Husband for Hire

by Susan Wiggs

  The weird thing was, he didn’t mind giving the occasional on-the-spot diagnosis. Didn’t mind looking into a person’s eyes rather than into a high-powered microscope.

  “And you?” he asked, filling the long conversational pause.

  “Full-time wife,” she said, “which is more work than you might think. The fund-raisers, the parties, the charity auctions.” She waved a long-suffering hand and seemed not to notice that his face reddened at the mention of an auction. “It runs me ragged sometimes, so you don’t want to hear about it.” She punctuated her statement with a deep swig of her drink.

  Rob caught himself looking at her shoes. Though he wasn’t one to notice a woman’s shoes, he noticed these, because only last week, Lauren had bought the same ones. They were fairly ordinary-looking shoes, although they had a little gold thing in the heel that was the mark of an Italian designer. He still wouldn’t have noticed, except that Lauren had been unwrapping the parcel while he was there, and the sales slip had fallen out.

  Glancing at it, he’d felt his jaw unhinge. The price of those shoes could feed an indigent family for a month. And here were the same shoes, on the feet of a woman who bore an eerie resemblance to Lauren herself. Studying her, Rob got a glimpse of a future he didn’t want to see. Everything about this woman was correct—the clothes, the accent, the patina of expensive schooling. Everything that Rob had thought was important, significant, necessary for a successful life. And yet at the heart of it all, there was something essentially unhappy and incomplete about her.

  Because she was married to a jerk?

  That was probably a large part of it. But at one time, the jerk had been the sort of man Twyla McCabe wanted to marry. So he must have had his brand of charm.

  Rob finished his beer, wondering if he was going nuts, analyzing the marriage of strangers he would probably never see again. But deep in his gut lay the uncomfortable realization that he and Lauren were on a path similar to the one Jake and Beverley had taken. The high-profile socializing. The glitzy life. Living in the right place, owning the right things, driving the right car. From the outside, it looked like the American dream. The one he had formulated by reading Forbes magazine because he had no family to teach him what really mattered.

  Not for the first time, he felt a sick lurch of doubt. What if his idea of having it all was the wrong idea?

  TWYLA PUSHED OPEN THE door to the ladies’ room and let loose with an explosive sigh of relief. She had made it to the belly of the beast and so far she had survived. Amazing. She had been certain she wouldn’t be able to bear coming back here—much less face Jake—without breaking down.

  She used the bathroom, then spent a long time at the sink, delving into her impossibly tiny red evening bag for whatever cosmetics she could find.

  She glanced up into the mirror and saw the reflection of someone coming in, her arm through the handle of a baby carrier. A discontented mewling sound issued from a mass of pastel-colored blankets. The woman didn’t see Twyla at first. She sat down in the lounge area and unbuttoned her blouse.

  Twyla snapped her lipstick shut loudly to alert the woman, then stepped into the lounge area. The woman had one hand on her bra strap. Her face softened into a smile.

  “Twyla? Twyla McCabe?”

  Twyla studied her, desperate to figure out who she was. But the open blouse obscured the name tag. All she saw was a tired-looking woman with limp brown hair and a thickening body.

  “It’s me, Darlene Poole.” The woman picked up the baby and tucked it into the crook of her arm. “Darlene Poole Lindstrom, and this is Melanie.”

  Twyla sank to the bench, peering wonderingly at the baby. “Oh, Darlene, of course I remember you.” But you’ve changed. “Your baby is adorable. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” Darlene gave a dreamy smile and put the fussing baby to her breast. Instant silence pervaded the lounge. Twyla always felt a touch of nostalgia when she saw a newborn. She adored babies. When she first found out she was pregnant, she had envisioned two or three kids. That was before Jake had dumped her.

  “Your first?” she asked Darlene.

  “Oh, no. Fourth. We weren’t even going to come tonight, but at the last minute we decided to get a sitter and drop in for a little while.”

