The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal

by Anna Erishkigal

  I nodded and smiled as Adam introduced me to the other people who sat down at our table, most of them far older than we were. Every now and again, he would absent-mindedly caress the bracelet he'd given me. Randy Evans sat down next to us, but Abigail McKenna was no longer at his side.

  "She shoot you down?" Adam asked Randy.

  Randy shot him a ruddy grin.

  "You know she always does."

  "Keep at her," Adam said. "She'll say yes one of these days."

  I had no idea what the two were talking about, and I decided maybe it was better if I didn't ask. But if this was who Adam worked with on a daily basis, I could see why he loved his job.

  A waiter came by and offered us glasses of champagne. I took a sip out of the tall, fluted glass. Adam ordered a martini. In the center of the table sat hors d'oeuvres, but I didn't dare eat them, fearful I would stain my dress.

  The lights dimmed and brightened three times. A man came out and stood behind the podium. The lights in the proscenium, and also the tables on the stage, faded until only a single spotlight remained. The man introduced himself and the audience clapped. After a long glowing speech about how honored he was that so many people had donated money to provide relief for the outback stations, the emcee thanked Queensland Gas & Coal Company for sponsoring the fundraiser and called Randy Evans up to make a speech.

  I couldn't help but smile as the big, burly ham stepped up to the microphone and, in that same coarse manner in which he'd greeted Adam in the lobby, made a great, funny speech filled with double entendres about drilling holes and scoring water. Adam sat, his face lit up in a grin as his boss brought down the house.

  The speech broke up. The people in the proscenium filtered out to the other rooms where more banquet tables had been set up according to the level of the donation they'd made, with food ranging from light snacks and drinks to a full sit-down dinner in this room. Waistcoat-clad waiters carried out succulent grilled barramundi steaks with a sweet mango salsa, a blend of wild and basmati rice seasoned with cilantro, and sautéed baby spinach. After finishing a tart, raspberry-topped sundae, Adam announced it was time to mingle.

  I gripped Adam's arm as he led me back out to the great glass lobby where a small army of reporters, eminently more polite and better-dressed than the ones on the red carpet, waited for comments from wealthy patrons. Abigail McKenna was there, front and center, pointing at one of the pictures of a native Aboriginal cattle station and lambasting the gas companies for injecting a toxic slurry of chemicals into the water table.

  One of the reporters, an aggressive looking blonde woman in her mid-fifties, spotted Adam and headed straight towards us. I stared at the woman, recognizing her from somewhere.

  Adam's hand slid down to splay across the small of my back, but it wasn't an intimate gesture, but as if, at any moment, he might need to yank me out of the way of a charging bull.

  "Remember what I said about dealing with a brown snake?" Adam's voice sounded tight.

  "It's better to avoid the snake if you can."

  "Good girl." Adam shot me a tense grin. "Run for cover."

  He pulled me back behind the enormous sign where Abigail and her three-ring circus of reporters stood entranced while she told them tales of the river in front of her house spontaneously igniting. We dove behind an enormous potted palm, through several throngs of guests, and nearly knocked over a waiter carrying a tray of champagne. Adam grabbed a fluted glass and handed a second one to me.

  "It's okay now," Adam said. "Snake averted. It's now safe to go back into the water." He wore a victorious grin.

  "I thought you said to just smile vacuously and pose."

  "Not with that one," Adam said. "That old stickybeak is a network anchor from a major Sydney television network. I have no idea what she's doing all the way out here, but I suspect it has to do with Maynor Jackson's failed attempt to get the court to order Randy to fire me yesterday."

  I glanced back at the hazard we'd just avoided. Brown snake? Yes. I recalled seeing the television reporter's show. She was one of the most caustic interviewers I'd ever watched.

  I stared past him into another room where the sounds of a jazz orchestra filtered out while hundreds of people piled in. Through the doorway, I could see couples swirling in a waltz. I squeezed Adam's arm.

  "Do you want to dance?"

  Adam looked out over the dance floor, his expression a mix of apprehension and excitement.

  "I would like that very much."

