"So I'll buy something. What are you selling? Old fence posts and rusty barbed wire?"
"Cowboys."
Sloan stopped pacing. "What?"
"We're auctioning off cowboys," Gus repeated. "It was Joyce O'Meara's idea. Sort of takin' advantage of what's in our own backyard—besides barbed wire. We're auctioning off guys who'll work on a ranch for a certain amount of time. And Taggart Jones and Noah Tanner are auctioning off spots at bull-and bronc-riding school. Walt Blasingame's donating some trail rides. J.D. and I are offering some horse-training hours. There's other stuff. But the big draw, I guess, will be the bachelors."
"What bachelors?"
Gus laughed. "Oh, you know, they reckon we should have one of those bachelor auctions where women bid on the guy they want to go out with. It's the weekend before Valentine's Day and Joyce said there's nothin' women love more than a cowboy—which is true, of course. All the local single fellas are up for that."
"I'll bet they are." Sloan grinned.
"Thing is, we need to get attention, draw people in. Not very much good to have local women bidding on guys they see every day of the week. We need a bigger pool of bidders. So we need a big ticket item." Pause. "You."
"Me?" Sloan's laugh turned to a cough. "You're not serious."
"I am damn serious. This is Maddie's ranch we're talking about."
"Yeah, but an auction? A bachelor auction?" Sloan started pacing again. Tamara was watching every step he took, her eyes like saucers. Sloan snorted. "D'you know what a zoo that would be?"
His life was already a zoo.
He couldn't go out to eat without women popping up in the middle of his salad wanting his autograph and a peck on the cheek. He couldn't walk down a street without attracting a gaggle of gawking girls. He couldn't even go to the supermarket without causing a fan feeding frenzy. He had to have his damn groceries delivered. He didn't even want to think about what a hullabaloo being an auctionable bachelor would create.
"Of course it'd be a zoo," Gus said cheerfully. "That's the point. Get lots of people here. Raise lots of money for the ranch."
"I'll write a check!"
"You know what Maddie'd say to that."
Sloan knew. "Put your body where your money is," he said wearily—which was exactly what she and Ward had done for years and years.
They could have simply donated money to help starving orphans overseas. They could have simply "done their part" of taking care of needy kids by writing a check. But they hadn't thought that was enough.
"It's important," Maddie had told him the afternoon he'd stopped to visit them and had asked her why on earth she'd put herself through all the anguish she sometimes faced with ungrateful, unruly kids. "Kids matter. Ward and I needed to say so by what we did. My dad always said to put my body where my mouth was."
Sloan knew she felt that way about money, too.
In Gus's deliberate, calculated silence, Sloan grimaced. He flexed his shoulders and rolled his eyes ceilingward, trying to imagine what it would be like if he put his body where his checkbook was. It was a horrible thought. He had to find a way out.
"Before Valentine's Day, you said?"
"Yep. The Sunday before."
"Can't do it then," Sloan said, relieved. "I've got a film opening Valentine's weekend. There's always a ton of promo to do."
"So get on those late-night shows and tell 'em all about The Great Montana Cowboy Auction."
"The what?"
"That's what we're callin' it. Reckon it's maybe a little bit of an exaggeration, but Mary said we need a little hype. And of course it will be great if you're there." There was no one like Gus when it came to wheedling persuasion.
Sloan closed his eyes. "Aw, hell, Gus … you don't have any idea…"
No one did. They just knew his name would bring in lots of people—and lots of money. They had no idea what a headache it would be.
"How about if I just talk about it?" he said. "When I do those talk shows, I could mention it."
"Wouldn't do any good. Everybody'd go, uh-huh. In one ear and out the other. Except maybe we'd look like country bumpkins. No, thanks. If you're going to say no, just say it."
But Sloan couldn't say it.
A guy always paid his debts—and whether he liked it or not, whether he wanted to or not, he owed an enormous debt to both the Fletchers. "It'll be a mess," he warned Gus. "A godawful mess."
"Never mind, then," Gus said. "Just forget it. I'll tell Polly you won't do it. She'll be thrilled."
