Husband for Hire (18 page)

“I
S
T
WYLA WITH HIM
?”
Rob estimated the beauty shop was a few blocks from Lander Elementary, so she could get there in no time.

“That’s the problem,” said Gwen. “Today’s her hospital volunteer day. The school can’t reach her.”

Rob ripped off his tool belt and tossed it aside, already digging in his jeans pocket for car keys. “What happened?”

“He fell from the monkey bars,” Gwen said. “It’s probably nothing, but the school nurse is a little worried about the bump on his head. Mostly, he’s scared and wants to come home.”

“Fine.” Amazed at the pounding of his own heart, Rob turned toward his car. “I’ll bring him home.”

“Rob,” Gwen called from the porch, “wait.”

“What?”

“You can’t go get him.”

“Why the hell not?”

“You’re not authorized to pick him up from school. They won’t release him to you.”

He stopped walking. All this parenthood stuff was new territory, but he could understand why a school would be cautious. “Are you authorized, Gwen?”

She pressed her back against the screen door. “Yes, but I can’t—”

“Damn it, Gwen, that’s not an option at the moment. You just said the school won’t release him to me.”

“But—”

“The kid needs you.” Rob told himself getting angry wouldn’t accomplish anything. Sucking air between his gritted teeth, he approached the house and planted his foot on the bottom step. “Here, take my hand. We’ll go together.”

Her hands clutched the phone receiver like a lifeline. They were beautiful hands, strong and shaped by a lifetime of women’s work. Cooking and sewing hands, mothering hands.

“Put the phone down, Gwen, and let’s go.”

Her grip tightened. Then, even as she made a small sound of protest, she set the cordless receiver on the chair arm.

“Brian’s waiting,” Rob reminded her. “You said he was scared. I’m only sweeping you away.”

The color faded from her cheeks as she edged toward him. The terror in her face wrenched his heart, but he forced himself to keep his hand held out to her. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “It’s just a few steps. Keep thinking of Brian.”

She clenched her fists tightly at her sides. He could hear her breathing lightly, quickly.

“Do it for Brian,” Rob said. “You can do it, Gwen.”

She met his eyes, and hers were filled with unreasoning terror. Rob was tempted to simply grab her, carry her bodily to the car, but he resisted. She had to take this step, and she had to do it on her own.

Finally, with a quick, jerky movement, she took hold of his hand. Her fingers were icy cold, gripping hard. He sensed that it was best to say nothing as she took the first step off the porch. She came down the stairs slowly,
then stopped as her feet touched the ground. She stared down for a moment, then looked at Rob. “Let’s go.”

He helped her into the car, hearing the quickness of her breathing as he sped toward town. “Breathe slowly, Gwen,” he said. “Long, slow breaths, and think about Brian. He’s waiting for us.”

She sat quietly, her ashen face moist with sweat, her hands folded tightly in her lap.

“You’re doing great,” he said, and kept up a stream of encouraging words during the short ride to town. “Brian’s going to be glad to see you.”

“H-he’ll probably think that bump on the head is giving him hallucinations,” she said. “In his entire life, he’s never seen me leave the house.”

“Then this will mean the world to him.”

Slowly, cautiously, she turned her head toward him. “It means the world to me.”

I
T WAS EERIE
, walking the halls of Lander Elementary again. The corridors, which had seemed endlessly long to Rob as a boy, now seemed unexpectedly short. The water fountains he’d had to stand on tiptoe to reach were impossibly low. The office, which used to seem intimidating and glaringly lit, was a cheery place that smelled of coffee and library paste.

Gwen walked straight to the counter and said, “We’ve come for Brian McCabe. I think he’s in the nurse’s office.”

The secretary looked up from her computer terminal. “I’ll need to get your name.”

“I’m Mrs. Gwen McCabe, his grandmother, and this is Dr. Robert Carter. He’s…a family friend.” Her voice gathered strength with each word she spoke. “I’m listed on his authorization card.”

“Of course. The school clinic is through there.”

