Souled: Bid on Love: Bachelor #1

by Shandwick, K. L.

  “Well, that’s the easy part over with,” I joked, and smirked at Landon, who cringed when he realized who his date was. Looks aside I remembered her from when we were growing up and she wasn’t a particularly pleasant woman then.

  * * *

  One by one, all the guys filed back into the room and by the time the last bid had been ‘sold’, Jacoby, Colton, and I, were half drunk. Nads turned up and passed us each a golden envelope which I thought was a rather unnecessary dramatic touch as we were all out the back of the stage and therefore there was no one to see them except for us. Still, I took it and tried to look impressed by her effort.

  Sliding my thumb under the edge of the quality paper envelope, I tore the top off and slid a red card out from inside. Most of it had been professionally printed but the bidder’s name and cell number had been filled in with a golden colored Sharpie.

  Charlotte Richmond. Seeing her name on the card filled me with excitement and what excited me even more was once I knew who had won I had even bigger plans for the weekend than I had originally thought of.

  “Thanks for saving my ass out there earlier,” I said to Nads with genuine gratitude in my voice.

  “I figured it may happen, and I thought about mentioning it to you, but I was worried you’d have dropped out if you’d been aware it was a possibility Lolita would show up.”

  “So Charlotte was out there specifically for me? You planned that bid?”

  “Yeah, so don’t go getting your hopes up. Charlotte’s the biggest catch in town, but she’s not interested in dating. She’s too busy and focused on her property portfolio to have the time for a guy right now.”

  My heart sank at Nadine’s explanation and it felt like a kick in the ass that she hadn’t really wanted to ‘date’ me. Huh.

  Chapter Three

  One thing I loved about coming back to Norfolk, was the honest and down-to-earth people. Our town wasn’t huge, so everyone knew most people, but it wasn’t that small that they didn’t lead their own lives. Few things had changed in the time I’d been gone and most of the group I’d grown up with were still here.

  After the auction, I spent a little time catching up with Jacoby, Nads, and a few of the others. It was an awesome feeling to be home, but despite her winning bid, I never ran into Charlotte again during the evening.

  Deciding to avoid any possible contact with my crazy-assed stalker, I declined an invitation to mingle beyond the stage for fear of a reprisal from her and continued to hide out backstage. The courtesy of the car that had brought me wasn’t extended to taking me home, so I called a cab and waited in the wings until it was safe for me to leave. I was determined after she'd paid two thousand dollars that I’d ensure Charlotte had a great time on our date even if she had only voted to keep me safe from Lolita.

  It was strange how disappointed I was to hear she’d done that out of some sense of duty toward Nadine and it irked me that the bid wasn’t entirely for any genuine reason.

  During the taxi ride home, I sent a text to the number provided for Charlotte telling her we had an early start, what to bring, and not to expect to be home before Sunday night.

  I had left her a cryptic message to keep her guessing, and I felt enthusiastic about her being my date. She had only known the teenage boy in me and I couldn’t wait to show the beautiful small-town girl a whole other side of me she never saw back then.

  * * *

  Friday morning arrived and as I rang the number written in gold Sharpie, I wondered if it had been Charlotte herself who had written it. The line had barely connected before Charlotte picked up the call and I smiled because it felt a little pleasing to know she appeared keen.

  “Hey Charlie, it’s me.”

  “Who?” she asked groggily.

  “Me. The guy you paid two thousand bucks to date, remember?”

  “McKenna?” If my ego had been dented before, it now had a gaping hole in it.

  “Did you bid on someone else as well?” I asked as I tried to keep the note of sarcasm from my voice.

  “No. It’s just… 7 am.” I heard her bed sheets shifting, and she grunted as she changed position. It sounded sexy as she sleepily asked, “Shouldn’t you still be asleep?”

  “I’m just about to leave home to pick you up. Your date starts in exactly fifteen minutes.”

  “But I’m not out of bed yet,” she protested.

