The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal

by Anna Erishkigal

  "You must be Thunderlane?"

  I pulled up next to a dilapidated old green utility vehicle that was parked beside a sports car covered with a beige dust cover.

  "Hi … hey puppy," I reassured the dog as I got out of my car. I held out my hand so he could sniff it. The dog wiggled up against my legs and then ran back towards the house, yapping for the inhabitants to come outside and look.

  The door opened and a little girl with white-blonde hair and pigtails came bounding out the front door, waving with an enthusiasm that only the very young possess.

  "She's here! Daddy! She's here!"

  She was dressed entirely in pink; hot pink shorts and a pale pink top with a hot pink My Little Pony plastered on the front. It was the kind of the attire you would see on a kid in the suburbs.

  "You must be Rosamond!"

  "That would be me." I found it easy to smile. "And you must be Pippa."

  "Did you see the sign?" Pippa skidded to a stop in front of me.

  "I did. Thank you. It made me feel very welcome."

  The little girl grinned. She had, I noticed, unusual grey eyes, so pale they glistened silver in the sunlight.

  "Daddy was afraid he wouldn't find someone to come all the way out here, so I thought if I made a sign, maybe you'd want to stay?"

  That lump which had sat in my craw all the way from Brisbane eased up just a little.

  "That's not up to me. That is up to your father."

  The aforementioned father stepped off the front porch and moved towards us, dressed casually in snug blue denims that accentuated his long stride. He wore a plaid, short-sleeved shirt typical of what many station owners wear in this part of Queensland, but it had a designer cut to it, not the usual department-store fare. He stood nearly two meters tall, broad-shouldered with golden-brown hair, and aristocratic features that would have been devastatingly handsome if his face hadn't been pinched with worry. He strode up and held out his hand.

  "Miss Xalbadora?"

  My hand tingled as his fingers closed around mine. I stared up into the most remarkable pair of eyes I've ever seen, blue-green with a halo of aquamarine which swirled around a dark iris like the ocean around the Great Barrier Reef. I tried to guess his age and placed it as perhaps ten years older than me?

  "That's Rosamond," I said. "Please. Most people call me Rosie."

  It was all I could do not to stumble on my words. Damn! Just four hours ago I'd been crying my heart out over Gregory. For some reason, I'd assumed Pippa's father would be older.

  "I'm Adam. Adam Bristow." He raised one golden eyebrow as he spied the interior of my car, filled floor to ceiling with everything I owned. "Would you like some help carrying in your things?"

  My cheeks turned pink with mortification. It had never occurred to me that my potential employer would see my car before he made a decision about hiring me.

  "I thought this was a preliminary interview?"

  Adam scowled.

  "Roberta Dingle is a close friend of my wi-- um, my former wife. She arranged this interview. Not me." His voice rose with an edge of anger. "My wife was supposed to take Pippa for the summer and then she refused. As far as she's concerned, she can simply line up a governess!"

  "Oh," I said, realizing I'd just stepped into a hornet's nest. Ms. Dingle had mentioned something about the mother being held up in South America. "Um … who would I be working for? You? Or your ex-wife?"

  Adam squeezed his temples with the look of a man whose head might, at any moment, explode with exasperation.

  "Me," he said bitterly. "In the end it has always fallen to me."

  I glanced back at my car, wondering if this was a snake pit I wished to step into. There was nothing for me back in Brisbane, and I refused go crawling back to my mother. Perhaps Sienna's mom might put me up for a couple of weeks, at least until I found a job?

  A small hand slid into mine.

  "Please stay?" Pippa's large silver eyes clouded over with worry. "Mrs. Hastings sent over some muffins in case you were hungry from your trip. Would you like some tea?"

  Whatever his animosity towards his former wife, Adam Bristow's expression softened at the sight of his daughter's distress. He was not angry at me. He was angry because the poor kid's mother had blown her off and left him holding the bag.

