Bachelor at Her Bidding (Bachelor Auction Book 2)(4)

“There’s Lexy and Dayna,” Susie said. “And they’ve already got the first round in, by the look of it.” There was a pitcher of margaritas and five glasses on the table in their booth, along with another drink that looked like a non-alcoholic cocktail especially for Hannah.

“Susie! Rach!” Lexy and Dayna greeted them with a wave and they hurried over to join them.

Rachel shrugged off her coat. “I just need to change my shoes. Just as well I brought my highest heels, seeing how you’re all dressed up,” she said with a smile.

“It’d be crazy to walk around in a Montana winter in anything other than sturdy boots,” Susie agreed. “Your feet would freeze.”

Once Lizzy and Hannah had arrived, they paid for their tickets and registered their names for bidding, even though Rachel had no intention of actually bidding for anyone. Instead she bought a pile of raffle tickets; local businesses had donated plenty of gifts which were set out on one of side tables in the overflow area upstairs.

At every seat there was a brochure – clearly done by Josh on his computer – containing details of the bachelors.

“Well, lookee here,” Dayna said as she flicked through one of the brochures. “Now there’s a surprise. Ryan Henderson’s one of the bachelors.”

Rachel searched her memory and came up blank. “Ryan Henderson?”

“He’s one of the cooks here at Grey’s,” Susie explained. “He was in my year at school – two years above you, Han and Lizzy. He’s Phyllis’s grandson.”

Now Rachel recognized the name. “Phyllis Henderson, the math teacher?”

“The one who got me through my exams,” Dayna said. “That would be her.”

A vague memory stirred in the back of Rachel’s head. “Weren’t his parents killed when he was in elementary school?”

“Yes,” Susie said. “That’s why he lived with his grandparents.”

Rachel frowned as another memory came back. “But I thought he left Montana years ago to go live in Europe?”

“He went to train as a chef in Paris. He was always good at languages and what have you.” Lexy smiled. “He was the only boy in our year who took home economics – and he made way better brownies than Mrs. Barnes.”

“I think I remember him now,” Rachel said. “So he’s back in Marietta?”

Susie nodded. “He was a pastry chef at a fancy restaurant in Bozeman. I heard that he was going to set up his own restaurant, but then Phyllis got sick and he came home six months ago to look after her.”

“How do you mean, sick?” Rachel asked. She had a feeling that Phyllis might be registered with the family doctor practice where she worked part time, but Phyllis hadn’t been in to the office for an appointment and Rachel hadn’t done any house calls to her.

“She’s got the beginnings of dementia, like my grandfather,” Lizzy said with a grimace. “So Ry works at Grey’s while she’s at day care, four days a week, and he looks after her the rest of the time.”

On his own? That was a huge undertaking. As a family doctor, Rachel knew that dementia wasn’t the easiest of illnesses for families to deal with. If you cared for someone with dementia, you needed a lot of support. “What about his grandfather?”

“He had a stroke and died a couple of years ago. Ry wanted to come back to Marietta back then and look after Phyllis, but she wouldn’t let him.” Dayna looked sad. “Though even she has to admit she’s struggling now.”

“Dementia’s hard,” Rachel said softly. “You lose your loved one bit by bit.” It was a long goodbye, in Rachel’s experience, and not a kind one. She’d seen the disease bring families to their knees. And to have to face that on your own…

“What’s Ryan offering?” Lexy asked.

“Dinner – and a fancy dinner made by Ryan Henderson’s going to be something really special,” Susie said.

“The red velvet cheesecake he makes here is to die for, so what else he can make…” Lizzy shivered. “I agree. It’d definitely be worth bidding for dinner made by him.”

*

“Hey, look,” Susie said, tipping her head to tell everyone to look up.

Some of the bachelors were hanging over the balustrade to get a view of the audience. Rachel didn’t know all of them, though she recognized Beau Bennet from Copper Mountain Security, Jesse Grey, and Jett Casey, the former Olympian skier.

And a man who just had to be Ryan Henderson.

Clearly the bachelors had been asked to dress to fit whatever they were offering, because Ryan was wearing a white chef’s collarless tunic with a double row of buttons down the front, black trousers with a grey pinstripe, and a tall chef’s hat. Although the hat covered most of his hair, what she could see of it was dark and slightly curly. His eyes were a dark, soulful brown.

But what she really noticed was his mouth. A couple of days’ growth of stubble did nothing to disguise how full, sensual and beautiful his mouth was. The mouth of a man who understood pleasure.

A tingle ran down her spine, and she stifled it immediately.

Ryan Henderson had more than enough to deal with, looking after his sick grandmother as well as holding down a job. He didn’t need the extra complication of someone like Rachel in his life. And she wasn’t intending to bid on him anyway – or on any of the bachelors. She didn’t need complications, either. After Nick’s betrayal, trusting anyone again was going to be very hard indeed – and she wasn’t sure she’d ever quite be able to do it.