Chapter Two
Talon Reese surveyed the room. Crazy awesome how many people had turned out for tonight’s fundraiser. The crowd was even bigger than last year and judging from how tired her feet were, before the bidding had even started, thirstier. Grey’s Saloon was donating the proceeds from tonight’s bar to the cause and the servers were expected to kick in their tips. Usually, Talon was the first to open her wallet, but she was running on fumes from her last financial aid check from school so she couldn’t stop the longing look at the growing wad of dollar bills in her apron pocket. She usually worked as a server at Main Street Diner and also interned under local large animal vet, Noah Gallagher, as she finished her bachelor’s degree in animal husbandry and took as many online pre-req courses to enter veterinary school.
As tempting as the chunk of change was, she knew the money would benefit others in the town and surrounding area more. She and her seven-year-old son, Parker James, had a roof over their heads and her job at the diner ensured that they received delicious dinners five nights a week. The school covered his lunches, so really, they were doing quite well. Better than her chaotic childhood in and out of foster care.
“Talon, which bachelor captures your hormones?” Meghan, a local accountant in town, called out as Talon served them their second round of drinks as well as some potato skins and jalapeno poppers.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t looked at the program. I heard all of them grew up in Marietta but have moved away. Former football players for Coach. I heard a couple were soldiers. One still is so he’s probably nice,” Talon said, not really thinking about it.
“Who wants nice?” Leanne, a teacher at the elementary school, scoffed. “I want hot!”
Talon laughed as she was meant to. Hot would be a fun distraction, but it made her feel a little embarrassed for the bachelors being so objectified. As a woman who’d routinely faced wolf whistles and casually flung sexual comments since puberty, she empathized with the four bachelors, but it wasn’t like they were expected to have sex with their dates, she reminded herself as she made more rounds to take orders. Although, she’d never met a man who didn’t enjoy casual sex, and casual was all she was ever going to be able to indulge in until Parker graduated high school.
Coach Downey tested the sound system. Showtime. She hoped she could take an unobtrusive peek during the bidding. A peek was all she was going to get with her responsibilities.
She checked back in with the table where many of her friends were squeezed in. Tanner McTavish, her closest friend in Marietta, fanned herself with the program.
“I hate sitting so much. I wish they’d get on with it so we could go dancing. You up for it tonight, Talon?”
“No, Parker’s in the office. We’re going home after the auction. Grey’s only needed extra servers during the event. After, I’m going to study.”
Tanner crossed her eyes. “That sounds fun. Not. At least check out the bachelor program, then, Talon. The soldier you were panting over is offering a lady’s choice date. A total gentleman.”
That statement was followed by giggles and teasing. Talon pretended to be stern.
“No need to stoop to the men’s level of sexually objectifying.” Talon objected. “They have donated their time and money and imagination. No need to make them donate their dignity as well. Besides”—Talon couldn’t hide her smile—“I haven’t even see him, so no panting involved.”
“Yet.” Leanne tossed back.
“Ever.” Talon drew herself up to her full five-ten height, and then laughed. “You girls.” She shook her fingers. “Naughty. And you’re married,” she said to Meghan.
“But not dead,” Meghan said.
“Talon, you can’t have gorgeous hair, a sassy mouth, and legs a mile long and not be in the game,” Tanner said. “You’re in by default. And we’re just objectifying for charity to raise the bidding. So which one catches your eye?”
“Not looking. I have to write a paper tonight.”
“If you won bachelor number three, you could get him to write your paper.” Meghan teased. “I went to high school with him, and he was smart but super quiet. Never even made eye contact with a girl, but super-fast on the field.”
“I know I’m a single mom and a student and working two jobs, but even I’m not so boring that I’d want a date to write my paper,” Talon laughed.
At least she hoped not.
“You will be if you don’t get out there. Too many cowboys in the town to not be in the game.” Tanner looked up and Talon felt those green eyes sear her bones. “Spill. What would your choice be?”
Talon cleared their table of the excess dishes and glasses. She paused. Her choice.
“Wow,” she said quietly looking at Tanner. “I don’t think I ever thought about it like that. Having a choice.”
She scrubbed at the spotless table, nibbling on her lower lip, clearly thinking. She hadn’t had a lot of choices growing up. Just rolled with it. Choosing to live in Marietta had been the first choice she’d had total control over.
“Have fun you guys and bid ’em up. I’ll be back later to see if you need anything more. Your nachos should be up soon.”
Talon straightened up slowly. She felt it again, that burning sensation like something was boring through her back. Her neck prickled and her body went on alert. She turned around and saw him, one of the bachelors at the top of the stairs staring at her.
“Whoosh,” she said. “And there goes my brain.”
“Whoosh and there go my panties. Go talk to him,” Tanner urged.
Talon had no idea what she could say to a man that…that much of a man. He looked like…she couldn’t even think of a simile. He was…perfect.
He was so the total package. Intense. Tall. Cut. Self-contained. He looked totally like he could be a warrior of ancient times, staring down into a village seconds before he plundered and burned, and yet he also looked contemporary. A chameleon. Talon shivered. He looked delicious and his eyes were burning holes through her, and she looked back. Definitely. He must be looking at Tanner she told herself, but no. His gaze was fixed on her, unwavering. Like a cougar in full hunt mode and Talon anticipated the pounce and the claws with a tingling spine and liquid warmth pooling low.