Rob even remembered the nurse’s office, the mysterious hieroglyphics of the vision-screening chart, the paper-covered cots, the immaculate glass apothecary jars of swabs and Band-Aids. He’d been a regular customer here years ago, because he’d worked as hard at sports as he had at everything else in school, frantic to prove he was as good as any kid who went home to a real family at the end of the day. He’d been in a few times to get cleaned up after a playground fight. Every once in a while a boy used to make the mistake of saying something about the boys of Lost Springs, and Rob had to set him straight.

The nurse herself had changed considerably. She had short orange hair, almost-black lipstick, a long row of studs in each ear, and a button on her lab jacket that read No Whining. Gwen’s eyes widened a little, but then she focused on Brian, who lay on one of the cots, a blue gel cold pack on his head.

“Grammy!” he said, and Rob figured the look on the kid’s face let Gwen know her effort was well worth it.

“Hey, kiddo.” She knelt down beside him. “The nurse says you took a spill.”

Rob pointed to the lighted scope in the nurse’s pocket. “I’m Dr. Carter, from Denver. May I?”

She handed it to him. Rob took a minute to wash his hands at the sink, then went to Brian. “I just want to take a peek at your eyes,” he said, moving the cold pack aside. The hematoma on his head was a good-sized one, but the pupils were reactive, his coloring good. Rob couldn’t remember the last time he’d laid hands on a patient. It felt strangely gratifying to feel the living warmth of the boy, even during this brief, cursory exam. Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like
to practice outside the lab. Messy, yes, and unpredictable, but the connection was vital. He could feel it in his bones—and in the settled breathing of the small boy on the cot.

“He’s going to be fine,” he told Gwen, “but we should watch him today, keep him quiet.”

She signed a release form. Then she went to Brian, and hand in hand, they left the school. Rob walked behind them, unexpectedly pierced by tender feelings for the boy. He had never given much thought to being a father. What was it like? Suddenly he wanted to know. He wanted it bad.

“Thanks for coming, Grammy,” Brian said, getting into the back seat.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

As Rob pulled away from the school, he glanced in the rearview mirror. His heart sank when he saw Brian’s chin trembling.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I want my mom.”

“It’s her volunteer day at the hospital,” Gwen said.

“I want to see her.” Brian’s voice quavered.

Rob’s shoulders tensed. You couldn’t reason with a kid who’d hurt himself, a kid who was on the brink of tears because he wanted his mother. “Where’s the hospital, Gwen?”

“Out on the Shoshone Highway, about twelve miles toward Casper.”

“Can you handle it, Gwen?”

She hesitated. “All right. Yes, let’s go.”

He turned back toward the highway. “Does your mom like surprises, Brian?”

“I don’t think so.”

Rob grinned into the rearview mirror. “She’ll like this one.”

T
WYLA POSITIONED
a white neckroll pillow behind Mrs. Ulrich. “How’s that?” she asked.

“Fine, dear,” the old lady said. “I’m very comfortable now.”

“Ready for your comb-out?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. My son’s coming all the way from Des Moines to see me.”

Twyla set her box of beauty supplies on the swivel table by the hospital bed. “We’ll have you looking pretty as a picture.” Sunshine streamed in through the slatted blinds of the small hospital room, bringing a welcome flood of natural light. Working slowly and gently, she unwound the curlers she’d put in an hour before. There was, she’d always thought, a peculiar intimacy in doing people’s hair. Touching the head of a stranger was not an everyday occurrence for most people, for it connoted a level of familiarity that usually only existed among family members. But her role made it permissible. Maybe that was why people tended to tell their hairdressers everything.

A person’s hair had a certain sacredness about it. In all the years of being a beautician, she had seen the entire range of reactions from delight to despair. The way a woman’s hair looked could determine the way she faced the world that day, and Twyla took her job seriously.

Her volunteer work at the county hospital had begun with Sugar Spinelli’s illness several years back. Few women, Twyla had learned, were too sick to worry about their hair, and Mrs. Spinelli was no exception. Twyla had lovingly tended her locks until they became hope
lessly thin wisps, decimated by chemotherapy. Then they’d turned to turbans and wigs, having more fun than they should in the middle of a grave illness. Mrs. Spinelli always swore the laughter they’d shared had been part of her healing.

