Going Once... Read online

  Going Once

  Deborah Raney

  Contents

  Title Page

  The Story

  About the Author

  Because of the Rain

  Insight Ad

  Silver Bells Ad

  Nearly

  AAT Ad

  Finally Home

  Clayburn Ad

  Chicory Inn

  Other Books

  Going Once…

  (First published as “Going Once, Going Twice…” in A Kiss is Still a Kiss, Next Step Books, © 2015.)

  © Copyright 2016 Deborah Raney.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted to any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Raney Day Press.

  Scriptures used from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters are fictional and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Published by Raney Day Press. Cover and interior design by Ken Raney.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Created with Vellum

  April

  The Kansas sky matched Piper Kendall’s mood. Gray and stormy. For the third time in as many minutes, she checked the time on her phone. The auction wasn’t set to start for another hour, but the hay wagons were circled around the driveway, piled haphazardly with all her grandfather’s earthly belongings.

  Already the farmyard was swarming with greedy auction-goers. A rainbow of bright umbrellas dotted the property, and underneath each, some shopper pawed at Grampa’s things as if groping for the ripest peaches in the produce bin.

  Piper sighed. She wasn’t being fair. She understood that excitement. She and Grampa had sought out their own bargains over the years. Some of their treasures were back on these very wagons today. They’d loved getting up with the sun and setting out in Grampa’s old blue Ford pickup, auction bill in hand. Grampa always wanted to be first in line to get their bidder numbers and scout out the goods.

  In her excitement to get a bargain, it never once occurred to her how sad this day might be for the family of the sellers. Now she was the family. And except for the day they’d had to move Grampa into the nursing home, she couldn’t remember being sadder.

  Feeling like a traitor, she made her way to the clerk’s trailer and got her number. The only thing that would make her happy again was if she could buy back everything Grampa had been forced to give up. And with only seven-hundred-twenty-seven dollars to her name—and her rent due next Friday—that wasn’t going to happen. Besides, every penny this auction generated was needed to pay the astronomical cost of the nursing home. Almost two hundred dollars a day, according to Uncle Martin. It was highway robbery.

  If she didn’t need her job to survive, she’d take care of Grampa herself. Never mind at ninety-two he could never have made it up the twenty-eight steps to her third-floor apartment. Or that her degree in library science hadn’t taught her the first thing about nursing care. The best she could do was to go visit Grampa each evening after she got off work.

  Sometimes he knew her. Sometimes he thought she was her mother, and called her Grace. Either way, it broke her heart. Mom had been gone for a dozen years now. As many years as Piper had known her. Piper’s dad had left when she was an infant, and then cancer snuffed out Grace Kendall’s life when Piper was only twelve.

  She’d moved in with Grampa the day of the funeral, and this farm had been home until she left for college in Missouri. Uncle Martin had warned her the next Thanksgiving that Grampa was failing. She hadn’t believed him. Until she came home for Christmas, and it was clear something was wrong. Something serious.

  And finally, when Grampa drove the pickup into the ditch and couldn’t tell the sheriff where he lived, they could no longer ignore the truth. Piper only hoped the sale of the farm would raise enough to keep Grampa in the home as long as—

  She blew out a sigh. She couldn’t go there. Life without her grandfather was something she didn’t want to imagine. She tucked her bidder number in her pocket and headed over to the machine shed. Might as well get this day over with.

  An hour later, minivans and pickup trucks towing stock trailers were lined up for half a mile on either side of the country road. The place looked more like the Kansas State Fairgrounds than Grampa’s farmyard.

  The enticing aroma of cabbage bierocks and peach cobbler wafted from the open garage where the 4-H Club was serving lunch and homemade pies. But Piper was too nervous to be hungry. In her twenty-four years, this was her first auction without her grandfather, and she wasn’t sure she could keep up with the bids without him at her back, nudging her elbow when she needed to hold her number high, tugging at her sleeve when she should wait out the bid.

  Still, she would be crushed if she had to drive away from the farm without the clock.

  She glanced through the open doors and saw the shapely grandfather clock standing proud against the corrugated steel on the back wall of the shed. Fearing rain, they’d dragged most of the furniture inside. Grampa’s own grandparents had brought the clock over from England more than a hundred years ago. He would have pitched a fit now, seeing the stately clock sitting in the damp shed, unprotected from rain and dirt, and now being stroked by the grimy hands of strangers. Piper even saw one guy kick the bottom of the pedestal, as if the precious heirloom were a used car!

  The portly auctioneer tried to get things moving, but bidding was as lethargic—and as low—as the clouds hanging overhead. She was torn. Grampa needed the money, but if things were going to sell this slowly, maybe she had a prayer of getting the clock after all.

  The auctioneer stopped mid chant and waited for the crowd to quiet. “Folks, if you knew Guy Kendall, you’d understand the value of these goods. Mr. Kendall never met a stranger, and most likely if he did meet one, it was a fella in need, and Guy Kendall found a way to meet that need. Today we have a chance to turn the tables and help out a man who had as good a heart as anyone I’ve ever known.”