  “Then you’ll be traveling in your Babydoll, sweetheart. I did tell you we had an early start. Dress casual, I’m on my way.” I ended the call before she could reply and then remembered I had no clue if she was in her own place or at her family home and had to call her back.

  “Yes,” Charlotte snapped, and I could hear she was out of breath. A smile stretched my lips as I imagined her running around expecting me to turn up.

  “Address?” I was met with sudden silence followed by more breathless panting. “I mean are you still at your father’s house?”

  “Yes, it’s mine now.” For a minute I had forgotten Charlotte’s mom passed when she was a small kid.

  I swiped my mother’s car keys, my wallet, and picked up my small carry-on travel bag. After placing a small kiss on my mom’s forehead, I told her I’d be home on Sunday night and headed down to the garage. Fortunately for me, my mom had kept both cars going, hers, and my father’s old Buick, which she couldn’t bear to part with. Nowadays she only used it at the weekend, and because I knew it was the one part of Dad she clung to, I borrowed hers.

  * * *

  Turning down the dirt track at the start of her family home, I became nostalgic as I remembered my father taking the same route each day to work. A pang of sorrow hit me square in the chest for the man I idolized who had gone too soon.

  I cleared my throat and swallowed back the lump that had begun to restrict it. It had been a long time since I had become emotional when I thought about my father but retracing his steps after all these years had caught me emotionally off guard. The sweeping asphalt driveway leading up to the main house in the complex had been resurfaced recently and Charlotte’s grand looking colonial style family home was just as imposing and spectacular as I remembered.

  Pulling up at the door, I sounded the horn and stayed in the car as I waited for my date to show. Glancing around the perimeter of the fencing, I could make out the roofs of the first few cabins which were accessed from a road to the back of where I sat.

  The public entrance to the vacation cabins was nothing like the private one. Where the road leading to her place was rustic and unobtrusive, the guest visitors one appeared entirely upscale and pristine with guest visitor sign-in booths, customer service representatives, and security guards, protecting the gated safe-haven of the complex.

  From my peripheral vision, the glint from the sun’s rays on the glass door drew my eyes back to the doorway and Charlotte stepped out looking like a true vision of classic beauty. Her tall, elegant frame was dressed in black skinny jeans, a teal colored figure-hugging t-shirt and she had a navy-blue woolen sweater tied around her waist. You are not fucking this girl, McKenna Low.

  Reaching for the handle, I opened the door slowly, stepping out and closing it before turning to lean against it. When our eyes met, she gave me a nervous smile and flicked her long dark hair behind her shoulders before she dropped her keys into her purse and adjusted the shoulder strap like she wasn’t sure what to do next.

  “Wow. If you can achieve that look in fifteen minutes, I want to be there when you wake up in the morning.” I almost cringed when her wide nervous eyes flickered anxiously like she had no idea what that meant. Quickly, I corrected myself. “I mean you must wake up looking stunning in the first place if you can look as hot as this in such a short time.” Shut up, McKenna, or get a shovel and dig that hole deeper.

  Charlotte didn’t smile. Instead, she bit her lip as she toyed with her shoulder strap again before stepping forward as she made her way down to the car. Charlie had always been a sweet looking kid, but my heart skipped a beat wh
en I watched her bounce on her toes as she came down the four deep steps leading to me and I couldn’t believe my eyes at how incredibly breathtaking she’d turned out to be.

  When she reached me, I shoved myself from my casual stance to full height and took a step closer. Extending my hand, I placed it casually on her hip and leaned in to kiss her cheek. Charlotte’s breath hitched in surprise as my small friendly gesture made her body tremble beneath my hand. The last effect I had wanted to have on her was to make her nervous.

  She smelled amazing—of vanilla and violets—her perfume subtle but intoxicating. I immediately began to fear how I’d get through the weekend without trying my luck with her. My dick suddenly stirred restlessly in my pants, but the last thing I had wanted was to take advantage of her. Yet it had been a long time since I felt that kind of attraction to anyone.

