Sold! In the Show Me State Read online

  But he was a man, and nobody cared about his feelings. Least of all him. He didn’t even want to admit he had feelings.

  So he sank into his part and struck a pose that an underwear model could take notes on.

  “Okay, Chandler, let’s keep it PG. No Elvis impersonators here.” Mr. Humphries fingered the gavel in his hand.

  Chandler shoved his hands in his pockets and affected a slouched, pouting look, like the latest teen idols.

  He was pretty sure a couple of girls in the front were wiping drool off their cheeks. Yeah, sliding into the part was easy. Being himself had always been what was hard.

  Suddenly the thought struck him: if he were being himself, how would he stand?

  That was easy. He wouldn’t be on the stage begin with.

  He’d always loved acting, but he loved it because it was fun, and he enjoyed making people laugh and even telling a story.

  Somewhere along the line, it had stopped being so simple.

  Mr. Humphries took out a clipboard and began to read. Chandler had already seen the instructions and agreed to them. They basically said that the winner agreed to feed and house him and not do anything immoral.

  It was an agreement that would not hold up in a court of law, and everyone knew that it was basically up to him to keep his word and up to the person who bought him to be reasonable. He hardly thought there would be anyone purchasing him that would have any issues, and most of the townspeople probably felt the same.

  The burden was on him.

  When Mr. Humphries finished reading, Chandler shifted, like a model on the runway. He’d been offered several modeling gigs and always turned them down. He wasn’t interested in being a clothes hanger. But he could play the part. That was what he did best.

  Despite the number of people in the room, which included a lot of children, a hush descended as Mr. Humphrey started the bidding off. It quickly went to two hundred dollars and continued up.

  Chandler hadn’t had any idea of what he might sell for, but he was kind of surprised when, in a very short amount of time, the bids were over one thousand dollars.

  Cowboy Crossing was a hardworking community, with good people, hearty and diligent. But there weren’t a lot of wealthy folk. They were all very solidly middle working class.

  He shifted again to the delight of the crowd and didn’t really pay attention to the bidding. He knew his mom had raised her hand a few times, and he saw his brother Clark and a couple other brothers bidding on him.

  That’s kind of what he expected to happen. One of his brothers would win. Even his mom. If she were bidding, his brothers wouldn’t bid against her except to have a little fun.

  The bids kept going up until eventually it was just his mom and someone he couldn’t see in the back. He was in character though, and he couldn’t act like he was looking. He wasn’t supposed to care. He was supposed be cocky and arrogant and sure of himself, not completely concerned that some stranger he didn’t even know was going to beat his mom out and take him home with them.

  His dad stood on one side of his mother, and his brother Deacon stood on the other. When the bid got up to four thousand, five hundred dollars, Deacon leaned over and said something to his mother. The bidding slowed, and at four thousand, nine hundred, his mother quit.

  “I have four thousand, nine hundred. Can I have five? Give me five.” Mr. Humphries’s voice droned on and on in that singsong chant that auctioneers everywhere used to lure people and hypnotize them into bidding mindlessly.

  Chandler almost smiled at that. His mother would never bid mindlessly, and he was pretty shocked that she would have spent so much money to begin with. Normally she was quite frugal. Living as a farmer’s wife, she hadn’t had much choice.

  Finally, Mr. Humphries scanned the crowd one last time then banged the gavel on the desk. “Sold!”

  There was a bit of a silence from the crowd as everyone craned their heads, trying to figure out who, exactly, had bought him. Chandler was curious too, but his part didn’t allow him to act it.

  He gave a cocky grin and looked at Mr. Humphries. “Four thousand, nine hundred. Is that all you got for me? Man, I think I need to go back to Hollywood. Their pay is slightly higher.”

  People were still turned around peering at the back, but the crowd laughed as he had intended.

  “But they don’t love you like we do!” someone shouted from the right side of the room. He couldn’t see who it was, and it really didn’t matter. They might think they loved him, but they couldn’t, because they didn’t know him.

