Husband for Hire Read online

  He tilted back his head and wiggled it with his tongue as he spoke. “Thtill looth.”

  “I think it’s ready to come out,” she suggested. “Want me to pull it out for you?”

  “No way!” He clapped his hand over his mouth.

  She smiled; it was the one thing he was squeamish about. “All right. Carry that box of raffle tickets, would you, sport?” she asked.

  “Sure, Mom.” Picking it up, he raced out to the pickup and jumped in the passenger side. She could see him bouncing up and down on the seat, and his exuberance made her smile. With just two weeks of school to go, he could hardly bear to wait for summer vacation.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Mama?” Twyla called. Her mother was in the small suite of rooms off the kitchen, an add-on from the forties. Twyla’s invitation was automatic. So was her knowledge of what the reply would be.

  “No, thank you, dear,” Gwen said, coming into the foyer. As always, she looked scrubbed and spry. Her Bermuda shorts and cotton shirtwaist were spotless, her cropped hair pure white and beautifully styled.

  Somehow, her mother’s attractiveness made things all the more frustrating and baffling. A widow for the past seven years, Gwen lived with her daughter and grandson, watching Brian while Twyla worked. At first it had seemed an ideal arrangement, every working mother’s dream. It was a luxury to have a loving grandmother in the house, baking and singing and reading stories. Now Twyla looked back on those starting-anew years and wondered if there was anything she could have done to prevent Gwen from developing the affliction that had shadowed them for so many years.

  If Gwen had any clue to her daughter’s thoughts, she gave no sign. “I was browsing through that bachelor brochure you brought home from the shop.”

  “See anything you like?” Twyla asked, teasing.

  “Oh, heavenly days, not for me. I was thinking of you, dear. You might as well go for one of the younger men. They never mature, anyway.”

  “Mother, really—”

  “They’re all a bit young for me.” Her eyes, which looked so blue in contrast to her white hair, glinted with mischief.

  “Depends on what you buy them for,” Twyla pointed out.

  Gwen eyed the crooked newel post. “Maybe if you get one cheap, you could bring him home and get him to work on the house.”

  Twyla laughed. “I didn’t see any home-improvement specialists in that brochure.”

  “Not knowing how to fix something never stops a man from trying,” Gwen pointed out.

  “True. But I’m not buying. Just going along to sell raffle tickets for the hospital guild quilt.” She patted her mother’s hand. “You did a gorgeous job on it, Mama.”

  “It was a pleasure to work on.” The Converse County Quilt Quorum met once a week at Twyla’s house, twelve ladies stitching and gossiping over the long afternoon. Their creations had become local legends, coveted for the freshness and energy of their designs. Twyla always wondered at the way a basket of mismatched scraps and snippets could be magically transformed into a work of art.

  She got her keys and went out to the truck as her mother waved through the front bay window. The rusty ’74 Chevy Apache wasn’t pretty, but the pickup was too reliable—especially in winter—to send to the junkyard. Just for fun, Twyla had applied a magnetic Tease ’n’ Tweeze sign to the door. The pink sign, with its sparkling ruby slippers logo, looked incongruous against the gray undercoat of the truck door she couldn’t afford to have repainted.

  As she took off, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The geraniums in the window boxes were blooming, but one of the second-story shutters hung crooked. The contrast between the beautiful flowers and the run-down house was not funky; it was simply pathetic. Maybe she should get a small apartment in town where she wouldn’t have to worry about upkeep on a big place. Then she thought of Brian, racing with Shep across the yard or climbing the rope-swing tree, and she dismissed the idea. She wanted her son to be raised in a family home, even if the family consisted of only a mismatched and troubled mother-and-daughter set.

  As they approached Lost Springs, Brian sat forward, his narrow chest straining against the seat belt as he stared out the window. His tongue worried the loose tooth.

  “So what do you think, sport?” she asked. “This is a nice place, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.” A split-rail fence lined one side of the road. In the distance, a herd of horses grazed placidly through tufts of mint-green meadow grass that grew in the shade of a clump of oak trees. Dust dervishes swirled across the sun-yellowed pastures. Summer had come early to Wyoming this year, and on the slope behind the main building, wildflowers bloomed, a snowfall of avalanche lilies, goldenrod, Indian paintbrush, purple heliotrope and long green fronds of high grass.

