The Great Montana Cowboy Auction

by Anne McAllister

  "I have a key!"

  Jace shrugged indifferently. "He said you weren't supposed to open."

  "But he should have known I would!" Celie protested. The color was high in her cheeks. She looked angry. She always looked angry when she was talking to him. Sometimes it was damned annoying.

  "Oh, I reckon he thought you had a lot on your mind this week, getting ready for Gallagher," Jace said, moving away with the broom. "But then, he doesn't know you're too chicken to bid on him."

  "Go to hell, Jace Tucker!"

  He grinned. "Not just now, Miz O'Meara."

  She glared at him. "You are so juvenile. I can't believe Artie trusted you to do this." She brushed past him and stalked into the back room. In thirty seconds flat she was back.

  "Where's the change drawer?" she demanded.

  Jace jerked his head toward the cash register. "Where do you think?"

  Celie looked appalled. "Didn't Sara put it away last night?"

  "Yeah. I put it back this morning."

  "You took it out of the safe?" She opened the drawer and stared at the change. "Artie gave you the combination?"

  "And I went to the bank and got change."

  "But—"

  "Did you think I'd steal everything and leave town?"

  Jace lifted an eyebrow.

  "Obviously you haven't," she said gruffly. "Yet. Why don't I just go home then and leave you to it?" she said irritably, slamming the drawer shut. "Since you seem to have everything under control."

  "Because it takes two. You know that," Jace said, refusing to let her annoyance get to him. "Somebody to mind the store and someone to deal with the warehouse."

  "So fine. Which do you want?"

  "I'll do the warehouse." But he stayed right where he was, even when Celie looked pointedly in that direction. "No reason to be out there now," he said easily. "Colder'n a son of a gun. I'll go when I have to. Meantime I'll just keep you company in here."

  "And you'll do Artie's jobs?"

  "Sure. Whatever."

  Celie smiled. "Clean the bathroom."

  It was odd, Joyce thought, how she could work in reception five days a week and cope perfectly well, and how the sights and sounds of ICU could set her heart to hammering.

  But the second she set foot in the Intensive Care Unit, it was like Gil's death all over again. When she'd come in last night, she'd almost turned around at the door and left again.

  There was no denying the feelings of loss, of helplessness, of pain that came with losing Gil. But there was no way around it, either.

  So Joyce girded her heart against the pain and went in.

  Last night Artie had been sleeping. She'd stood just inside the doorway and looked at him, aware suddenly of how much the old man had always meant to her. She'd known him, it seemed, all her life. Her schoolteacher mother had been a widow when she'd brought Joyce, her two-year-old daughter, to Elmer. She'd never remarried. "I've never met anyone else who could take his place," she said simply.

  So it had always been just she and Joyce.

  And the Gilliams.

  Artie and Maudie had befriended them from the first. Maudie had baked cookies with her and sewed doll clothes for her dolls. Artie had played catch with her and taught her to ride a horse. He'd let her come to the hardware store after school and had given her peppermints and let her count the change in his cash drawer.

  When she was seventeen he'd given her her first real job. And he'd sized Gil up before she'd married him. Artie had, in fact, walked her down the aisle and he'd loved her children as if they had been his grandchildren.

  In short, he was the father she'd never had.

  And the thought that she might not have him much longer made her throat tighten and her heart ache.

  She hadn't awakened him last night. She'd gone on to work and peeked in on him once more before she came home. Now he was asleep again. His normally ruddy cheeks were still pale and sunken, and his wiry frame looked insubstantial lying there in the hospital bed.

  She would have crept away, as she had last night, but she'd brought him a crossword book that Celie had found at the store. "Give him this," Celie had said. "If he's well enough to do it, it will keep him busy. Things will seem more normal because he does them all the time. And hopefully he won't fuss so much about the store."

  So Joyce carried it in, intending to leave it on the bedside table. But as she reached the bed, his eyes fluttered open.

  He stared at her, dazed. "Anna?" His voice was faint and wondering.

  Anna? Then Joyce realized he'd mistaken her for her mother. She took his gnarled fingers in hers. "No, Artie. It's Joyce. Anna's daughter."

