Adam said. "I knew she was like that when I married her."

  "Then why?"

  We drove in silence for perhaps another half-kilometer. I'd known Adam long enough not to rush him. At last he said what I'd suspected all along.

  "She hurt the one person I cared about even more than her."

  It was as close to an answer as he'd ever give me.

  Chapter 36

  Harvey led me across the road to wander up into Linda Hastings station. We leaped over some hedges, past red alpacas and the four-horned black Jacob's ram who, in the dream world, appeared to act as some kind of guardian. The white pony waited, devoid of a saddle or a rider, in front of the window Linda used as a guest room.

  I dismounted Harvey and touched the white pony's head where a deep scar marred her coat just beneath her forelock. She was a small pony, perfectly sized for a girl Pippa's age, with a sweet face and a bit of grey. I rubbed the mare's soft, grey muzzle which felt surprisingly corporeal for a dream-horse.

  "Where's your mummy?" I looked around for the honey-haired girl, but ever since Adam's mother handed me the white pony's reins, there had been no sign of the rider, just the small white mare who stood each night outside of Pippa's bedroom window.

  "Are you waiting for Pippa, sweetheart?"

  The white pony nibbled on my shirt, and then rested her head upon my shoulder with a soulful sigh. Her coat grew gloriously bright and fulgent.

  Sunlight streamed through the white café curtains into my bedroom. I smiled and stretched and opened my eyes to a world which was suddenly, beautifully right. The scent of Turkish coffee tickled in underneath the door, brewed nice and strong the way Adam liked it. I pulled on my bathrobe, visited the salmon pink bathroom to brush my teeth, and stumbled sleepily out into the kitchen just in time to hear the smoke detector go off.

  Screech-screech-screech-screech.

  "Bloody hell!" Adam waved a towel at the shrill white circle in the ceiling. In the frying pan a small, blackened circle that at one point might have been an omelet puffed grey smoke. "Can't a bloke cook breakfast without announcing it to the entire world?"

  I hid a laugh by pretending it was a cough. "Is that the dinner bell?"

  Adam turned, surprised to see me awake. He was already dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a casual button-down shirt, and the work boots he wore out into the field. On the counter next to him a black lacquer bed-tray was set up with dishes, silverware and napkins, a small glass of orange juice, sliced melon, and the aforementioned coffee, steaming hot with a froth of milk. It was like having that first awkward morning after sex, only without having had the, uh, well … sex.

  "I was, um, going to surprise you in, uh, bed," Adam stammered. "Just in case you, uh, have a concussion."

  He looked surprisingly vulnerable, as though he feared I might reject his attempt to transform our awkward dance into an official courtship. A warm, gentle sensation settled into my chest and spread through my body in an 'awww … somebody cares about me' feeling. It felt odd to not feel the emptiness which I'd lived with for so long that I'd forgotten what it felt like to not feel like a homeless wanderer.

  I touched the lump on the back of my head which, while it still ached, no longer gave me that disoriented, ethereal feeling.

  "I feel better, thank you. But I would love some breakfast."

  I sat down at the table and fingered the sticky spot underneath my butt where the duct tape had lifted on the vinyl. My mind raced through the list of all the things on the station that would need fixing if Pippa and Adam were t
o turn this place into a home. Maybe I could use the fabric I'd found in the closet to reupholster the ripped parts?

  "If you just wait a minute," Adam said, "I'll whip up another batch of eggs."

  I shot him my most winning smile.

  "I want that one." I pointed to the scorched omelet. "But only if you sit down and eat it with me."

  He cut the omelet in half and divided it between my plate and his own. He watched my reaction as I bit into the eggs. I hid my grimace by glancing underneath the table.

  "It feels weird without Pippa or Thunderlane here."

  "Yeah, I know," Adam said. "It doesn't bother me as much out in the field, but when I come home, if she's not here it just feels like it's not, well, home. Do you know what I mean?"

  "Yes," I said. For whenever she was gone, I felt her absence as well.

  I scraped away the charred cheese and ate the rest of the omelet. It didn't taste horrible, just overcooked. I glanced at the stove and laughed.

  "What's so funny?"