  Suddenly the energy in the crowd changed. It seemed that it was equal parts horrified, shocked, and dismayed.

  Slowly, like the Red Sea, it parted, and a small figure in baggy clothing walked through the opening. A hooded sweatshirt, big enough to fit him and at least three sizes too big for the thin person that was headed toward the stage, draped over narrow shoulders, even more narrow hips, and skinny thighs.

  At first glance, Chandler thought it was an old lady, since the hair falling out of the beanie almost looked white in the fluorescent lights.

  White blond.

  Chandler’s stomach felt like a boulder that had let loose from the top of the mountain, dipping and crashing and rolling.

  It wasn’t a little old lady.

  It was the daughter of the town prostitute.

  Chapter 3

  Ivory walked slowly through the crowd, her stomach clenched and shaking like a fist at a sky that refused to rain. Her chin was up. She kept her eyes staring straight ahead, ignoring the whispers and the shocked gasps as each step took her closer to the stage where the man she’d bought for the next thirty days stood with his mouth open and a horrified expression on his face.

  That expression made her want to cackle, only partly because she was nervous. Obviously, the golden boy hadn’t been expecting her, of all people, to be purchasing him. Those wide blue eyes and the brows that reached almost to his golden hairline shouted louder than a tractor throttle on wide open that he was definitely worried she’d live up to, if not her own reputation, her mother’s.

  She tried not to let the thought hurt, but her heart pinched. It always did. It seemed like one could never escape one’s childhood.

  She doubted she’d ever have children. If she were ever to have a hope of getting married—which she didn’t, by the way—she would have to move away. But, just saying, if she did, her children were going to have a good childhood. Solid and steady.

  She’d reached the stage and climbed the stairs slowly, so Mr. Humphries had enough time to get his tongue back in his mouth and his jaw closed and a decent expression on his face to cover the horrified one that had landed there when he’d realized to whom he’d sold Chandler Hudson.

  She kept her eyes blank and her face bare. She saw humor in the situation, but it also hurt, and she wouldn’t let either emotion show. Years of being teased by her classmates and by people like Chandler Hudson had taught her that it was best to keep emotions hidden.

  “You have to read this, and if you agree to the conditions, you need to sign the bottom.” To his credit, Mr. Humphries paused before he lowered his voice and said, “If you need someone to read it to you, we can arrange for that.”

  In her best cultured tone, Ivory said, “I can read it myself, thank you.” She reached for the clipboard, realizing her dirty hands negated the image she tried to convey with the tone of her words.

  Her goats had gotten out, and she’d been putting them in and fixing the fence before she left. She’d been in a rush, concerned she was going to miss the auction completely, and arrived late.

  She’d never expected to get here, be given money by an anonymous man, and be standing here now, having purchased the person she’d hated since she was sixteen.

  That smirk tried to turn up again.

  If the Bible verse was correct, and one truly did reap what one sowed, Chandler Hudson was going to have an interesting harvest.

  She scribbled her
name on the bottom line after skimming over the paragraphs. Basically, they said she wasn’t going to make Chandler a sex slave, she’d feed him, and if she violated those two things, Chandler was free to go.

  He didn’t have to worry in the slightest about the first, and while there might not be a whole lot of money at her farm, she had plenty of food. She wasn’t worried about the second either.

  Mr. Humphries reached down and took the clipboard that she handed back to him. There seemed to be some concern on his face, as his jaw flexed, and he looked from Ivory to Chandler and back again.

  The crowd seemed to hold its breath in anticipation.

  Ivory wanted to believe Mr. Humphries’s concern was for her, but she doubted it. Still, the man had too much class to tell Chandler he felt bad for him or any other such nonsense.

  “Well then,” he said into the microphone, sounding tinny over the makeshift loudspeakers. “Everybody, give these two a hand. Ivory Haines just bought Chandler Hudson for the next thirty days. Y’all can say your goodbyes to him if you want.” He moved his face away from the microphone and looked at Chandler. “Miss Lynette said you’d be packed and ready to go.”

