Bound to the Bachelor (Montana Born Bachelor Auction #1)(4)
Lily shook off the thought. Andie and Heath were deliriously, impossibly in love, and Lily couldn’t be happier for them. Missing her good friend was small potatoes compared to the radiant light in Andie’s eyes every time she looked at her husband.
Sometimes, life just worked out the way it was supposed to.
Lily kicked the door shut as she strode into her apartment, tossing her bag on the couch before motoring into the bedroom. She toed off her shoes at the same time that she shed her coat, kicking the former into the corner and throwing the latter on the bed. She was stripping her sweater over her head when a knock sounded on the front door.
Muttering under her breath at the interruption, she padded out of her bedroom to answer the door.
“Hey. I meant to bring this over last night – your mail got mixed up with mine somehow.” Her new neighbor, Sally, handed over a stack of envelopes.
“Oh. Thanks.”
Sally was already heading back across the hallway to her own apartment. “Good luck with the auction – it’s tonight, right?”
“You’re not coming? Don’t you want to buy yourself a man?” Lily teased.
“I’m living in a post-man world,” Sally said lightly, on the verge of shutting the door to her apartment. “So much simpler, just me and the cat.”
Lily laughed before shutting her door and racing back into the bedroom. Tossing the mail onto the bed, she practically ripped the rest of her clothes off before having the shortest shower in the history of the world. It wasn’t until she was toweling herself off afterward that she caught sight of the uppermost letter in the stack she’d thrown on the bed.
Printed across the top left corner of the thick white envelope were the words Jackson Warnock Law Associates, with a return address in Seattle. Dread thudded in the pit of her belly. She dropped the towel and reached for the letter. Her brain came up with a dozen different excuses for why she’d be receiving anything from anyone in Seattle as she tore the end off of the envelope and slid a folded sheet of paper free.
She sank onto the end of the bed as she scanned the brief letter. Stunned.
Her stepfather, Luther Pascoe, was dead. The lawyer said he’d suffered a short illness before passing nearly three months ago. They’d spent some time trying to find her, to let her know she had been left a ten thousand dollar legacy in his will.
The first emotion to hit her was relief, followed by a flash of searing anger. Then what he’d done started to sink in and her lip curled with disgust.
Because this was his way of having the last word, inserting himself into her life whether she wanted him there or not. Her stomach turned as a dozen horrible memories flashed across her mind.
Luther bellowing at her mother in the kitchen until Belinda hung her head and hunched her shoulders in defeated submission. His explosive, unpredictable temper when crossed or defied. The dark, intent look in his eyes as he entered Lily’s bedroom and pushed the door closed. The letter was shaking in her hand and she pressed it to her knees, willing away the ugly memories, pushing them back where they belonged – the past, a place she never had to visit again.
She hadn’t seen Luther since the night she climbed out her bedroom window fourteen years ago, taking nothing with her except a handful of clothes and the few dollars she’d managed to squirrel away. It had taken time, but she’d ousted him from the place he’d once occupied in her emotional landscape. These days, she barely thought of him at all.
And now he’d done this.
The chime of a text message arriving made her lift her head. She blinked, remembering where she was, what was happening tonight. The auction, Josh, Molly…
She didn’t have time for this.
Shooting to her feet, she tossed the letter onto her chest of drawers and started dressing. She tied the sash on her deep aubergine wool, wrap dress as she went in search of her phone to find out who was texting. It was Molly, letting her know she might be a little late to Grey’s as she and Josh were moving more slowly than she’d hoped. Lily texted back a quick reassurance before hastily finishing dressing. Makeup consisted of some hastily applied mascara, eye-liner and lipstick. Her hair was pinned up, with a few loose tendrils teasing around her face. A spray of perfume, and she was dragging on her long down coat, shoving her shoes into her bag and slipping on her waterproof boots. Snow was forecast for tonight, and she wasn’t ruining her black suede ankle boots for anyone.
Her mind whirled with all the things that still needed to be done as she drove back to Grey’s. She’d asked the bachelors to arrive thirty minutes before kickoff and she smiled with relief when she pushed through the double doors into the welcome warmth of the saloon and saw Jett Casey and Ryan Henderson talking with Reese at the bar.
Great. Two bachelors on deck, four to go.
“Gentleman. Bless you for showing up,” she said by way of greeting.
They swung to face her, and she had to admit they’d both scrubbed up very nicely, indeed. Ryan had on his best chef’s whites, the double-breasted tunic making his broad shoulders seem even wider than usual. Jett was in a black suit, his shirt open at the collar, a look he pulled off with easy confidence.
With a bit of luck, the ladies were going to go wild over these two tonight and lay down good money for the dates they were offering.
“Come upstairs and I’ll walk you through the running order for tonight,” she said, ascending the stairs to the overflow area Jason Grey had opened up to accommodate what they hoped would be big numbers at tonight’s function.