by Lee McKenzie
“These taste as wonderful as they smell,” he said, after his first bite of the piping hot muffin he had sliced in half and generously slathered with butter and jam.
“I’m glad you like them. I bake muffins every Saturday morning. My sisters and I have a coffee date after CJ’s riding class is over, and I freeze the leftovers for family and guests who come to stay.”
“How’s that going?” he asked. “The bed-and-breakfast? It sounds like a lot of work.”
“It can be, but I’m already cooking and cleaning and making beds for the family, so it’s not a lot of extra work to do it for a few more people. And we’re only open through the summer and for the holidays, from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Not a lot of people book a holiday on a Wisconsin farm in the middle of January. And if they do...” She smiled at him over the rim of her cup. “They won’t make the same mistake twice.”
They both laughed at that.
“Makes sense,” Paul said. “I guess folks are searching for sun and surf at that time of year.”
He was easy to talk to and she loved that he made it easy for her to laugh, that he made it okay for her to laugh again. It was all so easy that she was startled when Paul checked his watch and stood to leave.
“Annie, this has been great but I need to get going. Otherwise I’ll be late for my first appointment.”
“I’m glad you came out this morning. It’s good to have you back in Riverton.” She meant it. She hadn’t realized how important it would be to have Eric’s friends around.
Paul stood, picked up his dishes and carried them to the dishwasher.
Annie rushed to her feet. “Don’t worry about those. I’ll take care of them.”
He gave her a quizzical smile. “I know how to load a dishwasher. I’ve been taking care of myself since I went away to college.”
“Right. Well, thank you.” He was a doctor. He took care of other people for a living, so without question he could look after himself. She just wasn’t used to being around men who did. Or if they did, she wasn’t accustomed to letting them.
“Walk me out?” he asked.
“Of course.” As they made their way down the hall to the door, she found herself wondering about Paul’s past. He seemed to be single, but there must have been girlfriends, serious relationships even. For all she knew, he was still involved with someone in Chicago. She could ask, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Outside on the screened veranda, they stopped and Paul turned to face her. “Thanks for coffee.”
“Anytime, Paul. I mean it.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders, leaned in as though he was going to kiss her forehead the way he always did. As he moved, she inexplicably tipped her head back and looked at him. His lips made contact with hers. The kiss lasted a millisecond—brief but electrifying. They both pulled back, startled, gazes locked.
Paul was the first to find his voice. “Um, I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“I only meant to—”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he said.
Neither had she. Or had she? That would explain why right now she wanted to grab the front of his shirt, pull him close and kiss him again, for real. The mortifying thought set the tip of her nose on fire.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. Liar.
They stood in awkward silence for a few beats and she wished she knew what he was thinking, but his expression gave nothing away.
“You’ll have to join us for Sunday dinner sometime.”
The invitation seemed to startle him. “Oh. Sure. Leaving my dad on his own for dinner will depend on what kind of day he’s having but...sure. We’ll play it by ear.”
“Right. I’m sorry, I forgot. I just thought, since Emily and Jack will be here, you might like to see them. And your father is welcome to come, too.”
Paul looked downright surprised by that suggestion. “He has a tough time now with new situations, new people. I’m afraid it might be too much for him. Maybe for everyone.”
“I see. I’m sorry.”
Paul shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “No need to apologize. It is what it is. I’ll see what I can do, though. It would be good to see Jack and Emily.”
“Do you have someone come in to look after him while you’re at the clinic?”
He shook his head. “He’s pretty good in the daytime, and Jack’s father drops in every day around lunchtime. If I can work something out with the Evanses, I’ll let you know.”
“We’d like that.”
“Okay, then. I’d better get going.” He pushed through the screen door and ran down the front steps to his car.
Annie stood on the veranda. She touched her fingertips to her lips as he drove down the driveway, onto River Road and out of sight.
* * *
PAUL DIDN’T REMEMBER a lot after that kiss. He recalled pulling out of the Finnegans’ driveway onto River Road. But his mind was a blur of images from the past and the present, so he had no recollection of making the drive to the Riverton Health Center. Yet here he was, parked in the space that, for years, had been reserved for Dr. Woodward. The name plate was now as worn and faded as the mind of the man who had parked his various Volvo sedans here over the past forty odd years. On Paul’s first morning here, Edna Albright, the clinic’s long-time office administrator, had declared how convenient it was for the health center that the sign didn’t have to be changed.
At the time, he had refrained from telling her that his being here was not a permanent solution. Coming home to care for his demanding, ungrateful father and cover for him at the clinic was meant to be a short-term fix. Eventually, the old man would move into a care facility, the clinic would find a permanent replacement for him and Paul would return to his position at the hospital in Chicago. He had been generously granted a one-year leave of absence. The clock was already ticking.