"What?" Sloan's pacing came to an abrupt halt. "Wait! Polly who?"
"Polly McMaster. The mayor of Elmer. She's in charge. She didn't think you'd do it."
Polly McMaster? "Is that … Lew's wife?"
"Widow."
Sloan felt as if he'd been punched in the gut.
"What's the matter? Do you know her?" Gus demanded at his silence.
"I … remember her." Sloan felt vaguely breathless. "I knew Lew. I didn't know he'd … died."
"Oh, Christ! I'm sorry. I didn't realize."
"It's okay. I mean, we weren't close or anything. We were just both at Fletchers' at the same time. He was older than me, eighteen or so by the time I got there. He was workin' for Ward and bullfighting at rodeos on the weekends. What happened?"
"Plane went down. He and three other guys were comin' back from Dodge City maybe six years ago now."
He'd been in Mexico that summer. He supposed it wasn't odd that he hadn't heard, but it felt odd. It felt odd to think of Polly as a widow.
Actually it felt odd to think of Polly at all.
But now, as his thoughts drifted back, he could still see her in his mind's eye as clearly as he'd seen her that soft June evening there in Fletchers' barn.
She had been with Lew. Sloan had discovered them by accident when he'd snuck out behind the barn for a cigarette so Ward wouldn't catch him smoking.
The unexpected, soft sound of a female giggle had caught his attention. Quickly he'd stubbed out the cigarette, then crept up to press his eye against a knothole. At first he only heard voices, soft and intimate. But when he looked up he saw movement in the loft.
He should have turned and walked away.
He knew what was happening up there was private. But the evening light spilling through the open loft door caught a flash of golden skin, a tangle of gingery hair—Polly's hair.
And Sloan hadn't moved away at all.
He'd stood, mesmerized, in the thrall of the first real live naked woman he'd ever seen. All those airbrushed big-bosomed women he and his friends had ogled in the magazines they stole from their older brothers didn't hold a candle to her.
He pressed closer, tried to see more. He paid no attention to Lew, who was equally naked. His gaze was all for Polly.
She was glorious. The most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Of course she didn't just stand there and let him gaze his fill. But he caught glimpses. He saw golden flesh and long loose wavy hair. He saw curve and line and light and shadow.
His mouth grew dry and his body grew hard and his breath caught in his lungs.
And then all of a sudden he heard Nicky, one of the little boys, pound around the corner of the barn and yell, "Hey, Sloan! Sloan! Whatcha doin'? Whatcha lookin' at?"
Abruptly he had stumbled backward and fallen, landing on his butt in the dirt. Inside he heard scuttering and thumping movements.
"What is it?" Nicky was demanding. "Whatcha lookin' at?"
"Nothin'," Sloan muttered, scrambling up, grimacing at the hard ache of his body, desperately hoping Nicky was too young to notice his very physical teenage boy reaction to the sight of naked female flesh. He grabbed the younger boy by the arm and pulled him away.
"You musta seen somethin'," Nicky protested. "You were lookin' in the knothole!"
Behind him he thought he heard Polly say, "Ohmigod, Lew!"
And Lew had replied with determined ferocity, "I'll take care of it."
Sloan hadn't stayed around to find out how. He'd grabbed Nick
y and hauled him off to the horse corral to watch Ward work with a couple of colts.
But it hadn't mattered. Lew had tracked him down later that evening. He'd hauled him back behind the very same barn and had had a few choice things to say as he'd pounded Sloan into the dirt.
Then, still holding him down and sitting on him, Lew grabbed Sloan's shirtfront and hauled him up so they were nose to nose. "You never saw a thing, did you?"
Sloan had swallowed and shaken his head. At least he would never tell. He wouldn't do anything to embarrass Polly. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.
"Never saw a thing," he'd choked out in the face of Lew's fists.
And what he said he hadn't seen, he remembered still.
And his body, which had been only mildly interested in Tamara Lynd's seduction, was definitely interested in the memory of Polly in the nude.
Now he swallowed, trying to get a little moisture in his suddenly dry mouth. "Polly's runnin' this show?"
"Yep."