  “Four kids,” Twyla said in admiration. “That’s quite a brood.”

  “Tommy and I left family planning up to Mother Nature, and that’s how we ended up with four. He’s a rural mail carrier, of all things,” Darlene said, fondness softening her smile. “Not quite the milkman, but we kid each other about it.”

  Darlene and Tommy had been destined for something quite different, Twyla remembered. The drill team leader and the football quarterback. Winningly attractive and filled with enthusiasm, they had gone off to the University of Wyoming together. Twyla had assumed they would wind up with professional careers in a big city somewhere.

  While Darlene chatted about her kids, Twyla was quietly amazed at the change in her. From peppy, vivacious cheerleader, she had turned into a decidedly matronly, plain housewife.

  Darlene stroked a loving hand over the baby’s downy head. “Surprised?” she asked.

  “A little,” Twyla admitted.

  “We had to drop out of college after Thomas—he’s number two. We moved back here because my folks gave us the house for a song and moved to Scottsdale to retire. I just got my tomatoes and pole beans in,” she said. “Kids and the garden. That’s all I have time for.”

  She finished nursing the baby and changed her with the brisk, efficient movements of a very experienced mother. Twyla felt a momentary pang. She adored Brian with everything that was in her. But she had always dreamed of having more kids.

  “But you,” she said, placing the drowsy baby in the carrier. “You’re more gorgeous than ever, and that guy. Everyone’s talking about him. He looks like 007. And I hear he’s a doctor.”

  “We’re…very happy,” Twyla said, certain Darlene, whose contentment was so genuine, would see through the deception.

  But she didn’t. Giving Twyla a brief hug, she said, “I’d better go. Tommy wants to get home early. He’s taking the boys fishing tomorrow.”

  Twyla held the door for Darlene and followed her out of the ladies’ room. Tom Lindstrom hadn’t changed much—he was still handsome and vigorous—yet Twyla noticed a certain aura about him. A maturity.

  She couldn’t help but smile at the palpable, protective love that radiated from him, from them both, when he took his wife in his arms. With the infant carrier held between them, he slow-danced with Darlene. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his shoulder, and a smile of aching sweetness curved her mouth.

  None of the big dreams Darlene and Tom had dreamed had come true. But clearly they couldn’t be more content. They were absolutely radiant with happiness.

  “You all right?” Rob touched her elbow and she turned. She hadn’t seen him approach her.

  “Fine. But you must be bored stiff by now.”

  “Your ex is a real barrel of laughs. Let’s dance.” Without waiting for her to reply, he slid his arm around her and drew her out to the middle of the floor.

  Twyla pressed a hand to his shoulder and felt glad for his touch. There was nothing behind it, she realized. He was here to fulfill an obligation—nothing more. Yet the mere sensation of his touch, of his holding her made her feel stronger, more sure of herself.

  “So you survived the encounter,” Rob said, speaking quietly into her ear. “Lived to tell the tale.”

  “It appears I did.” She looked beyond him, finding Jake by spotting the largest crowd. He had always been popular. That was something that hadn’t changed. Yet she no longer regarded him through rose-colored glasses, or with eyes blurred by the tears of hurt.

  Based on the brief encounter with him and Beverly, Twyla felt no yearning for that life. No wish to be a part of his world. And fiercely glad that she had Brian and this marvelous night with a great guy.

  “Wel
l?” Rob asked. “You want to tell me how it was for you?”

  Surprising herself, she said, “It was…not what I expected. Seeing him again didn’t upset me the way I thought it might. He’s just some guy who wasn’t very nice to me once upon a time, and tonight I realized that none of it was my fault.”

  With startling tenderness, he touched a wisp of her hair, tucking the stray lock behind her ear before he bent to say, “I guess that was worth coming for.”

  “Uh-huh.” Suddenly her mouth was too dry to say more. She wasn’t used to talking about such things, not to anyone. She wasn’t used to being touched and held, and she liked it so much it embarrassed her.

