No. It had to be this. She’d spent countless hours trying to figure out a way to make him pay. It was all she’d been able to think about ever since she had walked in on her father, who was supposed to be a man of God, banging their church’s beautiful, curvy worship leader on the floor right behind the preacher’s podium. Amanda hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from the sight, even though she wanted desperately to look away.
She’d wanted to flee the room, to forget that these few horrific seconds had ever happened. And she did, after a long, drawn-out moment of horror and disappointment. She’d turned her back on the father she’d all but idolized her entire life and covered her ears against the sounds of him making love to another woman while her mother was lying in the house directly behind the church. For some it would have been too great a risk to have an affair only yards from their wife.
Amanda had supposed, as bitterness rose up to fill her heart, that knowing that said wife was too sick to get out of bed might have seriously mitigated the risks. While he was getting his rocks off, his wife lay dying of lupus.
Amanda had never found the courage to confront him about the encounter. She lost her nerve every time…and her father had never asked why his daughter was growing more distant, why she’d turned from the quietly obedient child he’d helped to raise into a bitter, rebellious stranger. She’d like to think that he had just assumed that she was dealing with Mom’s death in her own way…or maybe he’d just been too busy screwing members of his congregation to notice. It was probably the latter.
The quartet’s final song drew to a close. Amanda was nauseous, she was so nervous. She wanted to leave, to go home and pray for forgiveness, forget that this idea had ever entered her mind. Instead, she wrapped herself in the hurt and anger of the memory of that night. She used the bitter feelings like armor against her conscience and reached nervously down to smooth the silky, short dress she’d borrowed from Aimee just for this moment.
Then the stage was silent, and it was her turn to step before the crowd. She knew she looked good in the short, blue dress that brought out the blue in her eyes and the tall heels. She might be a little bit thicker than was considered fashionable by women, but she’d seen the way that men eyed her curves.
She made her way over to the microphone. Before she started speaking, she scanned the crowd, searching for her father’s large form. She met his eyes, and saw the disapproval radiating from them…disapproval at her choice of outfit, she assumed. Well, if that riled up dear old Dad, she could hardly wait to see his expression at her next words. She smiled at him, a bitter grin. Then she looked away from him to scan the crowd.
“Good evening, everyone. I’m sure you’re expecting me to ask for donations for our mission group, the way that I do every year. Well…not today.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd, the polite humorless sound that crowds make for teachers and preachers who make bland jokes that everyone laughs even though they aren’t humorous in the least. This was it. Her last chance to back down, to keep being the tame, sweet preacher’s daughter everyone believed her to be.
The daughter who had sat docilely by and let her father cheat on Mom in the last weeks of her life. She wouldn’t. That girl was gone, and her next words would make sure that everyone knew as much. She tried her best for a sultry look and voice as she said her next words. She ran a hand down her side, starting at her waist and ending after the swell of her hip.
“Today, I’m asking for…donations…for something else. For me. Do you want me boys?”
She paused, noting with pleasure the shocked outrage on her dad’s face. “I’ve never been with a man before, never felt a man’s touch.” She’d planned to run her hands over herself again at this point, but nerves were about to catch up with her, so she spoke a bit more quickly.
“I’m ready to, though. I don’t have a man in mind yet, so I’ve decided to auction off my virginity to the highest bidder. You can place your bids on my web page…and may the best man win.” She rattled off the website—the one that had originally been her youth group blog—and noticed with satisfaction that her father’s rage had morphed into pale-faced horror.
Good. It wasn’t nearly as bad as he deserved, but at least she was making him hurt the way that she had, the way that her mother would have if she’d ever learned of the betrayal by the man that she’d devoted her life to. The room went silent.
You could have heard a pin drop. The only sound as she walked out was the click-click-click of the heels she’d borrowed from Aimee as she made her way off the stage. Before she left, she turned to blow a kiss at the crowd. Her eyes were drawn to a tall cowboy at the back of the room. It was Blake Daniels, she realized. Her eyes met his as she blew the kiss. He was staring at her like he’d never seen her before in his life.
She gave him a final, sad half-smile before she walked away. She’d just ruined her chances at catching a man like him—a decent, hard-working one—in this town. It didn’t matter though. Dad would get what he deserved, and she could put the money she’d earn by selling herself to getting a fresh start. She couldn’t keep crashing on Aimee’s couch forever, after all.
Amanda tried to push all of the shame, fear, and self-doubt from her mind as she made her way to the car on shaky legs and drove quickly through the small town she’d lived in her entire life on her way back to Aimee’s place.
Chapter Two
Blake watched Amanda Bales as she walked off the stage. He wasn’t surprised often these days, but she’d managed to shock the hell out of him just now. He couldn’t take his eyes off her full hips until they swayed out of view.
He’d seen Amanda before, of course. She was a veterinary assistant and he had one of the largest cattle ranches in the area. She was at his place fairly often to help check out livestock. He’d even fantasized about her a time or two. She was gorgeous, with her dark hair and vibrant, blue eyes, and he wasn’t dead, after all. She’d just always seemed too…wholesome. She seemed like a church on Sundays, lights off, missionary-style kind of girl. His tastes ran a little bit wilder than that. He’d thought that she was too good a woman for a man like him to even contemplate seducing.