  “This is where Sammy Crowe lives,” Brian said with a reverent hush in his voice. “The boys who live here are orphans.”

  “Some of them are, yes.” Twyla didn’t know a lot about the ranch, though it had been a fixture in the area for many years. Sammy, the boy in Brian’s class, rode the bus in to school every day. One of the first-grade mothers had whispered that the boy’s mother was doing time in the state women’s detention unit. “Some of them are here because their parents can’t take care of them.”

  “Like my dad couldn’t take care of us?”

  Twyla forced herself to stare straight ahead, keeping her face expressionless. With Jake, it hadn’t been a case of “couldn’t” but “wouldn’t,” though she’d never tell Brian that. “Not exactly,” she said carefully. “You have Grammy and me to take care of you.”

  “But who takes care of you and Grammy?”

  She glanced sideways. “We take care of ourselves, kiddo. And we’re doing all right.”

  “All right’s good enough for us, Mom.”

  She grinned, turning her gaze back to the road. It was hard to believe how quickly Brian was growing and changing. How wise he seemed sometimes, for his age. She wondered if that old-soul streak of maturity came from being raised without a father. Some nights she lay awake, racked by doubt. She was raising a wonderful boy, but she couldn’t help worrying that there were things a father could give him that a mother and grandmother could not. They were the intangibles. That unique chemistry that existed between dads and kids. She’d felt that magic with her own father. He’d had his faults, but his love had enriched her life beyond compare. How would she have turned out without it?

  She worried sometimes that Brian would always be missing a small, settled corner of his heart that should be filled by a father’s love. Like a quilt with one of the squares missing, he would be fine but somehow incomplete.

  She shook away the thought, feeling guilty. She would only admit to herself that single parenthood was a lot harder on her than on Brian.

  Trolling for a parking space, she pulled into a spot adjacent to the ball fields. The lot was filling up fast with vehicles from all over. Amazing, to think so many people were interested in this strange fund-raiser. She spotted a number of rental cars and vehicles with out-of-state plates. Plenty of these were sleek and expensive late models. The organizers of the auction—ranch owner Lindsay Duncan and director Rex Trowbridge—must be well connected.

  Or maybe the brochure didn’t exaggerate the success of the various bachelors. But really—an auction?

  A couple of news vans had set up, bundled cords snaking along the ground toward the arena where the auction would take place. Some of the bachelors had celebrity status, attracting local and national media. It was the fantasy angle they were after, she supposed. The idea that women were about to compete—publically—for a date with one of these guys.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised when someone shoved a microphone under her chin and demanded her name as soon as she stepped out of the truck. But she was so taken aback that she blurted, “I’m Twyla McCabe.”

  “What do you hope to find here today, Miss McCabe?” the reporter asked, his voice an aggressive, rapid-fire st
accato.

  “Men,” she said ironically. “Lots of men.”

  “Would that be for a weekend fling, or are you husband-hunting?”

  “What?” Lord, did he really think she was serious?

  “Think you’ll find husband material here?”

  She couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing. “Oh, sure. I’m going to snag a millionaire. Or at least a hunky cowboy, one with great pecs and a tight butt.”

  “Then what words would you use to describe the mood today—excited, romantic, hopeful?”

  Finding her composure at last, she pushed the microphone away. “You could use them, but you’d be wrong. With a wink, she added, “Try bold and lusty.”

  The busy, sweating reporter gave up and scurried away in search of a more promising scoop.

  “Who was that guy, Mom?” Brian asked, getting out of the truck.

  “I have no idea, but I’d better wind up on the editing room floor.” She opened the tailgate of the old pickup. “Okay, sport, you can help carry.” She handed him the raffle box and took the quilt, carefully wrapped in a dry cleaner’s bag. It was the best work ever done by the Converse County Quilt Quorum. Done in a classic log-cabin pattern and made of soft, worn, hand-me-down cottons in a rainbow of colors, it was sure to fetch a handsome number of raffle entries.

  She set the quilt on the tailgate and got out the folded card table. Awkwardly, she took the table under one arm and the quilt under the other and started toward the covered pavilion. “Brian, watch where you’re going,” she called to him as a Ford Explorer with rental plates nosed into the parking lot.

  The metal leg of the card table scraped her shin and she set her jaw to keep from cursing. It was hot, she was perspiring, she hadn’t made it to the arena, and she was already getting cranky.

