Husband for Hire by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online

and laid out the rules of the event. Rob barely listened. There was a sense of absurdity about the whole thing that made it feel not quite real, as if this were a world set apart from everywhere else.
    In a way, Lost Springs had always been that. A group of homeless boys whose families had failed them. This was the place where they had come together, where they had fought and cried and raged and laughed and learned. The ranch stood for hope and healing. Letting it close was not an option. That was why he was here. That was why he had agreed to go through with this lunacy. This was a place worth saving, because without it, boys like the boy he had been would have nowhere to go.
    Lauren was adamant about doing charitable works. She belonged to a family so wealthy that fifty years ago they’d created a foundation for their charity. The DeVane Foundation employed a dozen staff members, and Lost Springs had been on their list for years. Rob had met Lauren at another Lost Springs fund-raiser, that one a fairly tame charity ball. The DeVanes were acquainted with the Fremonts of Lightning Creek, and Lauren had gone to boarding school with Kitty Fremont and Lindsay Duncan.
    It constantly amazed him that they wound up together, for they couldn’t be more different. The heiress and the orphan. Oliver Twist and Princess Grace. Every once in a while, Rob felt an unbidden twinge of discomfort with Lauren. It was hard to define, but the feeling was there, tangible yet hidden, like a pebble in his shoe. She had always been proud of his success and his prospects. But he suspected that deep down she wished he’d been born with real class.
    He dismissed the feeling. Sure, they came from different worlds, but they were smart enough to minimize their differences. She was exactly what he had envisioned, when the organizers had made him specify the ideal woman for the auction brochure: an “educated city girl with a high-powered, socially responsible career.”
    Spying an upswept crown of blond hair in the audience, he felt his heart give a momentary lurch. No, it wasn’t Lauren, but a part of him would have been ridiculously pleased to discover she couldn’t stand for him to be auctioned off to a stranger and had come rushing up here to buy him for herself.
    That would have been pure fantasy and so completely unlike Lauren that it was ludicrous.
    “So who do you want to bid on you?” Davis asked. “Got any preferences?”
    Before he realized what he was doing, Rob looked directly at the back field, where a tall spreading oak tree nodded in the summer breeze. Twyla McCabe stood by the breeze-stirred raffle quilt, hands on her hips, watching the proceedings with mild bemusement. Then he caught himself and focused on the bleachers. “No preference. Like I said, all women are beautiful. It’s for charity, anyway.”
    “…do this in alphabetical order, I guess,” the auctioneer was saying. “So, ladies, put your hands together for our first bachelor, Dr. Robert Carter.”
    Damn. With jerky, mechanical movements Rob made himself stand. Okay, this was his turn to help out the boys ranch. There was no place for bashfulness or seriousness in this.
    From somewhere deep inside, he summoned a wide, welcoming grin and took Lindsay’s hand, gallantlybending over it and lifting it to his lips. A chorus of sighs gusted from the audience, and he laughed.
    The auctioneer gave a rundown of Rob’s bio, making him sound a lot more interesting than he was, eliciting oohs and aahs at his achievements in sports and academics. He’d filled his bachelor questionnaire with facts about his pathology lab, but they hadn’t used any of it. Apparently isolating lethal viruses and staving off epidemics wasn’t considered “sexy.”
    “And here’s a little something extra, ladies,” the auctioneer said. “He’s got the soul of a poet.”
    Rob frowned. Where had that come from?
    The auctioneer took out a yellowed piece of wide-ruled writing paper. Rob