  “You look beautiful, is what I meant to say,” I said as my brain finally caught up with my dick and engaged my mouth as I barely managed not to swallow my tongue.

  “Thank you, so do you,” she replied, then covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes went wide with shock when she realized her mistake. “I never meant to say that.”

  “You don’t think I’m beautiful?” I teased.

  “No, you are… I mean… shit, I wasn’t really listening to what you said until after I’d replied.” What she meant was she was distracted in the same way as I had been with her. And that made my statement to myself about not fucking her that much harder to stick to knowing she’d probably let me.

  “Alright, we need to get going, darlin’, if we’re going to get to Colorado by this afternoon. We’ve got a plane to catch.”

  “Plane?”

  “Yeah, you know those things that float around the sky from time to time?”

  “We’re not really going to Colorado are we, McKenna?”

  “Sure, we are. You know I live there most of the time when I’m not on tour or at the recording studio in California? That reminds me, I’m kind of killing two birds with one stone tomorrow. I have to make a new music video.”

  “Damn, McKenna, can you be serious for one minute? Where are we going?”

  “I told you already, but first we have to get to the airport. My pilot has a flight plan agreed for 9 am take-off.”

  “You’re really taking me to Aspen for the weekend?” She cringed when she asked her question and I bit back a smile. I hadn’t mentioned where my cabin was so it was obvious Charlotte had done some research. I decided to ignore her slip.

  “Yeah, why not? You spent two grand on my ass for a date, least I can do is give you your money’s worth and make it one you’ll never forget, right, Charlie?”

  “Stop calling me that, I hate it.” For a second, I had a flashback to another time when she snapped at me that way. I remembered exactly which cabin we were in when my dad had scolded me for teasing her after she’d stormed off in a huff.

  I glanced out the side of my eye and saw the same pout she had as a young girl when I used my nickname for her. Reaching over, she turned on the radio then sat back in her seat and we drove in stony silence until we turned into the compound at the airport and headed over to the aircraft hangar where my plane was stowed.

  * * *

  “Ready to have some fun?” I asked, blowing off the tense atmosphere as I opened the passenger door of the car. I reached out to take her hand and assist her. Charlotte narrowed her eyes and for a second I saw hesitancy, then her warm, petite hand slid into mine and my strong callused fingertips closed around it.

  The feel of her soft and delicate hand in mine totally shocked the crap out of me so much that my heart fluttered in my chest as I wondered why such a simple touch of her skin had such an effect on me.

  Once she was outside, I leaned inside the car and lifted my battered old leather carry-on bag from the back seat, closed the door and locked it. When I turned back to face her, I could swear she had been checking out my ass. Completely forgetting myself, I casually slid my arm around her shoulder in an intimately protective gesture and walked her slowly toward the huge wooden structure housing our ride.

  As soon as the plane came into view, she glanced up at me and I saw her swallow nervously again. It made me frown because as a child she had no such inhibitions about being around me. Nodding to my pilot, Allen, I took Charlotte’s hand again as I led her up the steps and into the cabin. As soon as I dropped it to stow my carry-on, she stopped moving and hugged herself uncomfortably. My heart squeezed and a pang of discontentment settled inside when I saw her reaction to being with me.

  Gesturing for her to take a seat, I thought the best way to help her relax would be with a little alcohol and to get her talking about herself. Taking a seat across from her, I leaned back and gestured to my cabin attendant, Aaron, to bring us some champagne. Crossing my legs, I smiled when her gorgeous inquiring eyes searched mine.

  “Charity fundraiser, huh? Perfect job I’d say; it’s so you. I remember how persuasive you were as a kid. You could wrap your dad around your little finger as I recall… and mine,” I informed her and laughed.

