by Terri Osburn
“Are you sure folks will come?” Spencer asked as he looked out over the parking lot. “Not the owners, but other people?”
Recognizing how his position at the paper could benefit the cause, Caleb said, “If we advertise it right.”
That elicited a chuckle from Spencer. “We’ll need to get an advertising budget approved by the committee, but something tells me you won’t have any problem selling them on the idea.”
“Me?” Caleb asked. “You’re the one they all listen to.”
“Oh no,” he said, tipping his hat back. “This one is your baby, and you’re the salesman. I doubt you’ll have any trouble making them listen.”
He appreciated the man’s faith in him. “Fair enough.”
With a check of his watch, Spencer said, “Time to go.” The pair hustled back to the front of the building as Spencer explained, “Carrie’s appointment is in less than thirty minutes, and I still need to pick her up out at the construction office.”
“You’re taking Carrie to an appointment?” Caleb asked, confused once again by the connection between Boyd and the expectant mother.
“Sure,” Spencer answered, pulling his keys from his pocket to unlock his truck. “She can’t fit behind the wheel of Patch’s old truck anymore.”
Caleb hadn’t heard the name before. “Patch?”
“Her good-for-nothing dead husband.” Pausing at his open door, Spencer said, “We’ll wait until we talk to Coop before presenting this idea to the board. You good with putting something together for next Friday?”
“Not a problem,” Caleb answered.
As the gray Dodge drove off down the street, Caleb wondered if Lorelei knew how her fiancé felt about Carrie Farmer’s former husband. Or more importantly, how he felt about the tiny brunette about to be a single mother.
Snow moaned for the third time as she gripped her headboard tighter. “Oh, yes. Right there,” she said, her voice breathy and desperate.
“Right here?” Caleb asked, his voice syrupy as he circled the same delicate spot over and over.
“Uh-huh.” Snow’s entire body melted in pure pleasure. “How did I go without this for so long?” she asked.
Caleb dropped a kiss on her big toe. “I don’t know, darling. How did you?”
She opened one eye and shot her husband a warning look. “Don’t get smug down there, Mr. McGraw. But it’s nice to know that if your job at the paper ever falls through, you have a lucrative career in foot massage to fall back on.”
Increasing the pressure on her arch, Caleb ignored her comment. “What do you know about Spencer Boyd and Carrie Farmer?” he asked.
Snow’s eyes popped open. What was that question about?
“I know Carrie is Spencer’s ex-wife,” she said. “And that they’re good friends.”
The foot massage stopped. “She was his wife?”
“Hey,” Snow said, shaking her foot. “Are we talking or massaging?”
“Relax,” he said, returning to his task. “I can do both. So Lorelei knows about them?”
Snuggling deeper into her pillow, Snow answered, “Sure, she knows.”
“Huh,” Caleb said. “And she’s fine with her fiancé being in love with someone else?”
Snow jerked her foot out of Caleb’s grasp as she sat up. “Her fiancé what?”
“I can’t be the only one who sees it,” Caleb said. “He hovers over her. Drives her to her appointments. If Lorelei is fine with it, then good for them, but I couldn’t handle that.”
Though she appreciated knowing her husband was against either of them falling in love with someone else, she needed to disabuse Caleb of his highly erroneous assumption.
“Spencer Boyd is not in love with his ex-wife. He loves Lorelei, and he always has.”
“But you said he was married to Carrie.”
“He was,” she explained, “but that was while Lorelei was in LA trying to be an actress and he thought she wasn’t coming back.”
Caleb’s head tilted. “So he married Carrie, even though he loved Lorelei?”
Why did she have to land the only man on the planet who possessed a feminine view on love?
“Of course he didn’t.” Snow struggled for a way to explain her friends’ situation. Though to be honest, she never totally understood the whole story herself. “After Lorelei broke his heart, Spencer moved on with his life. He married Carrie, whom he loved and thought he’d spend the rest of his life with, but life happens, you know? Their marriage ended, she married someone else, and eventually Lorelei came back to him. Happy endings all around.”
“Except for Carrie,” Caleb pointed out. “Her husband died, remember?”
“Yes,” Snow agreed. “But her husband was a wife beater who got himself killed at a bar. So, really, she’s better off without him.” She slid her foot back under his nose and wiggled her toes. “Now, please tell me you haven’t shared your cockamamie theory with anyone else.”
Massaging the back of her heel, Caleb asked, “Who says cockamamie anymore?”
“Tell me you haven’t spread some rumor about Spencer cheating on Lorelei.”
“Of course not,” he said, sounding offended. “I’m not an idiot. But are you sure I’m wrong?”
Snow nodded, closing her eyes and letting the tension leave her shoulders. How Caleb found the exact right spots she did not know. But oh, was she thankful he did.
“I’m positive. The other night, Lorelei referred to Carrie as the little sister she never had. I admit, it appears to be a weird situation from the outside, which Lorelei readily admits, but there’s nothing salacious going on.”
“That’s good,” Caleb said, sliding his hands up her calf. “Because I like Spencer, and I’d hate to lose respect for him.”
