The Bachelor. Marie Ferrarella

on the sidelines. Camille in her deathbed scene definitely had nothing on her mother. Mingling amid men had always come easy for her mother. The woman didn’t understand that not everyone was granted that gift.

      “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, auction,” Jenny replied glibly.

      Her brother surprised her with the serious note in his voice. “Don’t knock yourself down, Jenny. The only reason you’re not out there every night is because you choose not to be.”

      “Right.” Never mind the fact that she was plain, she thought, and that no one without some grievance to file would give her the time of day, much less the time of her life.

      The natives along the wall were getting restless and she had several people to see before she could leave for court. “Listen, Jordy, I’d love to talk, but—”

      He got to the crux of his call, or at least, the beginning of it. “I’ve called to volunteer my services for the auction.”

      Again she was surprised. She scribbled her brother’s name on the side of her blotter with a note about the bachelor auction. One thing that went right today. Maybe it would start a trend.

      “Fantastic, Jordy. This means I don’t have to badger you.” Although she was only going to turn to him if she couldn’t get anyone else. She knew that this was not high on Jordan’s list of favorite things to do.

      “No, but you might have to do a little persuading with the two other candidates I lined up for you.”

      That stopped her cold. “Oh?”

      Intrigued, she turned her swivel chair away from the lineup against the far wall. She didn’t exactly have time for this now, but she was going to have to make time later. The auction was less than two weeks away and she still needed more bodies to fill the quota. Especially since Emerson Davis just dropped out due to a sudden marriage that no one but the bartender who’d kept refilling Emerson’s glass in the Vegas club saw coming.

      Still, she knew when to be cautious. “Exactly who did you ‘line up’ for me?”

      “Peter Logan and his brother.” Peter Logan had two brothers as well as two sisters. Jordan paused significantly, as if waiting for a drumroll, before he finally said, “Eric.”

      Eric.

      Beautiful Eric.

      Eric with the soulful brown eyes and thick, luscious brown hair. Eric who still, after all these years, popped up in her dreams just often enough to remind her that she had never quite gotten over that crush she’d had on him all those years ago.

      Everyone had an impossible dream. Eric was hers. But dreams, Jenny had learned, did not arbitrarily come true, especially if you did nothing to make them come true. And she, un-swanlike as she was, had kept her distance from Eric Logan. The man was accustomed to drop-dead gorgeous women, a label she knew in her heart would never be applied to her, not even by a myopic, tender-hearted man.

      She felt herself growing warm at the mere sound of Eric’s name. She really hoped that a blush wasn’t working its way up her neck to her face, although it probably was, if that look from the man seated against the wall, waiting to speak to her, was any indication.

      “Jenny? Are you there?” Jordan asked as the silence stretched out between them.

      She cleared her throat, silently calling herself a dunce. “You, um, you talked to them?”

      “I talked to Peter. He suggested Eric join us, and thought that an appeal from you might cinch the deal.”

      “Appeal to Eric,” she repeated as if in a trance.

      “You might.”

      And then she laughed. “Yeah, right.”

      The next moment, she came to her senses and realized she’d taken that in the wrong context. God knew she would have given her right arm to appeal to Eric, but she wasn’t his type. She had far more of a chance of winning the Kentucky Derby than she had of appealing to Eric.

      There was silence again and she was quick to remedy it. “You’re his best friend, Jordan. You talk to him.”

      “Can’t.”

      “Why?”

      “Because, as his best friend, Eric wouldn’t be uncomfortable saying no to me. But he won’t say no to you. Especially since his parents have donated a considerable amount of money to your cause as well as to the Children’s Connection,” he told her, mentioning the name of the adoption organization associated with both Portland General Hospital and PAN itself. “He just needs a little convincing.”

      She knew all about the Logans’ generosity, as well as what Eric did and didn’t do. She made it a point to keep tabs on him, even if he was completely unattainable. “And you think I can do that.”

      “Hey, you’re the chairlady. I can’t do all your work for you. Besides, you’re the one who can argue the ears off an Indian Elephant.”

      She supposed that was a compliment, although she’d had better. “Lovely image.”

      “You’ll find him at Logan Corporation. I know he’s free this afternoon about one.” Jordan paused. “He’s expecting you.”

      She was due in court by three o’clock. That gave her a small margin of time if she juggled it right and had lunch at her desk.

      So what else was new?

      Jenny felt her heart hammering as she echoed incredulously, “He’s expecting me?”

      “Uh-huh. I told Eric that you might drop by to try to convince him to jump on the bandwagon, so to speak.”

      Jenny felt her mouth becoming completely dry. That was because all the moisture in her body had suddenly rerouted itself straight to her hands and then condensed there.

      She heard herself saying with more than a little disbelief, “Then I guess one o’clock it is.”

      “Great. Talk to you about the details later.”

      She wasn’t sure if her brother was referring to the details involved in his taking part in the auction, or the details of what was probably going to prove to be her latest mortifying experience, but she didn’t have the opportunity to ask. Jordan had hung up.

      Gripping both sides of the desk, she rose from behind it on shaky legs that had suddenly been rented out to someone else. In a gait she knew had to approximate that of Frankenstein’s monster as he took his first unattended steps, she began to cross to the hall.

      “Hey, your next appointment is here,” Betty hissed to her as Jenny strode past the younger woman’s cluttered desk.

      Jenny didn’t even spare Betty a look. She couldn’t. Moving her head to the left or right might carry dangerous consequences with it.

      “Tell them I’ll be right back.”

      Getting accustomed to her new wooden legs, Jenny quickened her steps as she hurried to the bathroom. To throw up.

      For a second after she exited the cab, Jenny stood on the curb, looking up at the tall edifice before her. The building that was owned by and housed the Logan Corporation. With effort, she gathered together the last drops of her courage. She needed all the help she could get.

      Despite her last appointment running over, she’d made it to the Logan Corporation building with a few minutes to spare.

      All the way over to the shining thirty-story edifice she had practiced what she was going to say to Eric once she was alone with him. But, unlike when she was preparing to deliver summations in court, no amount of rehearsal seemed to improve her performance. The moment she went through her arguments, they melted from her brain like lone snowflakes out on a June sidewalk.

      He was just a man, she told herself as she rode up the elevator to his floor. Two legs, two arms, one body in between to hold the limbs together. Beneath his