"And she doesn't think I'll come?" Why? Sloan wondered. Because she thought he was too much a star to come back to Elmer and do a favor for a friend—or because she didn't want him to?
He wanted to know. He wanted to see her again.
Call it curiosity. Call it an itch that suddenly needed to be scratched. Call it the craziest thing he'd ever done.
But memories of Polly, young and lithe and golden in her nakedness, stirred him more than any starlet had in as long as he could remember.
"You're on," he said to Gus.
"A kelp body wrap?" Joyce turned her head and blinked over her shoulder at Celie as her daughter kneaded her back in the long rhythmic strokes that always loosened the knots created during her stint at the hospital in Livingston. "Er, no, dear, I don't believe I've thought about one."
As someone who, in sixty years of life on this planet, had never even seen the ocean, Joyce had never considered having her body swathed in seaweed.
"They say it's beneficial," Celie said. "I've been thinking about learning more about it."
"Sounds good." Joyce put her face back in the warm towel and gave herself over to Celie's ministrations. What did she know? After all, she'd originally been skeptical of Celie's interest in massage.
It sounded a little too risqué for a place like Elmer and she'd said so.
"For heaven's sake, Mother," Celie had protested. "I'm not going to massage naked men! I thought the women coming in for cuts and perms might like to try a little relaxation. That's all."
"Of course," Joyce had agreed. But she'd still held her breath when Celie had come back from Billings, bearing a piece of paper that said she was a certified massage therapist, and had added that to her list of "services" on her blackboard in the window.
She'd opened some eyes and raised some brows, all right.
A few of the guys who had come in to get their hair cut or to rent a video had looked at it and had said, "I wouldn't mind a massage," hopefully.
But Celie had merely looked down her nose at them and said, "Sorry, no."
"You're wasting a heck of an opportunity," Polly had told her cheerfully. "All those manly muscles."
And ever-practical Sara had said sensibly, "Not good business turning down half your potential clientele, you know."
But Celie had declined. She gave massages to local women. The men were out of luck.
It worried Joyce.
Celie wasn't getting any younger. She'd turned thirty the week before Thanksgiving. That wasn't really old yet, of course. When you'd just turned sixty, thirty sounded like kid stuff.
But for finding a lasting love, for starting a family, for doing the things that Celie had always wanted to do, time was getting shorter. So Joyce worried about her.
Of course Joyce worried about all three of her daughters. As she'd told her husband, Gil, years ago, it went with the job.
"I'm fine," Polly always said. "Don't worry about me."
And Polly had always been a fighter. Even after Lew had died, Polly had soldiered on. She'd said, "I have the kids. I'll be fine. It would be worse if I were alone."
And basically that was true. So Joyce stayed out of her way and kept her fingers crossed.
Mary Beth, the middle child, was a softer, gentler version of Polly, as if God had decided the second time around to add a little less pepper. Mary Beth and her husband, Steve, had moved to Cheyenne two years ago with their almost seven-year-old triplet daughters. Joyce worried about them as a matter of principle. When you were dealing with triplets, there was always reason to worry.
But mostly Joyce worried about Celie.
Celie was her baby. Quieter than her sisters, less outgoing, Celie had not been a tomboy like Polly or a self-sufficient sturdy middle child like Mary Beth. She'd never followed Gil around demanding to ride and rope and brand the way he did. She'd done those things well enough, but they'd never interested her. She'd always wanted to stay home and bake cookies and play with her dolls and read books.
From the time she was three, Celie had told her mother, "When I grow up I'm getting married and have babies like you."
And because Joyce had always been perfectly happy as a ranch wife and mother, she'd been pleased.
So Celie's whole life had been aimed at marriage. She'd had a hope chest, and she'd embroidered pillowcases and dish towels to put in it. She'd made a wedding ring quilt top before she'd graduated from high school. And when she'd started going steady with Matt Williams in her sophomore year of high school, she was sure she'd found the man of her dreams.
Matt was perfect. Handsome, tall, strong. A cowboy like her father had been. Maybe, she'd confided to her mother, Matt would ranch with her dad.
