Husband For Hire

It constantly amazed him that they wound up together, for they couldn’t be more different. The heiress and the orphan. Oliver Twist and Princess Grace. Every once in a while, Rob felt an unbidden twinge of discomfort with Lauren. It was hard to define, but the feeling was there, tangible yet hidden, like a pebble in his shoe. She had always been proud of his success and his prospects. But he suspected that deep down she wished he’d been born with real class.

He dismissed the feeling. Sure, they came from different worlds, but they were smart enough to minimize their differences. She was exactly what he had envisioned, when the organizers had made him specify the ideal woman for the auction brochure: an “educated city girl with a high-powered, socially responsible career.”

Spying an upswept crown of blond hair in the audience, he felt his heart give a momentary lurch. No, it wasn’t Lauren, but a part of him would have been ridiculously pleased to discover she couldn’t stand for him to be auctioned off to a stranger and had come rushing up here to buy him for herself.

That would have been pure fantasy and so completely unlike Lauren that it was ludicrous.

“So who do you want to bid on you?” Davis asked. “Got any preferences?”

Before he realized what he was doing, Rob looked directly at the back field, where a tall spreading oak tree nodded in the summer breeze. Twyla McCabe stood by the breeze-stirred raffle quilt, hands on her hips, watching the proceedings with mild bemusement. Then he caught himself and focused on the bleachers. “No preference. Like I said, all women are beautiful. It’s for charity, anyway.”

“…do this in alphabetical order, I guess,” the auctioneer was saying. “So, ladies, put your hands together for our first bachelor, Dr. Robert Carter.”

Damn. With jerky, mechanical movements Rob made himself stand. Okay, this was his turn to help out the boys ranch. There was no place for bashfulness or seriousness in this.

From somewhere deep inside, he summoned a wide, welcoming grin and took Lindsay’s hand, gallantly bending over it and lifting it to his lips. A chorus of sighs gusted from the audience, and he laughed.

The auctioneer gave a rundown of Rob’s bio, making him sound a lot more interesting than he was, eliciting oohs and aahs at his achievements in sports and academics. He’d filled his bachelor questionnaire with facts about his pathology lab, but they hadn’t used any of it. Apparently isolating lethal viruses and staving off epidemics wasn’t considered “sexy.”

“And here’s a little something extra, ladies,” the auctioneer said. “He’s got the soul of a poet.”

Rob frowned. Where had that come from?

The auctioneer took out a yellowed piece of wide-ruled writing paper. Rob craned his neck to see. The page was covered in painstakingly neat penciled lettering, and at the top, a gold foil star gleamed. “This was provided by Mrs. Theda Duckworth, former third-grade teacher of Lander Elementary.”

Rob’s mind careered back through the years. He remembered Mrs. Duckworth as stern, down-to-earth, loving. Big on penmanship. But he couldn’t for the life of him recall anything he had written for her.

“It’s something Rob wrote when he was just knee-high to a grasshopper, and here’s what that boy had to say. ‘When I grow up I want to be someone’s daddy. I’m told this is not hard to do, but I don’t know for sure.”’

A ripple of amusement swept the audience. Rob’s grin froze. If this sort of thing was supposed to up the stakes, they were nuts. Who wanted to hear the naive ramblings of a nine-year-old kid?

“‘The father in the family fixes things,”’ the auctioneer continued. “‘Mostly the car, but stuff in the yard and the house, too. Every father is real strong. But it takes a mother and the kids to make him into a father. This is something I better think on a lot more.”’

The women in the bleachers laughed and clapped and “awwwed” at the nauseatingly cute story. Rob tried not to let his chagrin show. He tried to appear relaxed and friendly as the auctioneer opened the bidding.

“Who’ll give five hundred dollars for this fine specimen of a man?”

A hand shot up in the bleachers.

“Five hundred dollars, I have five. Who’ll bid six?”

Jeez, Rob thought as the auctioneer droned on. Hadn’t slave auctions been outlawed by Lincoln?

More hands flashed up so quickly he couldn’t tell who was bidding. The bids climbed fast and steep, the women laughing and hollering as they egged one another on.

“Twelve hundred dollars! Do I hear thirteen?”

Rob broke out in a sweat.

His attention darted from one bidder to the next. The denim-shirt girl. The big-hair lady. The mom with two kids. The pregnant woman. A New York-type all in black. The lizard-boots-and-Rolex-watch woman. The silver-haired old lady. Damn, old lady?

Rob wished for a beer. Bad.

The money soared to unreal heights. Nine thousand, ten, twelve. Rex and Lindsay sure knew some freewheeling folks. Denim Shirt kept outbidding Big Hair. One of the Fremonts made a bid. Then there was a lightning exchange between Lizard Boots and Silver Hair.

Rob wondered if praying would help. He caught himself glancing, somewhat desperately, in Twyla’s direction. He found no sympathy there. She rolled her eyes and laughed at the whole idiotic thing. But it calmed him, somehow, catching her eye. She was like a serene center of sanity in the midst of madness. But she kept laughing at him.

“Going once, going twice, going three times…sold,” the auctioneer barked, “to Sugar Spinelli, right there in the front row!”

Twyla McCabe, who had been laughing, staggered back against her folding table and clapped her hand over her mouth. Even from a distance, Rob could see her face go pale.

His jaw dropped as the winning bidder gave a shout of victory. Thunderous applause sounded. The bidder and her friend stood up and hugged each other. Spangled jogging suits—one pink, one lavender—flashed in the sunlight.

Rob blinked with disbelief. In his wildest dreams, he hadn’t expected this. The highest bidder for his charms…was a gray-haired grandma.

CHAPTER FIVE

ROB FELT COMPETELY buoyant with relief as he left the dais. Behind him, the auctioneer chose a new victim and started describing his charms while the hooting and hollering of the audience started up again. Rob’s part was over. But he still wanted that beer.

The jogging-suit ladies went to settle up with the auction officials, so he made his way to the concession stand, savoring a cold beer from a keg. Then he took a cellular phone out of his pocket and dialed Lauren’s number.

When she answered, he couldn’t contain his laughter. “I think you’ve lost me forever.”

“You mean the auction is over? So soon?”

“My part, anyway.”

“So tell me.” He could picture her curling up on her black suede sofa and wished like hell he could curl up with her. “I want to hear everything.”

He took a sip of his beer. “Okay, they made me go first.”

“Because you’re worth the most, darling.”

“Because it was alphabetical,” he said with a wry smile. “Anyway, the bidding went round and round, but you’ll never guess who I ended up with.”

“I don’t want to guess. Just tell me.”

“Somebody named Spinelli. Yeah, I think that’s her name.”

“Sugar Spinelli?”

“You know her?”

“Oil money. Scads of it. Everyone knows her.”

“Lauren, your ‘everyone’ isn’t quite the same as my ‘everyone.”’ He knew she didn’t mean to, but when she said “everyone,” she gave it a slightly exclusive emphasis. Excluding people like Rob.

“She’s ancient, Rob. Why on earth would she bid at a bachelor auction?”