  Holding out his arm as though he escorted a princess to the ball, Adam ushered Cinderella out onto the dance floor.

  Chapter 34

  We moved onto the parquet dance floor which had been set up in the Empire Church portion of the Community Center. From the stage, a live orchestra played jazzy renditions of classic dance tunes which echoed off the cathedral ceiling and made it sound as if we were surrounded by a heavenly chorus of instruments. Adam took my hand in a formal waltz, maintaining a tight dance box as we did the foxtrot. There was a rigidity to the way he danced, formal, cautious, and always maintaining his dance space; but he did know how to dance, which was far better than Gregory, who'd refused to go out on the dance floor unless he got completely drunk.

  Little by little we did that awkward thing two people who've never danced together before do as they feel one another out and silently decide who will take the lead. I closed my eyes and felt where Adam wished to lead me. His warm baritone voice rumbled in my ear, deliciously close as his warm breath tickled my skin.

  "Why do you have your eyes closed, Miss Rosamond?"

  My mouth curved up into a smile.

  "My father always said to get thoroughly attuned to your horse, you have to ride him blindfolded and let him carry you where he wishes."

  "So I'm a horse now, ay?"

  My smile grew broader.

  "He said it also works for dance partners."

  Adam laughed, and some of that stiff formality melted away. I felt the way his leading hand pointed which way he meant to turn, the slight dip of his shoulders before he whirled me, and how his other hand tightened against my back whenever we got too close to another couple. After a few songs our knees began to touch every time we danced the slow-slow portion of the foxtrot, and now and again my torso brushed up against his.

  My entire body hummed with the vibrato of the string instruments and something else, not just sexual attraction, but a sense of being in tune. I opened my eyes to smile up into Adam's blue-green ones. His face was a blend of curiosity, admiration, and hunger. He whirled me in a pirouette and pulled me in close. We fox-trotted past the orchestra and a long line of people lined up at the sides.

  "This is one heck of party your boss threw," I said.

  Adam smiled, and it took my breath away.

  "Randy Evans is a generous man," Adam said. "He likes to help people. And he likes to reward the ones who helped him get where he is today."

  "You sound like you admire him?"

  "I do," Adam said. "He makes his money without screwing people over."

  The music changed to a song that was a little slower. Adam pulled me against him to dance the soft, sensual strains of a rhumba. My mother had sent me to lessons to learn the dances expected of a young woman of good breeding, but it was the wild, gypsy zambra moras performed by my father which captivated my interest as a teen.

  Adam grinned as I swayed back and forth in my own curious blend of Latin dance and zambra, feigning flirtation, and then turning away; now I want you, and now I don't.

  "Who taught you to dance?" Adam asked.

  "I learned it here and there. How about you?"

  "My mother taught us," Adam said. "Her and my father used to go square dancing every Saturday night."

  "Square dancing?"

  Adam's grin grew broader.

  "Pretty corny, huh?"

  I tried to picture that stern, humorless man who rode on the painted stallion moving in the ecstatic, hopping steps of an old-fashioned hoed
own, dressed in a duded-up drover's shirt and hat while a caller rattled out the dance steps.

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "I just can't picture that," I said.

  "How do you know? You never met him."

  "Oh, just … from the pictures, I guess. And the way you've described him."

  Adam stared across the dance floor, his expression that same, odd mélange of emotions he'd often worn when I'd first started working for him.

  "It wasn't all bad growing up," he said softly. "Sometimes, I need to remind myself of that."

  The line of dancers rotated past the spectators. I heard a delighted, high-pitched squeal.

  "Rosie?"

  I glanced at a cluster of people my age. A honey-haired girl rushed forward, wearing a devil-red satin evening gown that showed off her athletic figure. It took a moment to recognize my best friend in her fancy get-up.

  "Sienna?"

  We rushed into each other's arms and squealed like little girls. I laughed, and she laughed, as we hadn't seen each other in almost a year.

  "What are you doing here, Rosie?"

  "Dancing," I said. "What are you doing here?"

  "Trying to get my date drunk enough to head out onto the dance floor."