So every Monday, after an hour of bookkeeping at the salon, Twyla spent four hours doing shampoos and sets for the patients who wanted them. Mrs. Ulrich, bedridden with a broken hip, wanted to look her best for her son’s visit. Humming to herself, Twyla brushed out the baby-fine, silvery locks, arranging the curls artfully, spritzing them in place.

She was glad to stay busy today, because it kept her from thinking about Rob Carter. He’d probably be finished with the porch by now and be on his way to the county airport. She wouldn’t be seeing him again. That was the nature of their arrangement. One encounter, an obligation fulfilled, and then it was over. That was what she’d expected, and that was what she’d gotten.

The one thing she hadn’t counted on was falling for him.

“Try not to overdo the spritzer, dear,” Mrs. Ulrich said gently.

“Oh.” Twyla realized she’d pumped a third of the contents on one spot. “Sorry, I’m a little scattered today.”

“Busy weekend?”

Twyla winced at the irony. In the space of two days she had returned to the town she’d fled in shame seven years before, confronted the ex-husband who had dumped her, come to terms with her father’s death, had wildly romantic sex and—she finally admitted to herself—fallen in love. “You have no idea,” she murmured.

“It’s good to keep busy,” Mrs. Ulrich commented.

“It’s never been a problem for me. Almost finished now.”

Mrs. Ulrich picked up a hand mirror and peered at herself. “Oh, my, that’s lovely,” she said. “I feel better already. Honestly I do.”

Twyla gave the arrangement a few final pats.

Though the door to the hospital room was open, a light knock sounded. Twyla looked up, shocked to see Brian and Rob standing there, hand in hand, watching her work.

“Hey, Mom,” Brian said.

“Hey yourself.”

“Mom!” Brian said. “I fell off the monkey bars and Rob says I can stay home the rest of the day even though it’s probably just a bump and I’m totally okay. Can I, Mom? Huh? Can I?”

“He’s all right?” she asked Rob urgently. Her heart pounded—and not just from concern for Brian. It was the sight of the two of them together that stirred her, frightened her with how fiercely she wanted them both in her life. She scooped the curlers into her kit. “Would you excuse me, Mrs. Ulrich?”

“Of course, dear. I’m not going anywhere.” She picked up the novel she had been reading.

“Brian’s fine,” Rob assured her. “Aren’t you, pal?”

“You bet! And, Mom, guess what else?”

Twyla stepped out of the room. She nodded slowly, but she barely heard him. Barely saw him, though the image of him, hand in hand with Rob Carter, would forever be branded on her heart. Yet even this, astonishing and moving as it was, could not compete with the sight that held her spellbound in the too-bright hospital corridor.

Her mouth moved, trying to shape her disbelief into words, but no sound came out. Then, finally, a thin exclamation.

“Mama?”

Pallid, a curl of white hair dropping over her brow, Gwen held out both hands, palms up.

“Surprise,” she said softly.

Twyla crossed the distance between them, hugging her mother close. The familiar scent of laundry and talcum powder surrounded her, and Twyla didn’t want to let go. She was afraid the moment would disappear, burst like a bubble. Yet her mother felt as solid and real as the tile floor beneath her feet.

Gradually she came to trust the moment and pulled back, keeping hold of her mother’s hands. She tried to control her trembling. But she couldn’t. Her mother had left the house. After seven years, her mother had left the house.

“You did it,” Twyla said, so filled with amazement and joy that she could hardly speak. “You did it, Mama. It’s wonderful.”

“Yes,” Gwen said. “It is.”

Slipping her arm around her mother’s waist, she walked toward Rob and Brian. “Why now, Mama? What made you decide to come out now?”

Gwen smiled, a sparkle of her old mischief twinkling in her eye. “Maybe,” she said, watching Rob’s face, “I was just waiting for someone to fix the porch steps.”

