Died with a Bow Read Online Free

And it was big.
    Just as I was digging into my Caesar salad topped with grilled shrimp, the phone rang. I was chewing on a spear of romaine lettuce, but I was glad I’d picked up instead of letting the machine answer because it was Dr. Jonathan Rhodes, ER doctor.
    “Rita, it’s been a long time,” he said.
    “How are you?” I said as if I hadn’t noticed he’d been AWOL from my life.
    “Tired,” he said. “I’ve been covering for another doctor as well as taking my usual shift in the ER. I haven’t been home for days. But you don’t want to hear about all the gunshot wounds, emergency appendectomies, cardiac arrests, broken arms, irritable bowel syndrome…”
    What could I say? “I’d love to hear all about your cases, perhaps over dinner sometime? And by the way, are you really being sold off on Saturday night?” Fortunately I didn’t have to say much of anything. I just murmured something sympathetic and he continued.
    “I’m calling to see if you’re coming to the Bachelor Auction Saturday night.”
    Ah-hah, so it
was
him. “As a matter of fact, Dolce bought tickets for us. I understand it’s for a worthy cause.”
    “I hope so because I’m going to feel like a fool up there on the stage like a prize heifer. Especially when no one bids on me.”
    That’s what I liked about Jonathan: he was drop-dead gorgeous, but he didn’t seem to have a clue.
    “Oh, I’m sure someone—”
    “That’s why I’m calling. I was hoping you’d be that someone who will bid on me. Can you imagine how deadly it’d be to be stuck going out with a stranger for dinner and dancing at the Starlight Room on my one night off?”
    I could almost hear him shudder at the thought.
    “I’ll be glad to bid on you,” I said, though considering my modest means and his outstanding looks, I wouldn’t have a chance.
    “Thanks, Rita. I knew I could count on you. Uh-oh, they’re paging me. See you Saturday.”
    I hung up and finished my salad feeling better about my dismal social situation. Unless Jonathan was on the phone again calling every woman he knew to get a bidding war going. But now that I knew he’d been working overtime, maybe that’s why he hadn’t called me for weeks. Maybe he wasn’t dating a nurse or two or three. If he was, he would have asked them to bid on him. But he’d asked me. As long as I didn’t win, I’d do what I could to help him out. That’s the way I am.

Two

    The next few days went just as I expected. Dolce raved about Vienna’s sales ability but said nothing about how beautifully I unpacked and pressed the new clothes. I felt like Cinderella sweeping up the ashes in the back room, while Vienna was my stepsister who got to go to the ball.
    Actually we all got to go to the ball, so Dolce offered to let us wear anything we wanted from the shop. I waited until we closed to try on dresses for the auction, but Vienna said she had an outfit already and dashed out at five o’clock. I glanced out the window to see if she was driving a new car or meeting her motorcycle-riding boyfriend. Neither turned out to be the case. She got into a yellow Lotus, a low-slung British racing car, driven by someone else.
    I was just about to ask if Dolce knew who the owner of the sports car was, but she locked the front door and seemed to have forgotten all about her new favorite salesgirl. Instead,she’d gone into her fairy-godmother mode, which was fine with me. It was worth being Cinderella if I got transformed and my story had a happy ending. But I didn’t see it happening. For now it was good to be on the receiving end of my boss’s attention. It reminded me of the good old days, before Vienna.
    “I say we pull out all the stops,” Dolce said as she rolled out a rack of dresses into the high-ceilinged great room, which once had been some rich Victorian family’s salon.
    “You mean strapless?” I said, thinking of the gorgeous dresses worn to the opera by Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
and Cher