Page 78 of Sheltered By Love

The music stops, the lights brighten a little and Thelma rubs her hands together. “Here we go. The main event.”

I frown at her, wondering what she could mean, as Levi drags himself away from his admirers and picks up a microphone.

“You all having a good time?” he says.

The women cheer so loudly, that he starts to laugh. “You bring your money?”

The entire crowd seems to hoot, and holler. Three women are so enthusiastic they wave their purses in the air.

I turn to ask Thelma a question, but Levi’s whipping the crowd into such a frenzy I doubt she’d hear me.

After he thanks a lot of sponsors, including the Outrigger, the Blueskin Bay volunteers’, the council, and a few other small businesses, Levi takes a deep breath.

“Some of you have managed to hook someone, but if you haven’t this is your chance! For one lucky lady, Blueskin Bay’s most eligible bad boy Marine is yours until midnight!”

The crowd erupts into screams as I finally realize what’s going on.

The women aren’t just here because of the number of men in the Bay, they’re here to bid on a bachelor.

Dressed in a tux wearing a pink sash and looking furious, Zane appears beside Levi as he shoves him in front of the women.

“Here he is! Your catch of the day!” Levi yells.

Over the shrieking, it’s hard to hear anything but I do hear more than a few women screaming what they plan to do to Zane if they win.

Zane heard them too. His shoulders have stiffened, his face is tight, and with every word out of Levi’s mouth, he looks closer and closer to beating him to a pulp.

I wince as Levi raises his hands. “Zane will take the winner out for a lobster dinner, and for a moonlight cruise. The highest bidder wins. And sorry ladies, no sharing the prize!”

Thelma nudges me again. “They had to do that after poor naïve Walt McNeil was the bachelor. Came back from the cruise white as a sheet and looking like a stunned mullet. Covered in lipstick and missing his shirt he was.”

I grimace as I examine the women who look the most eager. Eager would be an understatement.

Hungry would be better.

“Don’t know why he did it, really. Levi’s done it twice. But the same women come each year and they want something different,” Thelma mutters.

The dumbest thing slips from my mouth. “How much do women usually bid?”

Thelma eyes me as Levi goes over the rules. She shrugs. “These out-of-towners have deep pockets. Zane’s not been at one of these before and he’s a good-looking boy.”

I chew my lip, toes tapping in my sneakers as Levi starts the bidding. He is good-looking. Very good-looking.

“Let’s start with one hundred dollars? Can I have one hundred for one night with a grumpy Marine?”

The women titter, but Levi calling Zane a grumpy Marine, grates on me for reasons I’m not sure I want to understand.

I swallow, brain racing as I catch strains of conversation from the women closest.

They’re so brazen that it’s apparent they came here not to find love but for a cheap weekend with someone they never plan to see again.

Some of the women have started to shout for Zane to take his shirt off. When the bidding reaches eight hundred dollars in rapid fire, I have no doubt in my mind the bidders are going to want a ‘bang’ for their buck.

Two of them are glaring across at each other, and from the way they removed their wedding bands, they are desperate enough to make Zane a very tempting offer after dinner.

“Do I hear one thousand dollars?” Levi calls.

I gulp as a third bidder shakes her head leaving the two battling it out.

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