  “I am.” Up until that point, Chandler had been cocky and arrogant. But those two words sounded fatalistic. Maybe he was playing to the crowd, because they laughed.

  Ivory swallowed. Still making fun of her, even after all this time.

  “Guess I gotta go do my duty for the tornado victims.” He sounded like a martyr ready to be burned at the stake, offering himself for some good cause.

  She wanted to spit in his face and tell him she didn’t want him. Embarrass him in front of all these people like he was doing to her, had done to her. The temptation was almost overwhelming, and her mouth opened, but her brain said wait.

  She had thirty days to make his life miserable. She shouldn’t trade that for five seconds of satisfaction where she flicked her nose in the air and walked away, showing everyone she didn’t want him. It wasn’t worth it.

  She snapped her mouth closed and straightened her already straight shoulders. She’d never been tall, and on the makeshift platform, Chandler towered over her. Straight shoulders, straight back, lifted chin, none of it mattered. She probably couldn’t even headbutt his jaw.

  That was okay; it wasn’t a physical contest.

  Although, it would be kind of nice if Mr. Humphries saw how much bigger and stronger Chandler was than her and had a few comments about her safety and protection rather than just sending sympathetic gazes toward Chandler.

  “You can pay Miss Bev.” He jerked a thumb back toward the desk where Bev sat, her short hair standing on end, like she’d grabbed and pulled it in frustration, pen poised over the ledger. Mr. Humphries continued, “I think you can take your...” He hesitated as though unsure what to call Chandler. He wasn’t merchandise, and he wasn’t stuff. “Take your purchase and move out if you’ve got a mind to.”

  The money in her back pocket burned. She hadn’t even used it all, and she had some in her checkbook too. She’d gotten a hired man for the next month, and it wouldn’t cost her a dime.

  If she could shove aside the stigma and the hurt and the fact that the guy hated her, she could get excited about all the things that she’d get done on her farm.

  He could run a chainsaw, clear out the fence rows, the goats that got out today wouldn’t get out again once he helped her fix her fence properly, and he might even be able to help her with her old beehives. And that was just the start. Who knows what all they might be able to do in the next month.

  Too bad she had to work with someone she hated.

  Chandler hadn’t looked at her, and she didn’t allow that to bother her either. She didn’t need to like him in order for her to use him.

  On the flip side, she’d had to remind herself not to look at him, because there was a lot to admire in his outward appearance. Unfortunately, he perfectly exemplified a whited sepulcher.

  Beautiful on the outside. Rotten on the inside.

  Chiseled jaw. Thick blond hair. Deep blue eyes. Wide shoulders, tapered waist, narrow hips, and long legs.

  Black heart.

  Ivory reached the desk and stood in front of it. Even though Bev wasn’t busy and hadn’t been, she kept her head down looking at the book for a good ten seconds, just letting Ivory know that Ivory wasn’t important enough for her to wait on immediately.

  This was nothing new for Ivory. She waited patiently.

  Finally, Bev looked up. “You owe four thousand, nine hundred dollars. Will you be paying with a check?” Her words were professional, her tone snotty. Again, not something that Ivory wasn’t used to and couldn’t handle.

  “No. I have cash.” She learned a long time ago that people responded to her better if she remembered her place, and so her voice was humble and soft.

  The Bible said the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Ivory believed that. So the humble tone and the softness wasn’t hard. The townspeople weren’t mean, and she thought most of them probably didn’t realize or intend to treat her the way they did. Some of it might even be her imagination. But when one held someone up in a stereotype, one tended to act toward them the way one thought about them.

  What else could they do? Her mama had been a prostitute. Plain and simple. Her dad a drunk.

