“You should have backed out when Molly gave you the choice.” I squeeze his arm through his suit jacket. “She would have understood.”

“I thought it would die down by now,” he grumbles. “There are men and women literally risking their lives saving people every day, and all these ladies are losing their minds because I performed a puppy rescue that my niece probably could have managed.”

My amusement fizzles away when I see the frustration in his eyes. As easy as it is to laugh about how any single guy would want the attention thrown his way the past month, the reality has been an endless invasion of his privacy at best. I slide off my stool and straighten his jacket. “I’m sure most of the women out there are completely normal. I doubt many of them plan to chain you in their basement.”

“Somehow, that’s not reassuring.”

Ava Jackson, Carter’s sister-in-law and one of my best friends, pokes her head through the door backstage, her new dark bob swaying around her jawline. “You’re up first, Carter. Are you ready?”

There’s something close to terror in Carter’s eyes. He’s six foot two, two hundred-some pounds of solid muscle, and he’s truly afraid of these desperate single women. “Ready,” Carter says without taking his eyes off me.

“You’ll be fine,” I whisper.

“I hope you’re right.”

“And if the lady who wins you turns out to be a serial killer, wave me down. I’ll be here all night.”

“You do owe me a favor.”

I frown. “I do?”

He folds his arms. “Remember the night you mauled me in Jackson Brews and made me pretend to be your boyfriend?”

Right. That. My cheeks blaze with the reminder. “I already said I’d help.”

Out front, the music begins to play—Carter’s cue—then Molly says, “Now, to kick off the night, the man you’ve been waiting for, Jackson Harbor’s most eligible bachelor, Carter Jackson!”

“They’re waiting.” I wink at him.

Carter rolls his shoulders back and pushes through the curtain. I blink as he transforms himself with a smirk and a cocky swagger. He looks at home on that stage, as if doing this is his fantasy.

“We’ll start the bidding at one hundred dollars,” Molly says. She beams at the crowd, a picture-perfect emcee with her fitted pink dress suit and sleek platinum hair. “Friendly reminder, ladies, your bid entitles you to the pleasure of Carter’s company for the evening, nothing more. This is a family event.”

As the crowd laughs at her warning, I jog to the access door to take the back hallway around to the banquet room. I was only in the back to tease Carter, and I’ll be in the way if I stay through the whole auction. By the time I enter, a throng of women have pushed themselves to the front, and bidding has reached fifteen hundred dollars.

“Fifteen hundred dollars for a couple of hours with my brother?” Shay asks, stepping up beside me. The lone Jackson sister is dressed like me tonight—little black dress, her dark hair pulled up. “Damn. Maybe he should leave the fire department behind and be a male escort.”