Husband For Hire

“That’s true,” she said. “But you know, I’ve got something better here. I run my own business and have the world’s cutest kid. When I was younger, I had no idea how important those things would turn out to be.” Still, she sometimes lay awake at night, haunted by the feeling that she had settled for less than her dreams. “I’ll be the first to admit that I blew it with my first marriage. The thing is, I don’t want a second time around. I like my life fine as it is.”

“But wouldn’t it be a little more fun if you’d date every once in a while?” Sadie, who dated more than once in a while, was always pushing Twyla to get out more.

“Oh, look,” said Mrs. Duckworth, paging through the catalog. “It’s little Robbie Carter.” She pointed to the rose-and-tux guy.

“Not so little anymore,” Diep said.

“I remember him from my third-grade class. My, my, he did clean up nicely, didn’t he?”

“He’s a doctor,” said Mrs. Spinelli.

“And a Leo—that’s a good sign,” Sadie added.

Twyla brushed and spritzed her hair, listening with only half an ear. He spoke Spanish, loved to travel and drove a Lincoln Navigator. He was the chief partner in a Denver pathology lab. She found herself vaguely disappointed in the thumbnail bio in the catalog. The guy was so extravagantly good-looking, so accomplished, she almost hoped to find something in his story to set him apart from the others, something in his tragic past, perhaps, that told her a man of character was buried beneath that polished exterior.

“Says here he put himself through school on a sports scholarship and hard physical labor. Wonder what sort of labor,” Mrs. Spinelli said.

In spite of herself, Twyla perked up at that. Imagine, a man who actually took responsibility for his education—if that was what he’d really done. She supposed, when a guy was out to sell himself, he’d say anything. But she lost interest when Mrs. Duckworth announced Carter’s ideal woman: an educated city girl with a high-powered, socially responsible career. Translation: Malibu Barbie with a degree and a pedigree.

He should stay in the city, then, she reflected with a small shake of her head.

One by one, they went through the bachelor auction brochure, giggling, sighing, arguing the merits of a single earring versus a row of studs, and whether a park ranger or a toy manufacturer was better at satisfying a woman.

“Are you kidding?” Sadie said with a laugh. “What kind of toys do you think the guy makes?”

Twyla put the finishing touches on her hair. “There. You’re Jennifer Aniston.”

Sadie eyed herself critically in the mirror, tilting her head this way and that, then holding up a hand mirror to view the back. Her butterscotch-colored hair fell like silk over her shoulders. “Oh, hon, you outdid yourself.” She went to get her checkbook.

“So which one would it be?” Mrs. Duckworth asked playfully. “Just for fun. Out of all of these guys, which would you pick?”

Twyla knew they would hound her until she answered. Just for fun, then. “All right,” she said, perusing the glossy pages while her heart beat a little too fast. “Um, let me have another look at the narcissistic doctor.”

CHAPTER TWO

“I CAN’T BELIEVE I LET you talk me into this.” Rob Carter scowled at the sage-covered hills speeding past as he drove the black Explorer he’d rented at Casper’s airport. Although nineteen years had passed since he’d traveled this road, he remembered every oxbow curve, every hill and every valley on the way to Lost Springs Ranch. Remembered the shimmer of heat rising off the asphalt road and the occasional busy oil well, the rig pumping like a big metal crow jabbing at seeds. Most of all he remembered his relief at leaving the small-town life of Lightning Creek.

Static crackled over the wire of the car phone. Then Lauren DeVane’s silky laughter flowed through the speakers of the car. “Darling, I can’t believe you’re so reluctant. It’s all in fun, and Lindsay Duncan is one of my dearest friends in the world. When she asked for help raising funds for Lost Springs, I didn’t hesitate a nanosecond.”

A flicker of movement caught Rob’s eye, and he braked, slowing the vehicle. A pronghorn leaped across the road and disappeared into the sage-and-ochre-colored wilderness. A white tail flashed, then the animal disappeared down the far side of a hill. “Yeah,” he said to Lauren, “but you’re not the one who has to get auctioned off like beef on the hoof.”

“But I’m the one who has to stand by while another woman buys a date with you.” He knew a smile had softened her voice. Lauren was gorgeous, brilliant, and way too sure of herself to feel truly threatened by the prospect.

“Then you bid on me,” Rob said, scanning the roadside for more pronghorns. “That would solve everything.”

“I can’t reschedule this trip to San Francisco. Besides, that would violate the spirit of the entire event. The appeal of two strangers meeting is a powerful fantasy.”

“Not mine.” Rob eyed the rushing white line down the middle of the highway, his nerves tensing tighter with each mile. “Maybe you should come and find a cowboy of your own.”

She laughed again, her cultured voice filling the car, making him smile. “What is this romance people have with ranch life, anyway? Cowboys are obnoxious and socially impaired. I need that urban polish, Robert. Besides, I’ve had this trip to the Bay Area planned for ages. I can’t possibly get away.” She paused. “I’ll miss you, though. I’ll be thinking of you every minute.”

“Ditto.” Rob wondered if she understood how relieved he was that she wouldn’t be at the auction after all. Born and bred into a life of unimaginable wealth and privilege, Lauren had no clue what his childhood had been like. He’d just as soon keep things that way. He wanted to protect her from the knowledge, because she had a heart that bled at the slightest hint of tragedy.

