Maureen Child - The Highest Bidder

“I have. And I’ll leave you in peace to eat yours once we talk about this.”

“Hey, I’m sorry Jocelyn turned you down, but I gotta say…”

Brady hesitated and Carter pressed him. “Say what?”

“Fine, I’ll tell you, since you’re intent on knowing the truth. I don’t care for the woman, but I kept my mouth shut after you two started dating. She visited Regina time and again and was always bad-mouthing the old lady. Like her grandmother was a burden or something. Regina loves that girl something fierce, and it pained me to see it. Don’t get me wrong—Jocelyn’s pretty and all, and I suppose she has some nice qualities. Obviously, you thought so. I believed it was just me thinking she was uppity. She was forever coming over here, asking me to help her with Regina. Not that I minded helping the old lady, but Jocelyn had a way about her that put me off.”

Relieved, Carter took it all in. “You didn’t tell me any of this.”

“I didn’t think it was getting serious between you. I mean, Jocelyn made it seem—”

“What?”

With a shake of his head, Brady refused him an answer. “Nothing. She doesn’t matter. How’re you doing with all this? You were fixed on marrying her and settling down. Man, I hate to say this, but you’re probably better off.”

Carter glared at him, hating to hear the truth.

“I’m sorry. But you asked.” Brady went inside the house and returned with two beers in his hands. “Here you go. Drown your sorrows.”

Carter’s mouth twisted. He grabbed the bottle. “According to you, I should be celebrating.”

Brady took a swig and nodded. “We’ve always been honest with each other.”

Carter lifted the bottle to his mouth, tilted his head way back and guzzled half of the beer in one huge gulp. “True. Man, this is tough, but I got to tell you why she broke it off with me.”

Brady began shaking his head. “No, you don’t. Not if it’s personal, you don’t.”

“It involves you, Brady. I have to so you and I will be square. I don’t want anything coming between us. Hell, you’re all the family I got.”

“Not true. You have Riley.”

Carter blew that notion off, swearing an oath.

“He’s your father,” Brady said.

“As I said, you’re all the family I got. Getting back to Jocelyn, it seems the whole time she was lying with me at night, she was thinking about you.”

A sharp intake of breath pulled Brady’s chest in. His voice elevated. “What?”

“She claims she’s in love with you.”

Brady began shaking his head. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s the reason she gave me, and she made no bones about it. She was clear as day. She was trying to make you jealous.” Carter waited a beat. “Were you?”

Brady set his beer down and looked him in the eye. “No. Never even occurred to me. I thought you were making a mistake, but if you two were happy, I was staying out of it.”

“Okay. I gotcha. Just had to know.”

“Man, I’m sorry.”

Carter finished the rest of his beer and cocked him a crooked smile. “For being irresistible?”

“For you getting hurt.”

He couldn’t deny he wasn’t feeling hurt, angry, betrayed and a mess of other emotions, but he’d learned his lesson. “It won’t happen again. I’m off the market for marriage now.”

Brady lowered his voice. “She really did a number on you.”

Carter’s lips twisted again. “I’ll get over it.”

It wasn’t just Jocelyn that he’d lost, but the possibility of a wife and family that, now, he wouldn’t allow to remotely enter his mind. He was through. Finished. Done. It was liberating, even through the pain.

“You can eat your supper.”

“Thanks, now that you’ve ruined my appetite.”

“Right,” Carter said without a hint of remorse. Brady’s appetite rivaled his own. That was at least a fourteen-ounce steak he was grilling up. Carter knew beef like nobody’s business.

He shook his cousin’s hand. “Stop by the house soon. I brought home a houseguest. I’d like you to meet her.”

Brady’s brows flew to his hairline. “ Her ? You brought a woman home from New York? Man, you don’t waste any time.”

Laughter rose up from his throat. “It’s not like that. Macy is—”

“Macy? Is she old? Fat? Ugly?”

Carter didn’t have to think twice. “Pretty, bordering on beautiful. Around twenty-six years old and shaped like a goddess—well, a slender goddess.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Brady’s expression changed to disbelief. “This is a joke.”

“It’s no joke, but it’s not what it seems.”

Carter took the next few minutes explaining to his cousin about how he met Macy right after being dumped and the odd sort of kinship he felt toward her after seeing her being attacked by the paparazzi. She needed someone’s protection, and he’d been there. She’d been a vital distraction to his heartache, too, and he wasn’t sorry he’d asked her to stay at Wild River.

Brady scratched his head. “Okay, I’ll stop by sometime.”

“Good. Your steak’s getting cold. Eat. I’m outta here.”

Carter was almost out of Brady’s backyard when his cousin’s wry voice stopped him cold. “Wonder what Jocelyn would say if she found out you have a gorgeous female houseguest?”

Carter pivoted on his heels to face Brady. “Now, how would she find out something like that?”

“Maybe I’ll just mention it to Regina tomorrow when I’m fixing her shelves.”

He shrugged. Jocelyn wasn’t his concern anymore. But payback was a bitch. “Whatever floats your boat, cuz. Just don’t mention Macy’s name.”

Brady nodded with a wicked smile.

And then Carter was off.

Soft, inky locks of hair curled at the base of Macy’s neck in damp wisps. Her attempt at piling those strands on top of her head wasn’t working too well, and the whole picture she made sitting on the lounge chair at the pool captured Carter’s attention from the kitchen doorway. Her soft shoulders were exposed and glowing golden, as was every inch of her skin but for the strip of snow-white material covering her curves in a two-piece swimsuit. His mouth had nearly dropped to the ground when she’d found that bikini at the River Rags clothing store in town a few days back.

Carter had tried to talk her out of buying the damn bikini. The point of shopping for clothes was to make her look less conspicuous, not draw any unwanted attention. But her argument had made sense. “No one will see me in it. And I love getting a good tan.”

Apparently, she hadn’t thought he’d counted.

Because he saw her wearing it, and the image wasn’t one he’d likely forget.

She looked rested, which was the plan, and she had stayed out of his hair, just as she’d promised. Trouble was, Carter had seen glimpses of her quiet pool time for three days straight and had wanted to join her.

She came from a different world, he told himself. And he’d already been burned.

Good sense had him turning away from the kitchen sliding glass door, But her inquisitive voice carried to his ears. “Is that you, Carter?”

“Uh-huh. It’s me. But don’t let me disturb you.”

“I can use some disturbing.” Her voice held a gentle ring of frustration. She closed the book and turned her pretty violet eyes on him.

He strolled outside and sat down in a wrought-iron chair in the shade three feet away from her.

“Chicken,” she said with laughter in her voice.

He unfastened the top two buttons on his shirt. “Must be ninety degrees out here. I do enough baking out on the range.”

She tilted her head to the side and then shot a glance over the deep blue waters of his massive pool and the beautiful garden surrounding it. “You could actually use your own pool, you know.”