The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal Read online

  "Emily, this is Pippa Bristow. Pippa? This here's my Emily. She's about the same age as you. What grade you in now?"

  Pippa's expression grew guarded. "Fifth," she said. But it came out more like a question.

  "Ahh, so you're both in the same grade," Julie said.

  Emily had the same disarming nature as her mother. "Hi."

  "Hi," Pippa said warily.

  "You just visiting?"

  "Yeah. Something like that."

  The friendly, outgoing Pippa I had come to know retreated behind a clumsy wall. I noted the way Linda frowned. There was a story here, one I had not yet learned.

  "Emily," Julie said. "Why don't you take Pippa into the back office to play?"

  Pippa rose from her chair and, while Emily was the more self-assured of the two, Pippa's tall, slender frame towered over her by a good twenty centimeters. Emily gestured for Pippa to follow her into the back room.

  Linda and I breathed a sigh of relief at the exact same moment. We looked at each other. Julie Peterson looked between us, and then took a guess.

  "I see Pippa is shy just like her Daddy?"

  "He's not shy anymore," Linda said. She qualified that statement. "Not that he runs headlong into a social situation. He just takes a long time to warm up to people, that's all. Wants to get to know them real well before he decides whether or not he likes them."

  I thought of the tall, handsome man who helped without being asked, but if I started to pry, he grew taciturn and wary. Yup. That sounded like Adam. I filed this insight into the back of my mind. The sooner I figured out his likes and dislikes, the more smoothly this summer job would flow, especially in the close confines of living under the same roof.

  "What's he been doing the last ten years?" Julie asked. "I saw him once here in town. Waved at him, but I don't think he recognized me. Kept hoping he'd stop by the salon, but word is he keeps to himself." Her expression grew pensive as she stared at her own reflection in the wall of mirrors. "Dang, he got hunky. For a moment, I thought he was Jeffrey."

  Julie pulled out the blow dryer and silently dried Linda's hair. Most women her age liked to cut it short and dye it, but our neighbor kept it long and her natural silver. At one time, Linda Hastings had been a beautiful woman; still was, if you redefined your definition of 'beauty' to include lots of laugh lines. Julie finished up and set Linda's hair with a bit of hairspray.

  "There ya go!" Julie said, perky once more. "You'll be the belle of bingo night."

  Linda paid and tipped her as they chitchatted about one of Linda's passions, Saturday night at the church bingo hall.

  "Pippa!" I shouted. "Time to go."

  Pippa came skipping out of the back office with Emily at her heel, her earlier wariness vanished. She skidded to a stop in front of me."

  "Rosie! Guess what! Emily has a horse and his name is Polkadot!"

  "She does, does she?"

  "Yes! And she wants me to come and ride him!"

  I glanced at Julie, who was the person who had the real say, and gave her that inquisitive eyebrow that meant 'is this something you want to encourage?' I noted the way Julie gave her daughter that exact same look.

  "Yeah, Mummy! Can Pippa come over?" Emily said. "She said she went to riding camp all last summer. She rides English style. Like Sarah Colbert does."

  "Sure, honey," Julie said. She turned to me. "Emily always loves to make new friends. Here…" She reached for a small holder full of business cards. "Here's my mobile number. Why don't you give me a call and we'll set up a playdate after school."

  "Why can't Pippa come over this weekend?" Emily asked.

  "You're at your father's," Julie said. "I don't think Pippa's daddy will want her staying three towns over."

  So Julie is divorced? Getting to know Emily might help Pippa make her own adjustment better…

  "I'll speak to Adam," I said. "But his job takes him away too much as it is. I'll call you next week to set up a playdate if you don't mind?"

  That would be great." Julie gave me a disarming smile.

  My hand tingled as I took the business card from her. Warm. Friendly. Genuine.

  We said our farewells and stopped off at the IGA. While Linda instructed Pippa to go fetch the items on her shopping list, I checked my mobile, but the darned thing only had two bars. Not enough to check my voicemail or get a call through without being dropped. Besides? Who would I call who cared? I shoved the phone back into my purse, and then drove Linda back to her beautiful little house with its big, beautiful pastures and precious little barn.

