Bachelor in Blue Jeans
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Lauren Nichols
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16
Chapter 1
Zach Davis scowled, his humiliation building as shrieking women beyond the velvet curtain nearly drowned out the bump-and-grind music blasting from a speaker somewhere.
God help him.
God help every bachelor on the auction block this evening.
Releasing an exasperated breath, he glared down at his tiny great-aunt as she continued to fuss with the boutonniere on his tux. The tux some other poor sap should’ve been wearing.
“Aunt Etta, I swear, if I’d known why you wanted me to come over here tonight, I would’ve packed my truck and headed straight back to Nags Head.”
Etta Gardner sent him a delighted smile, her sweet, musical voice fueling his irritation. “Nonsense, dear. You’d never leave my porches in the sorry state they’re in. Why, however would I sell my house?”
She reached high to pat his cheek. “I know you’re distressed about this, but who was I to call? The bachelor who cancelled was very tall and quite brawny. You were the only person I could think of who could wear his tuxedo.”
Zach yanked down his shirt cuffs. “Lucky me.”
“Gracious, no! Lucky us that you were back in town!” Etta winced then, and quickly lowered her voice—presumably so she wasn’t overheard in the lavish country club’s crowded dining room.
She needn’t have worried. Though the foyer-turned-staging area where they stood was adjacent to the dining room, it was like Mardi Gras in there—loud and frenzied. Zach doubted the women could even hear each other.
“Just remember that tonight’s proceeds will give our needy children a lovely Christmas this year,” Etta continued, “and you’ll do just fine.”
The tag “needy children” hit home, conjuring thoughts Zach didn’t like to think about. He willed them away as Etta took a step back to assess him through her rimless bifocals.
Zach regarded her at the same time, his heart warming despite the untenable spot she’d put him in. The skinny little woman who’d shown him what love was and saved him from foster care wore a filmy-looking pink and blue flowered dress and sensible white shoes. The blue tips on her carnation corsage nearly matched the tint in her cap-cut hair.
“Very nice, dear,” she gushed. “Of course, it’s too bad you didn’t have time for a shave and a trim before you came over, but I’ve heard that some young women go for that lumberjack look. Now, how does the tux feel?”
“Frustrated and manipulated, just like the guy wearing it.”
Zach hooked an index finger inside his collar, gritting his teeth when his fingernail scraped his Adam’s apple. “And why does this collar have to be so tight? I probably have ligature marks on my neck.”
Etta shooed his hands away. “It’s not tight, it’s perfect. Don’t you dare spoil the lovely line of your bow tie.” In a flash, her smile returned, mischief brimming in her blue eyes. “Mark my words. You’ll thank me for this one day.”
“Right,” he grumbled. “What man wouldn’t want to look like an idiot in front of a bunch of people he hasn’t seen in thirteen years?”
Just then, the rowdy female auctioneer behind the curtain bellowed out a number, and Etta’s interest in turning him into something he wasn’t, fled. Scurrying to the ramp leading to the curtained-off runway, she beckoned to the bachelor who was next in line. Chad Hollister bent to hear Etta’s instructions.
Zach sent Hollister another cold once-over. He and Hollister had exchanged greetings when Zach arrived a few minutes ago, but they both knew it was all for show. They’d never liked each other. Not in high school, and not now. Blond, polished Chad had been the antithesis of everything Zach had been and still was—Joe College to Zach’s school of hard knocks. The town’s golden boy to Zach’s working stiff. Girls had flocked to Hollister like gulls to French fries. He’d had it all…expensive clothes, a flashy car and moneyed parents.
He and Zach wouldn’t have had a reason in the world to say hello to each other, much less cross swords, except they’d both fallen hard for the same girl.
Kristin.
Zach glanced back at Etta, who was wrapping up her speech in a loud stage whisper. “As soon as you’re sold, go directly to the woman who bought you, and sit at her table. And be charming, Chad. We want these ladies to bid high.”
Hollister sent her a sly wink and a sexy drawl. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Gardner. I’ll get every dime they have left in their pocketbooks.” Then the auctioneer called Hollister’s name, and Wisdom, Pennsylvania’s handsome young police chief burst through the red velvet curtain with a killer attitude and a cocky grin.
The shrieking in the dining room reached new heights.
Zach turned away in disgust, digging inside his collar again. What was it people said? The more things changed, the more they remained the same? Being fresh meat at this charity freak show didn’t seem to bother Hollister at all. But then, the jerk had always loved the limelight.
Unbidden, an image flashed of Kristin and Chad being crowned king and queen of their junior prom, but Zach shoved it away, just as he’d beaten back that disturbing reminder of his childhood. There was no reason to dwell on those thoughts anymore. He was a success now. He’d never have to feel ashamed again.
An explosion of applause and unladylike whistles signaled that Hollister had been sold, and suddenly Etta was nudging him up the ramp. “Your turn, dear. Now, will you kindly smile when you get out there?”