  “Can I help you carry something?”

  She stopped walking and turned to see a tall man getting out of the black sport utility vehicle. For a second, a dazzle of sunlight striking the windshield made her squint painfully. Then he came toward her and her grateful smile froze on her face.

  It was him. The guy from the brochure. And not just any guy, but the one in the tux with the long-stemmed rose.

  He wasn’t wearing a tux and carrying a rose at the moment, though. He managed to look immaculate, casual and foolishly expensive in khaki slacks and a navy golf shirt. A gold watch gleamed on his wrist. He had black hair, white teeth and the sort of unbelievably handsome face you saw on prime-time TV.

  “Um, yes, thanks. Maybe you could get this table?”

  His cool, dry hand brushed her hot and sweaty one as he took the folded table from her. Brian watched, shading his eyes and staring unabashedly up at the man.

  “I’m Brian. Brian McCabe. I have a loose tooth.”

  “Congratulations,” the man said. “Rob Carter. Pleased to meet you, Brian. You too, ma’am.”

  Twyla knew his name perfectly well. Robert Carter, M.D. He was a Leo whose favorite song was “Misty” and whose ideal woman was Grace Kelly. His idea of a great time was a round of golf at Pebble Beach.

  “Twyla McCabe,” she said, falling in step with him. “And don’t call me ma’am. I’m too young to be a ma’am.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “I call you ma’am when I’m in trouble,” Brian pointed out.

  “Does that mean I’m not in trouble?” Rob asked.

  “Guess not.”

  “Hot dog.”

  Brian laughed, clearly intrigued. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “I’ll mind my manners.” He was taller than he’d appeared in the brochure, with the long, lanky build of a college basketball player. And Lord, so obscenely good-looking she had to force herself not to stare. The haircut alone would run about a hundred dollars in the city. His cologne was probably something she couldn’t pronounce or afford. It was like being in the presence of an alien life-form.

  “Twyla,” he said, trying out her name. “I’ve never met anyone called Twyla before.”

  “My granddad named her,” Brian explained helpfully. Though he’d never known his grandfather, Gwen told him family stories each night as she stitched her quilts in her little sitting room. The stories always depicted a dreamer—and they always ended happily. Brian was too young for the truth.

  Robert Carter, M.D., had a dazzling smile on his face as he looked down at her. “You don’t say.”

  “I just said so!” Brian objected.

  “A figure of speech.” Carter’s laugh was smooth, gentle, infectious.

  Yet Twyla didn’t feel like laughing. He made her conscious that her truck’s air conditioner hadn’t worked in three years, that her cotton sundress was plastered to her back by sweat, and that she hadn’t bothered with perfume after her shower today.

  Intimidating, that’s what he was. And too…everything. Too handsome, too smoothly friendly, too glib, too perfectly put-together, too male.

  A pavilion had been set up for the barbecue. The smoky smells of sizzling ribs, chicken and beef filled the air. A PA system blared a sentimental country-and-western song. The young residents of Lost Springs raced around, playing chase with the visiting children.

  “Hey, there’s Sammy,” Brian exclaimed, pointing at a dark-haired kid climbing a tree in the playground. “Can I go, Mom? Can I?”

  She nodded. “I’ll come find you when it’s time for the picnic supper.”

  “See ya,” Carter said as Brian handed him the raffle box and sped away.

  “We can set these down here,” Twyla said, indicating the spreading shade tree by the rodeo arena. Another volunteer had strung up the hospital guild banner: Converse County Hospital—35 Years Of Sharing And Caring.

  “You work at a hospital?” Carter asked her, laying the table down and prying up each metal leg.

  “Just as a volunteer once a week.” She considered offering him an opening to tell her what a big, important city doctor he was, but decided against it. He was too perfect as it was. He certainly didn’t need any prompting from her. “I do hair for a living,” she said, almost defiantly.

  He set the table on its legs and jimmied it back and forth until it stopped wobbling. Then he looked up at her, hands braced on the table, the nodding boughs of the tree framing his broad shoulders. “Twyla’s Tweezers,” he said softly. “Now I remember where I’ve seen that name before.”

  “It’s the Tease ’n’ Tweeze,” she corrected him.

  “Why the Tease ’n’ Tweeze?”

  “Because that’s pretty much what we do.”

  “And people pay you for this?”

  “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.”