T
WYLA RESTED HER HAND
on the new rail of the porch steps. It felt sturdy and smelled of freshly milled wood. “It’s perfect, Dr. Carter,” she said with mock formality. “But what about your flight back to Denver?”

He busied himself picking up tools, and didn’t look at her. “Change of plans. I’m meeting someone at the airport in Casper this afternoon.”

“Well,” she said, rubbing the sanded wood surface. “How can I thank you?”

“By putting a coat of paint on it before winter. It’s treated lumber, but it’ll last longer with exterior paint.”

She tilted back her head, regarding the house with a critical eye. The faded shutters and weathered siding depressed her. “The whole place could use a coat of paint. Maybe I’ll have it done this summer if the shop revenues are good.”

He loaded the last of the tools into an old wooden bulb crate, cleaning up the work site with the precision of a drill sergeant.

She caught herself wondering what he was really like in what she thought of as his “other” life. His real life. What sort of music did he like? What was his favorite food? Did he live in a house or an apartment? There was so much she didn’t know, so much she wanted to learn but wouldn’t let herself ask.

He should have been gone by now, and part of her
wished he was, because knowing she’d have to say goodbye to him was torture. Even so, the extra hours he had stayed due to Brian’s mishap had been an unexpected bonus.

Or maybe the universe was trying to tell her something.

Gales of boyish laughter drifted on the wind, and they both looked up at the top of the slope where Gwen and Brian were picking berries. Elation clutched at Twyla’s heart. “She’s never picked berries with him before,” she confessed. “He always picked them alone, or with me, and then brought them to her for sorting.”

Rob set down the toolbox and studied Brian and Gwen thoughtfully for a moment. “Everything’s more fun with a partner.” He seemed embarrassed for having said so, and added a stray nail or two to the box. “I hope your mother’s on the road to recovery.”

“This is the biggest stride she’s ever made. I don’t think she’ll turn back now. I’m going to ask her to see her doctor again about the counseling and medication.” She stopped even pretending to stay cool and turned to him, pressing herself against the stout railing he had built. “That’s what I can’t thank you for, Rob. For Mom.”

“Twyla, I didn’t—”

“You did.” Somehow she knew he would try to duck away from taking credit for this. “In seven years, no one could get her to leave this house. Seven years, Rob.”

“She took that step for Brian, not me. He needed her. When the school called, she had no choice.”

“The school’s called before, once or twice. She always found a way, a perfectly sane and logical way, to get around going. Today she could have phoned Mrs.
Duckworth. She’s on the call list for emergencies. But she didn’t. It’s a huge stride, Rob. I thought you doctors were into taking credit for miracles.”

He laughed and picked up the box. “I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“Well, maybe you ought to be.”

“What makes you say that?”

She tried not to stare at his arms, muscles bunched with the weight of the large wooden crate. “A hunch. It’s hard to imagine you in a lab all day, growing bacteria and looking things up in books.”

“Actually, I spend more time in consultation with other doctors and researchers and lab techs. When I look something up, I tend to use a computer.” He carried the toolbox toward the shed.

“All right,” she said, following him. “But it’s still not the same as seeing patients.” She wasn’t sure why she felt so adamant about this. He had an important job. His work saved lives. Yet she couldn’t help wondering what the job gave him.

“True. There are lots of different kinds of doctors. Most people are only aware of the ones on the front lines.” He disappeared into the cobwebby dimness of the shed.

“So you don’t like working with people?” she asked from the doorway.

“Not like you do. I saw the way you were working with that patient at the hospital.”

“Mrs. Ulrich?” She smiled fondly. “I did her hair, that’s all. She wanted help getting ready for her son’s visit from Des Moines.”

“It was more than that, Twyla.”

They walked together back to the steps. She felt the urge to take his hand—it seemed the most natural thing
in the world to do—but she resisted, tucking her hand into her pocket for safety. She took a seat on the porch steps, leaning against the railing.

“What do you mean, it was more than that?”

