by Susan Wiggs
“So 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.”
CHAPTER SIX
IN HIS ROOM at the Starlite Motel at the north end of town, Rob stared at the silent telephone while his gut churned with regrets. Twyla McCabe had tried her best to do the honorable thing, to let him off the hook, and he’d blown his chance to escape. He ought to call her right now and tell her she was right—it would never work out.
But it wasn’t tomorrow yet. Hell, it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. He couldn’t call her. He should probably phone Lauren and explain the outrageous proposal the old ladies had cooked up.
The blue glow of the neon star on the motel sign flickered sporadically through the slatted blinds. The almost forgotten hum of the wilderness that lay beyond the parking lot crept past the thin walls of the building—the whir of crickets, the chorus of chirrups from frogs, the occasional cry of an owl.
With idle curiosity, he leafed through the papers and brochures Mrs. Duckworth had handed him. They were in a manila folder labeled Twyla’s Ten-Year Reunion.
The ladies had left no fantasy unfulfilled. They’d booked seats on a commuter flight from Casper to Jackson and rented a sport utility vehicle for the weekend of the reunion. The accommodations, according to the brochure, were unbelievably deluxe—a handcrafted fishing lodge called the Laughing Water Lodge on the banks of the river, with two bedrooms, a spa and sauna. It was adjacent to a riding stable on the outskirts of Hell Creek and it belonged to a wealthy Jackson developer who used it as a model home to entice world-weary Californians and rich Texans to put down roots in the area. “Your Wild West Wonderland,” the ad copy proclaimed, with a photo of a guy in a cowboy hat toting a bucket of feed across a pristine paddock.
Rob tossed the brochure on the table. He didn’t mind an occasional ride on horseback, but he’d never found barn chores particularly fulfilling.
When Mrs. Duckworth had handed him the folder, she’d fixed him with the steely stare perfected by all third-grade teachers. “You have to understand, young man—this has to be wonderful for Twyla.”
In case he lacked ideas, she and Mrs. Spinelli had included a laundry list of things he was supposed to do to make Twyla McCabe feel special. She needed a gift—a corsage or even an item of jewelry. He was supposed to dance with her. Take her on a picnic, ride horses with her. They suggested a candlelight dinner, a walk in the moonlight, a glass of wine on the hearth rug in front of the fireplace, breakfast in bed.
“We’ve done our part,” Mrs. Spinelli said. “You have to do yours. No man has made her feel special in years. It’s up to you.”
No pressure there, Rob thought wryly.
He reached out to pull the drape shut against the flickering neon light. Through the slates of the blinds, he saw a pickup truck with running lights and chrome detailing drive by, probably headed for Roadkill Grill down the street. With one last glance at the phone, he grabbed his key and went outside. It was too late to call Lauren, anyway. He might as well join the guys for a beer at the town’s only watering hole.
“Hey, Doc.” Chance Cartwright waved at him from the thick plank bar when he walked in. Chance poured a beer from a pitcher and handed it to Rob. “Are we having fun yet?”
“You guys tell me.”
“Hey,” said Rex Trowbridge, grinning crookedly, “we raised a fortune for the ranch today. Now it’s time to raise some hell.”
Someone punched in a vintage tune on the jukebox. Jerry Jeff Walker’s voice filled the barroom, and the guys got busy thumping one another on the back and teasing one another about the auction. Rob hadn’t paid much attention to the other deals that had been cut, but it didn’t surprise him to learn that not all the bidding was done out of a sense of fun and philanthropy. Russ Hall was stuck being a daddy for a weekend. Cody Davis was being dragged back to his hometown to be the grand master of a parade, and another poor sucker had to serve as some widow woman’s ranch hand.
“So how about you?” Stanley Fish, the reporter, pulled up a barstool. “Let’s talk about your hot date.” Studying Rob’s expression, he added, “Off the record, pal. I’m just being nosy.”
“What I want to know is why you weren’t up there on that stage today.”
/> “Hey, I’m doing my part. This article will be great publicity for the ranch. Donations’ll come rolling in when they see all you fine young men doing your civic duty.” Stan took a sip of his beer. “So spill.”
Rob took a deep breath. “I’m supposed to take some woman to her high school reunion.”
Stan rolled his eyes. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.”
“Jeez, why don’t you just spend an evening watching paint dry? It’d be more interesting.”