  I remembered the welcome sign way down at the gate. I doubted Pippa had walked over the cattle grid all by herself. I needed a job. The little girl needed a caretaker. And Adam Bristow? What did he need?

  "Well perhaps you would like to know more about me?" I said to Adam. "Before you entrust me with your little girl?"

  Adam wore a cautious expression.

  "I do have a few questions," he said. "If you don't mind?"

  "Okay." I took Pippa's hand and spoke to her this time. "But first I'd love some tea. And then I need to discuss some things with your father."

  Pippa skipped happily back into the house. The dog ran behind her, its tail wagging like a fluffy black propeller. I fished my purse out of the front seat of my car and left the rest of my worldly goods behind. Just because I didn't have anywhere to go didn't mean I needed to act like I was desperate.

  The inside of the house felt like stepping back into a 1970's sitcom, complete with dark paneling and mid-century modern furniture so old it had gone out of style and then come back in again except for the garish rust-orange color. Pippa dragged me over to a worn upholstered chair with bare wooden arms and plopped down, herself, onto the matching orange couch, admonishing the dog not to jump up with her. An adult's tea set was painstakingly laid out on the coffee table along with a small checkered table runner and matching napkins, but it had not yet been filled with tea. I sank into the chair which was far more comfortable than attractive. Adam stepped into the adjacent kitchen, and then back out again carrying a teapot and tray laden with muffins.

  "Mrs. Hastings has been helping me take care of Pippa," Adam said. "But she's seventy-two years old. Last week she fell and bruised her hip."

  I glanced around, wondering if somebody else lived here. Pippa bounced up to snatch a muffin from the tray.

  "She lives at the station across the road," Pippa said. "When Daddy goes away on business, I get to sleep over there sometimes. She used to babysit Daddy when he was a little boy." Her voice dropped low. "That was before Grandma died."

  Adam cleared his throat.

  "My mother passed away three weeks ago from breast cancer. We came out here to help her manage her estate, but Pippa likes it here and it's commutable to my job. Mrs. Hastings has helped me make sure Pippa is not neglected."

  "Professor Dingle mentioned you travel a lot," I said. "What do you do for work?"

  "I evaluate shale for its suitability to extract natural gas and oil."

  "Fracking?"

  "Not exactly." Adam frowned, his expression thoughtful. "Coal seam gas. There are pockets of it all over Queensland. But yes, I guess some of what I do would fall under that umbrella."

  I bit my tongue, rather than repeat what my greenie friends said about the harm to the Earth when they extracted fossil fuels. The last time I checked, the oil fairy hadn't come down from the sky to fill up my petrol tank. That would explain the expensive sports car protected beneath the tarp.

  "So you have another house somewhere?"

  Adam looked away. "That's one of the things I need to decide over the summer. Originally, I'd hoped…"

  He trailed off, his chiseled features filled with a combination of anger, sadness and disbelief. It was the expression I'd worn ever since Gregory told me he didn't want to marry me.

  "Daddy said if we stay here, maybe I can get a horse!" Pippa's eyes shone bright with anticipation. "When we have enough saved up, he'll take me someplace to buy one."

  "Do you ride?"

  "A little. Last summer Mommy sent me away to a horseback riding camp."

  Adam's features hardened into an unreadable expression. I waited for him to begin the interview, but his sharp, eagle eyes watch
ed the way I interacted with his daughter as she served me tea. I decided it might be better if -I- asked the questions.

  "I understand Pippa has missed some school?"

  "Yes," Adam said. "For the past year Pippa has been homeschooled, but I hope to enroll her in a regular school come the autumn. I'd appreciate it if you could make sure she's ready."

  "That's what I'm trained to do," I said. "What other duties would I be expected to perform?"

  Adam sipped his tea. The porcelain teacup looked ridiculously small and fragile in his enormous hands.

  "Many of the test wells I oversee are within a day's drive, which is why I'd like to keep Pippa here for the summer, but the other wells are out in the Surat Basin. I staved off checking them, thinking I could cram them all in while Pippa was with her mother for the summer, but I can't leave them unsupervised any longer. If I do, I could lose my job."

