With Valor And Devotion. Charlotte Maclay

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.

      When Addy went to five hundred dollars, Mike began to sweat. He thought she understood he wasn’t a commitment kind of guy. She shouldn’t be spending—

      “Five hundred once,” Chief Gray called. “Five hundred twice. Sold to the lady in the red blouse!”

      The audience cheered at the top bid for the evening.

      Mike mentally groaned. He’d show Addy a good time on their date, but he’d make it clear that as nice as she might be, and as much fun as she was, they had no future together.

      The final bachelor went for two-fifty and the chief was about to call it a night when Councilwoman Evie Anderson stood up in the audience. An attractive woman in her sixties, she’d had her eye on the chief for some years, showing up at the fire station with home-baked goods for him and “his boys” and even baking him a birthday cake. Problem was, the councilwoman couldn’t cook worth a darn. From the taste of her strawberry syrup alone, which she’d brought to the pancake breakfast this past spring, Mike was convinced the woman was determined to poison every member of the fire department along with all their family members.

      “We’re not done yet, Harlan,” Evie said.

      “Yes, we are,” the chief insisted. “Steve was the last—”

      “You’re single, Chief Gray. And I bid one thousand dollars.”

      There was a moment of silence, as though everyone was intrigued by the blush that rushed up the chief’s throat and bloomed on his cheeks, virtually turning the roots of his gray hair pink. Then the audience cheered louder than they had all evening.

      The chief banged his gavel. “Sold,” he muttered, and the whole crowd was on their feet practically bringing the auditorium down with their enthusiastic applause. Only two people didn’t look happy about the evening—Chief Gray and Kristin McCoy.

      Despite the fact that he didn’t believe in Emma Jean’s psychic ability, Mike released a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t won the top-dollars honor after all. Logically, then, his bachelor status for next year’s event was still intact.

      KRISTIN wanted to escape.

      But Addy and Connie had her boxed in, trapped while Mike made his way through the mob toward where she was standing. Where Addy was standing, she corrected herself. She was the one who’d won the date with Mike, at no small expense.

      Lord, he was a big man, she realized. At well over six feet, he towered over most of the women in the room, giving each of them a quick smile as he edged past them. They ate it up, all but swooning at his feet. Kristin knew better. A sweet-talking man with a sexy grin meant nothing but trouble in her experience.

      When he reached the clutch of waiting women, Mike bent over and brushed a familiar kiss to Addy’s cheek.

      “You must have won the lotto,” he said to her. “If you’d just called me up, I’d have taken you out for a lot less than five hundred bucks.”

      She laughed a delighted sound. “Sugar, you and I had our fun, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But I didn’t bid on you for myself. We all chipped in, pooled our money—” her gesture included all the nurses standing nearby “—for Kristin. She’s going to be your date.”

      Kristin’s jaw dropped. If the gods had opened up the floor beneath her feet, she would have gladly slipped out of sight. Mike Gables was the last man on earth she wanted to date. He was too charming, too sexy—too damn tempting.

      “No,” she murmured, her throat aching, barely able to find her voice.

      His gaze swung in her direction, dark eyes filled with amusement and a challenge. “You didn’t know about this?”

      “Not a chance.”

      “Interesting.” His lips quirked into one of his patented smiles. “Surprises can be fun.”

      His gaze was so intense, so totally focused on her, Kristin felt the rest of the room and everyone in it melt away. For all she knew, Addy, Connie and the others had abandoned her. She and this smiling, potently masculine man were the only two people left in the auditorium. An odd buzzing started in her head, blocking out any other sound. She couldn’t have looked away from Mike Gables if her life had depended upon it. If not her life, certainly her good sense was at serious risk.

      “I’m not really into surprises,” she said.

      “Then this will be a first for both of us. I’ve never had anyone bid five hundred dollars just to have a date with me.”

      “I didn’t bid on you at all.”

      “I know.” His slow perusal swept over her with obvious masculine interest. “That’s what’s going to make our date so interesting.”

      It took all of her willpower to draw herself up to her full five-foot-five inches to challenge him right back. “Why don’t we pretend we had our date, we both had a great time, no one will be the wiser and the burn center will still be five hundred dollars richer.”

      “That wouldn’t be honorable. I gave my word I’d go out with whoever bid the most for me—or her surrogate in this case. Your friends would be disappointed in us both if we didn’t go through with it after all the trouble they went to.”

      “I’ll