Husband for Hire by Susan Wiggs

in the way of his plans. No parent in need or sibling in trouble or lover making demands. He had to wonder if he would have given up his future for the sake of a family member who needed him.
    Rob glanced down. In her lap, Twyla had torn a napkin to shreds. “Hey,” he said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
    She noticed the napkin and shook her head. “Don’tworry. In a town like Lightning Creek, no one has any secrets. I expect the entire membership of the Quilt Quorum knows you’re here right now.”
    “And is that a problem?”
    “No, not at all. But I absolve you of your obligation to go through with this reunion thing.”
    “That’s what I came to talk about.”
    “Good. I’m glad you agree—”
    “We’re going.”
    She laughed, an easy laugh that was indulgent and the slightest bit condescending. He imagined her laughing that way in her salon as her customers enumerated their husbands’ quirks.
    “Rob, really. That’s a nice gesture. But I know how boring it would be for you.”
    “I mean it. We’re going to your reunion.”
    “Why?” She seemed astonished, vaguely suspicious. “Why are you being such a good guy about this?”
    “You have something against good guys?”
    “No, I’m just amazed that you’re one of them. Most rich doctors wouldn’t bother.”
    “Thanks for reducing me to a stereotype,” Rob said. “Look, your little old ladies planned this thing down to the last detail. If we go through with it, maybe the town matchmakers will back off for a while.”
    She sat in pensive silence. Rob wondered what it would be like to know her, to be privy to the thoughts behind her light, expressive eyes.
    No, he didn’t want to know. They’d best remain polite strangers. He wouldn’t see her again after the reunion, so there was no need to mess things up with rambling heart-to-heart talks. No need to wonder what might happen if—
    He reeled with the thought. People complicated eachother’s lives. Twyla McCabe was living proof of that. He didn’t need any part of it.
    “Would you like to take a walk?” she asked suddenly.
    Caught off guard, he said, “Sure.”
    They walked outside and up the sun-warmed slope at the back of the house. Bees grumbled indolently through the daisies and blue lupine and Indian paintbrush that covered the hill, but Rob found his gaze straying to Twyla.
    He kept telling himself to keep his distance, but it wasn’t working. He noticed everything about her—the way the breeze lifted her hair, the fact that she wasn’t wearing any panty hose, the way her face softened when she looked down the hill and spied Brian and her mother, sorting berries on the railed back porch. There was a certain way a woman had of looking at those she loved. Rob had noticed this during his pediatric rotation. It was the most subtle, soft and tender look he could imagine. Twyla did it so naturally.
    She showed him around with the mock formality of a tour guide, and he discovered a shed filled with a treasure trove of tools, a handyman’s dream. “The former owner had a woodworking shop,” she explained. “Have you ever done any woodworking?”
    “Carpentry was part of the program at Lost Springs. I liked it.” Rob surprised himself with the comment. He had liked the work, but he hadn’t worked with his hands in years.
    “I think the owner before him was even more interesting,” Twyla said, pointing out an abandoned chicken coop that had concealed a whiskey still in the twenties. She went on to show him a stream trickling from a crack in the rocks on the hillside and a half-buried thresher sorusted and ancient that she had planted it with morning glories and called it a yard ornament.
    As he checked out the place with her, he told himself he was looking forward to getting this over with.
    But as the moments wore on, soft and drowsy with the flavor of a summer afternoon, Rob felt something happening to him. Against all good sense, against the central tenet of his life’s