Husband for Hire Read Online Free PDF

anyway.”
    “I’ll mind my manners.” He was taller than he’d appeared in the brochure, with the long, lanky build of a college basketball player. And Lord, so obscenely good-looking she had to force herself not to stare. The haircut alone would run about a hundred dollars in the city. His cologne was probably something she couldn’t pronounce or afford. It was like being in the presence of an alien life-form.
    “Twyla,” he said, trying out her name. “I’ve never met anyone called Twyla before.”
    “My granddad named her,” Brian explained helpfully. Though he’d never known his grandfather, Gwen told him family stories each night as she stitched her quilts in her little sitting room. The stories always depicted a dreamer—and they always ended happily. Brian was too young for the truth.
    Robert Carter, M.D., had a dazzling smile on his face as he looked down at her. “You don’t say.”
    “I just said so!” Brian objected.
    “A figure of speech.” Carter’s laugh was smooth, gentle, infectious.
    Yet Twyla didn’t feel like laughing. He made her conscious that her truck’s air conditioner hadn’t worked in three years, that her cotton sundress was plastered to her back by sweat, and that she hadn’t bothered with perfume after her shower today.
    Intimidating, that’s what he was. And too…everything. Too handsome, too smoothly friendly, too glib, too perfectly put-together, too male.
    A pavilion had been set up for the barbecue. The smoky smells of sizzling ribs, chicken and beef filled the air. A PA system blared a sentimental country-and-western song. The young residents of Lost Springs raced around, playing chase with the visiting children.
    “Hey, there’s Sammy,” Brian exclaimed, pointing at a dark-haired kid climbing a tree in the playground. “Can I go, Mom? Can I?”
    She nodded. “I’ll come find you when it’s time for the picnic supper.”
    “See ya,” Carter said as Brian handed him the raffle box and sped away.
    “We can set these down here,” Twyla said, indicating the spreading shade tree by the rodeo arena. Another volunteer had strung up the hospital guild banner: Converse County Hospital—35 Years Of Sharing And Caring.
    “You work at a hospital?” Carter asked her, laying the table down and prying up each metal leg.
    “Just as a volunteer once a week.” She considered offering him an opening to tell her what a big, important city doctor he was, but decided against it. He was too perfect as it was. He certainly didn’t need any promptingfrom her. “I do hair for a living,” she said, almost defiantly.
    He set the table on its legs and jimmied it back and forth until it stopped wobbling. Then he looked up at her, hands braced on the table, the nodding boughs of the tree framing his broad shoulders. “Twyla’s Tweezers,” he said softly. “Now I remember where I’ve seen that name before.”
    “It’s the Tease ’n’ Tweeze,” she corrected him.
    “Why the Tease ’n’ Tweeze?”
    “Because that’s pretty much what we do.”
    “And people pay you for this?”
    “That’s right.” A flush stung her cheeks. Just for a moment, she wished she could say, “I sculpt male nudes for a living,” or “I’m a district attorney,” but the truth was she was a hairdresser and Brian’s mom, and she could do a lot worse than that.
    He made no comment, but she thought perhaps his smile got a little hard around the edges. Probably so. Men generally didn’t find much in common with hairdressers.
    “Thanks for your help,” she said, unwrapping the quilt.
    “No problem.” With a casual wave of his hand, Robert Carter, M.D., walked toward the pavilion, putting on a pair of aviator shades.
    She taped the raffle ticket sign to the edge of the table. Then she unfolded the quilt and took out some clothes-pins, stepping back and eyeing one of the tree branches.
    She should have asked him to help her hang the quilt. His height would have been a convenience, but