Husband For Hire

“That’s right.” A flush stung her cheeks. Just for a moment, she wished she could say, “I sculpt male nudes for a living,” or “I’m a district attorney,” but the truth was she was a hairdresser and Brian’s mom, and she could do a lot worse than that.

He made no comment, but she thought perhaps his smile got a little hard around the edges. Probably so. Men generally didn’t find much in common with hairdressers.

“Thanks for your help,” she said, unwrapping the quilt.

“No problem.” With a casual wave of his hand, Robert Carter, M.D., walked toward the pavilion, putting on a pair of aviator shades.

She taped the raffle ticket sign to the edge of the table. Then she unfolded the quilt and took out some clothes-pins, stepping back and eyeing one of the tree branches.

She should have asked him to help her hang the quilt. His height would have been a convenience, but now she’d have to reach the branch without him. Standing on tiptoe on the metal raffle box, she pegged a corner of the quilt around the branch.

The second corner was more of a challenge. She reached out, stretching, and too late felt the metal box tip. “Whoa,” she said, grabbing the tree limb as the box tumbled away. Dangling absurdly from the branch, she wished she hadn’t worn her high-heeled sandals today. Dropping even the short distance to the ground would probably sprain her ankle. Just what she needed—a fat doctor’s bill and time away from work.

Grumbling under her breath, she hoped no one could see her predicament. She had her back to the crowd, so she couldn’t tell. She was about to let go of the branch, bracing herself in case her ankle snapped like kindling, when a pair of hands grasped her from behind and lifted her down.

“She teases, she tweezes, she swings through trees with the greatest of ease,” said Robert Carter, M.D., affecting a newsreader’s voice.

“Very funny.” Twyla pulled her dress back into place.

“Much as I liked the view,” he said, “I wasn’t too sure about watching you fall out of a tree.”

Twyla leaned her forehead against the rough tree trunk. “This is pretty much the most humiliating thing that’s happened to me since Mrs. Spinelli’s hair turned out lime green.”

“Yeah?” That easy laugh again. He picked up a clothespin and pegged the quilt in place. “I guess that must’ve been pretty embarrassing.”

“You have no idea.” She glanced ruefully at the toppled metal box. “Actually, now you probably do.”

He handed her a sweating plastic cup of iced lemonade from the table. “I thought you might be thirsty, so I went and got this.”

“Bless you.” She took a gulp and sent him a grateful smile. “This is awfully good of you.”

“You say that with some surprise.”

“Do I?”

“Uh-huh. Does it surprise you when a strange man does something nice?”

She laughed. “It surprises me when any man does something nice.”

He took off his sunglasses. “I hope you’re kidding.”

“Beauty parlor humor,” she confessed with a wry smile, and finished her lemonade.

Carter studied the quilt for a minute. “So this is what you’re selling?”

“Raffle tickets. This is what the winner gets.” She fingered the edge of it. “The ladies who make these do wonderful work.” She truly loved quilts. Each one was a small, homey miracle in its own unique way. “I think it’s amazing how old, tattered pieces of hand-me-down fabric can be stitched together into something so beautiful.” She ran her hand over a square. “This could have been some old man’s work shirt. This flowered one looks like a grandmother’s apron, probably full of holes or burn marks from the oven. Each one on its own was a rag, not worth keeping. But when you take a small piece of this one and a small piece of that one, and stitch them together with care, you get the most magnificent pattern and design, something that will keep you warm for a lifetime.”

“Wow,” he said, reaching into his back pocket and taking out a slim leather wallet, “that’s some sales pitch.”

She laughed incredulously as he held out a hundred-dollar bill. “I don’t have change for that.”

“I don’t want change. I want a hundred raffle tickets.”

She mouthed “a hundred” even as her stomach lurched with gleeful greed. The hospital guild was usually lucky to pull in seventy-five dollars on a quilt raffle. “Whatever you say,” she replied, taking the money. She counted out a hundred tickets from the long, printed roll in the metal box, tearing the strip apart in the middle.

“You hang on to these, and listen for your number when we do the drawing.”

He shook his head. “You keep them. I’ll check in later. Today might be my lucky day.”

“But—”

“I trust you.”

“That’s what my best customers say.”

He put the sunglasses back on. “I’d better go. I think they’re getting ready to start.”

“Start?” she asked stupidly. This guy was too perfect, and she was pretty certain that all the staring she was doing at him had caused her IQ to drop.

“The auction.” He stuck his thumb in his belt, studying her. “Think you’ll be bidding on a date, Twyla?”

He sounded like that reporter had earlier. A blush spread over her neck like a rash. “Do I look like the sort who has to buy a date from a stranger?”

“You never know.” He indicated the quilt. “Do I look like the sort who has to buy a blanket from a hairdresser?”

“Quilt,” she said. “It’s a quilt.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE STRANGE ENCOUNTER with Twyla McCabe preoccupied Rob when he should have been trying to have a good time. It was pretty entertaining, meeting guys he hadn’t seen in years, discovering how they’d turned out, visiting with teachers he’d had and counselors from the ranch. He felt a little self-conscious sitting at a long picnic table with a few of the guys, because women kept walking past, checking them out, whispering and giggling like schoolgirls.

Hanging out with some of the guys made him wonder about others, the ones he didn’t see here today—those who hadn’t made it through to the other end of the tunnel.

A tunnel was the image he thought of when he remembered the past. His early childhood had been a sunny, idyllic time he recalled only in bright, cartoon-colored flashes. His mother had been fun. That was what he remembered about her—laughter, playfulness, tenderness and forgetfulness. She’d let him stay up late and miss the schoolbus. Her friends and her music were loud, and meals all came in disposable containers. From the perspective of adulthood, he realized she had been impossibly young, uneducated, careless—and ultimately irresponsible.

Then came the tunnel, the long, dark years he had spent struggling through a sense that he had been abandoned due to some fault of his own.

Right or wrong, that perception had driven him to excel at everything he attempted. Sports and studies had pulled him closer and closer to the subtle glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. But the truth was, he hadn’t reached the end yet. Emerging as valedictorian from the local high school hadn’t caused him to burst into the light. Nor had getting a full scholarship to Notre Dame. Or medical school at Baylor. Or the partnership in his Denver practice.

Maybe the end of the tunnel would be Lauren DeVane and the life they would one day share—as soon as they decided to talk about the future. Lauren, so beautiful she made the rest of the world look profane, inhabited a rarefied world that glowed with the light of its own brilliance. A world where boys weren’t abandoned by their underage mothers. Where kids weren’t scared of the dark. Where elegance and style softened the sharp edges of life. Being with Lauren made him feel closer to that world—though never actually a part of it.

His plate loaded with barbecue, he took a seat with some of the others, but his gaze strayed to the playground. The equipment had changed. The peeled-log forts and jungle gyms looked a lot safer than the seesaws and nickel pipes they had played on as boys. He recognized Twyla’s son Brian on a tire swing. The boy had twisted the chain as far as he could and was now whirling in a full, fast spin, his head thrown back, laughing with wild abandon. Just watching him brought a smile to Rob’s lips.

Lauren didn’t want kids. They had discussed it at length, and both agreed that they loved travel and spontaneity too much to devote the time and commitment it took to raise a family. It was funny, he mused, watching Brian wind up for another wild ride; they had discussed their feelings about having kids without discussing their feelings about getting married. He had never proposed, nor had she. It was a logical next step in their relationship, yet neither felt pressured or in a hurry to take that step.

Brian stopped spinning and staggered to the edge of the playground. One glimpse of his gray-green face told Rob the inevitable was about to happen.

“Be right back,” he said to the others, getting up and walking fast across the playground.