Three Hearts Beat as One (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (5 page)

Then some people who wanted to bid on the hair-band guitarist’s autographed Stratocaster got in the way and Devin couldn’t see Lacey anymore. He practically shoved the heavy metal enthusiasts out of his way in his race to the bid sheet. Had she actually bid? She must know he was the Hardscrabble owner—his stupid photograph was right there glued to some cardboard, smiling asininely while standing next to some horses.

“Devin Jonas!”

Fuck.
Jared Alessi, the annoying and often combative mayor of Hell’s Delight, barred Devin’s way. Jared held the bid pen poised as though about to outbid Lacey, and Devin had to prevent this at all costs. Devin side-stepped around the mayor as though waltzing. “Mayor Alessi. Did you see that old Miwok Indian basket up for bid? That should be in a museum, not sold to a private party.”

Alessi said, “I’m more interested in that great cruise to Mazatlan. But who wants to go to Mexico these days? Even stepping off a cruise ship can get you killed.”

“Did you see the three-day pass to Heavenly resort? You like to ski, don’t you?” Devin didn’t know or care if the mayor skied. But the auctioneer had called over the PA system that bidders had five minutes left on the silent auction, and that seemed like three minutes ago. Devin had a feeling he could distract Alessi until then.

“Actually, I have way too much work to ever take a vacation, but your dude ranch offer sounds like the relaxation would be worth it.”

Crap.
In addition to the mayor’s obnoxious interest, two lesbians had stopped to look at the Hardscrabble display. Lesbians had won the past five year’s worth of Hardscrabble auctions. This year, Devin wanted to teach the bountiful Lacey Dvorak a thing or two about ranching. “For relaxation I’d go for one of these spa deals. The Tahoe Mission Inn gives you a glass of good cabernet while you’re getting your shiatsu treatment.”

Alessi wiggled an eyebrow. Devin frowned. He couldn’t tell what the wiggling signified. Alessi had gotten very emotional last year over some open space bond involving a parcel of Devin’s land. Devin could never tell if the mayor liked him or loathed him, because either way, Alessi became very emotional when dealing with Devin. In public meetings he always wound up yelling and pointing fingers at Devin. “Shiatsu massages are painful, don’t you think? Who wants to be poked and prodded while trying to relax? Don’t they have more of a sort of…” Again with the eyebrow wiggling. “
Sensual
massage?”

What the hell is he trying to insinuate?
Devin was thoroughly confused. The mayor was certainly an odd one. “Oh, I’m sure that they do. They offer all different levels of intensity. I just happen to like the firmer deep muscle treatment.”

Alessi breathed booze onto Devin’s neck. “I like it firmer, too.”

Devin was vastly relieved when the auctioneer called out, “Pens down! The silent auction has closed!”

“Damn!” cursed one of the women who was considering the Hardscrabble bid. “I thought it closed at eight-thirty!”

“No, they
said
it closed at eight, Regina!” harped the other one. “You never listen.”

“You never tell me anything,” sniped Regina.

Pivoting on one foot, Devin swiped up the bid sheet.
Aha
. Lacey Dvorak had easily won the bid, as she’d added about two hundred dollars to top the next highest bidder.
Maybe she doesn’t even recognize me, and just likes to give money to the community
. This idea was out the window when Devin turned back to the main dining room and smashed directly into Lacey.

Her voluptuous bosom remained plastered to his chest, as a crowd milled around, clamoring to see who’d won the bids, and crushed the two together. Lacey’s flowery perfume wafted up to Devin, and her pretty cornflower eyes sparkled brightly. “Oh! Devin Jonas! So good to finally meet you.”

This isn’t going to work. I can’t be near this woman without becoming aroused.
He’d make sure to have his ranch manager show her the ropes when she came for her long weekend. The cook, wranglers, and hands could occupy the rest of her time. They’d be so shocked to have a pretty, straight woman on the land they’d stampede each other to get to her. How could that moronic yogurt shop guy have let her go? Devin had seen Ben earlier, not with the very young lingerie shop girl but with a different inappropriately young girl. “You’re Lacey, right? Looks like you won the bid.” He tried to distract Lacey by waving the bid sheet, but a worker came by and whipped it from his hand.
Good. Don’t want her to see she left two hundred bucks on the table.