She never asked him about the past, about what it had been like growing up at Lost Springs Ranch for Boys. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. The truth was, she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to see that, despite the spit-shine of his hard-won success, he would always be a man with no family, no pedigree, no name except the one scrawled on a form by the mother who had abandoned him.

He pounded the steering wheel, mad at himself for feeling the slightest breath of self-pity. Lauren had a heart as big as the West. It wasn’t her fault she could never understand the way he had grown up. And it wasn’t his job to explain it to her.

“I’d better ring off now, darling,” she said. “I have a hair appointment. I’m getting it cut.”

“Shorter?” he said, disappointed as he envisioned her glistening waterfall of hair as it spilled across his pillow—one of his favorite sights in the world.

“No, silly, longer.” Her easy laughter drifted across the miles. “Of course shorter. You’ll love it.”

“Whatever.” People who cut off a woman’s beautiful hair should be shot.

“Bye, darling. Call me tonight.”

Rob turned on the radio to fill the silent void after the phone call. A twangy voice wailed out, “Don’t come knocking at my door unless you can deliver the goods….” He passed a road sign that read Lightning Creek 1 Mile, and despite the sunbaked heat of the day, he felt a chill inside. He hadn’t been back here since he’d walked away at age seventeen and hitchhiked to Casper, where he caught the train east. That day, he had vowed never to come back. There was nothing here for him, nothing but a sleepy western town and a lot of wild countryside.

But when the plea had come from Lindsay Duncan and ranch director Rex Trowbridge, Lauren hadn’t allowed him to ignore it. The place was in trouble and in danger of closing. All the ranch alumni were being asked to help. Rob had volunteered to write a generous check, but Rex and Lindsay wanted him there in person, and in the end, he couldn’t refuse them.

His life had been saved, literally, by Lost Springs. If his mother hadn’t taken him there at age six, she probably would have left him in some run-down motel room, forgotten like an old shirt hanging on the back of the door. He didn’t remember much about his mother, but he did recall that she tended to forget things.

Like the fact that she had a son waiting for her in Wyoming.

He took the exit for Lightning Creek, slowed his speed as he approached the town limits, then turned onto Main Street to have a look around. A place apart in time, Lightning Creek had barely changed. The storefronts of Main Street retained an Old West character of weathered wood and hand-painted signs, a railed boardwalk and the occasional rack of antlers affixed over a doorway.

Memories jostled into Rob’s consciousness. He remembered saving up money for a cheeseburger and chocolate malt at the lunch counter the locals had dubbed the Roadkill Grill. Less pleasantly, but more vividly, he recalled being caught shoplifting at the General Store. Across the street was an establishment he didn’t remember from the past—a beauty salon called Twyla’s Tease ’n’ Tweeze, complete with bubblegum-pink facade and red shoes on the sign.

A waste of space, he thought. Who needed a place where women paid good money to get their hair all cut off? He shuddered to think of the local yokels who went there.

Looking ahead, he rounded the traffic circle with its statue of a cowboy on a bucking bronc. Eternally frozen with his arm flung up, the statue was a town symbol and landmark. A lot of the boys of Lost Springs had dreamed of becoming cowboys and winning rodeo competitions, maybe even owning their own spread one day.

Not Rob Carter. To him, the wildness of the country called to a place inside him he didn’t like, and the small town felt clannish and claustrophobic. With the same dogged determination many of the boys had given to working with the livestock at the ranch, Rob had pursued his studies. Math, science, physics. They gave him a sense of order and logic, led him along a path to a career that depended on precision and judgment. His single-mindedness had been fueled by ambition and, in the tiniest possible measure, fear.

He had exacted from himself the highest test scores, the best grades, the most unforgiving schedule, because that was his means of escape. The grueling tasks he set for himself were conquered, one by one, like boulders surmounted by a rock climber. College, completed on a full scholarship and supplemented by horrific hours working as an orderly. Medical school, internship, residency. Now, a full partner in a lucrative medical lab in Denver, he had earned a small fortune.

And damn, it felt good.

Crossing Poplar Road, he headed north and pulled into the parking lot of the Starlite Motel. Like the rest of the town, the place had changed very little. It had a neon sign with a star eternally blinking and the Vacancy sign perpetually turned on—except for the letter n. Feeling doubly glad that Lauren hadn’t come here with him, Rob checked into his room.

The room had a lumpy bed, but the linens were fresh and clean. The single window framed a view of the pool, an aqua-tinted lozenge in the middle of the cracked parking lot. Rob set down his bag and wished the vending machine outside carried beer. He could use a cold one.

Later, maybe. Tonight there was some sort of get-together for the guys involved in the auction. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He knew a few of them but they were a part of his past, and he had done more thinking about the past today than he had in years.

He took a few minutes to unpack his belongings. Lauren had been his chief adviser in this, suggesting what to wear in order to fetch the highest price. Stuff with designer labels, stuff you saw on members-only golf courses. She had dressed him for the photo shoot for the brochure, putting him in his custom-tailored tux. He hated his tux, but it drove Lauren wild. And knowing Lauren, she was probably right. You look the part, you’re worth the bucks.

Going to the window, he watched a young mother cross the parking lot, pushing a stroller with a fringed sunshade. Two older kids raced ahead, making a beeline for the motel pool. A bright beach ball spun through the air. Shrieking, the kids went after it while the mother took the baby on her lap and rubbed sunscreen on its chubby arms and legs.