  "Didn't you notice I dabbed the stove-knobs with red nail polish?"

  "Why?"

  "That's how far you're supposed to turn them on."

  Adam craned his neck to look at the stove as though I'd just pointed out a UFO hurtling out of the sky. He turned back and met my gaze, his blue-green eyes crinkled with amusement.

  "Illogical engineering, if you ask me," Adam said. "If you're only supposed to turn it up to six, then it should stop at six, not go all the way up to ten."

  "How far does the speedometer on your car go?"

  "Two hundred kilometers per hour."

  "Do you ever drive that fast?"

  A line appeared in the middle of Adam's forehead.

  "I, uhm…"

  "You don't drive that fast, do you?"

  Adam gave me a sheepish grin.

  "There's a lot of empty road between Toowoomba and the Surat Basin."

  "How many speeding tickets have you gotten?"

  Adam fiddled with his napkin. He didn't meet my gaze.

  "A few."

  Of all the things I could not picture my careful, thoughtful, downright cautious employer doing; it was barreling down the highway at a reckless two hundred kilometers per hour. Julie claimed his brother Jeffrey had been like that, but it appeared the twins had a lot more in common than Adam let on.

  "You don't speed with Pippa in the car, do you?"

  Adam's face assumed a blend of genuine horror and righteous indignation.

  "Never!"

  We finished our eggs and juice, enjoying a curious blend of stolen glances and nervous smiles. It reminded me of my first crush in middle school, when a boy I'd liked had started flirting back. As I sipped my coffee, Adam decided to draw me out.

  "You never told me you almost went to the Olympics?"

  I grimaced.

  "Almost going to the Olympics is like almost catching a big fish," I said. "There's thousands of wannabe Olympiads. In competitive horseback riding, the only thing which matters is whether or not you did go."

  "So if Pippa gets a horse, will you be willing to train her?"

  It was a veiled query about the future.

  "That depends."

  "On what?"

  "On where we all end up at the end of the summer."

  Adam's blue-green eyes crinkled with concern. As much as I suspected he wished I'd go wherever the court ordered him to live after his divorce trial, unlike Gregory, Adam was not selfish enough to ask me to give up my chance to work at Saint Joseph's. Even if I did get the job, it would only last a set number of weeks, but I didn't tell him that. I wanted him to fight to stay here.

  We gathered up the dishes and washed them in silence, but it was not uncomfortable, merely the camaraderie of two people when neither one of them was especially prone to garrulousness. Besides, Adam did communicate. He just tended to do so nonverbally: a touch here, a thoughtful gesture there, the way he always positioned some part of his body so he could brush up against my own.

  Don't make any sudden movies, Rosie. Let the wild brumby stallion come to you. Once he trusts you, he will be your horse forever...

  Handing Adam each wet, soapy dish was far more intimate, now that I understood his 'language,' than a dozen heated conversations about our feelings. Each time the plate passed hands, our fingers touched, and pleasant little jolts of electricity tingled throughout my body. I mentally calculated the days until Adam became a free man. Only a month. Just 29 days until his divorce trial starts. That's 696 hours. Adam smiled as he handed me the next plate, and I felt it all the way down to my feminine core. Holy crap, that's 42,000 minutes of unresolved sexual tension!!! I didn't need that Gitano gift of knowing to foresee there'd be a lot of cold showers in both of our futures if Adam stuck to his archaic morals.

  The phone rang. It was precisely nine o'clock. Adam and I simultaneously grinned. The UST-busting cavalry was about to arrive.

  "That would be Linda Hastings."

  Adam answered the phone. He told her he'd be right over and fetched his car keys and shot me a grin.

  "Our My Little Pony princess has summoned the royal coach."

  "You could always walk."

  "And risk that big black ram Linda's got jabbing me in the backside with one of his fifty-thousand horns?" Adam made a mock gesture of rubbing his muscular behind. "No thank you. I think I'll drive there. Besides, you saw how much stuff she brought in her overnight bag."

  I laughed. Pippa had gone prepared to camp out at Linda's for a year.

  "Could you swing down to the grocer and pick up some milk?" I asked. "I'll get Pippa's stuff ready for when Frederick arrives at noon."

