Hidden Pleasures

by Brenda Jackson

  He was about to follow the crowd and walk around the two when something about one of the women caught his attention. He slowed his pace and stared. He knew the one in the business suit. She was the woman whose cab he’d hijacked in New York six months ago. He’d recognize her anywhere, although now she was smiling instead of frowning.

  Hell, he’d had a mental snapshot of her since that day. There were some things a man couldn’t forget and for him a gorgeous woman topped the list. At that moment a primitive instinct took hold of him and he drew in a deep breath, absorbed in the implication of what it meant. Whatever else, he was no fool. He knew the signs, fully understood the warning, but it was up to him if he wanted to heed them. Desire was a potent thing. Too much of it could get you into trouble.

  He’d desired women before, hundreds of times. But there was something about this woman that was tempting him all the way to the bone.

  He stepped out of the flow of the crowd and moved off to the side, feigning interest in the rack of brochures in front of him. As he pretended to read a brochure that listed over fifty Elvis items being auctioned, he listened to the women’s conversation. Okay, eavesdropping was rude, but hadn’t this same woman told him he needed to be taught manners?

  He would consider it research. He wanted to know who she was and why was she here causing all sorts of crazy thoughts to go through his mind. He glanced over at her. She had tilted her head to the side while talking and he thought there was beauty in her neck, a gracefulness. And he liked the sound of her voice. Hell, he’d liked it that day in New York. He’d just been in too much of a rush to truly appreciate it at the time.

  The last thing he wanted was to be seen, in case she remembered him, more specifically his lack of manners. And he knew firsthand that some women had long memories. They also were driven to get even. Galen wasn’t up for that today. To be honest, he was distracted. He had a project in his garage that needed his absolute attention, so technically he had no business being here. But he had to bid on that ’69 Chevelle. The Chevelle.

  He glanced at his watch and moaned. The bidding had already begun and more than likely the entry doors had been closed. He had missed out on the opportunity to own the car he’d always wanted because of his attention to this woman. Now he’d be forced to do an off-bid for the car, which meant if others were interested, the bidding war could go on forever. He pulled in a disgusted breath. They said payback was a bitch. Was losing out on that Chevelle his payback for the grief he’d caused the woman six months ago? He wasn’t ready to accept his punishment.

  He wasn’t ready to do anything but find out who she was and why their paths had crossed yet again. Not that he was complaining. He listened more closely to their conversation to try to find out as much as he could about her.

  There was a reason he was drawn to her. A reason why such a cool, calm and reserved sort of guy like himself would love to cross the floor, interrupt their conversation and pull her into his arms and kiss her. To be quite honest, he wanted to do more than just kiss her.

  He figured he was going through some sort of hormonal meltdown. Over the years he’d learned to deal with an overabundance of testosterone. But he was definitely having trouble doing so today.

  After finding out who she was, he might decide to come out of hiding and make a move. They were not in New York, squabbling over a cab. She was in Phoenix, the Steele neck of the woods, and for her that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

  Brittany couldn’t help but smile as she stared at Nikki. It had been over twelve years since they’d seen each other. At fourteen they had been the best of friends and had remained that way until right before their sixteenth birthdays when Nikki’s father, who’d been in the navy, had received orders to move his family from the Tampa Bay area to San Diego.

  They had tried staying in touch, but in Brittany’s junior year of high school, when Mrs. Dugan got sick, Brittany had been sent to another foster home. During that first year with the Surratts, she had been too busy getting adjusted to her new family and new school to stay in contact.

  “You look the same,” she couldn’t help but say to Nikki. She still had her curly black hair and her energetic chocolate-brown eyes. She truly hadn’t aged at all.

  “And so do you,” Nikki replied on a laugh. “Are we really twenty-eight already?”

  Brittany chuckled. “Afraid so. So what are you doing in Phoenix?”

  “I live here now. After I graduated from high school in San Diego I followed a group of friends to the university here. I got a job with a photography firm after I graduated and I’ve been here since.”

  “How are your parents?”

  “They’re fine and still living in San Diego. Dad’s retired now and driving Mom nuts. My brother Paul got married and has two kids, so the folks are happy about that.”

  Brittany nodded. “Well, I’m still single. What about you?”

  “Heck, yes. I’m building a career in freelance photography and not a career of heartache due to men. And that’s all the single guys in this city will give you. Now tell me about you, and please don’t say you’ve been living in Phoenix all this time and our paths never crossed.”

  Brittany smiled. “No, I just arrived in town yesterday. In fact this is my first visit to Phoenix.” And because Nikki had been her best friend during that phase of her life when she’d wanted to know her mother, she couldn’t help but say in an excited voice, “And I’m here because of my mother.”

  Nikki’s face lit up like a huge beam of light, and the smile and excitement made her face glow. “You found her?”

  “No, actually she found me.” Then sadness eased into Brittany’s eyes when she added, “But we didn’t get a chance to meet before she died.”

