Reese Ryan - His Until Midnight

“Ms. Rose seems like a perfectly reasonable woman to me. And she loves you like crazy. I’m pretty sure if you’d turned her down she would’ve gotten over it fairly quickly.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But the truth is that I owe my grandmother so much. Don’t know where I would’ve ended up if it wasn’t for her. Makes it hard to say no.” A shadow of sadness passed over his handsome face, tugging at Tessa’s heart.

Daniel had been raised by Rose Clayton after his own mother dumped him on her. It made Tessa’s heart ache for him. She couldn’t imagine the pain Daniel must feel at being abandoned by a woman who preferred drugs and booze to her own son.

“Of course.” Tess nodded, regretting her earlier flippant words. She hadn’t considered the special relationship that Daniel had with his grandmother and how grateful he must be to her. “I wasn’t thinking.”

They were both quiet for a moment, when she remembered his earlier words.

“You said ‘for one thing.’ What’s the other reason you didn’t want to do this?”

The pained look on Daniel’s face carved deep lines in his forehead and between his brows. He drained the glass of whiskey in his hand.

“It’s nothing,” he said in a dismissive tone that made it clear that they wouldn’t be discussing it any further.

She was digging herself deeper into a hole with every question she asked of Daniel tonight. Better for her to move on. She wished him luck and made her way over to the buffet table.

“Hey, Tessa.” Lloyd Richardson put another slider on his small plate. “Wow, you look pretty amazing.”

“Thanks, Lloyd.” She decided against the slider and put some carrots and a cherry tomato on her plate instead.

There wasn’t much room to spare in her fitted pantsuit. She wore a jacket over the sleeveless garment to hide the large cutout that revealed most of her back. That had been one idea of Rachel’s for which she’d been grateful.

“Hey, you must be plum sick of people saying that to you by now.” Lloyd seemed to recognize the discomfort she felt at all of the additional attention she’d been getting.

Tess gave him a grateful smile. No wonder her friend Gail Walker had a crush on Lloyd. He was handsome, sweet and almost a little shy. Which was probably why he hadn’t made a move on Gail, since he certainly seemed interested in her.

“Okay, bachelors and bachelorette.” Alexis acknowledged Tess with a slight smile. “The proceedings will begin in about ten minutes. So finish eating, take a quick bathroom break, whatever you need to do so you’ll be ready to go on when your number is called.”

Alexis had her serious, drill sergeant face on. Something Tessa knew firsthand that a woman needed to adopt when she was responsible for managing a crew of men—be they ranchers or ranch hands.

Still, there was something in her eyes. Had she been crying?

Before she could approach Alexis and ask if she was all right, she noticed the look Alexis and Daniel Clayton exchanged. It was brief, but meaningful. Chock full of pain.

Could Alexis be the other reason Daniel hadn’t wanted to be in the bachelor auction? But from the look of things, whatever was going on between them certainly wasn’t sunshine and roses.

Tessa caught up with Alexis as she grabbed the door handle.

“Alexis.” Tessa lowered her voice as she studied her friend’s face. “Is everything okay? You look like you’ve been—”

“I’m fine.” Alexis swiped at the corner of one eye, her gaze cast downward. “I just... I’m fine.” She forced a smile, finally raising her eyes to meet Tessa’s. “You’re going to kill them tonight. Just wait until you come out of that jacket. We’re going to have to scrape everyone’s jaws off the floor.” She patted Tess’s shoulder. “I’d tell you good luck, but something tells me that you aren’t going to need it tonight.”

With that, Alexis dipped out of the green room and was gone.

When Tess turned around, Daniel was standing there, staring after the other woman. He quickly turned away, busying himself with grabbing a bottle of water from the table.

There was definitely something going on with the two of them. And if there was, Tessa could understand why they wouldn’t want to make their relationship public. Daniel’s grandmother, Rose Clayton, and Alexis’s grandfather, Gus Slade, once an item, had been feuding for years.

In recent months, they seemed to at least have found the civility to be decent toward one another. Most likely for the sake of everyone around them. Still, there was no love lost between those two families.

“Looks like Royal has its very own Romeo and Juliet,” she muttered under her breath.

Tess took her seat, her hands trembling slightly and butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She closed her eyes, imagining how Ryan would react to seeing her out there on that stage.

Five

Ryan hung back at the bar as the bachelor auction wound down. There were just a couple more bachelors on the list, then Tess would be up.

He gulped the glass of water with lemon he was drinking. He’d talked to just about everyone here. But with neither Tripp nor Tess to hang out with, he’d been ready to leave nearly an hour ago.

Then again, his discomfort had little to do with him going stag for the night and everything to do with the fact that his best friend would be trotted out onto the stage and bid on. His gaze shifted around the garden at the unattached men in attendance. Most of them were members of the Texas Cattleman’s Club. Some of them second, third or even fourth generation. All of them were good people, as far as he knew. So why was he assessing them all suspiciously? Wondering which of them would bid on his best friend.

The next bachelor, Lloyd Richardson, was called onto the stage and Alexis read his bio. Women were chomping at the bit to bid on the guy. Including Gail Walker. She’d started with a low, reasonable bid. But four or five other women were countering her bids as quickly as she was making them.

First the bid was in the hundreds, then the thousands. Suddenly, Steena Goodman, a wealthy older woman whose husband had been active in the club for many years before his death, stood and placed her final bid. Fifty-thousand dollars.

Ryan nearly coughed. What was it about this guy that had everyone up in arms?

Steena’s bid was much higher than the previous bid of nine thousand dollars. The competing bidders pouted, acknowledging their defeat.

But not Gail. She looked angry and hurt. She stared Steena down, her arms folded and breathing heavily.

Alexis glanced back and forth at the two women for a moment. When Rachel nudged her, she cleared her throat and resumed her duties as auctioneer. “Going once, going twice—”

“One hundred thousand dollars.” Gail stared at Steena, as if daring her to outbid her.

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