“Oh, I’m
so
glad,” she said sincerely. “I always wondered what goes on at a ranch. Is it all right if I bring my girlfriend as my plus one?”

Girlfriend? Dear God, no.
Maybe that Ben idiot had driven Lacey to play for the other team! Well, that would solve his dilemma. Chase could lust all he wanted, Lacey would never reciprocate. “Oh, yeah. You can bring whoever you want, of course. There’s something about the ranch that just attracts lesbians for some reason. This is the sixth year I’ll be hosting a couple of women.”

“Oh,
no
,” Lacey assured him. She even placed a hand on his chest by way of protest. “We’re not lesbians. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” She had a lovely giggle, and her front incisors reminded him of a perky cartoon rabbit. He liked that she was somewhat “flawed” by current standards. It was tiring keeping up with Chase. One couldn’t walk down a street with Chase without a hundred people stopping dead in their tracks, inviting him to appear in their television commercials. It really didn’t enhance a guy’s feeling of security. “No, Katrina has been my best friend since childhood. Isn’t it funny how best friends seem to last longer than spouses or partners? Ah, well.”

Her pretty sigh made Devin want to put his arms around her and draw her close, and he knew his penis was elongating against his thigh. His boxer briefs and tight 501s helped keep things in check, but he knew from wide and unfortunate experience that an erection would still be noticeable a mile away. He’d better fade into the crowd fast. Instead, he found himself moronically saying, “I’m hoping that’s not always true. I’m hoping that a lover can be a best friend as well, that they don’t always come and go.”

Lacey looked wistfully at the pit of his throat. “Well, Katrina’s outlasted about ten boyfriends and a husband of mine. I know I need to just pick up my boot heels and move on, or whatever they say, but this is getting ridiculous.”

“Well,” said Devin, “you’re a gorgeous woman, and you seem very sweet and kind. Any man would be a moron to let you go.”

Lacey tilted her head and looked Devin in the eye. He could see a layer of pain beneath the false cheer she was affecting. “Well.
You’re
the sweet one for saying so. I have a bad feeling it’s only other gay men who agree with you.”

“No, I’m not—”

“It doesn’t really help,” Lacey said, leaning in confidentially and rubbing her satin-clad nipples against his chest, “that six months ago I agreed to auction myself off tonight, back when I was still married.” She laughed bitterly. “I know these dating auctions are a farce and most people don’t wind up actually
going
on the date and it’s all for charity, but
still
. It’s not going to help my self-esteem now that, obviously, my ex-husband isn’t going to bid on me but on some lingerie shop bimbo instead. I’ll probably wind up going for twenty-five dollars to some Folsom inmate who bids online.”

“That’s not true,” Devin said earnestly. “I saw Ben Pearson just a few minutes ago with some other girl, not Brittney from the lingerie shop.”

Devin instantly wished he could rewind this damned conversation by thirty seconds. He’d never seen anyone’s face literally fall that completely and utterly. She brought her hands to her face and seemed to be looking right through Devin to a spot about a mile away.

Devin put his hands on her bare shoulders. He hadn’t touched a woman in two years and her soft skin stiffened his cock even more fully. “I didn’t mean that, Lacey. I meant that I just saw him standing next to a gal who wasn’t Brittney.”

She recoiled from his touch. “
God!
I’ll be
lucky
to get the goddamned Folsom inmate! They probably don’t let death row inmates use the computer!” And she turned and ran off.

Devin wanted to kill himself. How could he have screwed up that encounter so badly? Now she not only thought he was gay, but she thought he was a gay asshole.

He had to make this up to Lacey in some way. He headed off to see the silent auction coordinator who had taken the bid sheet.