  Piper teared up at the tribute, even as she wanted to correct the man for referring to Grampa in the past tense. She dried her tears, though, as things finally got rolling. And for a while she forgot to be nervous. But as they got closer and closer to selling the clock, adrenaline began to pulse through her veins.

  Uncle Martin milled through the crowd, talking to those he knew, some of them friends of Grampa’s she recognized from the coffee shop in town. But most of the faces in the crowd were strangers to her. As the dressers and tables from the farmhouse were sold one by one, she slipped closer to the front of the throng, edging as near to the auction block as she could get without being rude. But she didn’t dare risk not being seen when bidding for the clock began.

  She positioned herself in front of the platform, and the auctioneer caught her eye and winked. But as item after item sold, her hopes of getting the clock plummeted. An old oak nightstand went for over two hundred dollars, and a dressing table for four hundred. Grampa had some nice furniture—antiques he’d taken good care of. She should have been thrilled to see Grampa’s stuff selling so well. He needed the money. But if run-of-the-mill furniture was going this high, what might her clock go for?

  She corrected her thoughts. It wasn’t her clock. She had no claim to it. But…tell that to her heart.

  “What am I bid for this grandfather clock?”

  The auctioneer’s assistant motioned for his ear
, and a brief whispered conversation flew between them.

  The auctioneer straightened and adjusted his microphone. “Folks, I’m told this old clock is in perfect working order, circa 1910 or thereabouts. Who’ll start the bid at five hundred dollars?”

  Piper’s heart sank. They were starting the bid way over her head?

  But the crowd stayed silent and the auctioneer conceded. “All right then… Let everybody in,” he sing-songed. “Who’ll give a hundred? A hundred dollars. Folks, this is a fine clock in fine condition.”

  Immediately the auctioneer’s assistant pointed somewhere behind Piper and the auctioneer launched into his rhythmic chant. “I’m bid a hundred, now who’ll give me two? Who’ll give me two now, who’ll give me two?”

  The ring man barked a sharp “hup!” indicating they had a bid, and the auctioneer pointed again. “Two, now three, now who’ll gimme three?”

  Another bark from the man on the ground.

  “Three now four, now who’ll give me four?”

  Her heart plummeted again. She hadn’t even gotten her hand up and the bidding was a mile a minute and getting away from her fast. Grampa had taught her to bid dispassionately. “Don’t show your hand too quickly, Pip,” he’d say. He’d nicknamed her Pip—like in Great Expectations—and it stuck. “Be patient. Wait ’em out. Don’t let ’em know how bad you want it.”

  But if she didn’t get her hand up, she was going to be out of the running before she could even get in the game. In one smooth motion, she took her number from her breast pocket and raised it to her shoulder.

  The bid-taker pointed at her and gave his signature bark.

  The auctioneer acknowledged her with a bob of his head. “I have four, now who’ll gimme five…four now five… Who’ll gimme five?”

  On an ordinary Saturday with Grampa, Piper would have loved the energy in the air, the musical cadence of the auctioneer’s riff. But today there was too much at stake. And the bid was briskly approaching her limit. Two or three early bidders dropped out at four twenty-five and her hopes rose again.

  “Four-fifty!” someone behind her yelled.

  “Four-seventy-five,” she squeaked.

  “I’ve got four seventy-five. Who’ll give me five?”

  She raised her hand higher, not caring now who saw how much she wanted that clock. Maybe whoever was bidding against her would recognize she was Guy’s granddaughter and have mercy on her.

  “Five and a quarter?”

  “Hup!”

  “Five and a quarter, now five-fifty? Five-fifty?”

  She raised her number again. At least the pace had slowed a little.

  “Hup!”

  She turned to look behind her to see who was bidding against her. A man about her age caught her eye from beneath the rim of a white Stetson. His smooth-shaven face was burnished to copper—probably a fake tan. But his eyes were kind—and blue as the chicory that grew in the ditches.

  Still, she frowned and narrowed her gaze at him, turning back to raise her card again. Five hundred-seventy-five dollars.

  The assistant hupped at the cowboy behind her, then hupped again to her left. Oh no! Had someone else gotten in on the bidding?

  Her heart sank. She wasn’t going to get it. She just knew it.

  “Six hundred, I’ve got six, who’ll give me six-fifty?”

  “Hup!”

  “Six-fifty— Hup! Six seventy-five, will ya gimme seven?” The auctioneer looked down at her with a question in his eyes. He was pulling for her, but he couldn’t favor her either.

  Still, she wasn’t giving up yet. She held her number high, earning a smile from the auctioneer.

  “This little lady has the bid at seven. Seven, now seven-fifty—

  “Hup!”

  “Seven-fifty, now eight, now who’ll give eight, give eight, give eight,” he sing-songed. “Do I hear eight?”

  “Hup!”

  Piper sucked in a ragged breath and let her number slip from her hand.

  She was done. It was over.

  Squeezing back tears, she put her head down and slinked into the crowd. She inched her way between overalled farmers until she was behind the two remaining bidders.