  Home...

  I had eleven more weeks to figure out what the heck I wanted to do with the rest of my life now that I wasn't about to become Mrs. Gregory Schluter, find a post-summer job, and figure out where the heck I was supposed to live.

  Why was it that everybody had a home but me?

  Chapter 6

  By late Saturday afternoon, the house resembled one of those kid's television shows where a band of musical pirates descends upon your clubhouse and throws your world into utter chaos. Pippa and I hopped around the living room like two crazy wallabies, frantically picking up her latest project, a stable for her My Little Pony figurines made of glue, popsicle sticks, snips of yarn and colorful bits of paper. It was a sneaky comradery, the kind I hadn't felt since my best friend Sienna convinced me to skip school and take our horses on a trail ride.

  "Quick!" I tossed Pippa an empty popcorn bowl. "Hide the evidence!"

  She scrambled into the kitchen to wash away the buttery goodness while I tucked the cushions back into the hideous orange couch. Just as I draped the contrasting chevron afghan onto the back of the sofa, Thunderlane ran to the door and barked.

  "He's here!" Pippa bolted for the front door like an ecstatic joey. "Daddy's home!"

  Adam's sleek, silver Mercedes carefully picked its way through the ruts. It was a slender Thoroughbred, engineered for the open highway, out of place in the farmland between the inner coast and vast, ochre desert which made up the dead heart of Australia. He backed it into the spot between the ancient green ute and my own, unimpressive red Falcon, a champion racehorse settling in amongst the two stock horses. The moment he stepped out of his car, Pippa tackled her father like a pro rugby player.

  "Daddy!"

  "Hey princess!" Adam laughed. "How was your week?"

  He pulled his travel bag from the rear and followed Pippa back into the house, grinning as she yabbered about all of our naughty intrigues. He was a tall, golden god, dressed casually this evening in an immaculate white shirt buttoned down just enough to show a sprinkling of hair, dusty-looking work boots, and snug-fitting jeans that accentuated his broad shoulders, long legs and narrow hips. I held open the screen door so he didn't have to juggle his bags.

  "G'day, Senorita Xalbadora," Adam spoke with a mock Spanish accent. "I see you survived a week with my daughter."

  "She was very well behaved, for the most part." I pursed my lips in mock disapproval. "Except she took it into her head one morning to scramble her own eggs without supervision. I can say with certainty your offspring takes after her father in the kitchen."

  "That bad, ay?"

  "I think you'll need to bring home some dynamite to frack the burnt eggs out of the pan."

  "It wasn't my fault, Daddy!" Pippa protested. "I just forgot to turn the stove off."

  Adam deposited his bags inside his bedroom and turned to give his daughter a bear hug.

  "We don't actually dynamite," Adam said. "We drill and then we shake…" He grabbed Pippa by the shoulders and shook her until she broke down in a fit of giggles. "...until the gas bubbles come loose from the coal beds. Do I need to summon a drill rig, little girl, to blast away your cooking experiments?" He raised one golden eyebrow in mock disapproval.

  "Oh, Daddy!" Pippa tugged at his arm. "Rosie is exaggerating!" She giggled. "Besides … it's no worse than what you do! Remember the time you tried to bake me a birthday cake?"

  I faded into the background as
they chatted about the things each had done while the other was gone, trying to find that sweet spot between remaining helpful and staying out of their way. For a man who claimed to be a lousy father, Adam and Pippa certainly seemed to be tight. If not for the fact his work often took him away, he would make the perfect single dad.

  I busied myself cooking supper, not an elaborate meal, but even I could rustle up some chicken. Slender puffs of decadent grey smoke carried the mouth-watering scent of barbeque back into the house. Pippa, her father, and Thunderlane all piled out the kitchen door, the three of them sniffing the air like hungry dingos. Adam's face lit up when he saw the outside table had been already set.

  "Now that is a feast to come home to!" He gave me a heart-melting grin that made me blush like a bashful schoolgirl.

  "You did say it was in my own self-interest to never allow you anywhere near a stove."

  "Ay, I did," Adam said. "And you'll do right well not to forget it!"