On his way he had a brief glimpse of Ben Pearson. Ben had his hand on the back of the new dark-haired girl, but he shot Devin a distinctly dirty look. There was no mistaking that look.

Ben narrowed his eyes at Devin because Devin had been talking to his ex-wife.

Devin Jonas was right.

Ben, sitting about four enormous round tables away from Lacey, had bid on the model-perfect Cleopatra gal with the ski jump nose. She looked all of eighteen at the most, and another guy bidding on her looked to be her twenty-year-old brother. Maybe Ben had arranged the bidding war with the brother, as Ben made a big show out of jumping up and waving his paddle around whenever he wanted to outbid the brother, when he could’ve just sat there and touched his nose or whatever bidders did.

But he wasn’t bidding on Brittney. For whatever good that did.

“Let me ask around, find out who that girl is,” Katrina had said, and slipped away from their table.

Suddenly Lacey wanted to say,
But you know what, Katrina? I don’t care. Ben’s life is a mess. Is now and always was. He parties till six in the morning and barely ever goes into his stupid yogurt shop. He’s thirty-five—a bit too old for his daddy to be bailing him out, isn’t he?

She didn’t even really
want
Ben anymore. After all, hadn’t
she
been the one who had walked out, to her own great financial disadvantage? She had known she couldn’t live that way anymore. Apparently Brittney had come to the same conclusion.

The auctioneer bellowed, “And the lovely Madison Simon of Pretty Jung Things has been won by the genteel, famous, all-around good guy Ben Pearson of Pearson Yogurt for fifteen hundred dollars. Ben’s Valentine’s Day will be made in heaven this year! Or should I say—heh-heh—
Ben
will be made in heaven this year?”

Lacey made a lip fart as Ben stood and took a bow like a prize fighter, fists clenched together in victory. She only bothered glancing at her ex for a split second before returning her eyes to the stage.
Whatever
.

Katrina collapsed into her chair and said breathlessly, “She works at the same lingerie shop as Brittney and she
is
eighteen. Brittney dumped Ben yesterday when she found out he was schmoozing all over Madison—”

Lacey put a hand on Katrina’s arm and looked her in the eyes. “Katrina.
I don’t care anymore
. Okay? I can’t keep mooning over a choice that
I
made myself, right? Look, Cal said he’d bid on me so I don’t look
too
heinously fat and unloved up there. And I think his dad might bid, too.” Saul Wakeman, the creepy guy who worked in the book shop, could always be counted on to drive bidding up, too. He probably liked Lacey because she was one of the few who came into his store anymore. He always gave up bidding after three hundred dollars, though.

“You
could
withdraw from the bidding.”

Lacey knew that the majority of the women putting themselves up for bids already knew who would bid—and win. There were barely ever any true wild cards, unexpected or exciting bids. It was all in the name of charity, all a tax write-off. And some show-offs did it for the recognition and popularity it gave them—like Ben. “I’m not withdrawing. Cal bidding on me isn’t any different than the years past when Ben did. It’s all pre-arranged. Now, can you take next Tuesday through Friday off your job? Tuesday is the real Valentine’s Day and I’d like to be out of town for it. Tell your boss it’s for charity. Who knows? Not
all
of those cowboys can be gay or married. Isn’t that your boss over there?”

“Yes, that’s her,” Katrina admitted. She worked at the county clerk’s office a few blocks from Delight Hardware. “The cowboy thing does sound fun. Will we have to sleep on the floor of a barn?”

“I don’t know, but if it means even a couple glances at that mouth-watering Roman god in the cowboy hat, I’m all in.”

Katrina grinned widely at her friend. “Well! It’s good to see you interested in someone other than that Neanderthal Ben.”

Lacey burst out into a genuine peal of laughter. “Neanderthal? Oh my God. That’s rich. He
does
look like a fucking Neanderthal with that low hairline. Good one, Katrina!”

Katrina’s face abruptly slackened. She grabbed Lacey’s hand with a claw of horror, and her eyes bugged out. “I see what you mean about the Roman god. Holy shit. He’s got an ass you could bounce a quarter off of.”