“Jack Grey, sold for eight thousand dollars to…” The auctioneer called out to the woman wearing violet-lensed spectacles, “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m a proxy bidder for a client.” She moved closer to the stage, the audience parting easily for her as she walked forward. Jack made his way down the three steps off the stage to join her.
Another ripple of whispers went through the crowd as everyone wondered who the secret bidder was. “Okay then,” the auctioneer asked. “Who’s your client?”
A small smile curved her lips. “Sorry, that’s confidential. Let’s just call my client the winning bidder for Jack Grey in this bachelor auction, shall we?”
“Fine by me,” he said with a shrug. To the audience, he announced, “Jack Grey, first bachelor on the block, sold for eight thousand dollars to a secret bidder through proxy!” Landon somehow made it sound more suggestive and mysterious than Jack hoped it truly was. Landon cracked his gavel down on the wooden podium one last time, like a judge rendering a fearsome sentence on the condemned.
Under his breath, Jack said, “May the court have mercy on my soul.”
Cyberpunk Chick smiled at his grim humor, then led the way to the auctioneer’s assistant, who was handling the contracts and the money. She scribbled an unreadable signature on the form put in front of her and paid up with cash she pulled out of a sleek backpack. One Jack hadn’t even noticed she wore slung across her back.
“Have fun, you two,” the auctioneer’s assistant said cheerfully. Jack figured he was happy because he had eight thousand dollars in the till after only one bachelor had been auctioned off. It was probably more than the organizers of Aunt Dixie’s formidable fundraising plans expected to rake in for the entire night.
Aunt Dixie was busy extolling the virtues of the next bachelor on the block, Sam Brody, a new deputy who worked in the neighboring town of Old Coot. He passed the payment table on his way to the stage. He looked even less happy to be auctioned off than Jack had been, and that was saying something.
Cyberpunk Chick put a finger on the nose of her glasses, nudged them down and stared at Sam as he mounted the stage.
“Would you rather trade me in for him?” Jack asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.
“Funny. But no. Come on. Let’s go.” She pushed her violet-lensed spectacles back in place and started walking quickly toward the parking lot.
Jack followed, hoping this coming date with an unidentified client wasn’t going to be worse than a clinging Marcy or, heaven forbid, an unforgiving and vengeful Ashleigh.
Chapter Two
Madelaine Archer viewed the bachelor auction in Alienn from a distance. A verylongdistance, through the violet-lensed prop that served as a two-way vid-screen for Madelaine to watch the proceedings live.
As planned, her proxy, Seraphina Blaylocke, had walked into the crowd as bidding for the first bachelor started. She waited until the bidding died down before executing the winning bid plan. A plan Madelaine had created when she discovered the event would coincide perfectly with her need for Jack Grey’s help.
Help he might not give her, if she merely asked. Now he was honor-bound by the rules of the bachelor auction to at least spend the next twenty-four hours with her. She hoped it was enough time to convince him to help her achieve her ultimate goal or at least the first step of it.
Plus, it was for a good cause, helping out the Starlight Old Folks Home. When Madelaine had lived in Alienn, the place wasn’t some rundown forgotten home for the elderly that needed money to keep the lights on, but things could have changed.
Five years ago, it had seemed like a very nice, very well-funded residence for the community’s older residents. Perhaps that was due to the excellent fundraising Jack’s Aunt Dixie did on a regular basis.
While Madelaine needed more than a single day with Jack, her next plan included not only persuasion but a heartfelt apology.
One she’d owed him for years.
At first, Seraphina wasn’t close to the stage, but Madelaine could see Jack Grey clearly. He looked…well, really great. She couldn’t wait to get a closer look and talk to him.
“Please, Jack,” she whispered into the crisp air around her hiding place. “Please help me just this once and I promise I’ll never want to darken your doorstep ever again.”
Which was a lie. She’d love to darken his doorstep every day for eternity. Madelaine loved Jack Grey. Just like she had the first time she’d seen him, walking into her high school science class.
Way back when they were sixteen years old. Way back before her life changed forever. Way back before she’d been next in the line of succession in her mother’s family for a very important—and unexpected—lifelong duty.
She’d had to uproot her life in Alienn, leave Earth and head to Alpha-Prime to train, learn and execute a responsibility that had been many decades in the making.
Before five years ago, Alpha-Prime was simply the place her parents had come from. A place she’d only visited every couple of years to see relatives. She hadn’t liked going to Alpha-Prime when she was a child and didn’t appreciate it any better as a young adult.
Even from an early age, the visits to relatives she barely knew seemed fraught, stilted and obligatory. Of course, no one in her immediate family ever said that out loud.
To Madelaine’s way of thinking, the best thing about those visits was returning to Earth. Earth was her home. Always had been.
She’d loathed the dry, dusty desert planet her parents came from because the planet she’d been born on was lush and lovely, filled with all manner of geological wonders beyond sand, more sand and the Outer Rim desert, which was truly the worst of all the hot, sand-filled places on Alpha-Prime.
