He guided her to the side of the corridor. No one else was there right now—they were early. And when he leaned back against the wall, putting his hands on her jeaned hips, pulling her to him, her heart jittered. But it was always that way when she looked into Riley’s deep blue eyes.
“I don’t like it, either,” he said. “But things never stay the same. Not anywhere.”
“I guess I’m just getting old and cranky.” She’d also felt that way before the game, while walking around campus. Dressed in her old Cal-U sweatshirt against the fall chill in the air, she’d felt like a grandma next to all the students running around, their lives ahead of them as they dreamed of success. “Everything just seems so...corporate. Cal-U used to be small, homier. Now it’s—”
“Trendier than hell. I noticed.”
He bent forward, kissing her forehead, and they stayed like that for a few seconds, his breath stirring her hair, infiltrating her, just as it had ever since she’d glanced up one day on a sorority/fraternity reunion cruise five years ago that neither Leigh nor Margot had signed up for. That’s when she’d seen Riley giving her that look—one she’d never noticed before. It was the look of a friend who had apparently been thinking some extremely more-than-buddies thoughts without her even knowing it until that moment.
It had changed her world, changed her mind.
But it hadn’t changed either of them.
Or so she’d believed. It hadn’t occurred to her that change was everywhere except in her until last night, when Margot and Leigh had sprung this auction on her.
She held on to Riley, her hands wrapped in the bottom of his long, untucked shirt, cocooned there. After last night, she’d started wondering just how people perceived her—had always perceived her.
Was she someone in need of rescuing? A pitiful dreamy princess who’d been defined all her life by one goal and one goal only?
To be the ultimate bridezilla?
Just...wow. And, the thing was, Dani feared that her friends were right. What had she done with herself all these years besides get a job as lead caterer for someone else’s company? What true ambitions had she possessed?
She’d always looked up to Margot—and who hadn’t? Margot led the pack, getting them into trouble while watching over them at the same time. Dani loved her friend’s independence, her go-get-’em approach to life. And the same went for Leigh, who had overcome a tragic childhood filled with sadness after the accidental drowning of her sister. Leigh had also struggled with her weight when she was younger, but now she was as svelte as Margot and just as successful a businesswoman. And what was Dani?
Down the corridor, she heard a door close, and she caught a peek of Margot, dressed as stunningly as ever in what looked to be an Ann Taylor leather jacket, a pencil skirt and high boots as she made a beeline for the back room. She was carrying an iPad, probably to keep track of the baskets that had already been dropped off, and she didn’t see Dani and Riley as she disappeared.
Riley’s voice rumbled through his chest as he spoke. Dani could feel it while she pressed against him.
“Do you think Margot’s pissed after what you told her at the game?” he asked.
“Not pissed. Disappointed, I’d say.” After Dani and Riley had talked this whole auction thing over last night, they’d decided that Margot and Leigh could still hold the event—it just wouldn’t be for their wedding. Instead, he had suggested a charity that fed the homeless in Avila Grande.
“She’ll get over it,” Riley said.
“I’m sure she’s already knee-deep in the excitement of tonight.” But, still, Dani had seen disappointment in both Margot’s and Leigh’s eyes this afternoon. They clearly hadn’t believed her when she’d told them that it didn’t matter how she and Riley got married—a small ceremony, an elopement. Whatever. She and Riley had been together for long enough that marriage was only a piece of paper to them.
Or maybe Dani had just been saying this so often that she believed it. And Riley, being Riley, hadn’t pushed her on the subject too hard. He’d heard enough stories about the curveball her parents had thrown her just before she and Riley had gotten together. Married thirty-seven years, obviously just pretending to be happy, then boom.
Divorce. Because of a cheating dad.
As if knowing what had entered her thoughts again, Riley stroked her curls away from her face. Patient, wonderful Riley, who’d waited around long enough for her to finally start planning a wedding after the fallout from her mom and dad.
“Is Margot excited because she thinks Brad is going to bid on her basket?” he asked, knowing just how to change a subject.
Dani smiled up at him. “No doubt. It’s strange, though, because never in a million years would I think that a woman of experience like Margot would be in to a garden-variety type like Brad these days.”
“Clint’s in to her.”
“What? When did you find this out?”
“Last night. You went out with the girls, and I was asleep when you got back, and then we had breakfast with the others and the game...”
Little time for talking. Or much else. “Margot told me and Leigh that she had an ‘incident’ with Clint in the parking lot last night. She stiff-armed him, though. Doesn’t trust him as far as she can throw him, even though he’s told her that Jay was the culprit who posted the video.”
“It doesn’t matter to Margot, does it?”
“Nope. I think that, if she gives Clint the time of day, it’ll be like she’s surrendering or something. Like there’s this battle of wills going on, and it started way back when she didn’t want to be one of his many women.”
“Until she was.”
Dani gave him a light push. “Hey, they didn’t have sex. She didn’t give in to him at all.”
They laughed. It was always so easy to do with each other.
