Susan Wiggs - Husband For Hire

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.

Against his will, Rob felt a surge of…something. Just for a second, he thought it was yearning, but he quickly buried the notion. It was probably something he ate.

“OKAY, SPORT, ARE YOU about ready?” Twyla called, glancing at the clock over the kitchen stove.

“Coming!” With a drumroll of running steps, Brian raced downstairs. He never walked anywhere. To his mind, if a place was worth going to, it was worth running to.

Twyla met him in the foyer just as he grasped the banister and his feet left the floor, swinging out and around the newel post. “Brian, I told you not to—”

“Oops,” he said as the knob came off in his hand. With a sheepish look, he handed it to her. “Sorry, Mom.”

“Fifteen minutes early to bed tonight,” she said. To a six-year-old, it was an eternity.

“Aw, Mom—”

“You have to learn to take it easy on this poor old house.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As she fitted the wooden peg back into the hole, she felt an unwelcome glimmer of the resignation that always seemed to be lurking at the edges of her life. Built in the twenties, the house sat on a knoll a little north of town. It had a big yard and a tree with a rope swing and that peculiar weary charm of an old, long-lived-in home. But it also had the liabilities that came with an old house—inadequate wiring, leaky plumbing and a variety of wooden aches and pains.

That was the only reason Twyla had been able to buy the place when she’d come to Lightning Creek, pregnant and shell-shocked by events back in her hometown. The property had been remarkably affordable. It was a little more challenging to pay for its upkeep.

Chastened, Brian was subdued for about ten seconds. Head down, freckled face solemn, he looked—momentarily—like a kid on a greeting card illustration. Twyla wasn’t fooled. She knew the next bit of mischief was never far away. Reaching out, she smoothed his sandy red hair, smiling when the cowlicks went their own way. “How’s that loose tooth of yours?”

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.