But being home meant being close to Annie, and he felt as though that brief kiss had already upset his carefully laid plans. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. She was his best friend’s wife. Strictly off-limits. For as long as he could remember, she had passively accepted his casual embrace, the light touch of his lips to her forehead. This morning, there had been a subtle, almost imperceptible change. This morning, she had altered the pattern by looking up at him, eyes awash with emotion, lips parted ever so slightly with an invitation he couldn’t have refused to save his life. And so he had kissed her, even though he hadn’t meant to. Now he couldn’t wait for an opportunity to do it again.
CHAPTER FIVE
AFTER PAUL LEFT, Annie didn’t know what to do with herself. So she made more muffins—carrot-pineapple this time. Then she whipped up a batch of cream-cheese frosting to slather on them as soon as they had cooled. Baking was easy. Reconciling herself with that kiss was not. Her sensible side doubted she could ever face Paul again. Her closely guarded inner self couldn’t wait to see him. In spite of that one unexpected moment they had shared, she liked the feeling of actually...feeling. Having him care for Isaac yesterday had made her feel safe. Being alone with him this morning was like dropping a match in a tinder-dry hayloft. As exciting as the heat of these initial flare-ups might be, she needed to be careful not to burn down the barn.
She put on a fresh pot of coffee and while the scent of it filled the kitchen, mingling with the aroma of fresh baking, she iced the muffins and arranged them on a footed Depression glass cake plate. Soon her sisters would join her and she liked having everything ready before they arrived.
“Hello! I’m here.” Emily let herself in the front door and breezed into the kitchen as Annie poured boiling water over the decaf coffee grounds she had spooned into the bottom of a Bodum.
“Is that for me?” she asked, pulling Ann
ie into a sisterly hug.
“It sure is.”
“You’re the best. I’ve been dying for a cup.”
“You do know there’s no caffeine in it.”
“Doesn’t matter. I let the smell and taste of it trick me into believing it’s the real thing.” Emily set her oversize bag on the counter. “I have something for you.”
“You do?”
“Remember when I asked you about writing a weekly column for my blog? And you said you’d give it a try at the end of the summer after Isaac was back in school?”
Right. The Ask Annie column. Annie had not forgotten, but she had hoped her sister would.
“Jack gave me a new camera for my birthday, and it’s amazing. You should see the photos it takes.” Emily ran a hand over her belly. “This will be the most photographed baby in the world.”
Annie smiled at her sister’s enthusiasm over a gift that other women might find overwhelmingly unromantic from a man who had recently proposed. Not Emily. Since childhood, she had dreamed of becoming a journalist. Now she was a reporter for the Riverton Gazette, and a popular blogger with a recently signed book contract.
Emily pulled her old camera out of her bag. “I thought you might like to have my old one. For illustrating the column, although you can use it for anything. Isaac’s birthday parties, school events, whatever.”
Annie eyed the camera suspiciously. “You said you wanted me to answer a question about running a busy household, a farm, a bed-and-breakfast. You didn’t say anything about taking pictures.”
“Oh. I guess you don’t have to. I thought you might like to.”
“I don’t know the first thing about photography.”
“That’s the beauty of the digital age. You don’t need to know anything. I’ve put all the settings to auto, which means that as long as the light is reasonably good, the camera will do all the work. You simply have to point and shoot.” Emily thrust the device into her hands.
Annie cringed as she studied the undecipherable symbols that presumably indicated what the various buttons and dials were for. “What do you want me to take pictures of?”
“Whatever you like. Whatever will work with the column you’re writing.”
“I’m not a writer, remember? I have no idea what I’m going to write about.”
“Fine. We’re calling the column Ask Annie. Would you like me to give you a question to answer?”
“I think you’ll have to.” For the life of her, Annie couldn’t think of anything she did from day to day that anyone else would want to read about.
Emily glanced around the kitchen as though pondering what to ask, and then her gaze settled on the kitchen window and beyond. “Chickens. Farm-fresh eggs. That’ll be your first question. Is there any advantage to cooking and baking with farm-fresh eggs?”
“In a word, yes.”
Emily made a face. “Now you’re being difficult. Tell us about your chickens—what you feed them, how many eggs you get every day, what the eggs taste like. Maybe include a recipe or two.”
Annie found herself wishing she had never agreed to this. Emily’s posts on her blog were hugely popular, filled with humor and insight and charm about life in a small town. Why would her readers want to read about chickens and eggs? She had long accepted that Emily was a brilliant writer and that their younger sister was an accomplished horsewoman. Annie herself had none of those exceptional skills. She raised a family, prepared food, kept house. She loved what she did. Taking care of her family was enormously satisfying, but there was nothing earthshaking about any of the things she did.
As though Emily could read her thoughts—and given how close they had always been, she probably could—she gently took the camera from her and switched it on. “Just line up whatever you want to take a picture of in the monitor and push this button. Let me know when you’re ready to upload them to your computer and I’ll show you how. For the first column, I only need about two hundred and fifty words. Then we’ll take it from there.”
