His Best Friend's Wife

by Lee McKenzie

  “He is. He loves school and he’s especially fond of his teacher this year. Her name is Ms. Potter. Olivia, but she likes to be called Libby. Her mother, Mable Potter, was our high school English teacher. Remember her?”

  “I sure do.”

  “Ms. Potter, Isaac’s teacher, told me she has taken her mother to the clinic to have her memory tested and that you referred them to a specialist in Madison.”

  “That’s right. They’ll be seeing the doctor who diagnosed my father,” Paul said.

  “Have a seat,” she said. She set the egg basket on the counter next to the sink. “The coffee will be ready in a jiffy.”

  Paul sat on a stool and watched her while she made coffee. He wished he could walk up behind her, put his arms around her and hold her. For now, he would take what he could get, which, this morning, would be a cup of coffee, a muffin and some good company. He was happy he had shown up when he did because she’d given him the impression she was close to bailing on Emily’s blog before she had even given it a try. That would be a real shame because for someone who claimed to be a novice, her photographs had been brilliantly executed.

  At his friend Jack’s suggestion, he had checked out Emily’s Small Town, Big Hearts blog. He had found it completely engaging, and Annie’s weekly column was going to fit right in. He was sure her photographs would garner some attention, and in his opinion that was exactly what she needed. She was always taking care of everyone else and making sure their needs were met. She deserved some of the limelight for a change.

  He was selfishly pleased to see that Annie’s father was no longer at the table. Paul knew it was too much to hope for a repeat of last week’s kiss, but he was still not-so-secretly glad to have her all to himself.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AT THE SOUND of Annie’s and Paul’s footsteps on the veranda off the kitchen, Thomas had hastily wheeled himself out of the kitchen, down the hallway to his bedroom. He knew when it was time to make himself scarce. Paul had come out here specifically to see Annie, to spend time with her. Having coffee with her father would not have been part of his plan, Thomas was sure of that. And if anyone deserved someone’s undivided attention and admiration, that person was his Annie.

  While she was growing up, there’d been more times than Thomas could count when he’d felt guilty as all get-out for the burden he had placed on her. From the time she was six years old, she had taken responsibility for the care of their family—a single dad in a wheelchair and two small girls, one of them barely a toddler. He’d had little choice but to rely on her, the eldest child, and she had never let him down.

  His daughters had grown into amazing women, and over the years they had teamed up and tried to use themselves as a human shield to protect him from the outside world. They also seemed to think that because he couldn’t navigate the stairs, he didn’t know what went on in the world of the teenage girls—who eventually grew into women—who were ensconced on the second floor and in the attic. But he had eyes and ears, and he was a lot more tuned in to their tomfoolery and conspiracies than they ever imagined. This past spring, when Emily discovered she was pregnant, was a case in point.

  To start with, Isaac had come to him and asked what a “prennancy test” was. No keeping secrets with a six-year-old boy in the house. Seemed to Thomas that pregnancy tests shouldn’t be in any young child’s vocabulary, but it turned out he’d discovered one in an upstairs bathroom. At first, Thomas had figured it must be Annie’s, that she had conceived before Eric’s unexpected death.

  Then he’d had suspicions about Emily when, as a self-proclaimed caffeine addict, she had abruptly stopped drinking coffee. Those suspicions were confirmed several weeks later when Jack Evans had paid Thomas a visit and asked for his permission to ask her to marry him. It had been touch-and-go for a while there, Emily being the classic middle child, full of unwarranted insecurities and longing for things she could never have while the perfect man was carrying a ring in his pocket and wearing his heart on his sleeve. Emily was settled now, and it was Annie’s turn for a little romance.

  Paul Woodward was back in town and this was his second visit to the farm in a week. A visit to Annie, to be precise. Didn’t take a mind reader to figure out what was going on in that fellow’s head. Paul and Eric had been best friends, though. Eric had been a good man, no question about it. A good husband and a wonderful father. Annie had all but revered her husband and those feelings should have been mutual, but Thomas had always felt Eric was a little too self-absorbed to reciprocate. Not that he’d ever breathed a word of that to another living soul, and he certainly had no intention of interfering in the lives of his adult daughters. Still, he’d always thought Annie was being shortchanged.

  Paul was an entirely different matter. He looked at Annie like she was the only woman in the world. Thomas was equally certain that his daughter was completely oblivious to the man’s feelings. Thomas wouldn’t be the one to point out the man’s inclination, though. He didn’t need to. That’s what sisters were for.

  Before leaving the kitchen, he had peered through the French doors to see what the two of them were up to. They’d been sitting together on the bench on the edge of the garden by the chicken coop. Annie had been staring intently at the camera she held with both hands. Paul only had eyes for her, his attention focused, as though he was trying to absorb her essence through his pores.

