Do You Love Me? Read online

  “Sixteen’s not legal age.”

  “Depends on what you want him legal for.”

  Bawdy laughter followed the exchange. Shaking her head, Jill motioned for Lester to come out from behind curtains which were temporarily rigged to screen the contestants.

  “Be nice, Madeline. We only have fifteen men available this year and we’re tickled pink to have this young one willing to sacrifice himself for the cause.”

  There were glitches in the system at first, with Jill nervous and unable to keep the early bids straight. Finally, when the dust had settled, Lester’s grandmother had the winning bid, fifty-five dollars for a day of the boy’s uninterrupted services.

  Next up was Freddie Hoskins, accountant, painfully thin but a man famous for his sense of humor. He emerged from behind the curtain wearing a turtleneck shirt stuffed with tissue making it appear he had muscles mounded over muscles. Light laughter in the crowd grew to guffaws as he strutted and posed, striding up and down the ramp.

  Carol leaned close to a chuckling Savanna and whispered. “Freddie’s muscles are the mental type. Since they don’t show, I guess he decided to give Mother Nature a hand.”

  Freddie continued posing and preening and egged the bidders up to a whopping two hundred dollars.

  There followed a procession of men: two bankers, the local boy scout executive, a pharmacist, two lawyers, an assistant manager of the local Walmart, the very muscular owner of local gym, a new pediatrician in town, a computer nerd, and the bartender at the country club, a variety of eligible men and the bidding was lively.

  Most of the fully mature slaves wore provocative clothing, brief swim suits, see-through shirts. The computer nerd wore only lederhosen and knee socks which emphasized his prominent calves.

  “Very fetching. Great legs,” Carol observed, rounding her eyes.

  “Why don’t you bid on him?” Savanna felt restless and more nervous each time a new man stepped from behind the curtain.

  Carol winced. “He’s fresh out of the closet. Pass.”

  A baker’s dozen of men had come and gone from the auctioning block, producing nearly two thousand dollars in revenue for the boys and girls clubs, when Jill began her new spiel, introducing Number Fourteen with blustering enthusiasm.

  “Ladies, this man is choice beefcake and we do take plastic, so let yourselves go. Let’s give a big Green Creek Country Club welcome to Mister Darryl Hightower!”

  Darryl swept back the curtain with a flourish to suggestive comments and wolf whistles and stepped onto the platform wearing jockey shorts under transparent harem pants and a turban, the spriggy hair on his chest exposed beneath an open vest. An elbow nudged Savanna in the ribs and she turned to find Jennifer at her side, grinning.

  “Now’s your chance to get your pound of flesh, girlfriend.”

  “What?”

  “For all the bragging he’s done about dumping you, saying he was almost sorry to have left you in the lurch personally and professionally by taking the job at Reingolds. He said you were getting too serious about your relationship. He likes playing the field, wouldn’t get tied down, even to an heiress.”

  Savanna gave Carol a warning look while struggling to control the anger that threatened to dim her forced smile.

  Kitty began the bidding at fifty dollars, then cast a double-dog-dare-you glance at Savanna, who smiled slightly as her placard dangled at her side.

  Blinking sheepishly, Jennifer bid fifty-five. An elderly woman took it to sixty. With a scowl at Savanna, Kitty said, “One hundred dollars.”

  Jill prodded the audience. “Come on, cheapskates, jump in here. We need another balance beam and new mats for the gymnasts. We’re hoping to replace dugouts this year at the baseball complex. Give it up.” Jill turned to Darryl. “Tease ‘em a little, Darryl. Goad your special ladies into coughing up a bid or two.”

  Grinning, Darryl did a little bump and grind. The effort won a ten-dollar raise from the elderly widow of a former board member, triggering a new round of laughter that made her blush furiously, sputter, and attempt a plausible explanation.

  Jill laughed with the crowd and interrupted the garbled explanation with, “Do I hear one twenty-five?”

  Several sets of eyes scanned the crowd and paused when they reached Savanna. She maintained her indifferent gaze straight ahead, pretending not to notice the pointed glances.

  Jennifer jostled Savanna again. “You’re passing up a clear shot at revenge.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t really have a use for him.”