  "When do you have to leave?"

  "My first trip into the outback begins the day after tomorrow," Adam said. "For the most part, I will come and go until the end of January."

  "That barely gives you any time to get to know me!"

  Adam snorted with disgust.

  "Roberta Dingle called me yesterday and reassured me you are the most hard-working student she's ever met. She swore you are an excellent teacher and have a knack for sensitive and gifted children."

  Hard-working, yes, but it would be a stretch to call me an excellent teacher. I'd graduated on the pity-plan after Ms. Dingle let me make up a test after I'd been held up at work.

  "And who would I call if there's ever a problem?" I asked. "I don't know anybody out here. I don't even know where the nearest emergency room is."

  "Mrs. Hastings has agreed to help you, and also to babysit Pippa for one afternoon a week so you have some time for yourself." Adam's voice took on a bitter edge. "I trust Mrs. Hastings implicitly. You are here because she convinced me it would be better to care for my daughter here rather than send her away to camp."

  Pippa's gaze sank into her teacup.

  "Besides," he added when he saw my hesitation. "We do have a hospital here. It's just that it's little more than a day-clinic."

  "Okay," I said, my voice small. "I hate to ask, but how much…"

  "You'd get five hundred dollars a week, plus a bonus of two thousand dollars at the end of the summer. That would include your room and board, as well as expenses and any meals you take with Pippa."

  I glanced at the eager little girl who stared at me with hopeful silver eyes. It was a generous offer with few expenses, the little girl was cute, and it would keep me busy while I licked my wounds from Gregory's betrayal. It would also give me enough money to put down a first, last and security deposit on a nice apartment as well as a financial buffer until I found a permanent job. Besides … when was the last time somebody had made me a welcome sign?

  "When do I start?"

  For the first time, Adam gave me a genuine smile. The pinched lines around his eyes disappeared and the years fell away, revealing he didn't appear to be all that much older than me.

  "Right away. Starting with making sure Miss Muffet does her fair share of washing up the teacups. Out here, everybody has to pull their weight."

  He stuck out his hand.

  "Deal?"

  I took his hand and shook it.

  "Deal."

  Chapter 2

  "Would you like me to help you carry in your belongings?"

  Had I possessed one iota of common sense, I would have told Adam 'no,' but it'd been so long since a man had offered to help me do anything that my mouth giddily blurted 'yes' before my brain had a chance to catch up and say, 'What are you stupid, girl? Do you -really- want your new employer to know you just showed up for your job interview toting the contents of your former apartment?'

  I sputtered. And then I bit my tongue. After saying 'yes' like an eager little fan-poodle, what was I supposed to do? Give a long-winded explanation?

  Adam didn't wait for me to lead the way, but strolled out to my car with his too-long legs, giving me an uninhibited view of the way his firm backside filled out his jeans. Warmth crawled up into my cheeks as I realized, in my foolish desire to get my stuff out of Gregory's lair, I'd inadvertently buried my suitcase deep into the bowels of Every. Single. Thing. I owned.

  Adam watched me rummage through the mess with amusement.

  "You sure brought an awful lot of stuff."

  If there'd been a hole for me to crawl into, I swear to God I'd have dove right into it.

  "I needed to move my things out of my former apartment," I said. "They wanted $300 per month to rent a storage bay. Everything fit, so I decided to just take it with me."

  "Why didn't you store it with your family?"

  My mouth tightened into a grim line. It would be a cold day in hell before I ever visited her again. I told Adam the smallest lie I possibly could.

  "My father now lives in Spain."

  Adam's blue-green eyes crinkled into a thoughtful expression, but thankfully he decided not to pry. What could I say? That I'd come out into the back o' Bourke to run away from my own bloody life?

  I handed Adam the green garbage bag which contained my pillow as I heaved a box of textbooks out of my back seat. It teetered precariously on one knee as I reached for the handle of my suitcase, but no such luck. The sucker was buried under an avalanche of crap.