Then Dani said, “Margot has this idea that she’s going to re-create her golden summer with Brad or something.”
“We’ll see. He wasn’t at the game, and I thought he said this morning during fishing that he would be.”
“You think he’s going to ditch the auction, then?”
Riley shrugged. “If he does that, he should’ve let Margot know. She sent him that note.”
“And don’t you dare let her know I told you. She’d kill me if she heard I was letting you in on everything.”
“Hey—we’re about to get married. People expect us to share.”
The intimate comment made her shoulders tense ever so slightly. Just because people got married, it didn’t guarantee that they’d be some eternal, single entity. Or maybe, for a time at the beginning, it did mean just that, and when things went wrong and you had to rip yourself away from your other, the wound would never heal.
She’d seen proof of it in her mom and dad, who still didn’t speak to each other unless they had to.
Riley’s arms tightened around her, and she locked gazes with him. Somewhere along the way, the wind had ruffled his dark hair enough so that he had bed-head, and it gave him a boyish look that nicked her heart. And his smile... It was sexy and youthful, both at the same time.
They wouldn’t turn out the way her parents had. She told herself that every day.
“I’ve heard enough about Brad,” she said softly, losing herself in his eyes as deeply as she had ever allowed herself to be lost.
Then she put her arms around him and hugged him even closer, shutting her eyes out of pure instinct so she wouldn’t get too lost.
* * *
AN HOUR AND a half later, Clint reclined in a chair at the rear of the back room in Desperado’s, his hat tipped back on his head, his boots propped on the table in front of him. He’d stayed distant from the crowd as they joked and jested and gathered near the front, where the baskets were set out in an anonymous parade of color and
ruffles.
But it was Margot who had his full attention. Margot Walker, with her fancy, big-city, spike-heeled boots, short straight brown skirt and creamy top that clung to her curves.
And, boy, had he felt a few of those curves last night when he’d impulsively met her in the parking lot, intending to help with her luggage, only to decide on the turn of a dime to try a little bit of something else.
Maybe he’d been too aggressive though, because, once again, he’d been shot down in flames.
Clint grinned to himself. Yep, he’d been put in his place, but there’d been one moment—a hesitation, a heartbeat—when he’d seen something in her eyes.
Something that told him she was wondering what it’d be like with him. Something that hinted she enjoyed being touched the way he was touching her.
And that was all Clint had needed to come here tonight, to this basket auction.
The president of his pledge class, Walt Tolliver, who’d been on the student body and had gone on to run successfully for his local town council, had volunteered to lead the charity auction since Margot and Leigh were the ones who’d turned tonight into a charity event.
Margot stood by, handing out the baskets as the bidders won them. By now, they’d gotten to the last few. And, wouldn’t you know it, hers hadn’t come up for auction just yet.
But Clint could wait.
He’d been setting aside “fun money” for years, never using it for vacations or the like. On the interest alone, he could afford to spend a pretty penny tonight, especially because he’d also been saving for possible legal fees with his brothers.
But this was as much fun as any money could buy. He also wanted to make this auction a major success for Margot.
And the time was getting near.
Margot picked up a “basket” that was actually a large pot with the word “honey” painted on the outside, and she set it on the podium where Walt waited.
“Who’s looking for a taste of honey?” he asked, weaving the title of the basket into his question, just as he’d been doing all night.
Clint’s fraternity brothers laughed and catcalled about honey-this and honey-that, but he refrained. The basket with the gold and silver stars would come up soon enough, and as Margot swept another surreptitious glance around the room, Clint wondered if she had put off bringing her basket up for auction because her dear Brad was MIA.
Looked as if she had no idea that ol’ Bradley Harrington had been called home on business. Wasn’t that a bummer?
“Bidding starts at a hundred bucks,” Walt said, looking for takers.
“Two hundred,” shouted Ed Kendrick. “I could use some sweetening.”
Before everyone stopped laughing, another brother, Mark Heinbeck, yelled, “Three hundred.”
As the bidding continued, Dani and Riley sat down at Clint’s table. The two of them got cozy in their chairs, leaning back and surveying the controlled chaos. Riley was holding a red, white and blue basket with curly streamers, which Dani had put together at the last minute. He’d won it, no problem, because of course no one would dare step on Riley’s toes.
“Just think,” Clint said, leaning toward Riley so his voice wouldn’t carry over Walt’s calls. “You could’ve had some real cash thrown at that wedding of yours tonight. They’re raking it in.”
“I’m glad it’s going where it’s going,” Riley said, exchanging a grin with Dani.
Clint noticed a shadow in Dani’s eyes, but then something happened at the front of the room that pulled his focus there.
A woman had stepped forward to bid on the honey basket, and Clint recognized her as Beth Dahrling, a sorority sister who was a couple years older than he was. She was wearing a conservative skirt set, her long dark hair held back by an expensive-looking shell barrette.
“Five thousand,” she said smoothly.
Everyone in the room froze, even Clint. Then someone whispered to another person, and a gossipy hum filled the place.
