Charlotte Maclay - With Valor And Devotion

Surely somewhere she could find a foster family who would take both the boy and his pet. It was a crime to separate them. Boys and puppy-dog tails went together. And if someone didn’t claim Suzie within seven days, the pound would have to euthanize the dog. Kristin couldn’t bear the thought of telling Randy his dog had been put to sleep. It would break her heart as well as the boy’s.

Alice came out of the kitchen where she’d been fixing dinner for the mob of children. “Come on, Randy. Tell Ms. McCoy goodbye. It’s almost time for supper. I’ll show you where to put your things. You’re going to be sharing your bedroom with Shane and Toby. Won’t that be nice?”

Taking the boy by his shoulders, Alice gently pulled him away from Kristin.

His big, brown eyes locked on Kristin. “Can you go see Suzie? Tell her I didn’t forget her.”

Kristin nodded, though nowhere in her job description did it say she had to drop by a pound to visit a client’s dog, nor was there any time in her hectic schedule for that kind of an excursion. But maybe she’d go anyway. Maybe she could convince the animal shelter to hold off any final decision about the dog’s fate long enough for her to find a suitable family.

Then again, as firefighter Mike Gables had suggested, bureaucrats often made decisions based solely on rules they felt compelled to follow. Kristin could defend the system until she was blue in the face, but she acknowledged there were times when it simply didn’t work to the benefit of her young clients.

From the vehemence of Mike’s reaction, perhaps he had learned that lesson in a very personal way. She couldn’t help but wonder where and how.

WHEN THE PHONE rang, Kristin had been back in her office only long enough to note that the pile of case files on her desk had grown by a foot in her absence. The darn things multiplied faster than rabbits!

She picked up the phone. “McCoy.”

“Hey, girlfriend, what’re you doin’ Wednesday night?”

Kristin rolled her eyes. “Well, let me think, Addy. I’ve scheduled a quick flight to the Riviera. Thought I’d drop a few thousand dollars on the roulette tables then buzz back home in time to get to work the next morning. Of course, Las Vegas would be closer and cheaper, but you know me—a party girl at heart.”

“Which is why I called you. Your social life sucks big time.”

“I like my quiet life—”

“We’re all going out Wednesday night and there’s no way I’m going to accept a no from you unless, heaven forbid, there’s a death in your family.”

“Addy, I don’t do blind dates.” She rarely dated at all, and then only reluctantly, when one of her brothers absolutely forced a buddy on her and she couldn’t refuse.

“Who said anything about a date? It’s us girls—Connie, Janice, Holly Mae, you and me. We’re gonna have us a high ol’ time out on the town.”

They were her friends, too, all of them employed by the hospital in one capacity or another. Still, Kristin stalled. “Well…”

“Trust me, girlfriend. You need a break and so do we. It’s not like being a nurse is all that much more fun than going around wiping the noses of whiny little kids who’d just as soon kick you in the—”

“Addy!” Kristin laughed. If there was a softer touch in the world than Addy, Kristin had never met her. “So where are we going?”

“Uh, we’ll figure that out once we get started. For now, let’s plan to meet at the hospital about seven. We’ll go from there.”

Kristin didn’t like the hesitation she’d heard in her friend’s voice, but before she could ask for clarification, Addy said, “Gotta go, hon. There’s a big hunky UPS driver at my door. See you Wednesday.”

Left holding a silent phone, Kristin decided a night out on the town with her friends was exactly what she needed. She’d been spending far too much time in the past day or so thinking about a studly firefighter with a wicked smile and a dangerous reputation.

THEY’D tricked her!

Kristin had been thinking drinks and dinner with Addy and her friends, maybe a movie. What she got was a bachelor auction to benefit the hospital’s burn unit and an auditorium filled with giggling, out-of-control women. The aisles were crowded, the seats filling up quickly.

“There is no way I’m going to bid on anyone,” Kristin insisted.

“You don’t have to,” Addy assured her. “The looking is almost as much fun as the buying. It’s like window-shopping.”

Kristin wasn’t in the market for a bachelor of any size or shape. Forget that the money went for a good cause. She didn’t even want to look. Thinking about the absence of a special man in her life was a depressing exercise and one to be avoided.

“Look, Addy, you and the others can go ahead without me. We’ll do something together next—”

“Here we go.” Addy caught Kristin’s hand and forcefully dragged her into a row with several vacant seats. Connie was right behind her, pushing, and she was followed by the rest of Addy’s cohorts from the hospital.

Not only had they tricked Kristin, now they’d trapped her!

“You just let us know if you see anything interesting,” Connie said, settling beside Kristin.

The only thing in the room of interest to Kristin was the red Exit sign. And she couldn’t get to it without trampling an entire row of excited women.

As Kristin scrunched down in her chair in the faint hope none of her colleagues from work would see her, Connie passed Addy a big handful of money. With a smug smile, Addy tucked the wad of bills into her purse.

Kristin had the distinct impression her friends were up to some stunt she wasn’t going to like.

MIKE NOTICED her the moment he paraded out onto the stage with the other bachelors. Odd, in a sea of two hundred beautiful women, how he’d zeroed in on Kristin. Maybe it was because she was the only woman in the room who wasn’t screaming and waving. Or maybe it had to do with dynamite chemistry—on his side, at least. And he couldn’t help but wonder who she’d be bidding on.

Fire Chief Harlan Gray picked up the microphone to act as MC and auctioneer. “Good evening, ladies. I’d like to welcome you all to—”

“We don’t want any speeches, Chief,” someone shouted. “We’ve got money burning holes in our purses. Let’s have at it.”

The women in the audience whooped their approval. Instinctively, every bachelor on stage including the chief, who was a widower, stepped back a pace. These were some scary ladies. Nobody wanted to be in their way if they stampeded.

The chief sorted out the bachelors, asking Les Adams from Station Two to take center stage first. In all, about twenty bachelors were to be auctioned off, most of them firefighters, with a couple of doctors and a male nurse thrown into the mix. The bidding on Les started at a hundred dollars and made it to a hundred and fifty before running out of steam. Mike noticed Kristin wasn’t much interested in the proceedings.

An hour later, amid whistles and catcalls, Mike finally took his place out front. He grinned at the ladies and blew them a kiss, which brought another round of cheers. He’d like to do well at the auction, bring in the big bucks. In addition to an ego stroke, there was a friendly rivalry between the fire stations in town. The one that garnered the least money for the burn unit had to deliver ice cream to all the other stations.

Somebody started the bidding at two hundred. Before he could spot the first bidder, the price had gone up to two-fifty and he realized Addy Goodfellow had finally jumped into the fray with her first bid of the evening. Not Kristin, he thought with a twinge of regret. She looked like she’d rather be somewhere else.

Two-seventy-five quickly became three-fifty, and it looked like Mike was going to grab top honors for the night. Suddenly, he remembered that weeks ago Emma Jean had predicted he’d get the highest bid this year—and never be eligible for a bachelor auction again.