CHAPTER FIVE
ROB FELT COMPLETELY 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 out his phone 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?”
“Beats me. I figure maybe she wants a grandson for a day.” The jogging-suit ladies finished with the auction officials and came toward him, chattering away as they neared the pavilion. “I think I’m about to find out,” he said to Lauren. “Call you later.”
He set down his beer and put on his best smile. “Ladies,” he said. “How do you do?”
“We’re fine, Robert,” said Mrs. Spinelli. “May we call you Robert?”
“Please. It’s Rob.”
“Used to be Robbie,” the other lady, the one in the pink suit, said.
That caught his attention. He studied her hard for a moment. A cloud of bluish-white hair. Square wire-rimmed glasses. A face that held a winning combination of maternal softness, youthful mischief and something else. Steely determination.
“Mrs. Duckworth!”
“Well, thank goodness. I didn’t think you’d recognize me.”
“It’s been a long time.” He stood awkwardly for a moment, at a loss. How did you greet your ex-third-grade teacher? Did you call her ma’am? Offer to clean the erasers for her?
She took the decision away from him, opening her arms. “I daresay you’ve changed more than I.”
Rob gave her a brief hug, then stepped back, feeling awkward again. “Thank you,” he said to Mrs. Spinelli. “Your generosity was incredible. I know the ranch will put your gift to good use.”
“Honey,” she said with a wink, “I intend to put you to good use.”
His blood ran cold. For a second, he thought she meant… Lord, no way.
Mrs. Duckworth must have recognized the panic in his face. She took him by the arm and led him away from the concession area. “Sugar, we’d better get on with the plan so Robbie can make his arrangements.”
“Arrangements?” he asked stupidly.
“For your date.”
Oh, man. “And this date would be…?” he asked cautiously.
“Land sakes, not with us.” Mrs. Spinelli laughed. “Did you hear that, Theda? Isn’t he precious?” She took his other arm. “Dear boy, you’re charming, but not our type. This date is with someone else. Someone very special.”
His imagination went into overdrive. Maybe she had a psychotic daughter who’d been through a string of husbands. Or a loony niece desperate for a man….
“I’m listening,” he said, trying to look calm.
“You’re going on a dream date,” Mrs. Duckworth said.
“It’s all arranged,” Mrs. Spinelli added. “Right down to the last detail.”
He began to feel a little better, conjuring pictures of an ocean cruise, a night of dinner and theater in the city, ski date in Jackson Hole, maybe—“To a high school reunion,” Mrs. Spinelli added.
The pictures crumbled to dust in his mind. Swaying palm trees gave way to crepe paper garlands draping some smelly gym. “Okay, let me get this straight. I’m taking somebody to her high school reunion.”
“Next weekend,” said Mrs. Duckworth. “It will be quite marvelous, you see. It’s being held at a town near Jackson, so you’ll have to fly there, but that won’t be a problem. We’ve already reserved seats on the commuter flight and we’ve booked the accommodations.”
“But you just…bought me,” he objected, feeling suspicious.
“Oh, dear, there was never any question that you would be the one. We read all about you in the catalog,” said Mrs. Spinelli. “She picked you out right away. I think it was that Armani tux.”
“No, the rose,” Mrs. Duckworth said. “The single red rose he was holding, Sugar. Don’t you think that was what pushed her over the edge?”
Lauren, he thought, hope soaring. Lauren had set this up as some sort of weird practical joke. She had been the one who insisted on the tux and the rose for his catalog picture. She knew Mrs. Spinelli. She was having fun with him, putting these ladies up to this.
“Now, there’s something we should clarify right off.” Mrs. Spinelli aimed a stern look at him. “This is important. You have to pretend to be engaged.”
Rob laughed. It really was Lauren, then. Maybe she wasn’t as indifferent about marriage as he thought she was. Maybe she wanted to move their relationship to the next level. “Engaged, huh?”
“Oh, certainly.”
Enough of the dancing around. “All right, so Lauren put you up to this.”
