The Great Montana Cowboy Auction

by Anne McAllister

  They prowled the town. They camped at the post office. They sat in their cars in the streets. They started following her kids.

  "America is fascinated with how normal they are," one of the news people told her. "How happy and well adjusted. They want to know your secret."

  I forget when I'm supposed to pick them up. Polly could only guess what Sara would say if asked.

  They followed Daisy to Jones's to ride horses. They watched Jack and Randy bash each other with hockey sticks. They went to play practice with Lizzie. They thought it was fascinating that she was calling herself Artemis. They did a small spot on children influenced by Greek mythology.

  By Wednesday, Polly had decided that America needed to get a life.

  At the very least it needed to get its collective nose out of hers.

  "It's insane," she told Gus when he ducked into the post office to collect a package for Walt Blasingame.

  Gus, who was looking just a little hunted himself, said, "I've had three reporters followin' me all week wantin' to 'get a taste of cowpunchin" while they try to get me to talk about Sloan. Can't imagine how he puts up with it all the time."

  Polly couldn't, either. But she didn't feel sorry for him: Sloan had chosen this. He got paid millions of dollars to show his face to the camera and be a public figure.

  So where was he?

  He'd done his three-minute interviews for the morning talk shows—and then he'd disappeared. She hadn't heard from him since Friday night.

  She thought he'd ring Monday night. She fully expected a critique of her presence on television. But though the phone rang and rang and rang, and a lot of people wanted to do a postmortem, not one of those calls was from Sloan.

  He didn't call Tuesday, either.

  Not that she'd have noticed if he had. People Weekly called, and Entertainment Weekly and Working Mother and Single Parent and half a dozen other magazines she'd never heard of. They asked all kinds of questions about Elmer, about her life, about her children.

  About her relationship with Sloan Gallagher.

  "I'm going to be his murderer," she said to her mother, to Celie, to the rest of her immediate family.

  To everyone else she said, "I am the mayor of Elmer and the head of the auction committee. No more. No less."

  Wednesday brought more, not less.

  There were twelve people standing in front of the post office when she arrived to sort the mail. Three of them were reporters. Five were groupies who had shown up early and wanted to know if they could bid on Sloan. Four were women who thought Polly sounded so sane and sensible on television that they simply wanted to talk to her.

  "And tell me their problems! Because they think I have all the answers," she said desperately.

  "Tell them to talk to us," Sara said dryly.

  "No," Polly said. "Enough is enough."

  Alice and Cloris had every room in their houses filled again. So did anyone else in Elmer who had a spare bed. The economy was booming, that was certain. Some came because of Sloan, some came out of curiosity, and some were there simply because they just wanted to be a part of this small-town extravaganza.

  In 120 years there had never been a traffic jam in Elmer—unless you counted the time Wyatt Jackman got his team and brand-new buckboard stuck turning around on Main Street

  in 1904.

  But there was a traffic jam on Wednesday morning.

  When Polly called the sheriff's department, desperate, hoping she could get him to run some people in on loitering charges, he just laughed and sent his deputy Spence Adkins out to direct traffic.

  The only way Polly could escape was to barricade herself in the back room of the post office at lunchtime, to take half an hour for herself in which she shut the service window, locked the doors and shut off the phone.

  So she did.

  And while she was eating her tuna sandwich and her apple, she prayed that something would slow it down, would stop the nonsense, would get everybody's feet back on the ground again.

  "Anything," she said to the Almighty, who she doubted could hear her above the furor in Elmer these days. "Anything at all."

  And then Artie Gilliam had a heart attack. Celie knew it was all her fault.

  If she'd been paying attention, she'd have noticed that Artie was looking pale. If she hadn't been trying to avoid those reporters who wanted to talk about Polly and Sloan—as if they were an item, for goodness' sake!—she would have seen that he needed to go home and rest.

  Instead she'd been glad he was the one talking to the reporters and delighted she'd escaped to do the billing in the back room. Of course it wasn't only the reporters she'd been avoiding.