  Jennifer started to ask, glanced at Carol, swallowed her words and milled on to a cluster of women nearby.

  “It’s your loss, ladies.” Jill pointed her gavel at Kitty. “Ms. Marino?”

  Kitty shook her head, shot another dark look at Savanna, and allowed the widow to have him for a hundred and ten. Darryl moved off the podium to the bookkeeper and into the crowd to thank his benefactor.

  “Think you’re smart, don’t you?” Kitty’s raspy voice hissed immediately behind Savanna who turned and stared at a face splotchy and twisted with rage. “You’re not getting Rivera. You and I have competed for things before, Savanna. You’ve won a few, but I’ve got long-range plans for him and I don’t intend to let you ruin them.”

  Savanna was surprised that she didn’t feel at all threatened. “Okay.”

  “Deny it all you want, but you had your chance. He’s mine now and I’m holding onto him, no matter what dirty little tricks you have up your sleeve.”

  Savanna was thankful her voice was steady and sounded genuine, even to her. “I hope things work out for you.”

  A quizzical look replaced the anger in Kitty’s face.

  Kitty had been married and divorced twice. The problem was an unbreakable trust fund that kept Kitty on a tight spending leash that neither she nor her husbands found bearable. Maybe Kitty’s third trip down the aisle would be more successful, but Savanna doubted Kitty the cat would be able to manipulate Peter into such a liaison, even though Savanna thought he deserved some comforts after years of hard work under harsh conditions.

  Chapter Twenty

  She stood looking behind her at the empty spot where Kitty had been and felt a giddy, emotional spike as she heard the final candidate introduced.

  At her side, Carol gulped a mouthful of air, then said, “Susu, take my advice and don’t look.”

  The words, of course, served as a dare, and Savanna pivoted to see as Jill laughed into the microphone.

  “You’re wearing too many clothes, Rivera. You’ve gotta’ take something off.”

  He wore the Baggies, a T-shirt and loafers with no socks. Even though he was wearing more clothing than any of the other candidates, Savanna thought him far more seductive. She couldn’t help smiling at the murmur of approval buzzing through the crowd.

  Peter focused his gaze on something at the back of the gathering, above the heads of the audience as he paced down the ramp and back, to a barrage of wolf whistles and catcalls.

  Savanna’s eyes stung. He was marvelous, an assessment that seemed to be obvious to everybody, but it was his soul she had learned to adore; his determination, his teasing, his courage, his strength of character, his music, his…

  Why torment herself? She had no strings on him. The college girl was right. In truth, Savanna had only been his landlady.

  Kitty waved her number, signaling the opening bid. “Twenty-five dollars.”

  Jill pointed first one way, then another as the bidders, including Mary Edith and her sorority sisters, steadily took the tally to a heady five hundred dollars without slowing. A murmur rippled through the crowd.

  As the bidding continued and climbed to seven-fifty, the college girls began panhandling in the crowd for more money to add to their purse, but they withered as Kitty called out, “Eight hundred dollars.”

  At that bid, Peter lowered his gaze to scan the audience. Before his eyes reached her, Savanna lowered her head.

  “Eight-fifty!” another w
oman’s voice called.

  “And five.” It was Kitty. She sounded either bored or determined.

  “Eight-sixty.”

  Jill wheezed into the mike. “Now we’re cooking. We’re setting records here, ladies. Do I hear eight seventy-five?”

  “Eight-seventy-five.”

  “Nine? Do I hear nine hundred?”

  “Eight-eighty.” Kitty again.

  “Nine hundred dollars!” Carol called a little too loudly, prompting sporadic giggling. She flinched before flashing Savanna a sheepish grin.

  “What are you doing?” Savanna hissed and eased back a step trying to distance herself from her friend.

  “Buying you an early Christmas present.”

  “Don’t. Please don’t. It’s humiliating.”

  Carol had the decency to keep her voice moderately low. “Humiliating? How do you think he feels up there? He’s in this thing strictly because of you. Kitty and Jennifer told him you wanted him to do it.”