  As we ate supper, Pippa peppered her father with questions about siting his latest gas well. His demeanor became animated as he described the men he worked with, the station that hosted their latest operation, and his tribulations to extract coal seam gas without causing any explosions. The way Adam described it sounded friendly and scientific, a vastly different story than the tales of horror told by my greenie friends.

  As soon as we finished cleaning up the dishes, Adam herded Pippa into bed. I closed my eyes and listened to the cadence of his voice as it rose and fell in a dramatic rendition of a story about a unicorn. When -I- was still a girl, each night my father broke out his flamenco guitar and sang stories before bedtime about our Gitano ancestors. It was one of the things I'd missed most after my mother had driven him away; that, and the time we'd spent together training Harvey.

  Sometime later, my enigmatic employer headed back out to his Mercedes and dug something out of the boot. His tall, muscular frame stood silhouetted against the evening dusk as he pulled a beige dust-cover over the car and tucked it into bed. Whenever Adam was around, it always felt awkward, as though I felt compelled to stare at him like some star struck teenager. I faded back from the living room curtains and pretended to read as he strolled back in so he would not notice my blatant interest. With a weary grin, he tore open the box marked White Rabbit and fished out a pair of stubbies.

  Here." Adam placed a dark glass bottle onto the coffee table. "It's a little warm, but out in the Basin we drink it any way we can."

  I pretended to look up from a tedious tome about crafting an educational pedagogy.

  "Thanks."

  He plunked a second bottle down next to it and carried the rest into the kitchen where they clinked as he unloaded them into the fridge. I picked up a bottle and studied the label. I'd seen this brand before. You didn't get through four years at the University of Queensland without becoming well-acquainted with all manner of things which had been fermented or brewed, but this was a craft brew, not the kind of beer you found on-tap at the local pub.

  Adam stalked back into the living room and sank down into the chair which Pippa had led me to the very first day I'd been here. He was far too polite to mark his territory by saying 'mine,' but every time I sat there, I'd noticed he became fidgety. From the way Pippa leaped up to occupy it the moment somebody vacated it, I surmised it was the 'king's chair,' a hideous orange 'throne' that for some reason Adam preferred.

  With a contented sigh he grabbed his bottle of White Rabbit and twisted off the cap. As his long legs stretched towards me under the coffee table, through veiled eyelashes I noted the way his designer jeans showed off his muscular thighs to advantage. He took a swig and smacked his lips like a common jackaroo kicking up at the end of the day.

  "Go ahead." Adam tilted the neck of the bottle at me. "Enjoy."

  I took a sip and relished the taste of finely brewed hops and the rich taste of dark malt as it slid down my throat, blended with a hint of raisin … definitely better than that XXXX crap Gregory and his college buddies used to drink after class. It would have tasted better had it been colder, but unlike mass-market beer which became undrinkable when warm, the White Rabbit still tasted good.

  "So," Adam scrutinized me with his vigilant blue-green eyes. "I take it you had a pleasant time with my daughter?"

  I resisted the urge to squirm.

  "Mrs. Hastings was a great help," I said. "She asked us to drive her into town."

  Adam frowned.

  "I'd avoid letting Pippa interact too much with the locals," Adam said. "The townies are prone to gossip."

  "But Pippa made a friend," I said. "Linda's hairdresser said she went to school with you. Her daughter Emily is the same age as Pippa."

  "Julie Peterson?" Adam's eyebrows shot up with curiosity. "How's she doing? I haven't seen her in years."

  "Recently divorced," I said. "And exceptionally nosy about what, I quote, 'that hunky boss of yours has been doing for the past ten years.'" I laughed as Adam turned a deeper shade of suntan. "It sounds like she had a 'thang' for you back in high school?"

  "I'd kinda forgotten that part," Adam mumbled into his bottle of White Rabbit. "Some things you'd just rather forget."

  "Well she gave me her business card in case I want to arrange a playdate between Pippa and Emily." I gave him an arched eyebrow. "Though I got the impression she hopes you will bring Pippa for a visit, not me."

  Adam's expression hardened.

  "Not likely," he said curtly. "The last thing I want is to get involved with a woman."