  “You want to get out of here?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Back to the lodge?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you know it’s dangerous to be so agreeable all the time?”

  She laughed. “Uh-huh.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TWYLA FELT HERSELF growing more and more relaxed during the drive home. Strange, because she was fairly certain something would happen when they got back to the private lodge, and the very thought of such a prospect should make her nervous.

  But how could she be nervous when she wanted him so much?

  How could she be nervous when he had taken her on a journey that had ended with peace and understanding rather than hurtful memories and humiliation?

  Undoing his bow tie and opening the collar studs of his shirt, he fell into an enigmatic silence as he drove, and she didn’t break in on his thoughts. She didn’t want to. Part of his allure was the mystery of him, the fact that she barely knew him, and probably wouldn’t ever see him again after this weekend. There was something incredibly liberating in that. Maybe it was shallow, maybe it was silly, and it was definitely improper, but for once in her life she wanted to go wild.

  The night had grown brisk from a snow-chilled wind blowing down from the mountains. When they went inside, he took off his tux jacket and made a fire in the huge river-rock fireplace. She took a second bottle of Moët from the refrigerator, opened it and poured two glasses. Sipping her champagne, she stood back, watching him fan the kindling with the bellows until the dry sticks caught and flames curled up around the big yellow larch logs on the iron grate.

  “You do that pretty well for a city boy,” she said softly.

  “What, build a fire?”

  She almost said “uh-huh,” but she didn’t want him to think she’d gone brain dead. “It’s definitely a learned skill. I was hopeless with our woodstove the first winter in Lightning Creek. But eventually I got the hang of it.”

  “We did plenty of camping and orienteering at Lost Springs,” he said, using a poker to shove a stray stick of kindling back under the log.

  “Ballroom dancing, survival in the wilderness…I think they prepared you for anything.”

  His gaze flickered over her, and she felt his admiration like a caress. “Just about,” he said.

  She handed him the champagne and they clinked the rims of their glasses together. “What should we toast to?” she asked.

  “Mission accomplished?”

  “Was it?”

  “You tell me. Did you have a good time at your ten-year reunion, Twyla?”

  “Yes. And it’s all thanks to you. Cheers.” They drank, and she savored the cool, tart bubbles that glided over her tongue and down her throat. She shut her eyes and took another sip. “I should do this more often.”

  “Do what?” His voice sounded a little strained.

  “Drink champagne with a strange man in a remote cabin. It has a certain undeniable appeal to it.” She laughed at herself. “I don’t think you know how rare it is for me to get away, even for a weekend. To go someplace where I don’t have to be somebody’s mother or somebody’s daughter. It’s incredibly liberating.”

  “Glad to oblige, then.” He drained his glass, and Twyla did the same. Holding her gaze with his, he took the glass from her and set it on a side table.

  Now, she thought. Please kiss me now before I think up a reason to stop you.

  “Good plan,” he whispered.

  Dear God, she’d spoken the words aloud.

  And she wasn’t sorry.

  It was not a romantic, soft-focus kiss like the one last night. This time it was swift and tasted of harsh need and urgency. His hands felt huge and insistent as they drew her to him, though his mouth was surprisingly soft and supple, pliant lips shaping themselves over hers, imparting the flavor of champagne and something else, something she hadn’t tasted in forever but had never quite forgotten. The essence of a man’s desire.

  The sudden, almost brutal power of his embrace chased off any lingering hesitation she might have had. She might never have a night like this again. She’d be a fool to let it go to waste. So when he finally lifted his mouth from hers, her blood simmered with desire, obliterating reason. “Rob, I have a confession to make,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was hoping this would happen.”