She loved how he stood so still, so self-possessed like nothing fazed him, not even this circus. Some woman was in for a lot of fun.
He jerked his head a little. Talon frowned. Did he need something? Another of whatever he was drinking?
Yes, please.
Even though she thought Rowan had taken care of drinks and snacks for the bachelors, it didn’t hurt to check, did it? She wondered which number he was. Two was already on his way down after the huge bid that had kicked off the night for bachelor number one. So three or four. Three was a lucky number, wasn’t it?
Don’t be an idiot.
She walked across the wood floor of the saloon, chin up. She would not give her friends the satisfaction of panting, but this guy was some serious drool inducing piece of masculine pride. He didn’t seem to blink so she wouldn’t either. Definitely not as easy as he made it look. She was halfway up the stairs before he took the first step down. Even more beautiful closer up. Sharp angles for bones, sculpted mouth that looked tough but with a hint of sex.
“You’re not supposed to come down yet,” she said, jogging up the last few steps so he was only two steps above her. She wasn’t used to having many people tower over her.
“Can I help you?” she asked breathlessly.
He looked at her for a few moments longer than was socially comfortable.
“Probably.”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Not thirsty for beer.”
Oh. My. God. She was either becoming the biggest, highly suggestible, presumptuous perve in the town or he was coming on to her. Her. Wow.
“What do you like to drink?”
“I’m working.” Talon was afraid she’d squeaked that, but she was
so out of practice. All her conversations with the opposite sex had been school or work oriented or with her son and wasn’t that a sad, sad statement? She was twenty-five, not seventy.
“Later?”
Yes, oh yes, oh yes. All he needed was a motorcycle and a guitar, and he would have nine tenths of the world female population chasing him.
“You’re supposed to go on a date for a good cause,” she said.
His stare practically quartered her. His eyes were the most interesting light brown, almost golden and she felt dissected. “It would be.”
“So you can’t try to make plans with me,” Talon said, feeling that if she didn’t try to force this point, be practical, she’d actually grab his arm and tug him out the door auction and Parker forgotten. And she would not be that woman. A woman perhaps like her mother had been. “It’s Lady’s Choice. What if she wants tonight?”
He came down one more step. Talon found it hard to breathe. He was potent. His scrutiny created more heat than a blowtorch. She could feel his energy mix with hers like some kind of heady pleasure inducing, inhibition generating cocktail.
“I would persuade her to choose differently.”
He could persuade anyone to do anything. Talon felt drawn even closer into his orbit, and she couldn’t decide where she wanted to look more, his intense, honey stare, his mouth that looked like it was about to plunder hers, or his chest that looked harder than the glacier-sheered rocks on Copper Mountain. Talon nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Coach Downey calling out “going once, going twice.”
“You’re up.” She could barely breathe or command her body to do anything but lean into him and absorb all the intensity and heat and sexual pull.
It was like she was a different person. A woman for the first time in her life with needs and wants and desires that had nothing to do with responsibility and future goals that always seemed just out of reach. She turned to flee back down the stairs.
What had she been thinking that she could even come within orbit of that much testosterone? She was a newb at flirting and he was clearly a master. He caught her hand, and Talon felt almost that she could melt in a puddle at his feet.
“Aren’t you going to wish me good luck?” His voice was low in her ear.
She turned to look at him and felt all her air stick in her chest. “I don’t think luck’s going to have anything to do with it.” She sounded strangled as she pulled out of his hold, savoring the slide of his calloused, heated skin against hers.
Talon hurried down the stairs and back onto the saloon floor, where she took two more orders and entered them in on the computer just as bachelor number three—a man with eyes like a bird of prey’s and a body like…she didn’t even have words to describe that work of art. Definitely made her believe God had a master plan and played favorites—hit the stage. She was torn. She wanted to watch. No, be real. She wanted to stare and lust and fantasize that she could at least think about letting him buy her a drink, but she had to be responsible. Drive her life safe and solo; and that guy would be all about the ride and it would not be to the library or for groceries. His pores oozed sex. Even his name Colt was the brand of a gun. A young horse.
He was not a forever guy.
Not that she wanted a forever guy. She had one. She poked her head in the saloon business office to check on Parker, her son. “Hey, bud, what’s up?”
He was curled up under the desk on his sleeping bag reading from his stash of Magic Tree House books and munching on chicken fingers, fries, carrots, apples, and vanilla yogurt.
“Somebody scored an amazing meal.”
“Hey, mom.” He poked his nose out of his book, waved, and then went back to the adventures of Jack and Annie. He waved his fingers in a shooing motion.
Talon smiled affectionately and went back out onto the saloon’s floor. Coach Downey had just finished a story about bachelor number three’s running prowess in football. Probably came in handy now, she thought idly, with so many women chasing him. He stood on the stage looking a million miles away until his eyes locked with hers. Talon had been tired and had slumped against the wall not wanting to distract the bidders by circulating around the tables, but when his intense gaze hit hers, she felt like she’d just been jolted back to life by a live wire.