  She gestured at a tall, well-dressed young man who looked to be about our age, one of Sienna's 'frat boys' as she called them. The young man wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to Sienna, or any of the other young women in their group, as he and the other young men gossiped about the national footy league and downed a pint of XXXX.

  "Adam?" I gestured for him to come closer. "This is Sienna. My oldest friend."

  "G'day, Miss Sienna." Adam held out his hand to shake hers.

  Sienna shook his hand and giggled.

  "Oy, he's a right handsome stud stallion of a man, isn't he?" Sienna whispered none-too-softly. "Wouldn't -I- like to saddle up a piece of horseflesh like that?"

  I turned red.

  Adam turned even redder.

  "Sienna!" I hissed. "Adam is my boss."

  Sienna shot him a raised eyebrow. I could tell my friend had already consumed quite a few beers, which wasn't unusual. Sienna had always been my evil twin sister, the one who got me to lighten up, or into lots of trouble. My mother absolutely hated her.

  Adam retreated behind an inscrutable expression, but he didn't appear to be upset. Merely at a loss of how to approach my flamboyant best friend with anything other than the same extreme caution he'd used when approaching the brown snake.

  "How's Gingersnap?" I asked about her horse.

  "He's doing well," Sienna said. "We just won second place at the Equestrian Grand Final in Melbourne."

  "Dressage?"

  "Show jumping," Sienna said. "Without your father around, I was never able to get him to dance properly. I finally gave up and let him go back to jumping."

  I couldn't help but frown. Sienna reached out and squeezed my arm.

  "Don't worry. We'll get you back in the saddle at some point."

  Adam touched my bare shoulder. A pleasant shiver tingled through my body.

  "Rosie? Could I get you ladies a drink?"

  "I'd love another champagne." I glanced at Sienna. "Make that two, please?"

  While Adam disappeared towards the bar, Sienna introduced me to her friends, many of whom I recognized from the various competitions we'd participated in over the years. Once they'd gone off to Bond University in Gold Coast, the horse-women had all grouped together into a gang. It was a veritable who's who of the competitive horseback riding world, and amongst their midst were more than a few wealthy heiresses, the daughters of businessmen, stationers and tycoons.

  Soon, some of the older people came over to greet me. -Me.- They greeted me. Rosamond Xalbadora. Former champion rider.

  Adam came back and handed me and Sienna our drinks. One of the older men, who Sienna introduced as the father of a young woman I'd once ridden against, a well-dressed man in his early fifties, shook Adam's hand.

  "You're Adam Bristow, aren’t you?"

  Adam donned a wary expression. "Yes."

  "I'm Ethan Rogers," the man said. "You came out to my station to drill a test bore."

  Adam's face lit up.

  "Ahh, yes! I remember. We didn't drill because the seam crossed paths at the same depth as the Great Artesian Basin."

  "Maynor Jackson's men came out the minute your boss locked the gate behind him," Ethan said. "He offered me a tidy sum to let his men come onto the property to drill."

  "I hope you told him no?"

  Ethan grinned.

  "Word on the street is we can trust you," Ethan said. "A couple of years of extraction compensation ain't no good if it leaves me without any water for my livestock."

  "How's your well holding up?"

  "Not so spiffy," Ethan said. "The pressure keeps dropping. Some says it's the coal seam wells. Others say we've been pumping out too much water for the cattle."

  "I suspect it's a bit of both," Adam said. "Did you talk to Randy?"

  "I did," Ethan said. "He said the next time he's got a rig in the area, he'll loan it to me to drill a deeper well, along with somebody to help me install a pump."

  "He'll loan it to you at cost, too," Adam said. "So don't bust his chops about the price."

  Ethan turned to me.

  "I'm surprised to see you with the likes of Miss Xalbadora?"

  Adam's eyebrows rose up, as if he wasn't sure whether to be offended on my behalf. "Excuse me?"