“The things you do at the hospital—fixing some woman’s hair, bringing her a lipstick, whatever makes her feel better. That’s the essence of healing. It’s something I haven’t thought about in a long time. I should thank you for reminding me what’s important and making me remember why I do what I do.”

“Your field—pathology—is important,” she reminded him.

“It’s easy to lose sight of the human side of medicine when you’re looking at both slides and films all day. You reminded me of that—the human side.”

She felt both pleased and embarrassed by his praise. It was a simple thing, sitting on the porch steps and talking with a man about things that were important. Yet in her life, moments like this weren’t merely rare but unheard-of. It was frightening how much she liked sharing her thoughts with Rob Carter, how much his attention meant to her. Frightening, because it had to end.

With a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, she glanced at her watch, then stood up.

“Didn’t you say you were supposed to meet someone at the Casper airport?” she asked.

He hardly blinked. “Yeah. I guess I did.” He stacked one sawhorse on top of the other and carried them to the shed.

The weekend was over. The reunion was over. The porch was fixed. Dear Lord, her mother was fixed. Dr. Fix-It had blasted like a whirlwind into her world, rearranging everything. Her life, her house, her priorities.

Her heart.

She felt the moment drawing to a close. She wanted to stop everything, to step back and gaze at each moment of the past weekend like a painting in a museum, beautifully lit and roped off from the rest of her life by red velvet cords. It was something that rare, that special.

She wanted to remember the slant of the sun over the mountains and the sound of Brian’s laughter drifting from a distance, the ripple of a breeze across the grassy slope of the yard, the lift of her mother’s apron as she walked along the ridge with her face tilted toward the light.

Most of all, Twyla wanted to remember Rob, who had given her so much more than moral support for her journey home. When she had first met him, she had thought he was intimidatingly handsome, unapproachable. Now she found him startlingly accessible, a man she could trust with every secret she had.

He had been the perfect one-night stand, except that she wanted him for more than one night.

Her breath came in short, nervous puffs because she knew what she had to say. She had to tell him…more than thanks. She had to tell him he had changed her, that because of him she felt herself changing, reaching, becoming someone she never thought she would be again and almost didn’t recognize.

Someone who could love again.

“So,” he said, coming out of the shed, “I guess—”

“Rob.”

The urgent note in her voice must have caught at him, because he stood stock-still for a minute, then took off his hat, running a bandanna over his sweaty brow. “Yeah?”

Lord. Being sweaty only added to his sex appeal.

“I wanted you to know…about this weekend…”

“Yeah?” he asked again, clearly intrigued now.

“I feel—oh, God, this is so hard.” Just say it, Twyla. Say you don’t want it to end, that you’re wondering when you can see him again. She got up and paced the yard, hands stuck in the pockets of her skirt. “This weekend was a big deal for me, Rob.”

“Good. That’s exactly what Mrs. Duckworth and Mrs Spinelli intended.”

“No, I’m not talking about that. I honestly don’t think their scheme included us winding up in bed.”

His eyelids lowered a notch, and she felt a forbidden spasm of remembered pleasure at that hooded look. “That was a bonus, I guess.”

She tried to smile, but it wouldn’t form. “I can’t joke about this, Rob. Remember last night, when you asked me if I’d thought about what…being with you could mean?”

His gaze shifted from side to side. Her earnestness was making him nervous. She plunged onward, anyway. “What happened meant more to me than a one-night stand. So I was wondering what it meant to you.”

He fiddled with his watch, though he didn’t look at it. She felt guilty, delaying him, but she had to know his thoughts on this.

When he caught her staring at his hands, he sat on the steps and rested his wrists easily on his knees, linking his fingers. “To be honest, Twyla, I didn’t want to have anything to do with this weekend, or the whole bachelor auction thing, for that matter. I felt obligated to Lost Springs. When I met you and the quilt ladies, I felt obligated all over again.”

“The quilt ladies are sometimes known as the ‘guilt’ ladies,” she said.