No, he wouldn’t. He’d be too busy praying for a power failure that would empty the damn building.
“Zachary?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” he muttered. Then, with a last impatient look at his aunt, he stepped through the curtain and onto an elevated runway lined with twinkle lights—and the room went wild.
He nearly bolted when the buxom auctioneer with the flame-red hair screeched over the melee, “My heavens, ladies, get out your checkbooks! Look what we have here! Welcome home, Zach Davis!”
Kristin’s heart stopped and she jerked her gaze up from her coffee cup to stare at the man coming down the runway. For an instant, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. It couldn’t be.
But it was.
Maybelle Parker’s boisterous voice grated over the continued applause and randy music. “We’ve got prime cut, grade-A stuff here! Zach’s a thirty-three-year-old contractor with his own business in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. And aren’t we lucky that he’s here visiting his aunt for a few weeks! We can gawk at him even after the auction!”
Someone started dinging a glass with a spoon, and half the room followed suit.
“I don’t have to tell you he’s gorgeous,” Maybelle yelled into the mike. “You can see that for yourselves. Now let’s show our hometown boy how much we appreciate his help with our local charity!”
“Twenty-five dollars!” someone shrieked from across the room.
“Thirty!” Grace Thornberry shouted from Kristin’s own table.
Feeling faintly sick, Kristin tried to block out the bidding in five-dollar increments that would keep him on the runway forever. But she couldn’t block him out. Zach seemed to come forward in slow motion.
This was no boy, she thought, despite Maybelle’s description. He was nothing like the gangly nineteen-year-old she’d loved. His teenage good looks had ripened and matured into broad shoulders, a rugged, angular face and a sexy shag of coal-black hair.
One thing hadn’t changed, though, she realized, seeing the trapped look beneath his brooding expression. He’d never liked being the center of attention—preferred to stay in the shadows where people couldn’t look too closely and make comparisons between him and his father.
So why was he parading himself this way? What could possibly make him want to stand up there in front of a hundred women who’d left responsibility and good taste at the door?
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.
The moment stretched out on tenterhooks. Then Zach’s voice softened, reminding her that they hadn’t always been distant with each other. “It never changes between us, does it, Kris? Even after all these years, sparks still fly the second we—”
She couldn’t listen to this. “I have to go. Goodbye, Zach.”
Then she strode back toward the table groupings, her stomach quaking, and every nerve ending in her body wound like a steel spring. It was illogical, irrational and unbelievable, but as much as she despised what he’d done, the chemistry they’d surrendered to the summer of their senior year was still strong, still fierce, still dangerously tempting.
And she resented it.
Zach watched her wave and smile to friends as she hurried toward the opposite end of the room, then stopped to talk to three women who’d risen to corral her. He was finally free to take a good long look. His gaze slid appreciatively over her narrow back, over the flare of her hips in the sleeveless black dress she wore, then slipped down her long, shapely legs. He took in her hair again. It was short now—not much longer than his—but silky bangs still fell below her brows, framing her wide, beautiful brown eyes. They were the confident eyes of a woman now, he decided. Clear, intelligent…and unforgiving.
He jammed his hands into his trouser pockets. He’d thought his mood couldn’t get any blacker when Etta met him at the door with the damn tux. He’d been wrong.
“Well,” Etta said wistfully, magically appearing as though he’d conjured her up. “That certainly didn’t go as well as I’d planned.”
With difficulty, Zach pulled his gaze from Kristin and glanced down at his great-aunt’s rueful expression. “What didn’t go well? The auction?”
She slipped an arm through his. “No, dear, your meeting with Kristin. I’d hoped it would be a little friendlier, but I suppose with all that’s between you, it was too much to hope for. Maybe you should stop by her shop tomorrow and try again.”
Everything in Zach stilled as he stared down at his elfin aunt, and his mind took him on a slow, sure path to trickery and deceit. “Aunt Etta, what did you do?”
“Come dear,” she said, patting his arm. “Let’s have some dessert.”
Zach stood his ground. “I don’t want dessert, I want an explanation. What did you do?”
But she was already walking toward a table where blueberry cheesecake and coffee sat untouched in front of six empty chairs. Swearing beneath his breath, Zach followed, seated her, then took the chair next to her. “You set me up! There was no sick bachelor. That’s why you wanted me here a day early.”
Without a trace of apology, Etta placed a white linen napkin on her lap. “Honestly, Zachary, we should all be grateful you decided to go into the construction business. You’d have made a dreadful detective. Didn’t you wonder why your tuxedo fit so well? The jacket, the trousers—the size fourteen shoes?”
No, he hadn’t, but then, he’d never expected Etta to bamboozle him, either. “Could we forget my deductive powers for the moment? Why in hell would you feel the need to drag me down here and put me through this?”