  “Oh, Brit,” Nikki said, giving her a huge hug. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  Brittany found herself telling Nikki the entire story and why she was in Phoenix and there at the auction.

  “Well, I believe things will work out for you. There are so many foreclosures out there, you might not have much competition in the bidding. I wish you luck because I know how much getting that house means to you. It’s your only link to your mother.”

  Brittany nodded. “I’ll do anything to get it. I already got my loan approval letter, so the money is not a problem. I just hope things go smoothly.”

  Nikki smiled. “And they will. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Now tell me, are you still living in Tampa? And what do you do there?”

  “I’m still in Tampa and I own Etiquette Matters, a mobile etiquette school. I and the ten people I employ travel all over the country and hold seminars and teach classes. Each of us is assigned a certain section of the country. Things are going great because a number of corporations have begun introducing business etiquette and protocol as part of their corporate image training.”

  “Wow, that sounds wonderful. So when can we get together? There is so much that we need to catch up on,” Nikki said.

  “What about dinner later? If everything works out—and I’m keeping positive that it will—I’ll have reason to celebrate. And I plan on staying for a couple of weeks when I get the house. I want to move in and spend time there, knowing it was where my mother once lived.”

  Shivers of excitement raced up Brittany’s spine when she added, “And what you said earlier is true. It is my one connection to my mother.”

  Galen waited until the women had exchanged contact information by way of business cards and hugged for what he hoped would be the last time before they finally headed in different directions.

  The conversation between them had lasted a good twenty minutes. They had been so busy chatting away, catching up on old times as well as the new, that they hadn’t even noticed him standing less than ten feet from them in the same spot, eavesdropping the entire time. It had been time well spent, because he’d gotten a lot of information about her.

  Her name was Brittany Thrasher. She was twenty-eight, she lived in Tampa and she owned some
sort of etiquette school that taught proper protocol and manners. He shook his head. Go figure.

  He also knew all about the house she would be bidding on and why she wanted it so badly. It was a house on a private road off Rushing Street. He knew the area.

  Galen glanced at his watch and figured he would hang around after all and make sure he and Brittany Thrasher got reacquainted on more pleasant terms. It was time she saw that he wasn’t such a bad guy. He’d just had an off day that time in New York. He would just throw on the Steele charm, talk her into taking him along when she went and took a tour of her new house. No telling where things would lead from there.

  He was about to head in the direction she’d gone when another conversation caught his ears. This time between two men who were standing together talking. “Are you sure the house off Rushing Street is going on the block today?” the short, stocky man asked his companion, a taller bald-headed guy.

  “I’m positive. I verified it was listed in the program. If the rezoning of the area goes as planned—and I have no reason to believe that it won’t with all the money we’re pouring into the rezoning commissioner’s election campaign—I figure that within a year, that property will be approved for commercial use.”

  The short, stocky man chuckled. “Good. Then we can tear the house down and use all that land to build another one of our hotels. We just need to make sure no one else outbids us for it.”

  Galen watched the men walk off. Evidently they wanted the same house Brittany would be bidding on. He shrugged, thinking it wasn’t any of his business. That was the nature of an auction and there was no reason for him to get involved. Then he released a short laugh. Who in the hell was he fooling? Even when she had been in New York he’d made her his business. Time just hadn’t lent itself for anything more than a confrontation between them.

  He glanced at his watch before pulling his cell phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. The push of one button had his phone connected to Eli.

  “What do you want, Galen?”

  He smiled. Eli was the moody brother. Ready for chitchat one minute and a grouch the next. “I’m still here at the auction mart. I need you to fax me a loan approval letter with an open line of credit.”

  “What do you think I am, your banker?” his brother snapped.

  “Just work miracles and do it and stop whining.”

  “Dammit, what’s the fax number?”

  “How the hell do I know? Just look it up.” He quickly hung up the phone before Eli decided to get real ugly.

  Galen made his way toward the auction area. Following the crowd, he wondered just when he’d begun rescuing damsels in distress. It was a disconcerting thought for a Steele, but in this case it was one he was looking forward to doing.

  Chapter 4

  Brittany got nervous as she glanced around the room. It was crowded, wall to wall. She knew there were fifteen homes being auctioned off today and she hoped none of these people were interested in the one she wanted. She would do as Nikki had suggested and think positive.

  She smiled when she thought of how she’d run into her friend again after all these years. Although she’d had other friends, she’d never felt that special closeness with them that she’d felt with Nikki. And now they had agreed to do a better job of staying in touch and would start off rekindling their friendship by going out to dinner tonight. They had so much to catch up on.

  She checked her watch. The auction would start in less than ten minutes and she was already nervous. This was the first time she’d ever attended an auction and hoped it wouldn’t take long to get to her house.

  Her house.

  Already she was thinking of it as hers. She couldn’t wait to go inside and look around. And she bet if she tried hard enough she would be able to feel her mother’s presence. She shifted in her seat at the same time the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She scanned the room, wondering about the reason for her eerie feeling. But she didn’t know anyone in the room, and no one here knew her.