  Savanna felt the flush of anger mingle with her embarrassment. “What? I’ve never been interested in this auction thing, or even participated in the Calcutta.”

  “They wanted him to do it, sweetie, and he wouldn’t for them. That’s what gave Kitty the mean reds. He wouldn’t for her. She pleaded, asked him to do it as a personal favor. He wouldn’t budge. Then she told him you wanted him to, and he agreed.”

  “She lied to him?” Savanna should have known it when Kitty made the crack about not caring what kind of dirty tricks Savanna tried. She had found that cheats and liars often were suspicious about the motives of others.

  Kitty upped the bid again. “Nine hundred and ten.”

  “I’m sure she justified the lie by rationalizing that the money was going to her favorite charity.” Carol cocked an eyebrow. “As you and I both know, Kitty’s favorite charity is Kitty. But she’s getting in too deep. The way her trust is set up, it keeps a lid on flagrant spending. She can’t bid much higher. As of right now she’s got him and it’s your fault.”

  “So you’re saying I got him into this?”

  The auctioneer rapped her gavel and Savanna glanced up to find Jill staring hard at Carol, who ignored the chair as she continued her explanation.

  “He thought it was what you wanted.”

  Savanna forced herself to look at the stage and found her gaze locked as it met Peter’s. His iridescent eyes penetrated into the depths of her.

  She wanted to call a time-out, take a minute to reconsider her position, the auction, rethink their entire project, but there was no time for soul searching. She had no idea how to stop this runaway train without making a spectacle of herself.

  She was only half listening as the bidding continued sporadically, in five-dollar increments. There was a collective gasp when it reached a thousand dollars. Some men laughed but their mirth sounded hollow, less like joy or ridicule than envy.

  Savanna reached a decision, set her jaw and tried to fix her eyes directly on Jill.

  “One thousand-five once,” Jill called. “One thousand-five…”

  Peter stepped out of his shoes, caught the neck of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. He sucked in his stomach which flattened like a board as he locked his hands behind his head, flexing his biceps and striking a pose like the one in the Baggies ad that had so captivated Savanna at Tennysons.

  Carol strutted a tight circle then leaned close to Savanna. “Go on. Do it.”

  Ladies in the crowd hooted their approval and applause rolled through the onlookers along with murmuring and more unladylike wolf whistles. The gaggle of college girls squealed and leaped up and down whooping their approval.

  Savanna stared first at his hard upper body, then at his smile burning into her before she swelled with a deep breath and shouted, loud enough to be heard distinctly above the crowd noise.

  “TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!”

  Jill’s “What?” over the microphone sounded more like a squawk. She stood dumbstruck as a murmur hummed through the stunned crowd. “Savanna Cavendish, did you just bid ten thousand dollars for this man?”

  Peter gave a satisfied grin, and lowered his arms to his sides.

  Unable to look at him more than a fleeting moment, Savanna winced. “I believe I did.”

  An awed silence fell over the gathering until Carol’s triumphant “Wahoo!” broke the spell. Others joined in with astonished cheers and applause.

  As the commotion became a din, Jill hammered her gavel, trying to restore order. Her voice was shrill over the microphone. “Savanna Cavendish, have you been drinking?”

  Savanna shook her head, smiled, and shrugged.

  “You’re serious, right?”

  “Yes. Right. I mean, I am. Serious. Dead serious. Unless,” she glanced around at the astonished faces studying her with mixed expressions, “someone wants to raise the bid.”

  Kitty Marino gave a pained look to the few curious glances that turned her way.

  A lull fell over the crowd, most of the spectators quiet and momentarily motionless, obviously afraid of inadvertently upping the bid.

  Savanna heard the diesel machinery chuffing in the background, children squealing happily. The smells of popcorn and hot dogs wafted around her.

  Jill pounded the gavel. “Peter Rivera goes to Savanna Cavendish for a whopping ten thousand dollars.”

  An older man belched a loud guffaw. “Women may control most of the money in this country, but this fella’ here’s struck a blow for men ‘round the world.”

  Men in the crowd cheered, shouting congratulations to Peter who stepped into his shoes, grabbed his discarded shirt and disappeared behind the curtain.

