Read Bidding on Brooks: The Winslow Brothers #1 Online
Authors: Katy Regnery
Bidding on Brooks: The Winslow Brothers #1
BIDDING ON BROOKS
The Winslow Brothers #1
Katy Regnery
BIDDING ON BROOKS
Copyright
© 2015 by Katharine Gilliam Regnery
Sale of the electronic edition of this book is wholly unauthorized. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without written permission from the author/publisher.
Katharine Gilliam Regnery, publisher
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Please visit my website at www.katyregnery.com
First Edition: May 2015
Katy Regnery
Bidding on Brooks : a novel / by Katy Regnery – 1st ed.
ISBN: 978-0-9909003-4-4
For Melissa Molloy, sailor extraordinaire, and her (totally hot) beau, Ciaran, for making sure my lines were straight and sails were full.
And with thanks to Dr. Jen for answering 1001heart-related questions.
“Please, Skye. Just listen. You’re the perfect person for this. You’ve got to help me out.”
Skye Sorenson rolled her eyes at Brooks Winslow, adjusting the brim of her baseball cap as she swept past him and headed down the dock for her next job.
“I mean it, Skye. I’m up a tree…and we’re friends. Can’t you give me a hand?”
Dreamy Delight
needed a new float switch and bilge pump, which would be difficult to manage with Brooks Winslow standing on the dock, looking casually gorgeous as he yammered at her about some charity event he wanted her to attend.
Gazing at her hands, she noted they were still covered with engine grease from the oil change she’d just handled on the outboard motor of a J-24 sailboat. Not wanting to get black fingerprints on the white fiberglass of the motorboat she was about to service, she took a bandana out of the back pocket of her overalls then turned to face Brooks as she wiped her fingers.
“Are you going to follow me around all afternoon if I don’t listen?”
“Umm…pretty much.”
She sighed with feigned annoyance. “Fine. You have my attention. Tell it to me again.”
Brooks looked relieved and gave her a small grin that—
damn it
—made Skye’s stomach flutter.
“Knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“Haven’t said yes to anything yet,” she said, shoving the bandana back into her pocket and crossing her arms over her chest.
“My sister, Jessica, is back in Philly this summer to get married. To keep busy, she’s organized some big benefit for the Institute of Contemporary Art. She and her girlfriends thought it would be fun to volunteer their single brothers to be auctioned off.”
“Auctioned off?”
“Yeah…a bachelor auction.”
“Some sister,” said Skye, unable to keep the teasing from her voice.
“It’s for charity,” he said defensively, running a hand through his waves of jet black hair.
“Okay. So you got roped into it.” She thought back to an old movie she’d seen once where women were auctioned off as dates. At each of their feet had been a pretty lunch basket, and the man that was the highest bidder won a homemade lunch with the girl of his choice. “What do you have to do? Have lunch with someone?”
“Oh, no,” he said with irritation, pursing his lips. “Nothing that painless. Jess wants to make money
. Big
money. She had to think bigger than lunch.”
Skye stared up at him. “Dinner?”
“Nope.”
“Two dinners?”
“Nuh-uh.”
She gestured to the sleek Sportscruiser moored at the end of the dock that she was supposed to be working on. “I’m out of guesses, Brooks…and that pump isn’t going to fix itself, so—”
“A sail. She’s auctioning off a sail. With me.”
“Well, I don’t know why you’re complaining. You love sailing. You love women. What’s the problem?”
Skye tilted her head to the side, looking at Brooks’ way-too-handsome face with a cheeky grin.
Long ago Skye had accepted the fact that Brooks would never see her as anything but a great mechanic, a proficient sailor, and a long-time friend. She was—honestly and truly—satisfied with that status quo between them. He was rich and powerful, an ex-Olympian and world-renowned sailor from Philadelphia, while Skye lived a much quieter life, working as a “handyman” at her dad’s marina in Maryland. What they had in common was a deep love of boats and mutual respect for one another’s nautical skills, and that was just enough to keep their friendship intact.
