Page 24 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

"Ma'am?"

"Don't ma'am me, I'm sixty, not the governor. You and that Peterson boy." She leans in. "Mabel says you two had a fight at the nurses' station that drew a standing crowd. Hank at the barbershop says it's the third one. June at the bakery says he asks what you order."

"He does not—"

"Sweetheart." Millie holds up a hand like a crossing guard. "I run the quilting circle. I had this information before you did."

I look at Debbie for help. Debbie is examining the rafters.

"Anyway." Millie sits back, pleased with herself, and drops her voice to a whisper you could hear in the parking lot. "I took care of it. I spread the word. Nobody in this town is to bid on that man tonight. Nobody." She winks at me, slow and criminal. "You can thank me later."

"Bid on— I'm not bidding on anybody."

"Course you're not, honey." She pats my hand.

I'm rescued by feedback from the stage mic, which is the first and last time in my life I will be grateful for Tater Monroe holding a microphone.

"LADIES AND ALSO GENTLEMEN." Tater is in full rodeo-announcer mode, gavel and all. "Welcome to the First Annual Starlight Hall Bachelor Lunch-Date Auction, benefiting Engine One, which is older than my marriage and in worse shape."

"You want to bet?" Debbie hollers.

The crowd roars. This town heckles as a team sport.

"And REMEMBER," Tater goes on, pointing his gavel at a table of linen suits, "our friend Grant Walker is matching every dollar raised tonight, dollar for dollar. Which means when you bid a hundred, you're really bidding two hundred, and when you sit on your hands, you're stealing from a fire truck."

The rules, as Tater explains them, are simple and lawless. You bid, you win, you get a lunch date with the bachelor, all proceeds go to the new engine. What he does not explain, and what becomes clear immediately, is that this auction is rigged like a carnival game.

The first "bachelor" is a married man named Cole, auctioned off while his wife bids against three of her own friends who are clearly running up the price for fun. She wins him for two hundred dollars and kisses him in front of God and the fire marshal.

The second is a rancher bought by his own fiancée with a check she makes him hold while she takes a picture.

"This is a scam," I tell Debbie, delighted despite myself. "This is a money-laundering operation with string lights."

"It's a fundraiser, honey. Drink your wine."

That's when I notice her table. Or rather, the center of her table, where the nurses of Willowbend General, my coworkers, women I trusted, have stacked a pile of cash and are counting it. Out loud. In tens.

My stomach drops.

"Deborah Sue Monroe."

"Hm?" She doesn't look up from the count.

"What is the money for."

"The engine, sugar. It's a fundraiser."

"Debbie."

"Four-twenty, four-forty..." She licks her thumb. Keeps counting.

I lean in and hiss it. "If that pile has anything to do with me, I want you to know I have access to needles and a long memory."

"That's nice." She pats my knee. "Four-sixty."

And then the room changes.

I feel it before I see it, which annoys me, because I am a woman of science. The crowd noise dips and rolls toward the stage, and half the female population of Willowbend sits up straighter, and I turn around, and there is Owen Peterson under the lights.