  Thomas wished he hadn’t wheeled himself out of the kitchen in such a hurry. In his haste, he had left his newspaper on the table and now it was too late to retrieve it. He should have gone to the living room, or maybe out onto the front veranda. From there he could have skirted the house and taken the paved trail down to the stable to see what CJ and Isaac were up to, maybe talked them into taking a trail ride. Instead, he was stuck here until Paul left.

  He rolled over to his desk and turned on his laptop to check his email. The first message caught his eye. It was from his old army buddy, Nate Benson. He quickly opened it and perused the content. Nate and his wife, Angie, lived on a ranch in East Texas. They had three adult children, just as Thomas did. The two of them, Nate and Thomas, had joked when they first met that maybe someday when Nate’s sons and Thomas’s daughters were grown, they might meet and some of them might even get married. That hadn’t happened, of course. Thomas had come home from Desert Storm in a wheelchair, returning to Wisconsin to recuperate on the family farm. Nate had finished out his tour of duty and returned to Texas. Still, they’d kept in touch all these years and Thomas still considered Nate to be one of his best friends.

  Two of Nate’s boys had joined the service. His eldest was in the marines, currently stationed in Southern California. The youngest was in the army and on his second tour in the Middle East. The middle boy had stayed on the ranch to work with his father.

  With carjackings and suicide bombings, military service was potentially even more deadly than in his day. Thomas heaved a huge sigh when he reached the end of the email. No bad news this time. He scrolled to the beginning of the message and began to read again, slowly this time, so he wouldn’t miss anything.

  Angie’s keeping busy these days planning our middle son’s—Jake’s—wedding to his high-school sweetheart. I’m leaving the decisions about bridesmaid dresses and flower arrangements to Ang and the DIL-to-be. The womenfolk have a lot of opinions about these things but me—not so much.

  Thomas cringed a little, knowing how his daughters would react to the womenfolk reference. He could relate, though, and he would be sure to tell Nate that Emily and Jack were getting ready to tie the knot.

  Course my wife’s got her sights set on being a grandmother. Jake and his bride haven’t given any indication that’s where they’re headed, but Ang has been dropping hints all over the place.

  Thomas had some news to share in that department as well. Not that he was trying to one-up his old buddy, but he was about to become a
grandfather for the second time.

  Everything’s status quo with our other two boys. Cody’s stationed at the marine corps base in San Diego. Matt’s on his second tour in the Middle East. He’s our biggest worry right now but you know we’re praying hard for him.

  Thomas felt a tug of sympathy. A second tour was always worse than the first, a bigger worry for the family, since they could count on luck only for so long. And yes, a soldier was more experienced, but sometimes that could work against him or her. In Thomas’s case, he was plain grateful his girls had chosen to stay close to home. His biggest concern right now was Annie. He’d been keeping a close eye on her since Eric passed away. Granted it had only been half a year ago and she was still recovering from the shock of her husband’s unexpected death, but he wished she would slow down and take care of herself. She was thinner than she ought to be, more tired looking and less like herself. It was as if a spark in her had been extinguished. It might be wrong to wish for it, but he secretly hoped Paul would light it again.

  He hit the reply button and spent the next ten minutes using the hunt-and-peck method to respond to Nate’s message. Thomas mentioned Emily’s wedding coming up at the end of September, and the second grandchild due at Christmastime. With the day-to-day out of the way, he decided it was time to share the difficult news, the thing he had not wanted to open up about until now.

  I haven’t mentioned Scarlett in a long, long time, but there’s news. We found out this summer that she passed away in the spring. Murdered, along with two other women. I wasn’t altogether surprised, given what I knew about her lifestyle, but it was a shock to my girls. And maybe an even bigger shock...it turns out I have a stepdaughter and they have a half sister. Her name’s Rose. After her mother passed, she came to Riverton to check us out, and Annie convinced her to stay.

  Thomas reread what he’d written. To-the-point, honest without being maudlin. He had his suspicions about Rose—the girl was too much like her mother for her own good. But again he mostly worried about Annie. She was quick to see the good in everyone and a little too willing to take on everyone else’s problems.

  I won’t lie to you, Nate. I have misgivings. Rose is her mother’s daughter, no two ways about it, and I sure hope Annie isn’t taking on too much. Time will tell, I guess.

  It was good to hear from you, old friend. We’ll have to swap wedding pictures after the big events. You be sure and tell your boy, Matt, we’re praying for him to stay safe and get himself home in one piece.

  As Thomas signed off and shut down his laptop, he heard a car door close and an engine start out front. He wheeled himself to the window in time to see Paul drive away. That meant the coast was clear, so he headed for the kitchen. He could use another cup of coffee, and it’d be interesting to hear how the visit went. Annie wasn’t one to be too open with her emotions, but he knew how to read her. If she was already busy baking, that was a good sign.