Never one to go back on a promise, Annie gave a reluctant nod. “Fine. I’ll give it a try. Now can we talk about you?”
She gave her sister a good look up and down. Her flowing tan-colored top, worn with a pair of off-white jeans and accessorized with gold hoop earrings and bangles, suited her perfectly and did an excellent job of disguising her expanding midsection. “You’re looking gorgeous this morning. New outfit?”
“Newish.”
“Your baby bump is getting very—”
“Bumpish?” Emily suggested.
Annie smiled. “It’s going to be more and more difficult to disguise this under a wedding dress.”
Emily shook her head. “Honestly, I’m not trying to hide. It’s not as though people don’t already know. But I did find a dress online that I really love. It has an empire waist with a full skirt. Really pretty.”
“White?”
“More ivory with just a hint of pink. They call the color champagne.”
“That’ll be perfect with your complexion. Is it a full-length gown?”
“Knee-length. I didn’t want anything too formal. I’ll show you a picture when CJ gets here.”
“Rose is joining us, too.”
The excitement in Emily’s eyes dimmed.
“She is our sister,” Annie reminded her.
“I know. I’m just not ready to share my wedding arrangements with her.”
“Fair enough. But you do realize you have to invite her, right?”
Emily sighed and gave a reluctant nod.
Rather than push the point, Annie changed the subject. “Have you set a date?”
“We have, finally. The last Saturday in September. We’ve decided to get married outdoors, in the gazebo, because we want to take advantage of the fall color.”
“Oh, my.” The gazebo. The place where Eric had proposed to her. Overcome with nostalgia and a fierce longing for her old life, Annie’s chest tightened and her breath clogged her throat. It was also the place where Jack had proposed to Emily, she reminded herself. She recovered before her sister noticed, she hoped, and pasted on a smile. “The end of September. Wow. Your big day will be here before we know it. Doesn’t give us a lot of time for planning.”
“There’s no need for a big plan. We want to keep the wedding simple, and we didn’t want to hold it until Jack’s mom was feeling up to it and his sister, Faith, could make it from San Francisco.”
“Makes perfect sense. How’s his mother doing?”
“She’s good. It’s taken her some time to recover from the fall she had at the start of the summer. The cast came off her arm last Wednesday and she’ll be starting physio soon. Jack and his dad and I will take turns driving her to appointments.”
“She must be so happy to have her son at home with her, even if it’s just until the two of you find a place of your own.”
“Well, that might already be taken care of.”
“You’ve found a place?”
“Not yet. His mom has always been a homebody and never wanted to travel, but after breaking her arm and having to rely on everyone else’s help, she’s decided she likes having other people take care of her. So his parents have decided to take a cruise this fall, right after the wedding. Go figure, huh?”
“Wow. That’s huge. Have they decided where they are going?”
“The Panama Canal, leaving from New York, I think, and ending up at Faith’s in San Francisco. She made all the arrangements for them. After they disembark, they’ll stay with her until Christmastime. They’ll be back in Riverton before the baby is born, and Jack and I are going to stay at their place, for now, while we look for a place of our own.”
“That’ll be perfect. What about a honeymoon?”
“We’re thinking next summer, maybe. Jack is bare
ly settled into his new job with the police department and it’s too soon for him to take time off. And I want to finish my book before the baby’s born. For now it’ll feel good to move out of my apartment and into Jack’s place and be...” Emily’s stared dreamily into her coffee cup. “You know.”
“Husband and wife. A family. I totally get it, and I am so happy for the two of you.”
Annie was really and truly excited about the prospect of having one of Eric’s best friends for a brother-in-law, and especially about being an aunt. She had honestly given up hope of that ever happening. Now they were going to have a Christmas baby—a baby boy or girl who would be a much-loved addition to the Finnegan family.
Annie looked up and found Emily smiling at her. “I’ve been hoping to get you alone so I could ask you something.”
“Ask away.”
“I know the three of us had this thing worked out where I was your bridesmaid when you married Eric, and then CJ would be mine and you would be hers. That way everyone gets a turn.”
“That’s right. I’d forgotten all about that.”
“Me too, until CJ reminded me. The thing is, though, I’d really like you to be my maid of honor. It just feels right somehow. And then maybe CJ could be yours when...if you get married again.”
Taken aback, Annie stared at her sister. “That is not likely to happen.”
“Don’t be silly. Not right away, but you’re young and gorgeous and you’re sure to meet another man someday who’ll fall madly in love with you and your apple strudel.”
Annie’s thoughts inexplicably turned to Paul.
Emily reached across the island, took her hand and squeezed it. “It would mean the world to me if you would do this.”
“Of course I will. I’ll be honored.”
“Thank you.” Her sister sat back and smiled, seeming to look a little more smug than necessary.
Then, too late, Annie realized she might have landed herself in a bit of a sticky situation. “Who has Jack asked to be his best man?”