  It was also Jace Tucker.

  And if anyone shared the blame for Artie's heart attack, it was Jace.

  He'd turned up bright and early to pick up the lumber that he'd ordered. And when he'd spotted her behind the counter, he'd grinned broadly and jerked his head toward the vast number of women who were already prowling the streets of Elmer.

  "Looks like you're going to have a little competition bidding for your Mr. Gallagher," he'd said in that infuriating way of his.

  "I'm not bidding on him," she'd said.

  "Why not?" he'd asked, brows lifted, mouth twitching. "Chicken?"

  Just thinking about it now, Celie still wanted to kill him.

  But sadly, Jace Tucker was alive and well—and sitting just inches away from her—in the waiting room of the hospital in Livingston while the doctors worked on Artie.

  "You don't have to stay," she said again. She'd been saying it for hours.

  But Jace didn't budge. He'd been here the whole time. In fact, Jace was the one who'd brought Artie to the hospital.

  It was Jace, actually, though she hated to admit it, who'd realized something was wrong and who had come to get her in the back room.

  She'd railed at him when he'd burst in. "Get out! You don't belong back here."

  He'd ignored that. "I think Artie's having a heart attack!"

  At first she'd thought he was telling a bad joke. But when he grabbed her arm and hauled her out to where Artie was sitting, pale and clammy, at the register, she realized that this was no laughing matter. Artie looked up when he saw her rushing toward him, but he seemed to have trouble focusing on her.

  "Don't feel so good," he said faintly, rubbing at his chest. "Reckon I'll maybe mosey on home, take me a little rest."

  "No." Celie was reaching for the phone to call an ambulance.

  But Jace took it out of her hand. "No time for that." He put it down again, then turned to Artie. "I think," he said calmly, "that maybe you oughta have a doc check you out. Get his coat," he told Celie.

  "The ambulance—" she began.

  "Will take longer to get here than I will to get there," Jace said flatly. "Get his coat. I'll bring the truck around."

  He was gone before Celie could reply. But there had been nothing to say, anyway. This was one time she didn't argue. She got Artie's coat and bundled him into it. "We're just going to run you down to the doc," she said soothingly.

  "Don't need no doc," Artie grumbled. "Just somethin' I ate."

  "I'd feel better if we checked it out." She steered him out the door toward the truck, which Jace had idling next to the curb. He jumped out of the truck and helped Celie get Artie in it. She clambered in after.

  "Here, now," Artie said, noticing the crowd of Sloan groupies and reporters who had gathered to gawk. "Who's gonna mind the store?"

  Celie cast a glance around and saw her niece coming out of the grocery store. "Sara! Keep an eye on things!"

  Before Sara could do more than look startled, Jace had shoved the truck in gear, jammed his foot on the gas, spun around in the middle of the street and headed toward Livingston.

  That had been hours ago.

  Since then she knew they'd called in a cardiologist from Bozeman. So it was a heart attack, though no one had come out and told her so.

  Her own father had died in this s
ame hospital two years ago. Memories of Gil's fatal heart attack came back to plague her now. She remembered pacing these same halls then, telling herself it would be all right, that her dad was only fifty-nine. He was strong, hadn't ever been sick a day in his life.

  She remembered her mother's white face and desperate composure. "He'll be all right," Joyce had said over and over.

  But an hour later they'd come out and said they were sorry, he was gone.

  She wanted to call her mother, who had often called Artie, "the father she'd never had." But she couldn't. Not yet. She couldn't put her mother through this again. Not right away. After they had some real news, then she would do it.

  Even if her mother hurried down, they wouldn't let her in to see him. And she would be here to work, anyway, in a couple of hours.

  Celie walked over to stare out the window into the bleak winter landscape. The hospital seemed just as cold. She shivered and wrapped her arms across her chest.

  The chair creaked behind her.

  "I'm all right," she said before Jace could offer her his jacket. She was cold, but it was a cold that came from within and it wouldn't be helped by Jace's jacket.

  Besides, she didn't want Jace's jacket. She didn't want him being nice to her.