His eyes were molten gold and trained on her like he was a falcon and she, a field mouse. She tried to tell herself it was her just imagination that he was fixed on her, but her imagination was out of the barn and running wild and not about to stop or shut up. She could feel him. Feel him undressing her with his mind and, thank God, it was all in the realm of fantasy because she had the most boring white cotton panties on ever. That was all she owned and, still, they were soaked so she should stop looking at him now.
Only she didn’t. Even her nipples, dormant except when it was cold, woke up with a big hurrah and chafed against her tank under her western style shirt because she’d washed her bras this morning and she hadn’t had a dry one for tonight, and it wasn’t like anyone would have been looking at her she’d reasoned this afternoon, except now the smokin’ hot, about to combust her on the spot, man was looking. And looking hard.
“Sold!” Coach Downey’s voice rang out over the room and there were cheers and applause and then bachelor number three swaggered over to her and Talon felt her legs shake, which was ridiculous because she wasn’t in middle school, and she wasn’t meeting him later and he’d just become some other woman’s wet panty problem.
“See you in a bit.” He made a quick turn and loped over to another table.
Chapter Three
Colt swallowed hard and headed toward the table that Coach D had pointed out. If ever there were a time for someone to slap him on the shoulder and say man up, now would be that time. He wanted to be anywhere else on the planet. He would have jumped up, hand raised high to be back in a shelled-out building in Iraq or Syria, sighting down ISIS targets instead of walking up to a table full of women, who were eyeing him speculatively. He wished he had the easy charm of Nick or Gavin when they chose, but he had nada.
He’d known Rowan had wanted him to play to the crowd. Helen had even given him a hug before Coach started talking him up and whispered to him to be himself. And so he’d stood there solid, predictable, and interesting as a block of wood, but when he’d spotted the sexy waitresses watching him across the floor, he’d turned his focus completely on her. He liked that she was tall and slim and natural-looking. Not usually his type only because her type didn’t hang out in bars where service men went, and her type didn’t usually agree to anything fast and furious within the first hour or two of meeting.
Instead, she’d seemed surprised by his sexual interest, and that made him curious. Why? Place like this, cowboys coming in and out, she must have guys hitting on her all the time. He wanted to touch her hair. See if it was as soft as it looked. See if the wildness of it hinted at a passionate interior. See if her blonde was natural. He definitely wanted to know that.
He walked to the table. Reminded himself that he was supposed to be charming and, without changing expression, he stopped. They’d all watched his approach and no one spoke up, claimed being the winning bidder so he had no idea who to address.
This is why I don’t date.
This must be why cowboys wore hats so they could tip them. It gave them a prop. He imagined how fast the place would clear out if he had his usual prop.
“Evening, ladies.” He hoped that wasn’t a sexist term. “I’m Colt.”
“Yes, you are.” The woman he dimly remembered from high school fanned herself. “I definitely remember you.”
Everyone smiled so it was supposed to be funny, but for him, anything from the past wasn’t anything to smile about. The sooner he could get out of town the better, although the waitress was definitely worth another look or two.
“So,” he just needed to think of it as a mission. Accept. Plan. Execute. Return. “What can I do for you?”
*
Talon walked into the kitchen on wobbly legs. She felt like she’d been sunburned by bachelor number three’s sexual charisma.
“Whew.” She used a clean rag to dab some cold water on her face. “That was like a close encounter with a supernova.”
The volunteer chef, Ryan, who’d been a bachelor last year when the town had raised money to help with the medical expenses for a little boy, Josh, who’d been injured while on a scout camping trip, laughed.
“Did you catch anyone on fire with your deadly sexual swagger and stare last year?” She demanded.
Ryan winked and pushed four to-go boxes toward her.
“I do that every day,” he said. “Better than burning my food. Dinner and dessert for you and Mister P. No need to stay long for cleanup. Last year the auction crowd cleaned out fast and the usual crowd sidled in so just the tabletops that you worked.”
Talon wasn’t going to argue with that. She’d started wearing gel inserts in her cowboy boots due to all the walking but some days that was not enough. She waved her thanks to Ryan and tucked her boxes into her tote in the office, noting that Parker was asleep. It would suck to wake him, but her days of carrying him were long gone. She blew at the stray curls that had escaped around her face and wondered who’d bought the bachelor. She would not be feeling so tired after winning that prize. Smiling, she returned to the main bar area to find the panty-soaker standing by the ordering station, arms crossed staring at her with an intensity that unnerved. He didn’t really think they were going to go somewhere tonight? She hadn’t said yes. But who would ever say no to that.
She walked toward him, no longer feeling her feet.
His eyes were the most interesting shade of brown, kind of a cross between gold and caramel, her favorite type of candy. No one had looked at her that intently before. Her heart kicked into high speed.
“Hi.” She could barely blow the word out through her mouth. “Need something?” She cringed at how suggestive the words sounded. She’d meant a drink or something to eat. Food. Not her. Oh, she had it bad.
Seducing the Bachelor (The Bachelor Auction Returns Book 3) Page 2