“Because I’ve waited years for you to marry a nice girl and bring some children into this world before I’m gone, and I’m running out of patience. When you offered to come home and get the farmhouse ready to sell, I decided that a bit of meddling was justified if it got you and Kristin talking again. It’s time.”
Zach narrowed his eyes, trying his best to follow Etta’s reasoning. “You expect me to marry Kris?” He’d have to be certifiable to want a woman who’d put his heart through a Cuisinart not once, but twice.
“Good heavens, no! She’s still mad, and I don’t blame her.” Etta shook her fork at him. “You need closure, young man. That’s what they say on the talk shows. Kristin does, too, if that three-hundred-dollar bid is any indication. The two of you need to resolve this unfinished business between you so you can get on with your lives.”
“Aunt Etta, I don’t need closure, I need ten more hours in the day. And I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have the time or the inclination to marry and start a family right now. I’ve got a construction business to run. As a matter of fact,” he added, glancing toward the exit, “I—”
He stopped abruptly as a couple separated from the small crowd that had gathered at the front of the room. Then, as he watched, Chad Hollister escorted Kristin though the wide archway and out of sight.
The words she’d said not ten minutes ago came back to him. This time he gave them more credence. Actually, I’d planned to bid on someone else, but I was in the ladies’ room when he was auctioned off.
Chad Hollister was “someone else?” Chad Hollister?
“As a matter of fact, you what?” Etta prompted.
Zach sent her a grim look and pushed to his feet. “As a matter of fact, I do have unfinished business. I was tearing off the front porch when you phoned with this trumped up emergency of yours. I need to get back to it.”
“Zachary, it’s dark, and the power and water won’t be turned on until Monday. What are you planning to use for light? Fireflies?”
He smiled. “No, Aunt Smarty-pants, I brought a generator with me. You’re catching a ride back to the high-rise with your friends, right?”
“Yes, and I wish you’d reconsider staying there with me. At least until the utilities are reconnected.”
“Again, thank you for the offer, but I’m fine where I am. With my work habits, you don’t need me stomping through your apartment in the middle of the night disrupting your sleep.”
He bent to kiss her cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening for dinner. We’ll drive into Lancaster—maybe go to that Amish farmhouse restaurant with the great chicken.”
“Go see Kristin,” Etta said ignoring his invitation. “She bought the souvenir shop on Main Street where she worked in high school and turned it into a lovely place—Forget Me Not Antiques.”
“Aunt Etta—”
“It’s not often a person gets a chance to right the wrongs from their past.”
Zach met her eyes candidly. “If I had any wrongs to right, I’d do it. I don’t. See you tomorrow for dinner.”
Ten minutes later, he’d left the tux behind and was striding across the parking lot beneath a starry summer sky, and feeling damn good to be in jeans again.
He wasn’t a tux man. He was a sweat and calluses, hammer and nails man. Now, Hollister—he was a tux man. Hollister with his fake smile, military bearing and swaggering attitude. Good God, what did Kris see in that jerk? Position? Education? It sure as hell couldn’t be personality. Hollister had been mean-spirited and cocky from the day they’d met in the same tenth grade homeroom—a kid with money who’d enjoyed lording it over the kids without. Not that Zach gave a fat fig who she dated. He’d just always thought she’d be more selective when she hooked up with someone else.
Climbing inside his truck and firing the engine, he drove toward Etta’s old farmhouse on the outskirts of town.
Though he tried to ignore it, his past swung hard at him from every bend in the road. He approached the tiny stone church Kristin had coaxed him into attending, back when he’d decided to change his bad boy image and do whatever it took to keep her. He’d taken some serious heat from his friends for that, but he hadn’t cared. The sign out front evoked a near-smile. Come In. We’re Prayer Conditioned.
Traffic got heavier when he reached the brightly lit shopping plaza that hadn’t been there in his youth, then tapered off again when he turned down a secondary road toward the “poor end” of town. He passed four houses that needed work, then slowed the truck when he got to the empty lot where the hovel he’d once lived in had stood.
There’d been no flowers on the table in that place, no clean sheets on the beds, no mother with hot meals after school. She’d cut and run when he was seven and they were living somewhere in New Mexico. A long string of different states and different flophouses had come after that, and somewhere along the line, he’d missed two whole years of school.
By the time they’d finally made their way back here—back home, his father had called it, though no brass band had shown up to meet them—Zach was fifteen and understood clearly why his mother took off. But by then, he’d built up a dandy kiss-my-ass attitude. He’d been way too cool to let anyone know how it shamed him to be Hap Davis’s son, and fifteen—not thirteen—in the eighth grade.
He saw his father again, sitting in the recliner in their pan-gray living room, empty beer bottles lined up on the floor beside him. He was glad someone had torn down the old shack. Otherwise, he might’ve been tempted to buy it and rip it down himself.
Zach clicked on a country music station and rolled down the window to let in the night air.
His usual expectations upon returning home had been met. He’d only been back a few hours, and he was already primed to leave.