  "She and that big golden palomino of hers beat out my Noreen three years in a row for a slot on the Elite Squad," Ethan said. "It was amazing, what her father did, took a half-breed stock horse and turned it into a champion dressage horse for her. If her horse hadn't gotten sick, she'd a gone to the Olympics instead of Noreen."

  "Really?" Adam gave me an appraising stare. "Rosie never mentioned it."

  "Her daddy is the best horseman any of us ever seen," Ethan said. "I tried to hire him to train Noreen, but I couldn't afford him. Them Spanish School of Vienna trainers, they don't come cheap."

  "Oh?"

  From the small smile which played seductively at the corner of his mouth, Adam rather liked watching me get the accolades for a change.

  "Do you ride, Mr. Bristow?" Ethan asked.

  "Not at anywhere near that level," Adam said. "My brother was the one who was born with a saddle stuck to his backside."

  "English?"

  "Western," Adam said. "He won some ribbons in the NRHS Reining championship, but then he lost interest and decided to join the army."

  "He still ride?"

  Adam's smile disappeared.

  "My brother was killed in Afghanistan ten months ago."

  "I'm real sorry to hear that, Mr. Bristow."

  "So am I."

  Ethan gestured over some other middle-aged men, and before I knew it, Adam was surrounded by stationers, businessmen, and all manner of tuxedo-wearing testosterone.

  Sienna pulled at my arm, a honey-haired pixie, filled with more mischief than Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

  "C'mon, Rosie! It's time to ditch the men."

  I waved goodbye to Adam as Sienna, quite literally, dragged me out onto the parquet to a group of her friends who'd begun to do a jazzy rendition of the Boot Scootin' Boogie. From his expression, Adam didn't mind one bit if I wanted to show off and dance. Nor did any of the other men who stared appraisingly at the womenfolk whose hips gyrated in packs out on the dance floor.

  The orchestra switched from jazz tunes to songs that were a little more contemporary. Amongst the saxophones and violins, an Aboriginal didjeridoo, several steel guitars and Aboriginal clapsticks added a curious blend of north and south to the throbbing country rhythm.

  "What happened to you?" Sienna shouted over the music. "First you tell me that bludger dumped you. And then you just dropped off of the planet and never called?"

  "I had to take a job quick after Gregory terminated our lease," I said.
"We've got no mobile reception, but Adam hired me to watch his little girl."

  "Oooh! A governess! Does that make you Jane Eyre?"

  I rolled my eyes.

  "C'mon, Sienna. You know me better than that."

  "I can't believe you hooked up with Jackson Oil Company's magic oilman," Sienna said. "According to the newspapers, his ex is as mad as a cut snake?"

  "Ooh, yeah," I said. "But thankfully my interaction with the Black Widow has been minimal."

  The line we were dancing in turned back to face the men. We stepped forward, and back, and then gyrated our hips. Adam gave me an appreciative once-over as I boot-scooted towards him in my gorgeous champagne colored ball gown, my face lit up in a happy smile.

  Sienna grinned.

  "You like him, don't you?"

  I turned a deep shade of pink.

  "No," I said. "Not like that."

  "Yes you do," Sienna said. "And from the way he watches you, he's got a thing for you as well."

  I instinctively touched my bracelet as I glanced over to where Adam stood talking to the other men. He watched subtly, for Adam was never obvious, but as he talked, he kept glancing in my direction.

  "He just wants to make sure I don't embarrass him."

  Sienna unabashedly looked Adam up and down. I noticed Adam turned away, and then resumed his watching, only from a less obvious angle.

  "I like him," Sienna said.

  "You can't have him," I said. "He's mine."

  Sienna laughed.

  "No, you silly drongo! I mean I like him. For you."

  "You've always hated every man I dated."

  "I hated Gregory," Sienna said. "You never got all that serious with anybody else."

  I glanced at Adam, who stood taller than the other men.

  "Why do you like him?"

  "Because he's considerate of you," Sienna said.

  "He's considerate to everyone," I said. "That's just the way he is."

  "Any time one of the frat boys took a step close to you," Sienna said. "He put his arm out, like this." She held out her arm, palm outward, as though she was shielding me. "So nobody dumped their beer on you."