  The announcer at the front of the room hit his gavel on the table several times to get everyone’s attention. She glanced down at the program and saw her house was listed as number eight. She pulled in a nervous breath when the auctioneer announced the auction had begun.

  Galen was satisfied to sit in the back where he could see everything going on, and had a pretty good view of Brittany Thrasher. He also had a good view of those two guys who wanted her house. Of course he didn’t plan to let them have it. Hopefully she had enough cash on hand to handle her own affairs, but in case she didn’t, then unknowingly she had a guardian angel.

  The thought of him being any woman’s angel had him chuckling. He didn’t do anything without an ulterior motive, and in her case he didn’t have to dig deep to find out what it was. He wanted her in his bed. Or, if she preferred, her bed. It really didn’t matter to him at this point.

  He leaned back in his chair as he thought about all the heat the two of them could and would generate. But he had a feeling that with Brittany Thrasher he would need to proceed with caution. There was something about her and this intense desire he was feeling whenever he looked at her that he just couldn’t put his finger on. But he would.

  “Now we will move on to house number eight,” the auctioneer was saying, interrupting his thoughts. For now it was a good thing.

  “Who would like to open the bid?”

  Brittany’s heart raced when the bidding had officially begun on her house. She had gone on the Internet last night and visited the Web site that outlined the most effective way to participate in an auction. Rule number one said you should not start off the bid. Instead you should scope out the bidders to see if and when you could enter the fray. The key was knowing how much money you had and working with that.

  The minimum bid had been set and so far the bidding remained in what she considered a healthy range with only three people actually showing interest. The highest bid was now at thirty-five thousand with only two people left bidding. She decided to enter at forty-six thousand.

  She kept her eyes straight ahead on the auctioneer and didn’t bother looking back to see who the other bidders were. That was another rule. Keep your eyes on the prize and not your opponents.

  “We have a bid of fifty-two thousand. Do I hear fifty-three?”

  She lifted her hand. “Fifty-three.”

  “We have a fifty-three. What about fifty-five?”

  “Fifty-five.”

  Brittany couldn’t resist looking sideways and saw a short, stocky man had made the bid. A nervousness settled in the pit of her stomach at the thought that the man wanted her house.

  “We’ve got fifty-five. Do I hear fifty-seven?”

  She lifted her hand. “Fifty-seven.”

  “The lady’s bid is fifty-seven. Do I hear a sixty?”

  “Seventy.”

  Brittany gasped under her breath at the high jump. Her approval letter was for a hundred thousand. She’d figured since the taxes were less than that it would be sufficient. Now she practically squirmed in her seat.

  “We have seventy. Do I hear a seventy-two?”

  She raised her hand. “Seventy-two.” There were only two people left bidding, and she wondered how far the man would go in his bids.

  She couldn’t help but turn at that moment and regard the man. He flashed a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He wanted her house and—

  “We have seventy-two. Can we get a seventy-five?” the auctioneer interrupted her thoughts by asking.

  “Seventy-five,” the man quickly spoke up.

  The room got silent and she knew why. They had reached the amount of the taxes that were due, but the auctioneer would continue until someone had placed the highest bid.

  “We have seventy-five. Can we get eighty?”

  Galen sighed, getting bored. The bidding for this particular house could go on all evening and he was ready for it to come to an end. It was obvious to everyone in the room that both of the two lo
ne bidders wanted the house and would continue until someone conceded. He seriously doubted either would.

  “We have eighty-six. Can we get an eighty-eight?” the auctioneer asked.

  The short, stocky man raised his hand at eighty-eight.

  “Can we get ninety?”

  Brittany raised her hand. “Ninety.” She had sent a text message to her banker for an updated approval letter asking for an increase but hadn’t gotten a response. What if he was out of the office and hadn’t gotten her request? She couldn’t let anyone else get her house.

  She glanced across the room at the man bidding against her. He appeared as determined as she was to keep bidding.

  “We have ninety. Can we get ninety-two?”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars.”

  Everyone in the room, including Brittany and the short, stocky man gasped. Even the auctioneer seemed surprised. Brittany closed her eyes feeling her only connection to her mother slipping away and a part of her couldn’t believe it was happening.

  “We have a bid of two hundred thousand dollars from the man in the back. Do we have two-ten?” No one said anything. Both Brittany and the short, stocky man were still speechless.

  “Going once, going twice. Sold! The house has been sold to the man in the rear. And I suggest we all take a fifteen-minute break.”

  The people around her started getting up, but Brittany just sat there. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She had lost her mother’s house. Her house.

  She glanced over at the short, stocky man and he seemed just as disappointed as she felt. He nodded in her direction before he and the man he was with got up and walked out. The room was practically empty now with everyone taking advantage of the break. There was nothing left for her to do but leave. However, she couldn’t help wondering the identity of the individual who had won her house. She really needed to get that person’s name and if nothing else, hopefully she could negotiate with him to purchase her mother’s belongings and—