The Marriage Auction: Book One(4)
Sex wasn’t the most important thing on my mind. Even in my teen years I gave all my attention to helping run the farm. Sure, I’d had a rumble or two in a hay loft with one of the young ranch boys my grandfather hired each summer. Even had a secret romp in the cab of my beat-up Ford truck with a boy from my school one hot and sticky August night. Neither of those teenage experiences prepared me for adult copulation, that’s for sure.
The first time I had what I’d call “real sex” with an adult man, I was twenty-one. He was twenty-six at the time and a prospect from a biker club that had been traveling through our town and had stopped at the local bar for a drink and a little fun. I spent two full days in bed with the bearded brute who knew more about sex and how to please a woman’s body than I thought was possible. Mama never shared what good and pleasurable experiences could be had from the opposite sex. I figured it was because my pa was an asshole who never showed her true love and kindness. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant with me at seventeen, her first time lying with a man, her entire life would have been different. She might still be alive today.
Still, Mama never complained about what her life could have been. She did her best to make Pa happy. Did everything in her power to turn his favor toward her, to no avail. He was too self-centered to give my mother the time of day. And he made it known regularly that he thought she’d tied him down with two daughters and no sons. Useless leeches he called us.
It was worse for me since I was the oldest and was a taller, stronger version of my mother. He hated me with a passion I’d felt my entire life. Nothing I did was ever good enough, and I’d tried plenty to make him proud. Learning every task on our ranch from cattle herding, horse breeding, mucking stalls, manning the fences, keeping the books, attending auctions, and anything in between. I never said no to a task and always tossed my Stetson into the ring whenever needed. There was no job I didn’t throw myself into with both feet and all my heart.
It never mattered to him. Nothing was good enough for Everett McAllister. Not our mother. Not his daughters. Nothing. And now the ranch was in dire straits. The only hope my family had was me. If I could muster up enough money to pay off the bank lien and the enormous debt he’d gotten into since my grandfather died four years ago and ultimately buy him out, we could be free. It was the only way he’d walk away from what he believed was his birthright.
Once I was chosen in the auction, because there was no other alternative, I’d become the hero in my family’s eyes. Not the useless “little girl” my father often labeled me.
Signing my name across the final page, I felt an extreme sense of satisfaction.
“Are you ready to meet up with the other five candidates, Ms. McAllister?” Alana stood across the table, ready for me the second I was done signing the next three years of my life away.
“Absolutely.” I smiled widely.
“You seem very pleased with yourself.” She returned my smile, but hers was poised and polite.
I adjusted my cowboy belt, ran my hands down my favorite blue-and-green-plaid shirt with pearlescent button snaps down the front, and let out a long, tortured breath I felt like I’d been holding in for the last four years.
For the first time, I breathed in nothing but pride and purpose.
“Never felt better. Let’s do this.” I grinned and put one boot in front of the other, ready for anything .
Madam Alana led me down a beautiful corridor, deeper into the swanky high-rise casino in the heart of Las Vegas. She opened a set of double doors which I assumed led to a conference room.
I scanned the faces of the five other people seated around a large glossy black table.
A beautiful brunette with stunning clear blue eyes unlike any I’d seen before.
A svelte blonde with stick-straight hair parted down the center and freckles coasting across her pretty face.
An attractive Asian woman with the most flawless olive-toned skin I’d ever seen and long legs that any woman would give her eyeteeth to have.
A Black man who looked sexy as sin in a dark-purple dress shirt and slate-gray slacks. I couldn’t help but be surprised to see him sitting there. I hadn’t realized that men would be up for auction too.
And the last person in the room, a fiery redhead who turned her chair around just in time for those familiar sky-blue eyes to meet mine. They were the same exact color as our father’s. I watched them widen in fear as I realized who the last candidate was.
“What the fuck! No! Hell no!” I roared so loud the floor-to-ceiling windows opposite me shook.
My baby sister, Savannah, stood up with her hands held out in a calming gesture that did absolutely nothing to calm even one ounce of the rage blasting through my system like a nuclear plant exploding.
“Dakota, let me explain,” my twenty-year-old gorgeous, sweet little sister—who was supposed to be away at school—attempted to say.
I shook my head and stormed toward her.
The dude sitting near her was faster than he looked and immediately put himself between me and my own blood.
“Move,” I growled .
He shook his head. “Calm down, and I will.” He pointed over my shoulder to an empty seat.
“You’re outta here.” I pointed accusingly at my sister. “Now!” I hollered.
“Whatever you make tomorrow night won’t be enough!” she snapped as misery blanketed her tone. Tears filled her beautiful eyes and fell down her peaches-and-cream cheeks. “You know it won’t. We need more,” she choked out. “I’m doing this, Dakota.” She sniffled as the brunette came to her aid, wrapping her arms around my sister and patting her back. “Nothing you say can stop me! Nothing!” The fire in her blazed brighter than any sun-filled day on the ranch.