  The other man looked like a city boy in his trendy button-down shirt and designer sunglasses. Probably an antique dealer from Kansas City. She didn’t care. She wanted to give them both a swift kick in the shins. Couldn’t they see how badly she wanted that clock? Couldn’t they guess it meant something special to her?

  By now the bid was over a thousand dollars and the auctioneer was raising it in increments of fifty dollars. The longer the bidding went on, the more Piper started to suspect both bidders were just stubbornly trying to outdo each other.

  Finally, the bids stopped, City Boy conceding to Cowboy.

  “All in, all done…” The auctioneer paused dramatically, giving City Boy one last chance to show his number.

  But the man shook his head.

  “Sold!” The gavel came down. “To the gentleman in the cowboy hat.”

  A wave of chuckles went through the crowd, since fully two-thirds of the men there sported cowboy hats. The auctioneer thanked the bidders for livening up the sale, and Piper watched as the cowboy wove through the crowd—more like swaggered—toward the clerk’s trailer.

  She should have been grateful for the sale. She still had money to pay her rent, and the sum the clock had brought—over two thousand dollars—would keep Grampa in his private room for another ten days. Grampa would have been triumphant the clock brought such a good price. He wouldn’t have been so fond of the presence of the antique dealers, even though they’d kept the bidding lively. But Grampa was always for the little guy, and he wouldn’t have liked seeing so many of his farmer friends shut out of the sale. Or her.

  She’d intended to stay until the end of the sale, but she didn’t have the heart now. There was nothing else she wanted, nothing she could afford anyway. She tossed her bidder number into a nearby trash can and headed for her car. She would come back later and help Uncle Martin clean up, but right now all she wanted was to drive out to her thinking spot and have a good cry. In fact, she just might get a head start on that cry this minute.

  She quickened her steps as the tears came, fishing in her bulky bag for her car keys.

  “Hey, Miss. Wait a minute… Miss?”

  She took a swipe at her damp cheeks with the sleeve of her jacket before turning to see who was calling.

  Figured. The cowboy. He had a lot of nerve… She took off at a trot. She had nothing to say to him.

  “Miss? Hold up! You in the blue jacket…” She heard his boots on the gravel lane behind her. They sounded determined.

  Stopping in her tracks and whirling to face him, she almost crashed into him. “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to say… I hope there are no hard feelings…” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the auctioneer’s stand. “About the clock. Seemed like you wanted it pretty bad.”

  “Seemed like you wanted it more.” She firmed her lips into a hard line and started to turn back toward the car.

  “Wait! Please…”

  She felt his hand on her arm and turned again, fury taking hold of her.

  He must have sensed it, for he dropped his hand to his side. “I…I wondered if you’d like to buy the clock from me?”

  Was he a total nutjob? “If I had the money to buy it, I would have bought it.”

  “No, I mean… I could let you make payments on it. I’d sell it to you for the price I paid.”

  “Sorry. That’s out of the question.”

  “Then, how about if I drop the price to two thousand even? I wouldn’t even charge you interest. You could pay me twenty dollars a month. Or whatever you could afford.”

  She quirked an eyebrow at him. He was talking about an eight-year commitment. “You’re not real good at math, are you?”

  That earned her a smile. He had a nice smile. Charmingly crooked, but showing str
aight white teeth and cutting a dimple in his right cheek. She decided the tan was definitely real.

  He pawed at the gravel with the toe of his boot, reminding her of an impatient stallion. “I could see how much you wanted it,” he said again. “I want to make it up to you. I feel bad.”

  “So you’re going to take a two-hundred-fifty-dollar loss for a complete stranger?” That did it. He was certifiable.

  Another smile. This one more subdued than before. “You’re not completely a stranger to me, you know…”

  “What?” She instinctively pulled her purse closer to her body and checked around her for an escape route.

  “You’re Weldon’s granddaughter.”

  “You know my grandfather?”

  A curt nod of his chin. “I do.”

  Most people called Grampa “Guy,” but his given name was Weldon. Still, it had said “Guy” on the sale bill for the auction, so maybe this guy really did know him.

  “I’m Finn. Finn Neilson.” He put out a hand.

  She reluctantly shook it. His grip was firm. His hands were warm and—Grampa would have said—just rough enough to prove this guy was no stranger to hard work. But her grandfather had never mentioned any Finn. She would have remembered.

  “How do you know my grandfather?”

  The cowboy—Finn—screwed up one side of his face as if trying to come up with the answer to a difficult question. “It’s kind of a long story. Maybe I could tell you over lunch.”

  “Um… No thanks. I was actually getting ready to go visit Grampa. He’s in the nursing home now. But then, you probably know that.”

  He looked at the ground again. “I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t sell the farm if he didn’t have to.”

  What was this Finn Neilson’s connection to her grandfather?

  “Is he… How’s he doing?” Those kind blue eyes looked straight into her heart.

  “How long has it been since you last saw him?”

  “A few years. I sort of lost touch.”

  “He has dementia. Pretty bad. Some days he knows me, others not so much.”