“No shit.” Rob drank more beer, thinking about a poorly ventilated gymnasium filled with people he didn’t know, overdressed and hugging one another, sucking in their guts, squinting at name tags and talking about the past ten years. Trying, in a way that was so achingly human, to make those years seem better, more important than they really had been.
“Do you know why she’d want to drag you along to a reunion?” Stan asked.
“It wasn’t her idea,” Rob said. He explained about Mrs. Spinelli and Mrs. Duckworth. He thought about the tacky pink-and-white salon next door. It would be so damned easy to help her. Her friends from the salon were making it easy. “They think they’re doing her a favor. They want her to waltz back to her hometown with her head held high and her pride intact.”
“Sounds like a B movie.” Stan eyed Rob critically. “And she needs you in order to do that?”
“Nope. She doesn’t need anything. She’s fine.”
“Then why?”
“The old biddies, I guess. They want everyone to see Twyla as a big success, even in the marriage department.”
“Twyla? Her name is Twyla?” Stan swallowed hard, apparently trying not to spew his beer.
“Yeah, Twyla. You got a problem with that?” Rob asked, annoyed by the third degree. “It’s a scheme cooked up by these cute little old ladies.”
“So blow the whole thing off.”
“No. I said I’d do it.”
“Damn. This Twyla must be something else.”
He shrugged.
“So what’s she like?” Stan persisted.
Rob pictured her big misty eyes, and the way her hand stroked her son’s head with unconscious affection. He’d be better off not remembering what it had been like to put his hands on her waist and lower her down from that tree, but he couldn’t help it. Though brief, the contact had made a vivid impression on him. She’d felt young and firm, pleasantly damp with sweat. And she’d blushed as only a redhead can blush.
“Let’s just say she’s no mongrel.”
Stan signaled for a refill of their beer mugs. “I suppose there’s no harm in being some woman’s trophy date for a night, if that would fix things for this Twyla. Let’s go have a game of darts.”
All the rest of the evening, Rob thought about being a trophy date. Stan was still as smart as he’d been during their school days here. Still knew how to get to the heart of the matter. The truth was, Rob did like fixing things. In his practice, he never let go of a case until he figured out the right answer. If it meant pacing the floors all night, reading huge tomes in the medical library or online, he doggedly looked for answers.
Lauren liked to boast about his deep commitment to his profession, but that always made Rob feel like a fraud. Because deep down, he knew what motivated him, and it didn’t have anything to do with high principles and a commitment to the greater good of mankind.
It was as simple as a boyhood memory and a vow to put security first. As simple as his last glimpse of his mother, a pale, pretty woman with tears in her eyes and a bruised jaw. With eerie clarity, he recalled standing in the ranch director’s office, intimidated by the big overstuffed leather chairs and the Bierstadt and Remington prints on the walls.
With a schoolgirl scrawl, his mother signed her name to a long document. “You’ll be better off this way,” she’d said, and three decades later Rob could still feel the dry, warm touch of her hand on his cheek. “I can’t give you no kind of life, not now. Maybe later…”
“Maybe later” had haunted him for years afterward. Sundays at the ranch were family day, and Rob used to show up at twelve o’clock on the dot, hair combed and shoes shined, wearing his best jeans. “In case she comes today,” he used to tell Mr. Duncan. But she never did.
Even after Mr. Duncan gently suggested that Rob find some other Sunday activity, he kept showing up, kept hoping. He’d sit unobtrusively in the Spruce Room of the main lodge, watching as boys got hugs from families that couldn’t keep them yet still cared enough to show up every now and then with a box of chocolates and some comic books.
Rob knew the Duncans kept trying to locate his mother. At the very least, they wanted her to relinquish her guardianship of him so a family could adopt him. But they never found her, and Rob won awards for being at Lost Springs the longest.
As he got older, he tried to reconstruct what Peggy Jean Carter’s life had been like. A runaway, she’d had no family to speak of, no education. Jerked around by an abusive man, mishandled by social service agencies. Finally, desperate and broke, she had handed her son over to strangers and walked out of his life.
Maybe if someone had done one kind thing for his mother, she wouldn’t have left him all those years ago. She might have found the pride and self-respect to pull herself together and meet life head-on rather than running scared all the time.
Kindness made a difference in the world—that was the enduring lesson of Lost Springs. Maybe that was why he was going to talk Twyla into going to her reunion with him.
ROB AWAKENED to a medley of church bells. He stepped outside his motel room, taking a deep breath. The sky was a brilliant blue, with a brittle intensity that was rare outside this area of Wyoming. It was like being on top of the world or on another planet. The air was so clear, the light so strong.