  She couldn’t really blame the townspeople for what they thought of her, and she hadn’t done much to dispel their notions anyway. She hadn’t excelled at school and had only gone as much as she had to. She dressed like a bum, maybe to hide behind her clothing, because it was easier to be what they thought than to try to be something she wasn’t sure she really was or could be.

  “Cash?” Bev’s eyes had jerked up from the ledger where she wrote.

  “Yes.” Ivory reached into her pocket and pulled out the wad that the stranger in the parking lot had given her. Maybe someday she’d find out for sure who it was. If it was who she thought it was, Chandler would probably be pretty upset.

  That could be the reason the man didn’t want to be discovered.

  Bev looked back down at the ledger until she glimpsed the wad of bills coming out from behind Ivory. Bev’s big blue eyes got even bigger, and her perfect red lips formed a bow.

  Ivory held the wad in her hand, and Bev looked down quickly, scratching on the ledger. She checked the cashbox, then held her hand out.

  Ivory peeled one of the hundred-dollar bills off the wad and handed Bev the rest. She shoved the other hundred in her pocket. Maybe she should donate that to the tornado victims too. But there were a lot of things her farm could use, and she didn’t have a lot of cash.

  She stood patiently waiting while Bev counted the bills, twice.

  “Four thousand, nine hundred dollars. That’s correct.” She checked the paid column.

  Ivory fidgeted. At least she still had a home. It might be run-down, and it might not be worth much, but she was able to make enough money to pay her taxes and buy the groceries she couldn’t grow. She reached in her pocket and pulled out the other hundred. “I’d like to donate this too. Not buy anything, just donate.”

  Bev’s eyes went to the hundred-dollar bill waving in the air in front of her eyes, then to Ivory, like she wasn’t sure if Ivory was serious, then back to the hundred.

  “Okay. I’ve got a column here just for donations.” Almost as an afterthought, she added, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Ivory knew her voice sounded a little stilted and definitely a little haughty. She didn’t mean for it to; it was just one of those walls she put up to protect herself. No one expected her to speak correctly, so there was something perversely pleasing about doing so, especially in situations where she felt like she did not have the advantage.

  She might have bought Chandler, but he was among his friends and people who loved him.

  She wasn’t.

  She didn’t have friends and family.

  Sometimes she wondered why she didn’t find a new hometown. But
new and hometown really didn’t go together. And she loved Cowboy Crossing. Not everyone was unkind. In fact, no one was deliberately unkind. Not since she graduated from high school and had gotten away from the classmates that enjoyed teasing her.

  But she could handle it, and it made her a stronger person. She supposed today what she went through would be considered bullying, but she wouldn’t change it. Because it shaped her. If she could keep from being bitter about it, it would all be a positive.

  She had kept the bitterness at bay. The only person she held any anger and resentment toward was the man who was going home with her.

  “All right,” Bev said. “The man’s all yours. Take him home now if you’d like. Work him hard, or maybe you’re just gonna put him in a corner and stare at him. That’s what I’d do if I’d bought him.”

  Bev had a little smirk on her face, and it almost sounded like...girl talk. Ivory wasn’t sure how to handle girl talk, so she didn’t say anything other than, “I have better things to do than sit around and look at the likes of him.”

  She turned to walk away from the desk.

  Yeah. Bitter. That was her.

  Maybe after this month, she wouldn’t be bitter anymore. Although, torturing Chandler wouldn’t help her. She knew that.

  There was a crowd of people around Chandler, and it looked like he was playing the martyred hero to the hilt. Everything he’d done had always been full of drama and acting. This was no exception. It hid his black heart.

  The crowd parted for her, and she pushed through. She didn’t stop when she reached Chandler but brushed by him, not touching. “I’m leaving. You won’t need your vehicle. You can ride in my truck.” She didn’t even look at him as she kept walking.

  “Whoa. The slave master has spoken. Now the slave must obey.” His voice was dramatic, and he was hamming it up as he always did. “I’d better go kiss her boot so she’ll let me ride in the front and not put me in the back with the hogs.”