Up in front, Margot was staring wide-eyed at Leigh, who was sedately lounging in her chair in a corner, a cowboy-booted foot propped over her knee. The only thing besides Margot’s expression that confirmed this basket was Leigh’s was the too-cool way she didn’t move a muscle.
The room went quiet as everyone else glanced at Leigh, too. Hell, nobody had expected a woman to bid on another woman’s basket, and Clint wasn’t sure Leigh swung that way.
Dani shifted in her chair, and Riley stifled a grin just before his fiancée smacked his leg.
Walt cleared his throat. “Five thousand going once?” he asked, obviously testing Leigh.
She smiled, then laughed, making a bring-it-on motion with her hands.
Margot smiled at her, then at Beth Dahrling, who gave Leigh a little friendly wave, then said, “I’m here for someone else, Leigh. Don’t panic.”
A buzz rose in the room as people started to ask just what Beth was up to. But the woman remained silent, shrugging and calmly grinning.
Riley leaned toward Clint. “Glad I didn’t put the kibosh on this auction, after all.”
President Walt was calling for order, and when he got a semblance of it, he yelled, “Is there anyone here who can beat five thou? It’s for charity.”
When he didn’t get any takers, he held up his gavel. “Okay. Going once...twice...” Bang. “Sold!”
The applause was louder than usual as Margot took the basket to Beth, and Leigh, with her typical sense of humor, stood and went to her fellow sorority sister, linking arms with her and walking out of the room with an exaggerated sashay of her Wrangler-clad rump.
“Nothing’s gonna top that,” Riley muttered as the noise died down and Margot picked up another basket.
I can think of at least eighty things that very well could, Clint thought, barely keeping track of the last few auction items before they finally came to Margot’s offering.
Almost time...
Just before Margot went to the table, slowly picking up her basket, Clint noticed Leigh slipping into the room and leaning against a wall, a furrow to her brow as she stood alone, without Beth.
President Walt rubbed his hands together. “Wonder whose this could be....”
Every guy who hadn’t won a basket tonight hooted and whistled; it was obvious that Margot hadn’t walked out of the room with anyone yet, and the basket had to be hers. She gave a sassy, narrowed glance to the room in general, but Clint could tell that she was indulging in one last scan for Brad.
For a moment, Clint swore that Walt was about to make a joke about the video, but then he only grinned. Clint nodded slightly to him.
“Let’s start with a hundred for what promises to be a very exotic offering,” Walt said. “Around the Girl in—”
Margot cut him off. “It’s a travel basket. That’s all.”
Clint laughed. She was playing down the spicy title, wasn’t she? Those cards in the basket would be worded so vaguely that she could give the winner a hot date or a cool one, depending on whoever won.
He’d take his chances.
Since he didn’t want to seem too eager, he waited out the initial bidders. It was only when he snagged Margot’s gaze as she surveyed the room again that he finally rose to his feet, lethargically sweeping off his hat.
“Six hundred,” he said with great relish as he met Margot’s gaze.
There was a sizzling connection between them as she glared right back.
He thought he heard a few oohs in the room. If they couldn’t talk about the video, they’d certainly ooh about it.
One of the sorority sisters said, “Don’t get slapped this time, Clint,” and that caused somewhat of a minor kerfuffle. It also caused Margot’s laserlike glare to intensify.
“I bid seven hundred,” she said.
That got a rise o
ut of the room. And, truth be told, it did the same to Clint, too.
Riley punched Clint’s side and gave him a challenging look. Yeah, don’t get slapped.
Clint propped his booted foot on his chair and leaned his elbow on his thigh. He could do this all night.
“Eight hundred,” he said.
“Nine,” she shot back.
Walt laughed right along with everyone else before saying, “Hate to tell you, Margot, but you can’t bid. It’s against the rules.”
“Hey,” she said, clutching her basket to her. “I organized this auction.”
“Oooh,” went the crowd again.
But then Leigh drawled from her side of the room. “You’re not the only one who put this thing together, Marg, and I say you’re breaking the rules.”
A bigger “Oooh.”
If looks could kill, Leigh would be in a million pieces. It was pretty obvious that the friendly one-upmanship between her and Margot hadn’t died since college had ended, but Leigh obviously thought this whole thing was hilarious.
Margot? Not so much.
“I’ll tell you what,” Clint said, after holding up his hand for silence. “Let’s just make it an even thousand and call it a night. There’re people who have baskets to open.”
“But—” Margot said.
Walt hit the gavel on the podium before Margot could get too far, and Riley stood, pushing Clint forward. His brothers patted him on the back as he made his way to the front, his gaze never leaving Margot’s.
A thousand bucks was going to put a real dent in his fun money for the year, but he didn’t have any vacations planned.
Except for the ones Margot’s basket had arranged.
He planted himself in front of her, nodding at the basket that she was hugging for the life of her, just as Walt yelled, “Sold!”
But from the looks of his date, Clint was pretty sure that she was anything but.
5
Lead Me On Page 5