  “You should have known I’d never ask you to make a public spectacle…humiliate yourself.” Savanna and Peter stood face to face in the parking lot as the crowd swept back onto the midway after the auction. “What made you think I would want you involved in this farce?”

  He fixed her face with a hard stare, as if he were taking measurements. “Your friends, Kitty and the other, Jennifer, said you wanted me to do it.”

  “And you believed them?”

  “I saw no reason for women as rich as they are to lie.”

  She shook her head at the flaw in his usually astute reasoning. “Weren’t you embarrassed?”

  “I was until I saw you in the crowd. Then I posed and behaved as I did, only for you.” He gave her a warm, knowing smile. “Thank you for winning me.”

  “I was glad to do it. I should have done it earlier. After all, you are my best friend.”

  His grin broadened. “And you’re mine…and more.” He caught her right hand with his right, as if they were shaking on a business deal.

  She shuffled, uncertain what else to say or do. The landlady crack rolled through her mind and she wondered if that was the way he felt about her. He’d been kind to her. Had she misinterpreted his kindness, fooled herself into thinking he might be romantically interested in her? She refused to call to mind any of his many tender declarations or actions.

  Perhaps.

  If so, her purchasing him at the auction was his repayment. Now they were square, as Frances said. All outstanding obligations between them canceled. “We’re even now, Peter.”

  “No. I owe you a day.”

  She gave him an embarrassed smile. “As your benefactor, I grant you your freedom, slave. All debts are hereby canceled.”

  “Except I owe you everything, ten thousand dollars, my new life, and one day.”

  “You’re the one who insisted I put my money where my mouth was, after I said all that stuff about wanting to help the poor one-on-one.”

  “You have done that.”

  “Yeah, but it turned out, I was more needy than you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because all I have is money, inherited money at that. You’re the one with the gifts and the guts.”

  “You sell yourself short, Savanna.” She pulled her hand free of his and he took a step toward her. “Y
ou are the stronger of the two of us, my darling. You are my center. I run in circles around your hub, like a wheel around an axle. You keep me on course, ever steering me in the right direction.”

  Savanna laughed at the analogy and glanced up to find him close, toe to toe with her. His words went beyond her. Women, young, beautiful, wealthy women, flocked to him. What could she possibly give him that he could not get more and younger and better of elsewhere?

  He didn’t move his hands or arms or try to touch her. Instead, he dipped his chin, tilted his head and lowered his mouth as she raised hers to meet it.

  Perhaps it was a sweet, good-bye kiss. She held herself in check, accepting his lips. Slowly she relaxed, melting into the warmth of his marvelous body, until she was startled by the sudden smell of bourbon and a sharp, searing pain just below her ribs.

  “Getting your money’s worth, as usual, huh, Susu?” It was Darryl’s voice, the high-pitched, excitable tone that indicated he’d been drinking. “Your spic here’s probably even willing to make the supreme sacrifice, but only so’s he can get legal in this country. You’re just too dumb to see it. What use would a stud like him have for you when he could scarf off Pretty Miss Kitty or little Mary Edith Fletcher or maybe even your pal Carol? Any of them would be easier to take than you, bitch.”

  Her side burned. As Peter stepped toward him, Darryl pressed a knife more firmly against the tender flesh at Savanna’s ribs. Peter froze and Darryl flashed him an approving nod.

  “Good move. Come on, Cinderella, your carriage awaits, right over here.” When she remained where she stood, unmoving, Darryl flinched. The knife point tore her sweater and cut into her flesh, drawing a quick spurt of blood. Savanna yelped, trying to muffle a scream. Peter fisted his hands and she shuddered, more frightened for him than for herself. Darryl sounded unstable.

  “All right, Darryl. What do you want?”

  “You know what I want. Everything you’ve got.”

  Peter’s eyes were on the knife.

  Darryl shivered oddly as if he didn’t have good control of the weapon. Attempting to move her, he pressed the blade’s point deeper. She flinched and pushed his arm. He pressed the knife deeper and she yelped again before she could muzzle her mouth with her hand. She shrank from the pain and felt a peculiar warmth oozing into her clothing, wetness that cooled quickly in the evening air.