  He came over and stood beside her, close enough so she could feel the heat of his body. Fortunately not close enough to touch.

  "You can go," she said without looking at him.

  "No."

  An hour later the doctor came out and wanted next of kin.

  Celie's knees almost buckled. Strong masculine fingers gripped her upper arm, keeping her steady.

  "He doesn't have any, does he?" Jace said.

  "H-he has a nephew," Celie replied, mouth dry. "In Bismarck, I think."

  Ted and his wife and boys had moved from Elmer a couple of years back.

  "Is he—" She couldn't say the words.

  "He's hanging in there. You brought him in?" the doctor asked. And when Jace said they had, and they were as close to blood relatives as he had in Elmer, the doctor talked to them.

  "We want to keep a close watch on him for the first twenty-four hours," he said. "So he'll be in intensive care. Then if he's stable we'll move him to a regular room."

  "Can I see him?" Celie asked.

  "Can we?" Jace said. Celie glared at him.

  "Five minutes," the doctor allowed. "Come this way."

  "You don't have to come," she said under her breath as she hurried after the doctor.

  "I don't have to do a lot of things," he said. "I want to see Artie, damn it. Stop thinking about yourself for once."

  "I beg your pardon!"

  "You heard me." He was striding along as fast as the doctor.

  Celie tossed her head, lifted her chin and tried to brush past him, but he grabbed her arm just as they were going into the intensive care area and stopped her at the doorway.

  "Let go."

  "No. Not until you smile."

  "What!"

  "Otherwise Artie will think he's gone and croaked." He gripped her arm tighter. "Smile, damn it."

  Celie bared her teeth at him.

  "Perfect." Jace bared his own teeth at her.

  The doctor looked back and did a double take at the sight of them. "Right in here," he said. "If you're, um, ready."

  Artie hadn't died. But in that hospital bed with its rails and rollers and umpteen sophisticated machines all around him, he looked as if he'd come close. He was as white as the sheet that covered him. An IV ran into his hand, and a heart monitor was attached to his chest. Half a dozen other mysterious things were clicking and ticking and measuring and checking him. But other than the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest, Artie didn't move.

  Celie had always thought of Artie Gilliam as wiry but strong. Not a big man but a powerful one even at the age of ninety.

  For the first time she realized how really frail he had become. Her smile faded. She sucked in a sharp breath.

  Jace's fingers dug into her elbow. "Smile."

  Artie's eyes fluttered open. "Hunh," he said, his voice a gravelly parody of its normal self. "Will ya look at this?" One hand made a vague sweeping gesture toward all the modern medical paraphernalia that surrounded him.

  "Pretty impressive," Jace said, his voice was firm and upbeat.

  Celie nodded. She didn't speak because she didn't trust her voice, nor did she have a clue what to say that wouldn't upset Artie or bring Jace's wrath down on her.

  Artie looked at her and frowned. "What're you doin' here?"

  "I came with you."

  "Who's mindin' the store?"

  "Sara is."

  Artie frowned. "She ain't no more'n a girl."

  "She's nineteen," Celie said briskly. She didn't want to argue, for heaven's sake, but it was almost a relief to hear Artie's gruffness returning. "I'll mind the store," she promised. "Don't worry. Just get well and come home."

  "Damned tootin'," Artie rasped. "Be there soon's I can." He scowled at all the paraphernalia hooking him to machines, then shifted his gaze to Jace. "Reckon you could do me a favor?"

  "Anything," Celie vowed.

  "Not you." Artie dismissed her. "Him." He fixed his gaze on Jace. "You mean what you said 'bout stickin' round?"

  "Yeah."

  Artie nodded. "Good. Ya can't start trainin' till spring though. So, reckon you could help me out?"

  Jace blinked. "Help out? You mean—"

  "Mind the store. Celie's a good girl, but she's got her own business goin'. 'Sides, she oughtn't t'be left on her own."

  "What! Artie, I—" Celie protested, but Jace stepped on her toes.

