Bidding on the Virgin at the MC Auction

The auctioneer reads her name wrong and nobody in the crowd corrects him. Jolene Pike is the only woman on the block tonight, and her stepfather put her there. Then Brigg Talbot bids twelve thousand dollars in cash, without blinking, and buys ninety days of her life. He doesn't touch her. He gives her a room, a job, and a locked door she can't open from either side. He takes apart the men who put her on the stage, and he does it quietly. But Jolene didn't survive Nettle Creek to be somebody's property. And when ninety days runs out — or her stepfather comes back with a shotgun — she's going to make it very clear what she's worth. She was never a debt. She was a match.