She would want a man who would be there for her, and he wasn’t that guy. Not anymore. He had sworn after Sophie, his ex-fiancée, had left him at the altar that he was through with relationship. From here on out, he was only after sex, with no strings attached. So yes, he’d noticed Amanda. He’d be willing to bet that there wasn’t a straight, red-blooded man in the entire county who hadn’t. He’d just always thought that she wasn’t someone he could have without violating his no strings policy.
It looked like he’d been wrong. What she was doing was wanton and…well, it took some stones. He could see that she’d been nervous, but there weren’t a lot of women who would be willing to get up there and say what she had. And in a town this small, no less, a place where everyone had known each other since birth? It was positively shocking.
Blake was man enough to admit that he wanted her pretty damn bad after watching her up there thumbing her nose at the entire town in that scrap of a dress and those sexy heels. He was pretty tempted to place a bid for her himself.
The only thing that had him hesitating was that he was, first and foremost, a rancher, just like his father and his grandfather before him. And if he wanted to stay a successful rancher, he needed to keep up good relations with the people in the community he did business with. Somehow he doubted that deflowering the preacher’s daughter of the biggest church in town a scant four months after her mother passed away would go very far toward good community relations.
That didn’t stop him from firing up the computer when he got home and going to the website Amanda had set up. There was already a pretty heavy bidding race for the dark-haired beauty. Blake laughed and wondered how many of those bids were coming from men who would be sitting in a pew and nodding sanctimoniously in agreement with Amanda’s father tomorrow morning in church.
>
His fingers itched to make a bid, but he held back. It had been a while since he’d been with a woman, granted, but surely he wasn’t contemplating risking his livelihood for one evening between Amanda’s pretty thighs. He tried to banish the image of his hands on her waist, on her breasts. He had to quit imaging himself sliding between her thighs, had to quit wondering if her skin was as warm and soft as it looked.
Damn. It looked like he’d be taking a cold shower before going to bed tonight. He watched four more bids post to the webpage before he finally closed his laptop and headed to take a cold shower. His dreams were still heated and sensual. He woke harder than he’d ever been in his life after dreams about winning the bid and taking Amanda on a blanket by the creek, in his office, in his bed.
He sighed and went to take another cold shower before he got started with his morning chores. He almost wanted the bidding to be done so that he could get this idea out of his mind, even while he didn’t want it to end. He liked the idea of the bidding still being open. If it was still open, he still had the option of changing his mind and taking Amanda for his own. He needed a distraction, something to keep him from picturing her naked and flushed beneath him every time he closed his eyes. He had no idea, though, what that distraction might be.
Chapter Three
Amanda stretched out as best she could on Aimee’s narrow couch—where she’d been crashing ever since her mother had died and she’d been able to get the heck away from her dad without raising Mom’s suspicion—and reveled in the fresh air that was coming in the open window.
The air was cool and crisp even as the late summer sunlight began to warm it, and she could feel fall settling into the air. It moved over her body like a caress, and for a moment her soul felt light. She felt almost…hopeful.
Then, as it always did, reality came crashing back to her. Mom was dead, and her dad had betrayed her in her last days. The anger and humiliation came rushing back to her, but this time they were accompanied by a dark satisfaction. Last night she had finally taken steps toward making her father feel every bit as hurt and disillusioned as she had been. She hoped he was positively mortified. He’d certainly looked like he was. Heavens knew she was a bit mortified with herself, but it was worth it.
Mom wouldn’t think so. Her kind, sweet mother would have hidden her hurt and forgiven her father. She would have accepted his sins while only crying in private because she would have been loath to hurt the feelings of the man who’d ripped the very heart from her chest. And she most certainly wouldn’t have wanted her only child to auction off the purity she’d been saving for marriage to the highest bidder for revenge.
Mom wasn’t here though. She’d died of a painful, debilitating disease after being betrayed by the man who had promised to love only her until death did them part…Amanda had seen exactly what came of being a sweet, caring soul.
She was done with that path. From now on, she made her own way, fought her own battles, and paid for her own upkeep. She would use whatever tools were at her disposal to do so, including her own body. Amanda saving herself for marriage had been her mother’s dream, not hers. She’d gone along with it because she’d always been the obedient preacher’s daughter. She’d ignored her desires and done as she was told…but not anymore. From this moment forward, it was life on her own terms, consequences be damned.
Her phone rang, and her father’s number lit up the screen. He’d called well into the night last night before giving up on her answering. Now he must be awake and ready to continue the harassment. She would let him stew, let him ask himself why again and again as she had after she’d crept out of the worship hall the day her innocent faith in the world had died. She hadn’t been able to get answers from him without worrying about alerting her mother to his betrayal. Now he wouldn’t get any answers from her.
“Good morning, Pretty Woman,” Aimee said in a sleep-laden voice as she wandered into the room.