She opened her eyes to watch him drop a kiss on her knee. The zing nearly shot out her ears as Snow’s body started to melt. “You really don’t like infidelity, do you?” Snow asked.
Caleb looked up after kissing the inside of her thigh. “No, I don’t. I’ve seen up close what it can do to people.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, struggling to concentrate as he worked his way up her body. With every touch, the need pitched higher.
Shaking his head, Caleb dropped a soft kiss on her lips. “Not tonight,” he said. “It’s time for a different kind of massage.”
She didn’t want to let the question go, especially when she saw the demons the subject let loose in his eyes. Her always lighthearted husband was hiding a wound she knew nothing about. But before she could push the issue, Caleb slid the straps of her tank top off her shoulders and took one pink nipple between his teeth. Her gasp of pleasure echoed around them as her questions drowned in a pool of desire.
Caleb had never seen Snow this nervous. After weeks of watching her step on stages in Nashville, he’d expect selling a painting at auction to be the less daunting task. But his wife had become a frantic ball of energy in the passenger seat. He’d asked her twice if she needed him to stop for a potty break, and the second time she nearly ripped his head off and told him to drive and keep quiet.
Being the rational man that he was, Caleb followed the directive and clamped his piehole shut.
“This is it,” Snow informed him, as he pulled the Jeep into the auction house parking lot. He didn’t bother to tell her he knew where they were going, seeing as he was the one who had mapped the place out. Today was not the day to correct his better half.
“There aren’t a lot of cars here. That’s a bad sign, isn’t it?”
“Not when the show doesn’t start for ninety minutes.” The e-mail she’d showed him said to arrive by nine, but Snow had demanded they leave the house at seven. He’d talked her into leaving at seven thirty, and that still put them here a half hour early. With only two cars in the lot, Caleb wondered if they were the first to arrive.<
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Snow reached his side of the Jeep before his feet hit the pavement. “Be careful with the painting,” she said, for the tenth time that morning. “Don’t hurt it.”
“I’m not going to hurt it, darling,” he said, looking forward to this sale being over so he could have his mild-mannered wife back. “You’ve wrapped it well enough to survive the Titanic.”
“I wanted to make sure it didn’t get damaged on the way down here,” Snow defended, hovering around him as he drew the delicate cargo from the backseat. “Don’t put it on the ground,” she ordered, seconds before the painting touched the pavement.
“Honey, it’s wrapped in four layers of brown paper. A little asphalt isn’t going to hurt it.”
“Still,” she said, taking her new obsession out of his hands. The thing was nearly as big as she was, making her look like a giant brown rectangle with feet. “I’ll feel better once we’re inside.”
I’ll feel better once this is over, he thought. Not that he’d say as much aloud. Caleb had learned a lot about being a husband in the last couple of weeks. Determination to keep a woman happy and his own hide out of a sling made a man a fast learner.
“I’ll carry it,” he said as she started hobbling toward the large building with the Premier Auctions sign over the door. “You’re going to break your neck and the painting—now give it here.”
For the first time all day, Snow didn’t argue. She let Caleb take the painting without a fuss and didn’t even remind him to be careful. Maybe she was starting to relax. And then they reached the entrance.
“Be careful,” she murmured, holding the door open for him.
Caleb rolled his eyes, but only because she couldn’t see his face. To his relief, an auction coordinator met them at the small counter not far from the entrance. She introduced herself with a welcoming smile, thanked them for bringing the painting on such short notice, and then explained that she would hand it over to the staff to tag and place with the other items up for bid.
As the treasure passed hands, Snow said, “Be careful,” to the friendly woman, who nodded and maintained her smile. Caleb assumed the employee was used to overprotective owners, but Snow was acting as if she’d given birth to the thing.
“The auction room is the second door on the right,” the woman informed them, nodding toward the back of the room. “Coffee and tea, as well as water, are available on a side table.” To Snow she said, “Don’t worry about a thing. This is the star of our show. We’ll take good care of it.”
As if those simple words were all she needed to hear, Snow visibly relaxed and managed a genuine smile in return. “Thank you. I’m not usually this crazy.”
“No, she isn’t,” Caleb said to back her up, but the woman had disappeared through a doorway behind the counter. “Let’s go sit down,” he said to Snow, dropping a hand to the small of her back.
“She thinks I’m nuts, doesn’t she?”
Caleb shook his head. “I doubt you’re the first person who cared about something of value.”
“But I’m practically twitching, and she gave me that look most people reserve for small children or misbehaving dogs.”
Pressing a kiss against her temple, he said, “You’re more adorable than either of those things.”
She slid her hand through his arm and said, “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“As it was intended.” Together they stepped into the auction room, and both stopped in their tracks. “Holy moly,” he muttered.
“That’s one way to put it,” Snow replied.
Chapter 20
As if Snow wasn’t nervous enough already. The auction room—room being the understatement of the year—could easily house a college basketball game, including ample bleacher space on each side. A towering set of double doors bookended the long center-stage. The podium on the left was presumably for the auctioneer, and the entire floor was covered with row upon row of folding chairs. Other than two young men working on the stage, she and Caleb were the only people in the room.