Celie had had all their children named before she had a ring on her finger. And when she finally did get the ring, she'd been so busy planning the wedding she didn't care that Matt suddenly decided to do a little rodeoing before he settled down.
She didn't much like his traveling partners. Everyone knew Jace Tucker was a little on the wild side and Brent Vickers was a crazy kid. But once they were married, Matt wouldn't be around Jace or Brent anymore. He was just sowing his wild oats. Once they were married, Celie said, he'd settle down.
When the big day arrived, though, Matt didn't.
Instead, an hour before the wedding, Celie had got a call from Vegas—from Jace Tucker—telling her that Matt wasn't coming home, wasn't marrying her. He wasn't ready, Jace told her. He couldn't go through with it.
To say that Celie was devastated was putting it mildly. Any girl would have been. But being jilted, having her love spurned and her dearest hopes destroyed, had cut Celie's heart right out.
She had gone into a shell after that.
Of course there had been gossip. Of course people had talked, had speculated, had tittered and muttered.
Celie was still whispered about as "the girl Matt Williams jilted." But only, Joyce was sure, because Celie had never got over it herself.
After a while other guys had turned up, had dropped in, had asked Celie out. To Joyce's knowledge Celie never went. She hadn't had a date in ten years.
Any interest Celie had had in the opposite sex, she'd turned to focusing on the men in books, on the screen and in magazines.
Men like Sloan Gallagher.
"Wonder if Sloan Gallagher really will come," Joyce said now and felt Celie's fingers tighten in the muscles of her back.
"Of course he won't," Celie said.
"You could bid on him," Joyce went on cheerfully, enduring another pinch of her back muscles as she determined how Celie actually felt about the idea.
"Ha-ha," Celie said, her fingers pummeling Joyce's muscles so hard her mother was sure she'd have bruises all down her spine.
"You should," Joyce insisted. "You know so much about him."
"Oh, Mother, don't be ridiculous. He won't do it," Celie said. "Polly's right."
Polly probably was right, Joyce thought. But there would be other eligible young men
there. "Then you'll just have to bid on someone else."
Celie didn't reply to that.
That was the trouble with Celie. She never out and out said she wouldn't do what you wanted her to, so you couldn't argue with her about it. And you couldn't goad her into doing anything, either.
The "dare you" method of child raising that she'd used on Polly and Mary Beth had rarely worked on her youngest daughter.
"For Maddie's fund, of course," Joyce felt required to persist. "It's the charitable thing to do."
"Of course," Celie said, kneading rhythmically once more. "There will be lots of things to bid on."
Which was true—offers from cowboys and ranchers and families all over the area were pouring in—but agreeing to bid on something was as good as no agreement at all, Joyce thought wearily.
Celie didn't need a trail ride or a bull-riding scholarship. She didn't need her fences ridden or treatment for scours. She needed a real live man in her life. She needed to move on—to get a life!—once and for all. What was a mother to do?
* * *
Chapter 3
« ^ »
He wouldn't come. At least Celie hoped not.
Sloan Gallagher might once have lived at Fletchers' ranch, but she hadn't known him then. She only knew him in his films—and in her heart. And that was the only way she wanted to know him. He was just fine there.
Of course everyone else thought it was a great idea.
Alice Benn, one of Elmer's retired teachers, had stopped in the hardware store, where Celie worked mornings, to talk about it. She was delighted at the prospect. So was Cloris Stedman, another old teacher, and Carol Ferguson from the grocery store and Felicity Jones and Brenna McCall. Every woman who dropped in the hardware store that morning, married or not, thought it was a great idea.
"You should be delighted," they said over and over, because most everyone in town knew Celie was a "fan" of Sloan Gallagher's.
"Oh, yes," she'd murmured. But it wasn't true. It would just complicate things. Celie liked her life as it was. It might be boring by some people's standards, but excitement wasn't everything. Ten years ago she'd had all the excitement she ever wanted. And after, she'd wanted to crawl into a hole and die. She knew people whispered and poked each other and murmured about "poor Celie O'Meara." She'd learned to tune them out.
The Great Montana Cowboy Auction Page 3