Going back inside, he showered and shaved and got dressed in jeans and a golf shirt, then stuck his shades in his pocket. Twyla had said to phone her, but that didn’t seem right. He needed to see her in person.
After breakfast at the Grill, he started off for the old McCabe place. That was how Reilly, at the feed store, referred to it. “The old McCabe place” sounded quaint, Rob thought, picturing a graceful Victorian house and a manicured lawn.
As he drove up the pitted gravel drive, he shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that he was wrong. The mere sight of the property gave him an ominous feeling.
The 1920s wood-frame house was falling apart. Set on the brow of a hill, the place looked worn, the rickety porch rail giving it the aspect of a face in need of dental work. Weathered wood, peeling paint, shutters hanging awry. The only color came from hedges and flower boxes filled with geraniums.
As Rob got out of his car, a small boy and a large dog came racing down the hill at a rough-and-tumble run. The dog gave a sharp, protective bark, but Brian hushed him. “It’s okay, Shep. Hiya, Rob.”
“Hey, Brian. I came to see your mother. Is she busy?”
“Nope. Me and Mom just got back from church. C’mon in.” Brian stomped up the dusty walk.
The porch steps creaked ominously beneath Rob’s tread.
“Hey, Mo-om!” Brian called. “Rob’s here—that guy Mrs. Spinelli bought for you yesterday.” Whistling for his dog, the kid went back outside, the screen door slamming in its frame and creating a shudder that reverberated through the house.
Rob found himself standing in the middle of an old-fashioned vestibule. The place smelled of lemon oil polish and cinnamon and coffee—some would call it the smells of home, but of someone else’s home, never his.
He rested his hand on the newel post, dark with age, and the wooden ornament came off in his hand. He swore softly under his breath and was trying to replace it as Twyla came from the back of the house.
“Hi,” she said, her expression slightly quizzical. “I wasn’t expecting—” She spotted the newel post in his hand.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Happens all the time.” She fit the peg in place and smile
d up at him. “I keep meaning to fix it, but I’ve never been much good at that sort of thing. Give me a head of hair any day, but home improvement is a complete mystery.”
A long, awkward pause stretched out between them. Rob noticed that she was wearing a nice yellow dress—for church, he guessed. He wondered if guys in church stared at her because, damn, she was a knockout with all that red hair and those legs. He tried to think of something else. Like what the hell he was doing here. She had all but let him off the hook yesterday, yet something had driven him to find her, to convince her that they ought to give it a shot. Now that he was here, standing like an intruder in her house, he had no idea what that something was.
A small, white-haired woman came in. She wore a flowered apron over her dress, an unorthodox-looking pair of red tennis shoes and a pleasant smile.
“Mom, this is Rob Carter. Rob, my mother, Gwen.”
He shook hands. “Pleased to meet you. I don’t mean to intrude on your Sunday—”
“Oh, heavens, Sundays were made for company, weren’t they, Twyla dear? We absolutely love having people over. Can I get you some coffee? I’ve got some cinnamon rolls just out of the oven.”
“I’d be a fool to turn down that offer,” he said. “Smells delicious.”
“I’ll give you a hand, Mom.”
“Don’t you dare. I’ll just be a minute.”
The two women shared a smile. Sometimes when he saw a parent and child, he felt a raw burning inside him that had no antidote. Long ago he had made a mental list of the things he could never have, like a mother and a father. He had dedicated his life to acquiring the things he could have—a good education, a meaningful career, friends he enjoyed. Since meeting Lauren DeVane, he had begun to think a wife was even a possibility.
“Your mom’s nice.”
“The best.” A shadow darkened her face and her smile dissolved, then reappeared quickly. “She lives with us—there’s a mother-in-law apartment in the back—and watches Brian when I’m at the salon. She did a lot of the work on that quilt you won.”
Twyla led the way into an old-fashioned parlor. The room had a high ceiling outlined by fancy molding and tall windows hung with lace curtains. The furniture wasn’t grand, certainly not priceless antiques, but it seemed to fit. Between the two windows was a small upright piano, polished to a high sheen. Built-in bookshelves were crammed with an eclectic mix of titles. Scanning them, Rob noted a heavy concentration of psychology texts and self-help books on everything from panic attacks to holistic grief recovery. Not what one would expect of a hairdresser. Maybe her mother was the reader.