  Adam disappeared out the door. A moment later, his mother's ancient green ute crept up the driveway in a cloud of dust, rattling as the suspension bounced up the pothole-strewn road. I took that cold shower, and then wandered into Pippa's bedroom to make sure her suitcases were ready to go.

  I pulled her riding boots out of her bag. They were far too small, and I wanted to talk to Adam about encouraging Pippa to give them to Emily. Her riding helmet, jodhpurs, riding vest and crop, however, all still fit her … barely. I unpacked her sneakers and replaced them with her utilitarian, lace-up school shoes. Riding boots possessed minimal tread for a reason. If you were thrown from the saddle, the tread could get caught in the stirrup and your horse would drag you. While I had no doubt Pippa would find a horse under her grandfather's Christmas tree tomorrow morning, I questioned whether any of the city-born halfwits had the common sense to make sure she wore the proper safety gear?

  I turned the lights on the Christmas tree and piled Pippa's suitcases by the door, all except for the outfit she would wear today. I'd washed and ironed her violet silk dress and matching shrug even though I knew Eva would immediately dress her in something else. Pippa was anxious enough without her mother lambasting her for dressing unfashionably.

  The sound of tires crunching in the driveway indicated Adam was back with his daughter. Thunderlane leaped out of the car and ran up to me, tail wagging, to give his usual doggie hello. Pippa bounded up behind him, her face lit up in an ecstatic smile.

  "Rosie! Rosie! You and Daddy are on the front page of the newspaper!"

  She shoved the Toowoomba Chronicle in my face. Alongside a picture of Randy Evans and Abigail McKenna was a picture of me and Adam posing for the cameras. It was an attractive picture, with a flattering headline, and an even more flattering story outlining how much the Christmas Charity Benefit had raised to haul water to the outback stations hit by the drought. Adam's name was mentioned, mine was not, but reporter seemed sympathetic to him 'finally moving beyond the badly behaving Jackson brat.'

  It was, I suspected, exactly the photo-op Adam had hoped for.

  "Rosie! Look!" Pippa said. "The reporter said your dress was lovely!"

  "Really?" I tousled her blonde pig-tails. "I have you to thank for that. If -I- had picked out the dress, I would have gone in my pink fuzzy bathrobe."
r />   "No!" Pippa giggled. "Your black dress is pretty."

  "Not as nice as what you picked out," I said. "See? It's official. The biggest newspaper in Darling Downs has declared that my fashion consultant, one Miss Pippa Bristow, has impeccable taste."

  Pippa positively glowed. It was just what she needed to fortify her self-esteem before facing what was likely to be five days of veiled cut-downs by her perfectionistic mother. I glanced at Adam and froze.

  "Pippa, go get your things." Adam's voice sounded tight.

  "But I'm already packed, Daddy. See? My suitcases are by the door."

  "Pippa, just do as I ask. Please."

  Lead settled into my stomach. The kiss. That other darned reporter must have plastered the picture all over the news.

  "I'll go help her."

  "No. I need you to stay here."

  Pippa's silver-grey eyes clouded over with a wounded expression. I shot Adam my sternest school teacher look, the one that communicated, 'not one more bit of guff from -you- young man.'

  "Just let me show you what I've got laid out, nipper," I said to Pippa. "And then I'll find out what has got your father worried."

  Pippa appeared happy with my choice of the purple dress. I called the dog out of her room with me so he wouldn't get hair all over her outfit and met Adam in the kitchen. Thunderlane spotted Adam's stiff posture, whimpered, and scurried away to wait just outside Pippa's door. Coward… Adam slid out the other newspaper he'd discreetly tucked underneath Pippa's overnight bag so she wouldn't see it, The Morning Telegraph.

  "The picture?" I asked as Adam unrolled it.

  Adam's cheek twitched.

  "I could live with the picture," Adam said softly, "although it will cause me a lot of grief. It's what your former fiancé told them when they bailed him out of jail."

  "How'd he get out of jail? Don't they have to arraign him first for assault and battery?"

  "If somebody knows a judge, they can usually get bail set right from the jailhouse."

  "But Gregory doesn't know anybody that powerful."