  Again, she noticed the hesitation she had seen in him earlier, followed by a reckless growl of animal passion. As he kissed her a second time, his hand deftly unhooked the back of her dress and the zipper slithered downward. With his other hand, he cupped the back of her head, and her upswept hair fell down around her shoulders. She let her head drop back while he kissed her throat, his lips following the circle formed by the necklace he had given her. She felt dizzy, and forced her eyes open before it was too late.

  “Um, just a minute,” she muttered.

  “Sure.” He drew back, shoving a hand in his pocket.

  She groped for her evening bag, turning back to him with a small plastic packet in her hand and a terribly bright blush on her face. He produced the same item from his pocket, almost at the same time.

  “Good plan,” he whispered again, and peeled the red dress down her arms.

  She reached around behind him and unbuckled his cummerbund, then one by one removed the gold-and-onyx studs of his shirt. A few moments later, Armani’s handiwork lay in a heap on the floor along with the scarlet dress. Twyla stood wearing only her national debt panty hose and a tiny red silk slip. She tugged down the waistband of her hose and sent him a bashful smile. “I’m afraid when I take these off, everything will fall down around my ankles.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor. I’ll put you back together again if I need to.”

  She laughed, flushed with nervousness and need, and discarded the panty hose.

  “Everything stayed put,” he said, trailing a finger downward from her throat to her cleavage. The finger disappeared into the bodice of the slip, skimming across the tops of her breast and then over, flicking aside the thin satin strap. She nearly gasped aloud but bit her lip instead, hoping he wouldn’t guess just how badly she wanted him.

  “I wasn’t really worried,” Rob stated. Then he said no more, lowering his head to put his mouth where his hand had been.

  Twyla closed her eyes and tried to inhale the sensations through every pore. This was heaven, she thought, a moment of heaven right here in the middle of her mundane life. She combed her fingers through his hair and down his back, and together they sank down to the thick pile hearth rug. This man was a stranger, yet in some ineffable way he felt familiar. There was something about him that she recognized. Maybe he was something from her own dreams.

  She ran her hands up his back again. It had been so long since she had touched a man. She savored the shape and texture of him, long muscular limbs and soft dark hair on his chest, the subtle shadow of whiskers on his cheeks. She wondered how in heaven’s name she had lived so long without this. The question of how she would go on without it after he was gone swooped like a cold specter through her mind, but she pushed it away, burned it away with a heated kiss. He pulled off her slip and lifted her so that her breasts brushed his chest, and pure instinct took over. Her hips undulated against his, rising to form a cradle for their joining.

  An
urgent wildness built inside her, and she clutched at him, her hands and mouth and body begging for him more shamelessly than words ever could. He entered her rapidly, recklessly, and she cried out with the force and the glory of it, and felt the long, rolling waves begin immediately. He brought her to a crest of sensation where she was afraid to move, to breathe, to blink, but just when she thought she couldn’t bear to hover there, he took her higher still. It was unprecedented, almost frightening, the level of pleasure he brought her to. She’d had no idea…then she had no thought at all as she tumbled with a cry into ecstatic nothingness, holding him so close against her that she could feel the rhythm of his heartbeat and each silken ripple of his climax.

  It was a long time before she could speak, before she could even form a coherent thought. The long, mindless moments had a hazy, surreal quality, punctuated by the indolent snapping of the fire, the subtle flicker of light over their bare legs and hips. Finally, when one of the logs collapsed and sent a shower of sparks up the chimney, she moved, propping one hand on his chest so that she could look into his face.

  “Well,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as flustered as she felt. “Well. I’m not sure what happens now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s been a long time for me, Rob. A really long time. I don’t quite know what to do next.”

  He had his fingers tangled deeply in her hair. With unhurried deliberation, he freed his hand and let it slide downward over her shoulder, back, hips, thighs, making a silent, wicked suggestion at her most vulnerable spot. “I have a few ideas.”

  She flushed, feeling a new wave of desire even before the last one had fully ebbed. “Well,” she said again, tossing aside the torn plastic packet he had produced earlier, “we’ve got one condom left.”