Bachelor In Blue Jeans. Lauren Nichols

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      The shouts kept coming. “Zach! Open your jacket!”

      “Turn around!”

      “Shake your booty!”

      He stood stone still.

      Suddenly a rush of compassion washed through Kristin and she felt every ounce of his humiliation. He’d hurt her more terribly than she could ever describe. He’d betrayed her and he’d lied to her, and it had been months before she’d been able to breathe again without pain.

      Yet in spite of that, she was recalling a time when he’d held her in the loft of his aunt Etta’s barn and murmured that she was everything to him. Every dream he’d ever had…every wish he’d ever made.

      “I—three hundred dollars!”

      A hush settled over the room, and every lined, shadowed and mascaraed eye turned to Kristin. Panic nearly immobilized her. Had she said that? How could she have said that?

      Maybelle gaped in shock. “Did you say three hundred dollars, Kristin?”

      Kristin nodded numbly, utterly mortified by her outburst. “Yes, I… Is that enough?” Dear God, how was she going to get out of this with even a shred of dignity?

      Maybelle’s rowdy laughter ricocheted off the walls, and to Kristin’s chagrin, was joined by everyone else’s. “Well, I don’t know! I think so! Ladies, I have three hundred once! Twice! Come on, if he’s worth three, he’s got to be worth four!” Then, “Sold to Ms. Kristin Chase for three hundred dollars!”

      “Three hundred dollars, Kristin?” Grace Thornberry called laughingly from across the table. “My goodness, it’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it?”

      With a red-faced smile for her teasing tablemates, Kristin grabbed her black beaded bag and walked quickly to the podium to give Maybelle a check. She was ruined. Anyone who knew her past with Zach would label her a doormat. Especially Chad.

      She slanted a veiled glance at him as she handed the check to Maybelle. Chad was angry and he wasn’t trying to hide it—not a very chivalrous thing to do with Mary Alice Hampton draped all over him. Kristin regretted his disappointment, but she hadn’t bid on him for a purpose. She wanted him to find someone to love—someone wonderful who could love him back.

      “Thank you, dear!” Maybelle gushed effusively. “Now scoot on back to your table and grab that handsome man!”

      Kristin blanched at the thought. No way. She had no idea what she was going to say to him, and she wouldn’t have her embarrassment and fumbling witnessed by Grace and the others.

      Scraping together what remained of her poise, Kristin strode to the back of the room. She hadn’t wanted to come here tonight, had always considered these kinds of things tacky and dehumanizing. But as the director of Wisdom’s Small Business Association, one of the auction’s sponsors, she was almost obligated to attend.

      Now she wished she’d insisted that someone else take her place this evening.

      Fighting the urge to finger-comb her short auburn hair, she watched Zach walk toward her, stop to accept Maybelle’s over-the-top thanks, then continue forward with slow, deliberate strides.

      It disturbed her to realize that seeing him again could electrify her nerve endings, harden her heart and shatter it, all at the same time.

      He stopped several feet from her. “Hello, Kristin,” he said politely.

      She managed to keep her voice from trembling. “Hello, Zach. You’re looking well.”

      “You, too.”

      “Thank you.” Apparently, they were going to be civil.

      He’d only been back a few times since her mother’s death nine years ago, generally during the holidays to visit his aunt Etta. But this was the first time she’d seen him since the funeral. She was unprepared for the changes that years of working outdoors had created. Though it was barely June, his rugged face was deeply tanned, with faint lines bracketing his mouth and creasing the skin beside his gray eyes. And though he’d always been tall, he now had a powerfully built body that not even the classic lines of a tuxedo could hide.

      Like warning buoys, those old feelings of hurt and resentment tipped and bobbed in the wide gulf between them. And impossibly, beneath those emotions, the undertow of attraction still pulled. Kristin read the look in his eyes and knew he felt it, too. But he didn’t welcome it.

      “Why me?” he asked after the silence had stretched out as long as either of them could tolerate it. “God knows there were enough other men you could’ve bid on. Even good old Chad.” His mouth thinned. “Or was there something you neglected to say the last time we spoke?”

      No, she’d said every harsh, hurtful thing that was in her heart the day of her mother’s funeral. It had been wrong, but seeing him at the cemetery after two devastating weeks at the hospital watching her mother slowly slip away was more than she could take. His presence had only made her feel worse.

      “Actually, I’d planned to bid on someone else,” she lied, unwilling to let him know he still got to her. “Unfortunately, I was in the ladies’ room when he was auctioned off. You were my last chance to donate to the Children’s Christmas Fund.”

      He eyed her skeptically. “The people running this shindig wouldn’t accept a straight donation? No charity I know operates that way.”

      Kristin released a sigh. She’d never been good at lying. That was his talent. “All right. I felt sorry for you, too.”

      A nerve leapt in his jaw. “You felt sorry for me?”

      “Yes.” She knew how he felt about pity, but the truth wouldn’t have been necessary if he’d been gentleman enough to accept her first answer. “I saw how uncomfortable you were, and for a second, I remembered that we were friends once. I wanted you off the runway.”

      “That’s it?”

      “That’s it.” She wouldn’t let him think all was forgiven when nothing was further from the truth. “It was just a knee-jerk reaction. If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn’t have.”

      His gray gaze went flat. “I’ll send you a check in the morning to cover your bid.”

      “There’s no need to do that.”

      “Yes, there is. If you remember anything about me, you know I don’t like owing people. I had enough of that when I was putting off bill collectors for my old man.”

      “This isn’t a debt, Zach.”

      “It feels like one. After all, you did get me off the runway—and you didn’t get the man you wanted. I’ll mail the check to your shop.”

      “I’ll send it right back,” she said, and started away.

      Zach grabbed her hand. He released it quickly when a shock jolted them both.

      Kristin’s heart raced as they stared at each other. It’s just static, she told herself. Just static electricity from the carpet.

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