  "Sure," he said, nodding firmly. "Sure, I'll help out."

  "Artie, I can—" Celie persisted.

  "You got your own stuff t'do. And I know you can do most everything at my place, but I want a man around."

  "That is so—"

  "Want Jace," Artie said flatly and shut his eyes.

  She thought he'd died. She stared, mouth agape, trying to detect some faint rise and fall of his chest. He didn't even seem to be breathing. Nor did she.

  Then all at once his eyes opened once more. "You stay at my place," he directed Jace.

  "Uh, sure."

  "You can tell 'im what to do," he told Celie.

  "I'd be happy to," Celie said with considerable bite.

  Artie smiled faintly. "Figured you might."

  "I'd like to talk to the old lady."

  "You!" Polly's fingers clenched on the receiver at the sound of Sloan Gallagher's gruff voice in her ear late Wednesday night. Or maybe by now it was early Thursday morning. Time flew when you were having fun.

  She'd got to bed just before midnight, exhausted, but she hadn't been able to sleep. Worries about Artie, about the auction, about what all the publicity was doing to her kids, were swirling around in her head.

  And then the phone had rung just as she was starting to doze off, and that rough-velvet voice was in her ear asking for an old lady.

  "What old lady?" she demanded.

  "The one who's much older than me." He was laughing.

  "Oh." She sighed and slumped back against the pillows and shut her eyes. "Well, it's true," she said. "I am. Old enough to be your mother."

  "Math not being your strong suit, obviously." He chuckled again.

  But Polly couldn't laugh right now. She couldn't even seem to talk. Her silence said enough.

  "What happened?" he demanded. The concern was there in his voice again, just as it had been when he'd called last Friday. It was the sort of voice that made you want to gather up all your worries and woes and hand them to him because he made you think he could take care of them—take care of you.

  He's an actor, Pol', she reminded herself.

  "I saw the tapes," he told her. "They were great."

  "Oh, yes," Polly said dryly. "We're the heart of America, don't you know?"

  "What?"

  "Where have you been?" she said testily. "On
the north pole? Elmer is the flavor of the week. It's 'America's most wonderful little town.' Its citizens are 'the salt of the earth.' My kids are 'the best-adjusted children ever raised by a single parent' and I'm 'America's heroine.'"

  "Ho, boy."

  "A magazine from Puerto Rico sent a reporter who's charming my mother. Some stringer from a Texas monthly has invited Daisy to the cutting-horse trails in Fort Worth. Lizzie thinks she's got an in with a Broadway director, Jack is being offered a hundred dollars apiece—and more—for genuine Elmer Christmas pageant rabbits! And this morning … this morning Artie had a heart attack!"

  "Artie? Artie Gilliam?"

  She was surprised he remembered. "Yes."

  "Because of all the hoopla?"

  "Because he's ninety and has a bad heart," Polly said, because that was the truth. "But the hoopla hasn't helped," she added.

  "How is he?"

  "He's in intensive care. We don't know. We're worried. My sister works for him. My mother used to. He's like family. Like my grandpa. We're worried about him, and I'm worried about all this nonsense with the kids. It's just—" Stop it, Pol'. She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. This isn't your problem."

  "I caused it. I'll take care of it."

  "What?"

  "I'll take care of it, Polly," he said again. "Get some sleep. Don't worry. Trust me. I'll sort things out."

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  Jace had never in his life seen himself as a storekeeper.

  If anyone had told him he'd be opening the door of Gilliam's Hardware at 7:00 a.m. to get ready for customers at 9:00, he'd have stared in disbelief.

  But that was what he'd done. He'd lain awake half the night marveling at the determination he felt to prove himself worthy of Artie's trust. But if his eagerness to get to work surprised him, it apparently poleaxed Celie.

  "What are you doing here?" she demanded when she pushed open the door to the hardware store at 8:55.

  Jace, who was sweeping the floor for the third time, said, "Getting ready to open up."

  "How did you get in?" she asked suspiciously.

  "Artie told me where he kept the key."