  “But not you, McKenna, huh?” she replied in a flat tone. She spoke the truth. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of time for her. She was a really cool little girl, but the most pertinent reason I held myself back was the risk factors involved of a teenager paying too much attention to an eleven-year-old girl. It didn’t stop her from constantly begging me to take her for a ride on the cheap motorcycle I’d bought for two hundred bucks.

  I may always have been a little reckless, but I knew if I’d entertained her request it could have cost my dad his job if she’d fallen off, or worse still my father had thought she had a crush on me and warned me I had to be careful around her. Being a teenage boy on the cusp of adulthood with a child moping around after me, that wasn’t something I wanted to admit was a possibility, but I took his advice and kept her at arms-length.

  “Ah, the ride? You don’t still hold that against me, do you?” When she didn’t reply I knew the rift was still there. “It wasn’t that I wouldn’t have liked to, but there were some… obstacles in the way.”

  “Obstacles? I was a kid asking for a treat.”

  “Maybe from your perspective. That’s not the way my father viewed it, or how yours may have for that matter.” She frowned, a small crease forming between her pretty blue eyes. “He thought you had a crush on me and felt I shouldn’t encourage you.”

  Turning her head to the side, she focused on the small oval window and then shrugged. “I did. I was heartbroken when you never came back to work after your dad passed over.” Her honesty floored me, and I immediately leaned forward and held her face by the chin. I knew my smile was affectionate because despite all these years there were still warm feelings for her inside of me.

  I traced the rough pad of my thumb across her silky cheek and stared deeply into her eyes. For the first time since I’d met her again, Charlotte looked directly at me with conviction in her gaze. My chest felt tight that I’d caused her so much pain, but she had been a child and I was almost an adult back then.

  Her confession made me realize how right my father had been to warn me off. Now she was all grown up and I had the opportunity to explain, I figured it would settle the score and help her understand it wasn’t that I never cared about her feelings.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you in any way. Believe me when I say that wasn’t my intention and you must know that if I had showed any kind of affection toward a much younger girl as you were then it may have been viewed in the worst of ways. People may have thought my attention toward you wasn’t entirely innocent.

  Charlotte’s clouded eyes moved over my face and I could almost hear her considering my explanation. She drew in her bottom lip and chewed it as she mulled over my response, then she drew in a deep breath and sighed.

  “You’re right of course,” she said in a half whisper as she lowered her eyes and looked a little ashamed for having brought it up.

  “But he
y, that doesn’t mean I can’t try to make up for it this weekend, right?” I asked as I tilted her head until she met my gaze again and the solemn look she gave me melted my heart.

  “Yes. Sorry it just hit a raw nerve, but I’m glad I told you because my chest feels lighter for it. And you’re right, only when I was a kid that never occurred to me.” Her eyes brightened, and she gave me a small smile and suddenly I wanted to kiss her. She was an oxymoron. She looked like a picture. Sophisticated and oozing glamor, yet she spoke with the same innocent honesty she had when she was younger.

  Drawing my thumb across her face again, I took my hand away and sat back in my seat. “You know what I think? I think what you saw in me all those years ago was excitement and adventure. Am I wrong?”

  Rolling her eyes to the top of her head in thought she nodded, “Probably. At least I know I felt excited to see you and always wanted to know more about you. Maybe the motorcycle ride had a lot to do with it.” She chuckled almost to herself and wrung her hands together, heat rising to her cheeks. “I used to imagine you coming back for me and us riding off into the sunset together like in that old movie with Richard Gere and Debra Winger, An Officer and A Gentleman, but I was only eleven.”

  I crossed my leg at the knee and rested my ankle on it. “Interesting. And now? Does this count?” I asked, gesturing around the cabin. "Does this feel like that for you?”

  Heat rose again to her cheeks, making her look flushed and adorable. “No. I paid to be here remember?”

  “And only because Nadine put you up to it, right?” She glanced out of the window again then back to me.

  “We talked about the possibility of Lolita being there, but the bidding was my idea.” A grin I couldn’t keep back spread over my face.