“Where do we sit?” she whispered, having no idea why she felt the need to keep her voice down. It wasn’t as if they’d walked into a church. Though she’d never seen a church this big before.
“By the looks of things,” he said, “anywhere we want.”
Feeling small and out of place, she wrung her hands and said, “I need tea. Tea would be good.”
“Over here.” Caleb led her to a long table covered with a bright white tablecloth and loaded with several coffee dispensers, as well as two marked “Hot Water.”
Barely a minute later she was sipping a sweet cup of Earl Grey and feeling less jumpy. “That star of the show thing,” Snow said. “Do you think she meant that, or was she patronizing the crazy painting lady?”
“I told you, William Norton paintings don’t come up for auction often. Especially not in that size.” Caleb sipped his coffee as they strolled down the middle aisle heading for the stage. “I still can’t believe you got it for such a cheap price. Whoever runs that estate auction business in Ardent Springs needs to find another field.”
“That’s our fine mayor you’re talking about,” Snow said, turning into a row of chairs about ten back from the front. “Jebediah Winkle bought the whole setup not a month before you got here. The Presley family handled all the estate auctions three counties wide for at least fifteen years, but when the elder Presley passed away, his children weren’t interested in continuing. I think Jebediah bought it to earn himself some credibility with the local merchants. He got himself elected with the promise of improving the economy, and so far, he hasn’t done squat.”
“Considering nearly everyone I’ve met doesn’t like the man, I’m wondering how he got elected at all. Anyone can make a promise to turn things around, but if he’s a known jerk, why check his name on the ballot?”
“Don’t look at me,” Snow said. “I wasn’t around for the election. And anyway, I doubt he’ll get a second term.”
She almost mentioned how busy advertising at the paper would be the following year, with the election coming up, but she kept the thought to herself. Talk of the future would lead to talk of their future, and Snow was still avoiding that emotional quagmire. Though she couldn’t help but note that Caleb hadn’t mentioned returning to Louisiana since the weekend he’d arrived.
“Gerald says election time gets crazy at the paper. I could as much as double my regular commissions in the three months or so before voting day.”
Snow sat very still, unsure of how to reply. Did that mean he planned to be living in Ardent Springs a year from now? Presumably still married to her? This wasn’t good. He needed to start spouting bossy orders about living in Baton Rouge and taking his wife with him. How else was she supposed to send him packing if he no longer intended to leave?
“Darling?” Caleb said, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you okay?”
She gave a vigorous nod in the affirmative, but couldn’t speak. Fear and dread were strangling her vocal cords while simultaneously tying knots in her colon.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Caleb said. “The painting is going to be a hit.”
“Right,” she said, sipping her tea and reining in her monkey brain. “I just want this over with.” And she didn’t mean the auction.
Getting a hefty sum for the painting lost its luster when all she could think about was the possibility of a real happily ever after with Caleb. They could have that happy ending in Ardent Springs, away from the toxic influence of his parents. Why couldn’t she win for once? He’d picked her. He wanted her. And she wanted him.
So Vivien lurked in the wings, waiting to spill Snow’s secret and possibly break her son’s heart. Caleb had said there was nothing that could make him change his mind. Nothing short of cheating, and that was one sin her mother-in-law couldn’t throw
in Snow’s face.
Caleb would stay with his wife, no matter what. That’s what he’d said. Snow clung to the hope that he meant those words.
Caleb had never wanted to see something sell so badly in his life. He almost wished he’d set up an anonymous bid of his own to make sure the number kept going up. Or he could have let his father know the painting was available. Jackson McGraw had been looking for another Norton for years. But knowing how he felt about Snow, Caleb would burn the painting before letting his father have it.
They’d watched Ming vases, silver flatware from the eighteen hundreds, and a turn-of-the-century pocket watch go for well over their top estimates. The moment the Norton was brought on stage, Snow grabbed his hand and squeezed hard enough to cut off circulation. To save his digits, he extricated his hand and put his arm around her, pulling her tight against his side. At some point, her nervousness had infiltrated his system.
He sent out high-dollar thoughts to the crowd around them, who had filled in more than half of the seats by the time the first item was rolled out.
The low estimate on the painting had been set at ten thousand, and the bidding started at five. When the action slowed around eight thousand, Caleb cursed himself for not grabbing a paddle. What the hell was wrong with these people? Didn’t they know fine art when they saw it?
But then a phone bidder joined the party, and the number went up. Two gentlemen in the audience remained determined, and soon a casual Saturday morning auction turned into a bidding war. When the auctioneer yelled, “Do I hear twelve five?” Snow squealed and nearly climbed into his lap. The war continued and crested at fourteen thousand before both sides started to back down.
And then the bidder on the phone came in at an even fifteen thousand, two thousand over the high estimate, and the room fell silent. The auctioneer tried to goad the attending bidders into going higher, but no one was willing to top the fifteen mark.