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go. I think they’re getting ready to start.”
    “Start?” she asked stupidly. This guy was too perfect, and she was pretty certain that all the staring she was doing at him had caused her IQ to drop.
    “The auction.” He stuck his thumb in his belt, studying her. “Think you’ll be bidding on a date, Twyla?”
    He sounded like that reporter had earlier. A blush spread over her neck like a rash. “Do I look like the sort who has to buy a date from a stranger?”
    “You never know.” He indicated the quilt. “Do I look like the sort who has to buy a blanket from a hairdresser?”
    “Quilt,” she said. “It’s a quilt.”

CHAPTER FOUR

    T HE STRANGE ENCOUNTER with Twyla McCabe preoccupied Rob when he should have been trying to have a good time. It was pretty entertaining, meeting guys he hadn’t seen in years, discovering how they’d turned out, visiting with teachers he’d had and counselors from the ranch. He felt a little self-conscious sitting at a long picnic table with a few of the guys, because women kept walking past, checking them out, whispering and giggling like schoolgirls.
    Hanging out with some of the guys made him wonder about others, the ones he didn’t see here today—those who hadn’t made it through to the other end of the tunnel.
    A tunnel was the image he thought of when he remembered the past. His early childhood had been a sunny, idyllic time he recalled only in bright, cartoon-colored flashes. His mother had been fun. That was what he remembered about her—laughter, playfulness, tenderness and forgetfulness. She’d let him stay up late and miss the schoolbus. Her friends and her music were loud, and meals all came in disposable containers. From the perspective of adulthood, he realized she had been impossibly young, uneducated, careless—and ultimately irresponsible.
    Then came the tunnel, the long, dark years he hadspent struggling through a sense that he had been abandoned due to some fault of his own.
    Right or wrong, that perception had driven him to excel at everything he attempted. Sports and studies had pulled him closer and closer to the subtle glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. But the truth was, he hadn’t reached the end yet. Emerging as valedictorian from the local high school hadn’t caused him to burst into the light. Nor had getting a full scholarship to Notre Dame. Or medical school at Baylor. Or the partnership in his Denver practice.
    Maybe the end of the tunnel would be Lauren DeVane and the life they would one day share—as soon as they decided to talk about the future. Lauren, so beautiful she made the rest of the world look profane, inhabited a rarefied world that glowed with the light of its own brilliance. A world where boys weren’t abandoned by their underage mothers. Where kids weren’t scared of the dark. Where elegance and style softened the sharp edges of life. Being with Lauren made him feel closer to that world—though never actually a part of it.
    His plate loaded with barbecue, he took a seat with some of the others, but his gaze strayed to the playground. The equipment had changed. The peeled-log forts and jungle gyms looked a lot safer than the seesaws and nickel pipes they had played on as boys. He recognized Twyla’s son Brian on a tire swing. The boy had twisted the chain as far as he could and was now whirling in a full, fast spin, his head thrown back, laughing with wild abandon. Just watching him brought a smile to Rob’s lips.
    Lauren didn’t want kids. They had discussed it at length, and both agreed that they loved travel and spontaneity too much to devote the time and commitment ittook to raise a family. It was funny, he mused, watching Brian wind up for another wild ride; they had discussed their feelings about having kids without discussing their feelings about getting married. He had never proposed, nor had she. It was a logical next step in their relationship, yet neither felt pressured or in a hurry to take that