The ladies exchanged a glance. Mrs. Duckworth scowled. “We don’t know anything about anyone called Lauren. We have no idea what you are talking about.”
Something told him they weren’t pulling his leg. Did they really mean to send him off to some stranger’s high school reunion?
He studied their guileless, church-lady faces. Damn straight they did.
“Sorry, ladies. I don’t think that’s part of the deal. This was supposed to be a date, not a deception.”
“Don’t be such a spoilsport,” Mrs. Duckworth said in a scolding voice. “You never were any fun as a third-grader. I still remember how you used to hide in the cloakroom during make-believe time.”
“This date’s all arranged,” Mrs. Spinelli added, sounding miffed. “You can’t back out. A young woman’s pride is at stake.”
“I don’t think it would work out, ma’am.” He hadn’t meant to call her ma’am, just as he hadn’t meant to call Twyla ma’am earlier. It simply slipped out. It was odd, but he felt comfortable and at home with these well-meaning but wrongheaded little old ladies. He didn’t want to feel at home with them, didn’t want to feel the quiet, cozy unity of this small town. The friendly atmosphere of Lightning Creek had nothing to do with the life he had planned out for himself. The sooner he got back to Denver, the better.
“Look,” he said, reaching into his back pocket. “I’ll write you a check to cover what you spent today, and we’ll call things even.”
The older ladies sputtered in protest. As he was looking for a pen, he saw Twyla McCabe coming toward him, the folded quilt draped over her arm. “Good news,” she said, holding it out.
“Yeah? I could use some.”
“We just did the draw, and you won.”
The day wasn’t a total loss, then. At least he had the quilt to show for it. “Thanks, Twyla.”
“You know each other already?” Mrs. Spinelli asked, clasping her hands. “Why, that’s perfect. Just perfect.”
Rob narrowed his eyes. These ladies might look like Betty Crocker, but they sure as hell weren’t all sugar and spice. “What’s perfect?”
“That you know each other.” Mrs. Duckworth spoke slowly and clearly in her teacher voice. “You can get started right away with your plans.”
Rob stared at Twyla McCabe. The silky red hair. Big, soft eyes. Light dusting of freckles. A weary, workaday prettiness and a knockout figure to die for. Everything about her screamed small-town girl.
“It’s you then,” he said in amazement. “It’s your reunion.”
“Twyla’s ten-year reunion,” Mrs. Duckworth proclaimed. “You two are going to have such a marvelous weekend.”
“That’s the other thing I came to talk about,” Twyla said, clearly exasperated.
Rob was stunned. Yet at the same time, without quite knowing why, he put his checkbook away.
* * *
THE SUN WAS going down as Twyla carried the quilt table to her truck, Brian trotting along beside her. An evening chill sharpened the air, bringing with it a low warble of birdsong and the green scent of fresh-cut grass. She had avoided Rob Carter all the rest of the day, watching the festivities with a sense of nervous energy and impending disaster. Each time he seemed inclined to approach her, she busied herself with some chore or other, even volunteering for a stint at the lemonade booth. Finally, when the last bachelor had been auctioned off, it was time to go.
Brian, who had made a full recovery from the motion sickness, had spent the day playing, eating, shouting and throwing things with his friends. He’d ignored the auction itself, showing no interest or understanding of its purpose. He didn’t know what Mrs. Duckworth and Mrs. Spinelli had done. That was fine with Twyla, since she wasn’t going to make Rob Carter go through with it, anyway.
Near the end of the auction, Brian had caught an inkling of what was going on. Visiting her at the lemonade booth, he’d asked her, “If someone buys one of these guys, does the guy have to do whatever she says?”
Twyla had smiled. “Within reason.”
“For how long?”
“I imagine they work that out between them.”
“They should make the guys stay here and be the dads, right?”
A six-year-old’s logic was hard to contradict. She shouldn’t have asked Brian, but she did. “You think these boys all need a dad?”
“Yeah.”
