LITMIR.BIZ

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“And then what do you do with them?”

      “I reckon you do anything you want.” Sadie Kittredge flipped the pages, perusing a cop, a park ranger, a businessman, a golfer, a cowboy…and caught her breath. “So long as it’s legal.”

      “She’s right,” said Mrs. Duckworth. “The gal who outbids all the others gets a date of her choosing. All the money goes to the ranch, and some of the bachelors have voluteered to match the funds.” Her foil wrap clanked as she turned to Twyla. “So have a look, and tell us which one it’ll be.”

      She laughed, half amused, half incredulous. “Pardon me?”

      “Which guy?” Sadie said with an excess of patience. “You’re going to pick one out to escort you to your high school reunion.”

      “Uh-huh. And then I’ll click my heels together and wind up in Kansas.”

      “Really, Twyla. It’s too perfect,” Mrs. Spinelli said, warming to the idea. Her grape-size amethyst earrings bobbed in rhythm with her excitement. “We all agree you need a man, you want to make a big impression at your reunion—what better way than to show up with the perfect fantasy man?”

      “Wait a minute. I’ve been trying to tell you—I don’t need a man and I’m not going to the reunion.”

      “Yes, you do, and yes, you are.” Mrs. Duckworth injected thirty-five years of stern third-grade teaching experience into the statement.

      For the sake of keeping the peace, Twyla changed tack. “Even if I was interested, I don’t have the money. I’m a single mom, my business runs on a shoestring, and the last thing I can afford is to plunk down my hard-earned money for some spoiled…” She made the mistake of glancing down at the rancher in the leather vest and chaps. “Overprivileged…” Her gaze wandered to the next page, where a man in an Armani tux, holding a long-stemmed red rose, smiled up at her. “Narcissistic…” The next photo showed a man in a chef’s apron and cap, and apparently nothing else.

      Exasperated with her wayward imagination, she forced her attention to Sadie’s comb-out, taking great care as she unwound her best friend’s honey-colored hair from the pins. “Anyway, I don’t have the money or the inclination, so let’s just drop the idea, shall we?”

      Passing her hand lovingly over the glossy pages, Mrs. Duckworth emitted a long-suffering sigh that immediately squeezed Twyla’s conscience. It was for a good cause, after all. And despite her protests, the idea of a bachelor auction was shamefully tantalizing. Suppose a man materialized out of thin air, like a genie from a bottle, to be her date for just one night? Then she’d have something to show off at her class reunion, something besides a life that hadn’t turned out anything like the life she’d envisioned ten years ago.

      “Look,” Twyla said, “these guys are out of my league. They’re looking to raise thousands of dollars from each bidder.”

      “Out of your league, maybe,” Mrs. Spinelli said, drumming her freshly painted nails on the counter.

      Twyla raised a hand in protest. “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not letting you spend your money on a date for me.”

      Mrs. Spinelli laughed. “Last year I paid two and a half grand for the prize pig at the state livestock show. And that poor creature wound up at the slaughterhouse.”

      “A bachelor would be a lot more fun,” Sadie pointed out. “And you wouldn’t feel sorry for him when it was all over.”

      “Absolutely not,” Twyla insisted.

      Four long faces fixed her with stony, accusatory stares.

      She squirmed, trying to think of a distraction. “Maybe we could go along to watch the festivities. We’ll bring that quilt my mother’s finishing for the county hospital society. We could raffle it off at Lost Springs and make a group donation to the cause.”

      “You’re no fun,” Diep grumbled. She pointed to the short bios that accompanied each photo. “You read us this, yes?”

      “Here’s a good one.” Mrs. Duckworth stopped at the half-naked chef. “Age—thirty-something. Job—investment banker and aspiring kitchen god.” She rattled off the rest of the bio, and it was all nauseatingly predictable: star sign, biggest achievement, favorite song, car. Most embarrassing moment. “Oh, poor man, he was making chicken cordon bleu for a date and it burned up when they got carried away and forgot to turn the oven off.”

      Sadie ran a caressing hand over the smiling hunk. “You know, I read in a magazine article that hunger and passion create the same expression on a man’s face.”

      Mrs. Spinelli shook her head. “You mean all these years I could have just fed Roy?”

      Giggling, Twyla kept reading. “Oh, perfect. It says here his ideal woman has long blond hair and is free-spirited. Translation—he’s looking for Malibu Barbie.”

      “What’s that?” asked Diep.

      “Hot sex with no commitments.”

      “All right, so that one doesn’t work for you.” Mrs. Duckworth doggedly took her through a few more bios. Each one would have the reader believe that a woman’s looks weren’t important to him, that he was a sensitive guy under the rugged exterior, that he drove a Porsche 911 because it was “practical,” that his intentions were honorable, his career path straight as an arrow and his sense of humor boundless.

      “You know,” Twyla said, “before we start drooling too much, we ought to remember where these guys came from.”

      “The Lost Springs Ranch for Boys,” Mrs. Duckworth said. “That’s why they volunteered to be auctioned off.”

      “They were juvenile delinquents. Some of them were abandoned or orphaned as children.” Twyla thought of her own young son, Brian, and a soft rush of sympathy spread through her. “It’s bound to leave scars.” She pointed to the bull rider, whose ice-blue eyes hinted at a world of secrets within. “You have to wonder what sort of baggage they’re carrying around inside them.”

      “I bet he’d show you if you asked nicely,” Sadie said. “God, that mouth. Think he’s related to Val Kilmer?”

      “I think it’s a perfect marvel that they’ve all grown into such successful, upstanding men,” Mrs. Spinelli said.

      “Single men. You have to wonder,” Twyla said. “If they’re so wonderful, why aren’t they married?”

      “You don’t always find your heart’s desire the first time around,” Sadie observed with a wise nod of her head.

      Twyla numbed herself against a twinge of hurt. Sadie didn’t mean anything by it. Not too many people in Lightning Creek knew much about her past, but Sadie, her best friend, had a pretty good idea of what Twyla used to dream of and what she had given up when her marriage had ended.

      “That’s true,” she said. “But you know, I’ve got something better here. I run my own business and have the world’s cutest kid. When I was younger, I had no idea how important those things would turn out to be.” Still, she sometimes lay awake at night, haunted by the feeling that she had settled for less than her dreams. “I’ll be the first to admit that I blew it with my first marriage. The thing is, I don’t want a second time around. I like my life fine as it is.”

      “But wouldn’t it be a little more fun if you’d date every once in a while?” Sadie, who dated more than once in a while, was always pushing Twyla to get out more.

      “Oh, look,” said Mrs. Duckworth, paging through the catalog. “It’s little Robbie Carter.” She pointed to the rose-and-tux guy.

      “Not so little anymore,” Diep said.

      “I remember him from my third-grade class. My, my, he did clean up nicely, didn’t he?”

      “He’s a doctor,” said Mrs. Spinelli.

      “And

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