  His hand tightened around hers with a surprisingly strong grip. His eyes closed again and he let out a shuddery sigh. "Joyce."

  "Celie sent you your crossword book," she said, putting it on the table.

  A faint smile touched a corner of his mouth. "She's a good girl, that Celie."

  "Yes."

  "Needs a man."

  "Oh, Artie!"

  "Getting' 'er one," he whispered.

  "What?"

  "Never mind." He closed his eyes again, but he still hung on to her hand, his grip fierce.

  Joyce watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Her gaze went to the blip, blip of the heart monitor. It seemed tenuous, thready. "How are you feeling?" she asked when he opened his eyes again.

  "Just peachy," Artie said with considerable disgust. "Can't believe the ol' ticker did this now."

  She smiled faintly. "I don't think the timing is a matter of choice."

  "No." Watery blue eyes met hers and he smiled, too, a little wryly. "Timin's a funny thing." His gaze slid away and he seemed to stare off into space, seeing something that she could only guess at. Peoples' lives were mysteries, Joyce thought.

  Even when you had known them for years, how much did you really know?

  She shifted from one foot to the other. "Speaking of which," she said eventually, wiggling her fingers as she glanced at the watch on her wrist, "I have to be on the reception desk in two minutes."

  "Ah. Right." Artie reluctantly let go of her hand. "Forgot you had to come in anyways." He sounded disgruntled, as if he'd just realized she hadn't only come to see him.

  Joyce brushed a hand over his soft gray hair. "I'd have come to see you whether I was working or not, Artie. I stopped in last night, but you were sleeping. I didn't want to wake you."

  Fierce blue eyes bored into hers. "You wake me," he insisted. "I ain't got all that much longer that you can let me waste time sleepin'."

  "But—"

  "Wake me. You hear? An' you come anytime."

  "Only family is allowed anytime."

  "You see any family?" Artie demanded, looking around.

  What Joyce saw was loneliness. "I'll tell them to let me in, Artie." She bent and brushed a kiss across his forehead, then touched his sunken cheek for just a moment.

  He smiled. The smile wobbled and his eyes filled. "G'wan," he muttered. "Time you got to work."

  "Yes." Giving him one more smile, but determined to leave him his dignity, Joyce turned to go.

  He called after her. "You'll be here tomorrow?"

  "I'll be here."

  It wasn't that Sara wanted to be interviewed.

  It was just that everyone else seemed to be. In the past three days she'd seen Lizzie and Daisy and even Jack on daytime and nighttime television. People at MSU had asked about it.

  "Was that your sister?" they said when they saw a segment with Daisy where she was—typically—blathering on about horses.

  "Is that cute little kid your brother?" they wanted to know, when Jack turned up on three different shows talking about hockey and how to feed rabbits and what he liked best about living in Elmer.

  Sara didn't mind that Daisy and Jack were becoming media darlings. But it seemed a little far-fetched that even grumpy, theatrical Lizzie—Sara refused to call her sister Artemis—was getting airtime. She'd not only
got to talk at length to one of those daytime TV hosts, but a whole camera crew followed her to play rehearsal, and afterward she was starry-eyed as she told everyone that she might get to meet a Broadway producer.

  "Like he'd give you a part," Sara muttered.

  But Lizzie was flying high. "Why not?"

  "Because things don't happen like that," Sara said scathingly.

  But Lizzie had just tossed her short dark hair and stuck her nose in the air. "Tell that to Sloan Gallagher."

  Sloan Gallagher, to Sara's way of thinking, had a lot to answer for. He was the reason her siblings were acting like brats. He was the reason her mother had forgotten her. He was the reason Aunt Celie was more distracted than usual. He was the reason it was taking Sara ten minutes to cross First Street

  .

  With all this traffic, it might as well be New York City!

  Irritable and distracted, Sara darted between cars.

  There was a sudden screech.

  Sara leaped back to avoid being run down and smacked into something solid, hard and warm. She knocked it right over and landed on top of it.

  "Ooof!"