  "Do you intend to keep that stuff in your car for the entire summer?"

  Adam's lip twitched as he forced himself not to laugh. I glanced over to the enormous white monitor-barn which dwarfed the ranch-style house, perhaps eight or nine times its size.

  "I hoped to find a storage unit in town," I said. "But you have such a big barn … would you mind if I kept this there?"

  Adam's façade cracked as he broke out into a grin. It was a brilliant smile, broad, with white teeth, the kind you see on the men who grace the cover of GQ Australia. He placed the pillow on the roof of the car and reached to relieve me of my burden.

  "Here. Let me get that."

  "I can do it."

  "I insist."

  He lifted the hefty box right out of my hands. Was that a yes? Yes, you can store your junk in my barn? Rather than ask, I pulled out the next box to get at my suitcase, the one marked 'Second Semester - Dual Major.' The darned crate weighed at least twenty-five kilos.

  "What's in here, anyways?" Adam shifted his box.

  "My old textbooks. I intended to sell them back to the university bookstore, but they moved to a new edition and wouldn't take them. They cost so much I couldn't bear to throw them out."

  "What kind of textbooks?"

  I opened my mouth to tell him, and then decided the answer would only open the door to even more questions. When I started my teaching degree, I'd intended to get qualified to teach secondary school right up through the 12th year, but then Gregory convinced me that time would be better spent helping him graduate at the top of his class. I'd only gotten qualified to teach primary school up until the 7th grade.

  Talk about being 'too stupid to live!' Gee, Mr. Bristow. I'm so gullible, I financially supported the first bludger to ever pay attention to me, and now I want you to trust me to babysit your daughter…

  "They're just, you know, books," I mumbled, hoping to change the subject. "General education requirements. Nothing exciting."

  Adam reached over my head and grabbed the pillow off the roof of my car. I was acutely aware of how tall he was as the scent of musk and a light touch of after-shave filled my senses with an odd sense of longing. From the way Professor Dingle had described him as 'an old-fashioned dinosaur', I'd expected Pippa's father to be a much older man.

  "Follow me," he said, oblivious to the fact I found him attractive. "You can keep these in the tack room."

  "Uhm, if you don't mind," I snatched the bag and tossed it back onto the roof of the car, "I'd like to bring my pillow into the house."

  Adam frowned.

  "We have everything you ne
ed."

  "I like to sleep with my own pillow and blanket."

  Adam shrugged. "Have it your way." He led me across the clearing towards the barn. "It's full of field mice, so you don't want to keep your things in here long-term. But it should tide you over until Pippa returns to school."

  I glanced over to where Pippa played with her dog, laughing as she sent the shepherd after a stick beyond the edge of the courtyard. People joked that everything in Australia was out to kill you, but between the brown snakes and funnel spiders, it wasn't that far from the truth.

  "Rosie?" Adam asked. "Is everything okay?"

  He studied me intensely, the hawk scrutinizing the dove. I tilted my head to the direction where Pippa had gone.

  "How far is she allowed to roam?"

  "Anywhere within the immediate courtyard," Adam said. "My mother fenced it in to keep the cattle out of her garden, but it works just as well to keep Pippa in. She's supposed to come get you if she wants to go beyond the fence, but sometimes she wanders down to the river."

  "Does she swim?"

  "Yes. Quite well. But I don't want her going down there alone."

  I followed him into the soft shadows of the barn which was clad in white painted wood instead of the corrugated metal of newer barns. Inside, the air felt hot and musty, but for a girl reared around horses, the faint scent of manure was more seductive than the most expensive after-shave. My face fell as my eyes adjusted to the light and recognized that, not only was the interior empty, but from the open layout it was built to accommodate cattle.

  "You don't have any horses?"

  "Not anymore," Adam said. "My mother had to sell off the livestock after my father died. Farming a cattle station is a hard life. It's difficult to find people willing to work for long hours and little pay."