The first time Skye had ever seen Brooks Winslow was the day he came down to her father’s marina to claim the fifteen foot Primrose wood-hulled sailboat gifted to him from his parents for his fifteenth birthday. He swaggered into Sorenson Marina, flashing his perfect smile at her, and her ten-year-old heart had grown wings as she’d discreetly followed him down the dock. She was instantly infatuated with Brooks, of course, but much more, Skye harbored a deep devotion to his Primrose, the most beautiful little double-ended Daycruiser she’d ever seen. Her stomach had been in knots as she walked behind him from a discreet distance, hopeful that he would handle the little sailboat with the grace and care she deserved. But Skye’s worries turned out to be unfounded. He’d treated that pretty boat with respect and skill, and Skye had breathed deeply with relief, whispering, “I’m gonna marry you someday,” as he sailed away.
Twenty years later, Skye knew two things for certain:
One, that Brooks was one of the most talented, natural, organic sailors she’d ever met in her life. Heck, he’d made it all the way to the Olympics and come home with a medal to prove what Skye had always known—that any boat was safe in his hands. She respected him more than most of the sailors she knew.
And two, the chances of her ever marrying him were next to none in the approximate area of zero. He was gorgeous and rich and talented and fascinating…and completely out of her league.
“Not a one-day sail,” Brooks continued in a terse voice, jettisoning her memories as he prompted her back to their conversation. “Not even two. Jessica signed me up for a cruise. From Baltimore to Charleston.”
Skye felt her eyes widen as she stared at him. “That’s a week. Minimum.”
“Yeah.”
“Crew?”
Brooks grabbed the back of his neck with his hand, rubbing. “Nope. It’s supposed to be… romantic.”
A romantic cruise. For a week. Alone. With Brooks.
Lucky girl,
she thought, ignoring the ridiculous spike of jealousy that jabbed a little at her heart and made her feel instantly guilty.
She couldn’t help her attraction to him, but the fact that it was totally unreturned made it manageable in a way that didn’t hurt. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t like she had
feelings
for Brooks beyond friendship. She just liked looking at him. Her eighty-year-old granny’s heart would flutter at the sight of Brooks’ thick, dark hair, flashing sea-green eyes, square jaw, muscular body, and perennially-tan hands that handled a boat with the same finesse that he probably handled his women. Noticing Brooks’ good looks didn’t make Skye unique or special, and it didn’t mean she wanted more from him than friendship either (she tried to convince herself). It just made her human.
“Romantic,” she murmured. Turning away, she looked out at the harbor where sailboats bobbed up and down in afternoon sun.
“Yeah.”
“But you won’t know who she is,” said Skye, “until she wins you.”
“Bingo,” he said.
“And then you’ll be trapped at sea for a week.”
“Precisely.”
“She could be
anyone
.”
“Yep.”
“Does your sister really hate you?”
Brooks scoffed. “No. But she really loves modern art.”
“Okay. Yeah. It’s a pretty sucky situation. But how can I help?”
He grinned. “You can bid on me.”
***
Brooks had been friends with Skye Sorenson forever, which meant a lot to him because Brooks had a hard time making lasting friendships with women. Such friendships always seemed to turn into romantic entanglements, and the camaraderie was ultimately sacrificed when he walked away from the friendship and the woman. But not so with Skye because he didn’t see her in any romantic light whatsoever and had it on good authority that her interests lay elsewhere—with her boyfriend, Patrick. In fact, Brooks thought of Skye almost on par with his sister, Jessica, and respected her skills on the water as much as any man he knew.
She and her father, Jack, ran a first-class marina on the Chesapeake Bay, and they were the only people on earth he trusted with the care and maintenance of his several sailboats: a Primrose he’d had since he was a teenager, a Passport Yacht, and—soon—an antique Cutter. Totally obsessed with boats from a young age just like him, he’d known Skye was a kindred spirit early in their friendship. Their mutual respect had ensured a level playing field when it came to boats and sailing. If he was forced to skipper a weeklong jaunt down to Charleston, Skye would be the perfect person to accompany him.