  Hard arms went around her. Smiling green eyes and a hard, handsome face were inches from her own.

  "You okay?" His voice was wonderful. It had a lilt to it. An accent. Not quite English. But not American either. Not quite.

  "Sara!" Loney Bates came hurrying up, followed by Alice Benn. "You all right?"

  "Yes. Yes, of course." She was fine. Just stunned. And startled. She'd never seen eyes quite like those of the man she'd flattened. "Are you all right?" she asked.

  His grin was as gorgeous as his voice. "Sure an' I always did like the notion of the lady on top." Face flaming, Sara scrambled up.

  Loney caught her arm, brushing snow and gravel off her jacket. "You sure you're okay?"

  "Are you all right, dear?" Alice seconded.

  "Fine. I'm fine. I just—" never know what to say when men say things like that!

  "Break anything?" Loney was asking the impudent stranger who was hauling himself to his feet now.

  He was tall. Taller than Gregg. Taller than her dad had been. Over six feet. With thick unruly black hair that brushed his forehead, high cheekbones, a nose that had been broken at least once, and those beautiful grooved cheeks that you saw in GQ and almost nowhere else. At least one cheek was. The other, she saw now, was scraped and bleeding. There was a red mark that would likely become a bruise on one cheekbone, too. He must have caught the bumper of the car as he'd caught her going down.

  "Nothing broken," the stranger said. He touched his face where the scrape was and winced a little. "Nothing serious."

  "Damn tourists," Loney muttered. Then he caught himself. "S'pose you're one."

  "A writer actually. For my sins." He grinned a little ruefully.

  "Time? Newsweek? People? Field and Stream?" Loney said hopefully.

  The stranger shook his head. "I'm doing a story for Incite magazine."

  Sara's eyes widened. "Incite magazine? Isn't that a little trendy to be interested in us?"

  The stranger's expression was wry. "Apparently not."

  There was a wealth of meaning in those two words, but Sara didn't know exactly what. She couldn't take her eyes off him. He was dabbing at the scrape on his cheek. She was going to be late. She was going to miss Gregg's call. She ought to be picking up her backpack and going home.

  "You need to wash that scrape off. Maybe put a bandage on it," she said to the stranger.

  "Got some in the shop," Loney said, jerking his head toward the welding shop.

  "I can take him home with me," Sara said quickly.

  Loney looked surprised. So did Alice. So did the stranger.

  "You sure?" he said.

  "Of course," Sara replied. "I plowed into you. You're my responsibility."

  "Ah." He grinned. "Is this a reversal of one of those 'if I save your life I'm responsible for you forever' sorts of things?"

  "I … I don't know," Sara said. She'd never done this sort of thing before. She had absolutely no idea.

  But Loney was nodding. "Right. You jest go on with Sara then."

  Alice looked as if she would like to give Sara a stern motherly warning. But Sara was oblivious to warnings.

  "Come on," she said, picking up her backpack and leading the way.

  "You're Sara," he said, falling into step beside her. "I'm Flynn."

  The last thing Polly expected to find when she got home from work was Sara sitting at the kitchen table with a handsome stranger drinking coffee.

  "Flynn Murray." He stood up, held out his hand.

  She recognized his accent at once. "FBI," she said, shaking his hand.

  Sara gaped at her, then at Flynn.

  "Foreign born Irish," he translated for her. He was grinning. "An' right you are."

  "A priest?" Polly said. What on earth was Sara doing with a priest?

  He shook his head. "Writer."

  "My God, are they sending them to Elmer from Ireland now?" Polly was horrified.

  But Flynn Murray shook his head. "Just New York. I came to live there with my uncle, who is a priest. But I'm a freelancer. Doing this on spec for Incite magazine."

  Polly couldn't imagine what a counter-culture interview and issues magazine could possibly want with an article on cowboys and Elmer. She said so.

  Flynn Murray grinned. "Me, neither."

  "Then why—"

  "Sky Van Duersen, the publisher, he was wantin' me out of town."

  Her own life was complicated enough, thank you very much. Polly didn't even want to know why New York City wasn't big enough for Schuyler Van Duersen and one freelance Irish writer.