Standing up with a restless movement, he propped his
hip against the new railing, testing its strength. “At some point, everything changed. I started to like what we were doing. I liked being with you.” The hooded, sexy look shadowed his face again. “I liked making love to you.” Then he took a deep breath that expanded his chest, and suddenly there was nothing sexy at all in his expression. “And I shouldn’t have.”

Twyla folded her arms across her middle, bracing herself. Now she started to sweat, and she felt sure she didn’t look nearly so attractive as Rob. She couldn’t meet his eyes, so she looked behind the house to the slope. Brian raced around, eagerly showing his grandmother all his favorite climbing trees and hiding places in the woods. “Shouldn’t have made love, or shouldn’t have liked it?” Twyla asked.

“Both, I guess.” He pushed away from the railing and started to pace. “I never meant to mislead you, Twyla, but I never told you the whole truth, either.”

Oh, God, here it comes, she thought. He’s married, or there was a bet riding on scoring with her, or—She shut off her thoughts. “What’s the whole truth?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Lies are always complicated.” She was so busy trying to understand what he was saying that she almost didn’t hear the crunch of tires on gravel.

Shep did, barking madly at Reilly’s old flatbed truck as it pulled to the side of the road. The passenger door opened.

Rob muttered something under his breath, something she didn’t hear. His manner became that of a stranger as he walked toward the car. Twyla shooed the dog away and hurried after him, stunned to see a tall blond woman get out and wave to Reilly, thanking him for the ride. Then she turned to Rob and kissed him on the mouth.

For a long time.

Rob stepped back, a polite smile on his face. “Lauren,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I got an earlier flight.” The woman called Lauren wrinkled her dainty nose and took her hands away from him. “Heavens, what have you been doing? You’re covered with horrid sweat.”

Twyla didn’t think his sweat was horrid. It was all she was capable of thinking as she walked down the drive toward them.

“How did you find me?” Rob asked.

“Were you hiding?” Lauren had a melodious voice and a classy accent, like a trained 1940s actress. She tilted her head back, laughing as she held out a hand to Twyla. “I’m Lauren DeVane.”

Twyla took her slim, elegant hand. Killer manicure. “Hi. Twyla McCabe.”

“Mr. Reilly was nice enough to give me a lift out here. Are you ready, darling?” Lauren asked Rob. Her smile was as dazzling as a toothpaste ad. “If we leave now, we can be in Chugwater in time for cocktail hour.” She turned to Twyla. “We’re meeting friends there,” she explained.

Something about the statement made Twyla feel entirely excluded. She was pretty sure it was meant to sound that way.

“I’ll get my keys.” Rob spoke like a dead man. Or a doomed one, at least.

Which he was, Twyla thought, wondering if the steam coming out of her ears was visible. She heard nothing but guilt in the tone of his voice. So this was the “whole truth” he had been talking about earlier.

She found her voice somewhere in the shocked reaches of her throat. “Would you like a glass of lem
onade, or maybe white wine?” I have a nice jug of rat poison for Rob in the basement.

Lauren’s faultlessly polite gaze flicked to the house, then to Rob. “You know, I truly would love to visit. I’m dying to hear all about your bachelor auction weekend. I want to know every single detail. A high school reunion is just too cute.”

Rob stiffened with a sudden movement that seemed to jolt him out of his inertia. Twyla felt him looking at her, but she refused to meet his gaze, refused to diffuse the discomfort of the moment.

“I thought you were in a hurry to get to Chugwater,” he said to Lauren.

“Yes, I suppose I was.” She smiled apologetically at Twyla. “Maybe another time.”

“Of course,” Twyla replied, matching her lie for lie. She forced herself to address Rob. “I’ll tell Brian and Mother you said goodbye.”

He nodded. “Do that.” He stuck out his hand and she took it, feeling the weight of Lauren’s gaze on them and battling a swift, vivid memory of that warm, clever hand on her bare shoulder, then drifting down to her breast—

“Bye,” she said, choking off the memory. “Thanks again…for fixing the porch.”

She felt like a tree, rooted in place as they drove away. And she was proud of herself, really, because she forced herself to turn and walk with measured paces into the house, to climb the stairs and shut the door to her room before she broke down.