She hadn’t dared to ask the next obvious question: What about you, Brian? Do you need a dad?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that.
“Sammy Crowe says Mrs. Spinelli bought that guy named Rob, and that he’s supposed to do whatever you want.”
“Lucky me,” Twyla said. “You got any ideas?”
“Are you kidding?” Brian’s face had lit up. “I got a million of them.”
She’d tried to subdue his enthusiasm, warning him that there had been a misunderstanding, but the whole weird situation was hard to explain.
“Church tomorrow, sport,” she said now, opening the door to the old Apache, buckling him in and covering him with a blanket. He took out his favorite Dinotopia book and opened it, yawning hugely. She knew that within minutes, he’d be sound asleep.
As Twyla walked around the front of her pickup truck, she had the unsettling sense that she was being watched. She caught a daunting reflection in the glass of the windshield, glaringly gold from the setting sun. She set down the folded card table and turned. There stood Dr. Robert Carter with his gleaming dark hair and an expectant half smile, watching her in a way no man had watched her in a very long time—with interest and appreciation and maybe just the slightest hint of tenderness. He looked, she had to admit, exactly like the type of man someone would pay twelve thousand dollars for.
“Look,” she said, in a rush to get the words out. “I didn’t have anything to do with this crazy idea. I had no idea what Sugar and Theda were up to. I want a date with you as much as I want the heartbreak of psoriasis.”
Holding the rolled-up quilt under one arm, he studied her for a disconcertingly long time. He was probably a good doctor, she reflected. He wasn’t embarrassed to stare at people.
“I’ve never been compared to a case of psoriasis,” he said.
In her nervousness, she laughed. “I don’t mean any insult, it’s just—” She broke off, nodding with a lame smile as one of the Quilt Quorum ladies crossed the parking area, eyeing them inquisitively.
“Let’s step over here.” Rob gestured at the end of the parking area, where a grassy slope angled downward toward the soccer field.
“There’s really nothing to discuss,” she said. People were heading home now, a number of them pausing to study her and Rob with open curiosity. Word traveled fast in Lightning Creek.
“Then let’s discuss nothing in private.” He strode away without looking back to see if she followed.
Twyla brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. They might as well settle this. He probably wanted to get back to Denver as soon as possible. She checked on Brian—absorbed in his dinosaur book—and followed Rob to the goal end of the soccer field. The western side of the grassy area opened to a heart-stirring view of the distant Wind River Range. With the sun settling low on the broken-backed mountains, the light had a deep red-gold, almost dreamlike quality, spreading in soft fronds over the swaying grasses and sage fields beyond the bounds of Lost Springs.
When Rob turned to her, she felt her heart skip a beat, because just for a moment he was limned in pure amber. The fleeting trick of light and shadow made him seem like a creature not of this place, maybe not even this time, trapped in a jewel that held him separate from the world. Then he moved, holding out his hand, and the strange, fanciful moment passed.
Twyla approached him warily and ignored the proffered hand.
“Over here,” he said, showing her to a concrete staircase set into the side of the hill leading away from the field. “Have a seat.”
“I guess I forgot,” she admitted, “you know your way around Lost Springs.”
“Yep.”
She had an urge to ask him about his boyhood here. Why had he come? How long had he spent here? Did he remember his family? Had he liked living at the ranch? When he was six, did he wish for a dad?
No. She had no business asking him getting-to-know-you questions. Her purpose was to get rid of him. But politely. He hadn’t asked for a pair of matchmaking busybodies to draft him into service. Didn’t deserve for his philanthropy to be rewarded by being shanghaied to a class reunion.
She took a seat on the top step, and he sat a couple of steps lower. The scent of sweet grass and wild thyme rode the evening breeze. High over the mountains, a single star flickered to life. The skin on her arms prickled with a subtle chill, and she hugged her knees up to her chest, letting the sundress drape down over her legs.
“I want you to know,” she began, “that I don’t expect you to do—what Mrs. Spinelli and Mrs. Duckworth want you to do. I didn’t put them up to it.”