  She studied the chalkboard, then fixed her gaze on Sara. "It says you're at the library."

  "Couldn't go," Sara said. "I was late. I missed Gregg's call."

  "You were late?"

  "From the traffic. Norby dropped me off by Loney's and I was trying to cross the street. I ran into Flynn—literally—and knocked him down. He cut his cheek." Sara nodded toward the red scrape on the Irishman's face. "So I brought him home. I had to clean it up for him, didn't I?" she added piously.

  Polly looked at her daughter narrowly.

  Sara had the grace to blush, then look away and fiddle with the handle of her coffee mug.

  Polly almost couldn't believe her eyes.

  Sara? Blush?

  Sara? Late?

  She looked at Flynn Murray again. He'd sat back down. He was looking at Sara, who deliberately wasn't looking at him. "I see," Polly said, and wondered if she did or not.

  Jace cleaned the bathroom. He unloaded the freight, stocked the shelves, cut the lumber orders. Though he was still clearly hobbled by his leg, he seemed to be everywhere, doing everything—including flirting with the customers!

  Not the men, of course. He joked with them, laughed with them, talked horses and cattle and ranching and trucks with them, and dealt with them far more easily than Celie did. Of course that was to be expected.

  But he also charmed the women. Every time a woman came in, he teased her, winked at her, chatted with her.

  Flirted!

  And they ate it up, every one of them. Several local women came in to see how Artie was doing and to find out if Celie needed any help. And then they saw Jace there and they said, "Oh, well, you don't need us!"

  But they didn't leave. No, sir!

  They stood around and laughed and talked to Jace. They barely paid any attention to Celie at all. They only talked to Jace. When he teased them, they teased him right back. It was like a hen party with all of them fluttering around one preening rooster.

  Celie should have gone home at noon the way she usually did and left him to it—to them! But she didn't see how she could, since he didn't know where everything was.

  "I'll be all right," he told her. "If I need you, I'll whistle," he said with a wink.

  Celie glared at him. "Artie wouldn't want me to leave you alone,"
she said, though frankly she didn't think Artie would have cared. He seemed convinced that Jace could handle things better than she could.

  "Whatever you want," Jace said airily. "Feel free to hang around."

  It was infuriating that, as the afternoon wore on, Celie felt as if she was doing exactly that. Jace didn't pay any attention to her. He left Celie to run the register, directing customers to her when they'd finally decided on their purchases, while he chatted with them and generally acted like he owned the place.

  She never minded when Artie did that—because he did own the place. But Jace hadn't been here for years! Except for the tourists, she knew all these people better than he did!

  But they didn't care! They were all delighted to talk to Jace. They asked him what he was up to now. They cheered his decision to hang around and ranch with Ray and do a little horse training. They told him to drop by for a meal or invited him to have a beer after work at the Dew Drop. They never invited Celie anywhere.

  Not that she'd have gone if they had.

  She was surprised to hear him telling so many of them that he was intending to stick around. And when she and Jace were finally by themselves in the store late that afternoon, Celie couldn't help asking, "Are you really planning on training horses at Ray and Jodie's?"

  Jace, who had boosted himself up on the counter to sit, dangled his legs and began rubbing his thigh where, she supposed, it hurt. "I am, yeah," he said.

  "And that's why you've been buying all the lumber? For corrals?"

  "Yep. And a house."

  "You're building a house?"

  He nodded. "I'm settlin' down."

  "Oh, right," said Celie and laughed. But before she could ask what he knew about settling down, the door opened and several giggly young women came in.

  "We're here for the auction," they announced. And it didn't matter that they were two days early. They just wanted to know all about Sloan Gallagher.

  "Do you know Sloan Gallagher?" they asked.

  "Is it true he grew up in this little bitty town?"

  "Did you go to school with Sloan?"

  "Did you ever, you know, date him?" They looked at her, eyes wide.

  "Make out with him?" They giggled. Nosey, ditzy, silly women. All they could talk about was how gorgeous and "hunky" and handsome he was.