Having sailed with her many times before, he knew her to be an excellent crew: she’d pull her weight on deck and if they ran into any problems—mechanical or weather-related—there was no woman he knew whom would be better equipped to assist him. They’d both enjoy the challenge of trying to achieve maximum speed on the antique sailboat, and Skye would be an equal partner, rather than a spoiled debutante who wanted to be waited-on while she worked on her tan. In short, he’d simply enjoy himself a lot more if Skye agreed to go with him.
She stared back at him like he had a screw loose, and he forced himself not to smile. No stranger to Skye’s frank assessments of messed up situations, especially as they pertained to anything sailing-related, he expected a quick rejection.
After searching his face for several long seconds, she finally looked away, putting her hands on her hips. “Bid on you? With what? The millions I have lying around? I don’t have that kind of money, Brooks.”
It surprised him that she didn’t say no. Hope surged.
“No. But I do.”
“You’re going to
give me
the money to bid on you?” She looked up at him from under the brim of her cap. “Why don’t you just donate it to your sister’s charity and back out of the auction?”
He took a deep breath. “Winning the sail with me is the
headlining
auction item. Jess thinks it’ll be a big draw.”
Skye rolled her eyes. “Like ‘The Bachelor’ at sea, huh?”
“Something like that…” He winced, hating to share the next bit of information, but knowing it wouldn’t be fair to keep it from her either. “With the cameras to prove it.”
“
Cameras
?”
“Jess has arranged for a photographer from
Celeb!
magazine to meet the boat at Virginia Beach, Hatteras in the Outer Banks, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Charleston. They’re going to do an article in their on-line magazine.” Realizing what this could mean to her within the context of “The Bachelor” analogy, he rushed to reassure her. “Not that we’d have to touch or kiss or anything for the camera. No way. Absolutely not.”
“Absolutely not,” she echoed softly, quickly dropping his eyes. She paused for a moment, picking at the black cuticles of her oil-stained fingers before looking at him. “I don’t think I’m the right person for the job. I haven’t been sailing a lot lately. Sorry, Brooks.”
She turned on her heel and started walking back down the dock. Brooks watched her go—her ass completely hidden by rumpled, unshapely overalls—before refusing defeat and running after her, because the thing was? Skye was the
only
person for the job.
What did she mean, she hadn’t been sailing a lot lately? That couldn’t be true. She loved sailing. And besides, she was a crackerjack sailor, a low-maintenance companion, and perhaps—most convenient of all—she was taken, and since Brooks was wholly disinterested in anything remotely romantic with her, that made her the perfect choice.
“Wait, Skye! Wait. Come on. Hear me out.”
Skye turned, her expression incredulous. “Hear
what
out? Why in the hell would I want to put on a dress and go to an auction…bid on you…and then have to sail with you to Charleston, stopping along the way to… to
wave
for pictures? Even friendship has its limits. Call me when you need racing crew or a maintenance check on the Prim.”
Her mention of one of his boats made him consider playing his trump card early, but he decided to try another tactic first. Cajoling.
“You don’t have to wear a dress to the auction. I don’t care if you wear this,” he said, wrinkling his nose as he gestured to her stained overalls. “And c’mon! You love seaboard cruises. I know it and you know it. And so what if you have to smile and wave for the camera a couple of times? Big deal. It’s for a good cause, Skye.”
“I’m up to my eyeballs in work here,” she said. “Don’t you know a million girls you could ask?”
“I’m not interested in the romantic aspect of this. I just need a good sailor who will pose for a few pictures. And listen, I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you to crew. Going rate.”
Her voice had an edge when she answered. “I don’t need a second job, Brooks. Find someone else.”
She turned on the heel of her beat-up topsiders and kept walking. Left without any other options, Brooks called after her, “And here I thought you’d be interested in crewing a custom-made, fully-restored 1929 sixty-two foot Cutter.”
He watched with hope and amusement as Skye stopped in her tracks. Brooks knew exactly how tantalizing was the morsel he dangled before her.
“Did I mention steel frame, teak topside and pitch pine bottom planking?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
Her shoulders moved subtly, like she had suddenly gotten the shivers, and he took another step closer.
“You could have the whole aft cabin to yourself, Skye. Two berths. Built in. With the original head en suite.”