“Maybe you ought to give me a little background. What gave them the idea in the first place?”
“I’m assuming you don’t have a fundamental understanding of hair salon culture,” she said, remembering that day in the salon.
“You’re right about that.”
“Those two ladies were my first customers when I opened the shop. The first dollar bill Sugar Spinelli ever paid me is hanging in a frame on the wall. They’ve taken me under their wing, and I love them dearly.” She couldn’t help the fond smile that curved her mouth. “But sometimes they step over the line. They’re convinced I need a life. And they think that means finding a man, and they won’t rest until they find me one. Even if it costs them several thousand dollars.” She laughed, but painfully, because unbelievably they had done just that.
“You could do worse than have friends like Mrs. Spinelli and Mrs. Duckworth.”
“I know, and I’m grateful to them. But this time, they’ve gone a little too far.”
“What do you want to do about it?”
She tilted her head back and let out a weary breath. One by one the stars were coming out, forming a glimmering canopy of purple twilight. “I’ve been wondering that myself.”
“I suppose they’d get their feelings hurt if you didn’t go through with their plan.”
“Oh, yeah.” She shivered, picturing the censorious looks from her two favorite customers. “It’s not the money—Mrs. Spinelli loves charitable causes—but in their minds, this is the perfect plan for me. Their way of pushing me out of the nest. They want me to return in triumph to my hometown, with a guy who has magically appeared in my life like a genie from a bottle.”
“A fate worse than death.”
She chuckled. “I admit, the fantasy does have a certain appeal. Who wouldn’t love to show up at a high school reunion looking as if she’d conquered the world—and snagged a big-city doctor to boot. But I sure as heck can’t see myself playing out some elaborate masquerade.”
He picked a blade of grass and chewed on the end. He probably didn’t mean to draw attention to his mouth, but she couldn’t help watching him as he nibbled absently on the blade of grass. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” She tried not to stare at his mouth.
“What if you showed up just as you are—business owner, Brian’s mom?”
“Lord knows, I don’t have anything to hide. But—” She broke off as a faraway feeling swept over her. He was too easy to talk to. She ought to shut up.
“But what?”
“I guess I was like most kids in high school. I dreamed big dreams, had a vision of glamour and success and pictured myself a certain way. Then life sort of…happened to me, and I didn’t have a chance to see any of my plans through. I suppose, to be perfectly honest, I would love to show up all spit-shined, a dream date opening doors for me.”
“So I’d be your dream date?”
She blushed. “Are you kidding? Look at you. A big important doctor with good manners and good taste in clothes? You’re a rare sight in Lightning Creek, I promise you that. Rarer still in Hell Creek.”
“Hell Creek?”
“My hometown.” She still thought of it that way, despite the brutal events that had occurred there, despite the fact that she hadn’t been back in seven years. “Anyway, you’d be the talk of the town.”
“Don’t always believe what you see.” He spoke quietly, staring out at the sky, dark purple now and misted by stars.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dear God, did he have some awful secret?
“Nothing. I’m basically a boring person.”
A long silence. She felt the tension of their unfamiliarity. What did you say to a man you didn’t know, a man paid to be your companion?
He drummed his fingers on the concrete step. “You know what?”
“What?”
“We don’t have a choice. We have to do this.”
She felt her mouth moving, but no sound came out. “Do this. You mean go to my reunion.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where Hell Creek, Wyoming, is?”
“I’m told it’s not too far from Jackson.”
“Trust me, it’s not Jackson.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Look, Twyla. I agreed to do this fund-raiser. I set aside time to be somebody’s bachelor—for fun, and for a good cause. A lot of people have worked hard on the auction. It wouldn’t kill us to hold up our end of the deal.”
“I never made a deal with anyone,” she said.
“Then make one with me. Right here. Right now. Let’s do your reunion.”
Never, not in her wildest dreams, had she expected this. She was so taken aback that she looked up into his face and said, “I’ll think about it. Call me tomorrow and I’ll give you my answer.”