It Takes a Cowboy. GINA WILKINS

boys they’d once been. It must have been a sense of gratitude and obligation to the ranch that had brought them back for this rather odd occasion.

      Blair looked from one self-consciously smiling male face to another. Each of them had at one time been in trouble, poised on the brink of potential disaster. Yet they had all chosen to turn themselves around. To make something of themselves. To...

      Her eyes suddenly widened. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? She didn’t want Jeffrey spending time with the boys currently at the ranch, but would he benefit from talking to one of these former residents? A man who had been faced with a troubled future but who had chosen the path to success and responsibility instead? Jeffrey had never had a responsible, dependable male role model. Any one of these men would understand what rejection felt like. What it was like to be angry, confused, rebellious, defiant. Maybe they could share the secret of putting those negative emotions behind them so they could get on with their lives.

      What if she bought one of these men to spend a weekend with Jeffrey, be a role model for him? It was a crazy idea...but she was desperate enough to give it serious consideration as the emcee took the podium and tried to calm the excited crowd so the auction could get under way.

      Her thoughtful gaze moved from one bachelor to another. She wished she had one of those brochures so she could read their bios, pick the ones who seemed most responsible. She tried to make some guesses strictly on appearance. The famous rodeo champion was rejected immediately. A footloose, daredevil cowboy was not at all what she had in mind. Jeffrey’s father was both a wanderer and a thrill-seeker, and he had certainly not been a good influence on his son.

      No, she most definitely did not want a cowboy.

      A couple of the other bachelors looked a bit too nonconformist for her taste, she mused as her gaze skimmed across a guy with an earring and a ponytail. What she needed was a man who looked as though he understood the importance of conforming to the rules and expectations of society.

      The auctioneer finally had everyone’s attention. “So, ladies, put your hands together for our first bachelor, Dr. Robert Carter.”

      Doctor? Blair straightened with interest as an absolutely gorgeous man stood and stepped toward the podium. A ripple of appreciation went through the audience, followed by wistful sighs when the man whimsically kissed Lindsay Duncan’s hand. Blair noted his fabulous looks—what woman wouldn’t?—but she was more interested in other details of his appearance. The expensive, conservative haircut. His elegantly casual clothing—a navy golf shirt and crisply pressed khakis. The auctioneer introduced him as a successful pathologist, following that up with an amazing list of professional and personal accomplishments. A weekend with this man, Blair thought, tapping her chin, could be exactly what Jeffrey needed. And she would be making a donation to the ranch, a charity that had become close to her heart during the past year.

      The bidding for Dr. Robert Carter started at five hundred dollars. To the apparent delight of the woman sitting next to her, Blair bid six hundred. Within minutes, the amount had risen sharply, as had the level of noise from the giddy, keyed-up crowd. Blair dropped out of the bidding at five thousand dollars. The guy looked nice, she thought, but there was a limit to how much she was willing to pay for a weekend that might not accomplish anything, anyway.

      “See?” the brunette next to Blair said with rueful amusement. “I told you there are some high rollers in the crowd today.”

      “You were right,” Blair said as the bids topped eight thousand and kept climbing.

      The handsome doctor sold for a staggering amount. Blair gasped in surprise—as did a number of others in the audience—when the auctioneer called the name of the winning bidder. Sugar Spinelli was seventy-five years old and had been married for half a century! What did she want with a young stud of a doctor?

      Blair was still shaking her head in amazement when the next bachelor was called to the stand. Again, bidding was brisk, though Blair sat this one out. When rodeo star Shane Daniels took the stage, there was a near frenzy of bidding. She didn’t participate in that one, either.

      It really had been a dumb idea, she told herself as the auction proceeded. She hadn’t expected the bidders to be so serious about this. It seemed that every winning bidder had a serious agenda motivating her, spurring on high dollars and fierce, though generally good-natured, competition. Blair’s reason for participating was a valid one, but maybe she’d been foolish to even hope she could solve Jeffrey’s problems by buying him a weekend mentor.

      By the time a half-dozen bachelors had been auctioned off, Blair was losing interest, her attention caught again by the tantalizing smells drifting over from the barbecue grills. One of those smoked turkey legs sure sounded good. Maybe, now that her stomach had settled a little, she could handle one. Maybe she should buy another batch of raffle tickets for that beautiful quilt. Since it didn’t appear that she was going to be buying a bachelor, she might as well donate to the cause in another way. And she really would love to have that quilt....

      “Now, ladies, our next bachelor is Mr. Scott McKay. Scott owns a—”

      The latest bachelor’s credentials were drowned out by an outburst from somewhere behind her. Blair turned automatically to see what was going on. It seemed that one of the women had gotten so excited she’d fallen completely off her seat at the end of a row, landing flat on her well-cushioned bottom on the dusty ground below. She wasn’t hurt, Blair noted in relief; in fact, she and her friends were laughing almost hysterically, drawing a lot of shushes from others in the audience who were straining to hear the auctioneer. Blair watched the woman stand with the assistance of a solicitous ranch employee, dust off her too-tight jeans and climb onto her seat, where she and her big-haired friends dissolved into giggles again. Only then did Blair turn, thinking again of that turkey leg. Maybe if she...

      Her wandering gaze landed on the bachelor currently on the auction block, and she felt her jaw drop. She closed it quickly, trying to clear her suddenly clouded mind. Must be lack of food, she told herself. Maybe an overload of sound and activity. It couldn’t possibly be that she had just been struck dumb by the sight of an attractive man in a beautifully tailored suit.

      The bidding had already climbed to fifteen hundred dollars by the time she could think clearly. She looked at the guy again, trying to be objective. He wasn’t as movie-star gorgeous as the first bachelor, the doctor she had tried to buy earlier. But he was...intriguing. His hair was a rich, glossy brown that glinted in the sun. It was brushed neatly back from a tanned, angular face creased by sexy dimples. From where she sat, his eyes looked very blue, his teeth very white. He held his chin tucked down a bit, so that he seemed to be looking up from beneath his lashes. His brow was creased in an endearingly bemused expression, as if the rowdy attention he was getting from the audience was something he hadn’t expected when he’d signed up for this.

      His dark suit fit him to perfection, displaying impressive shoulders, a solid chest and narrow hips. He wore a snowy white shirt and a boldly colored geometric tie. His western boots made her frown a bit, since they didn’t quite fit the image, but then she smiled, deciding he’d probably worn the boots as a tribute to the ranch. Regarded in that respect, it was actually a very sweet gesture.

      Someone bid twenty-five hundred dollars.

      He certainly looked like a conservative, respectable businessman, Blair mused. And that somewhat befuddled smile could indicate a slight shyness that Jeffrey would identify with. Whatever problems Scott McKay had faced as a boy, he’d apparently put them well behind him. Would he know what to say to a child whose hurt and anger were propelling him down the wrong path?

      “Do I hear three thousand dollars?” the auctioneer sang out.

      Blair drew a deep breath and lifted her hand, calling once again on the Townsend boldness she so rarely indulged.

      “All right. You’re back in the bidding,” the young woman at her left said with a laugh.

      Someone else bid thirty-five hundred, followed by a bid for four thousand.

      Once again, Blair’s hand shot into the air, raising the stakes to forty-five hundred.