Amanda laughed in reference to the old movie she’d been watching with Aimee when she’d finally figured out the way she could get her revenge. Aimee was wearing a short t-shirt that left her midriff bare and a pair of tiny pajama shorts. A well-muscled man with a buzz cut and more tattoos than Amanda could count trailed out behind her in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. His eyes were firmly glued to Aimee’s ass. Amanda wished that she had Aimee’s trim figure for a moment, but then she firmly tamped down on the jealousy.
She would not be eaten up with envy for her friend. Besides, Aimee worked her butt off to keep that figure. Amanda figured her friend could have the size five jeans, and she could keep the important things in life, like wine…and chocolate.
“Well, I’m no Julia Roberts, but then somehow I doubt that the highest bidder is going to be a young Richard Gere. We’ll be like their fledgling, homely understudies.”
Aimee snickered in response as she shoved Amanda’s legs aside playfully and settled next to her on the couch with her laptop. A moment later, she exclaimed in surprise.
“He may not be Richard Gere, but he’s probably going to be loaded. Look at this!”
Amanda sat up to take a look at the screen. She was shocked to see that hundreds of bids had been made, and the current top bid was over ten thousand dollars.
“What’s that?” The boyfriend—Amanda rarely bothered any more to remember the names of Aimee’s latest flames—was peering at the screen. She watched as his expression went from curious to shocked, then speculative. His eyes raked up and down her body. She wasn’t wearing much, just a sports bra and leggings.
“Damn. I just might be tempted to make a bid on that myself. Any chance you’re giving out free samples?”
Amanda sneered at the lust in his eyes when he’d just emerged from her best friend’s bedroom. Aimee wasn’t nearly so discreet in her disgust. She reared back and slapped him.
“Get the hell out, Charlie.”
“Relax, babe. I was just making a joke.”
“Out.” Her voice was firm, and he sulked back to Aimee’s bedroom to get dressed. Amanda had a feeling it was the last time he’d be allowed in that room.
Aimee changed boyfriends about as often as she changed her sheets—sometimes she thought a new boy toy was the reason Aimee changed her sheets—but while she was with them she didn’t look at anyone else.
Amanda had asked her once why she changed men so often when she seemed so into them while they were here. Her friend had laughed and said that the second she wasn’t that into them she moved onto the next one. The beginning, she’d told Amanda, was the best part. No strings, no feelings or arguments. Just raw lust.
For her own sake, she hoped Aimee was right. She was about to embark on her first ‘beginning’ and wasn’t planning to even attempt to move past that first stage. Her phone rang again, and she sighed with disgust. He wasn’t going to quit calling, so she might as well answer it.
“Good morning, Daddy.” She filled the last word with sarcasm and malice.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Amanda?”
“Tisk, tisk…don’t say hell. You’re a man of God…for fuck’s sake.” The cursing wasn’t like her and her lips fumbled over the rough word, but she wanted to show him once again that she wasn’t the innocent little girl who had once trusted him so blindly.
Charlie came into the room and was obviously trying to listen in on the conversation, but Aimee ushered him out the front door and slammed it behind him.
Amanda turned her attention back to her father’s voice as it roared in her ear. “Do you have any idea how last night’s stunt made our family look? What people must be thinking?”
Now Amanda saw red. “Yes, by all means, let’s focus on what people must be thinking. Not on my reasons for doing what I did. Not on the fact that I will be committing a sin against God. Let’s just focus on how it is going to be hard for you. That’s all you care about, after all…right Daddy?”
“You know that isn’t true, but as a man of God, I—”
&n
bsp; “As a man of God, you shouldn’t have fucked Cindy Mason behind the pulpit while my mother lay dying.” Her voice raised to a shout as the sentence finished.
There was a long silence.
“Amanda, I…”
“Don’t. Just don’t. You did what you wanted with your body, so now you will let me do the same with mine. Just because you sin in private doesn’t make it any better. At least I’m not breaking vows to someone who loves me.”
“God loves you.”
“Fuck off, Dad.”
She hung up. For an instant, she didn’t feel any satisfaction. She only felt cold, empty, and ashamed. She bottled up the feelings, shoved them in the same place she stored her father’s betrayal and the pain of her mother’s death. She wasn’t a victim anymore, so she wasn’t going to act like one. She talked to Aimee for a few more minutes while they looked over the website, but eventually it was time for her to get dressed and go to work.
Chapter Four
Blake cursed to himself as he examined the horse’s hooves. It was obvious to his trained eye that the horse was foundered. The sudden onset of the condition when he was always careful to prevent it worried him. Not only had he lost the use of a valuable animal, but he needed to get a vet to determine the cause of the condition. Anything from diet to a blood infection could cause the condition, and he worried that it was something that might be serious, even fatal.
He wouldn’t be riding the horse again, but he still owed it to her to get her the best treatment possible and give her a good quality of life after she’d served him so faithfully. He didn’t believe in getting rid of an animal just because they were no longer useful to him.
Double Obsessions Page 7