  His words hit me in the gut. I don't know why. Everything he'd done since the day I'd first lay eyes upon the man had communicated, 'don't touch me … if you do I'll run away.' He reminded me of a Thoroughbred that'd just come off the racetrack after being badly injured, skittish as hell and too high strung for a normal person to ride. I could tell his former wife had hurt him … badly. A lot more badly, I suspected, than Gregory's betrayal had hurt me.

  Adam interrupted my inner musings.

  "Did anybody call while I was gone?"

  "Just Mrs. Hastings," I said. "And Julie Peterson, to arrange a playdate with Pippa and her daughter."

  "What did you tell her?" Adam eyed me with suspicion.

  "I told her you were arriving home today and I thought Pippa would want to spend the weekend with her father." I leaned back, a bit unsettled by Adam's sudden change in demeanor.

  "Did you receive any hang-up calls?"

  "Yes," I said. "I thought they were from you."

  Adam scowled.

  "I'd prefer if you never let Pippa answer the phone." He gave me a pointed look. "If her mother calls, let her speak to her, but let me know afterward so I can make sure Pippa doesn't act 'off.' Eva's calls usually upset her."

  'Thanks for the warning…' I thought sarcastically to myself.

  "Okay," I said aloud.

  Adam stared down the neck of his beer bottle, his expression thoughtful.

  "Ask," he finally said softly. "If you're going to deal with this bloody mess, you probably need to know."

  "How long have you been divorced?"

  "It's not yet final," Adam said. "Her father is a very wealthy man. He's been running my legal team into the ground."

  "I thought she dumped Pippa off with you?"

  "She did," Adam said. "But then her father got involved. He didn't take it too kindly when I quit my job and went to work for his chief competitor."

  "You used to work for Eva's father?" A light bulb went off. Geologist. Coal seam gas extraction. The 'magic oil man.' A prize being fought over by two energy companies. This was that Adam Bristow? And nobody had bothered mentioning that fact? Holy shyte! What had I gotten myself into?

  Eva Jackson was a fabulously wealthy oil heiress who had married a 'nobody' from a cattle station at the edge of the outback. Word in the news was that the Jackson Oil heiress' husband had violated a non-compete agreement when he'd quit working for her father and taken his extraction experience elsewhere, along with rumors
of Eva's marital infidelity. The small wildcat operation he'd gone to work for had hit pay dirt thanks to Adam's expertise.

  "It's not what the media is saying." Adam leaned back and shut his eyes. "I just got sick of looking the other way because Eva's daddy owned my soul."

  "Why the smear campaign?"

  "Eva is angry our divorce has aired some dirty laundry," Adam said. "She has gone on the offensive, and she has the media contacts to make sure the story remains one-sided."

  "But aren't you entitled to half of everything she owns?"

  "Her father made me sign a pre-nuptial agreement when I married her," Adam said. "What's hers is hers, but I never made her sign a pre-nup back, so anything that's mine is also half-hers." Adam leaned forward and pressed his forehead into his hands. "It's not about the money. I told her she could keep the house in Brisbane and anything else we bought together. I just want what's best for Pippa."

  Adam's reticence all of a sudden made sense.

  "When will your divorce be final?"

  "When Eva runs out of things to take away from me," Adam sighed. He fiddled with his bottle. "If all goes well, by the end of January the case will go to trial, but I keep waiting for the next landmine to blow up."

  "Why hasn't she tried to take Pippa, then?" I wracked my brains, trying to recall exactly what the rag-sheets claimed. "It's unusual for the dad to win custody, especially a father who travels as much as you."

  Adam grimaced.

  "Our daughter has always been an afterthought with Eva. The judge recognized that and awarded temporary custody to me."

  Linda Hastings had said 'sometimes doing the right thing isn't the right thing to do.' I didn't dare ask the question, for I didn't know Adam well enough to pry, but hadn't -I- just been lusting after the man? For somebody who went out of his way to avoid attracting female attention, women were drawn to him, no matter how hard he tried to signal he wasn't interested.

  "At some point," Adam said wearily, "I suppose Eva will subpoena you into court to testify what a lousy father I am. She'll claim she's a saint because she contacted Roberta Dingle to hire a teacher. It will play well for the media."