  He rolled to a stop at the entrance to the kitchen. Annie stood at the island, creaming butter and sugar in a big yellow crockery bowl.

  All right, Thomas thought to himself. Paul Woodward, you are one lucky man. Let’s hope you’re also a patient one.

  CHAPTER TEN

  OLIVIA POTTER SURVEYED the flat tire on her pearl-gray Lexus LS. After moving to Riverton, she never should have kept the ridiculous, ostentatious car with its obsidian leather interior and every automotive bell and whistle known to mankind. Meanwhile, what was a woman to do? She was reasonably self-sufficient—not that she’d had a choice after her ex had traded her in for a much younger model last year. That said, changing a tire was well outside her skill set.

  And in today’s outfit, it was completely out of the question. For meet-the-parents’ day, she had settled on a red skirt with a softly gathered waist and paired it with a tan-colored tank top and an ivory blazer. She had slipped a set of ivory, tan and gold bangles on her wrist, fastened on matching earrings and completed her outfit with a red-and-ivory handbag. The effect was eye-catching yet still practical for the classroom. The shoes—tan peep-toes with two-inch heels—were not designed for walking, especially not while carrying her handbag and briefcase and an extra-large cupcake carrier.

  For as long as she had been a primary teacher, she had purposely set out to create a wardrobe of stylish clothes in bright, happy colors. Before that, and even now when she wasn’t in the classroom, her tastes tended to casual styles in a more subdued palette. Her teaching wardrobe, though, served two purposes: dressing up for the classroom boosted her self-confidence; it also set the tone for the students.

  That said, she was not dressed for auto repairs.

  “Well, Libby? What are your options?”

  Change her clothes and try to figure out how to change a flat? Not in this lifetime, let alone that it wasn’t something she could accomplish before the morning bell.

  Call a taxi? Did this sleepy little town even have a cab company? She couldn’t remember.

  Put on a pair of sensible shoes and walk the eight blocks to school? That was probably her best option.

  “No, Libby. That’s your only option.”

  Five minutes later she was hurrying onto Cottonwood Street with her bag slung over her shoulder, her briefcase in one hand and the bright pink cupcake carrier in her hand. Of all the days to have car trouble, it had to be meet-the-parents’ day. Just her rotten luck. She picked up her pace so she would arrive at her classroom before the bell, and hoped she wouldn’t look completely frazzled when she did.

  She had only walked a block and a half and was already wishing her bag was a little lighter when a large white van slowed and stopped. Her heart did the jitterbug when she spotted the lettering scrolled down the side panel.

  Finnegan Farm Bed & Breakfast.

  It was a silly reaction. It probably wasn’t even him. It was probably—

  The driver’s side window slid down and...there he was. Thomas Finnegan.

  “Libby? Libby Potter?”

  “Thomas. Hi. Yes, it’s me. I mean, I’ve been Libby Lawrence for a long time but I’m back to using Potter now because, um...” Oh, Libby. Shut. Up.

  “Good to know.” He smiled. No, it was more like a grin.

  In spite of the hardships—and she knew he’d been hit with more than his fair share—the years had been gentle on this man. He still had a full head of thick, sandy-brown hair that looked as though it had been effortlessly finger-combed into unruly waves that curled around his temples. Maybe it had. Back in high school he’d had a careless Patrick-Swayze-in-Dirty-Dancing thing going on. Some things clearly didn’t change. Sometimes they improved with age.

  “Need a lift?”

  “I’m on my way to the school,” she said, then realized she hadn’t answered his question.

  “So are we.” His words and his easy smile caught her off guard. For the first time since he’d stopped, she realized he wasn’t alone.

  “Hi, Ms. Potter.” A little boy waved at her from the passenger seat. “Gramps is coming to parents’ day.”

  “Isaac. Hi.” Isaac Larsen was one of her students. His parents were...she wracked her brain. Isaac had told her that his mother, Annie, ran a bed-and-breakfast. His father, Eric, was dead. And he, Isaac, was getting a puppy named Beasley.

  Finnegan Farm Bed & Breakfast.

  That would make Thomas Finnegan his—

  “You’re Isaac’s grandfather.” Which was stating the obvious in the dumbest way possible, given that the child had just called him Gramps.

  “That I am. And a stand-in for parents’ day, since Isaac’s mom is feeling a little under the weather this morning.”

  Libby found herself wondering how many grandchildren Thomas had, and wished she didn’t feel so absurdly envious.

  “So, about that ride,” he said.

  “I’d really like that,” she sa
id. “I’m loaded down with books and cupcakes, and my car has a flat.”

  “Isaac, help Ms. Potter put her things in the back of the van, then you let her sit up front, okay?”

  “Sure, Gramps.” The boy cheerfully flung open the passenger door and scrambled out as the side door slid open automatically, revealing a wheelchair on a hydraulic lift. Isaac climbed in, dove into the backseat and buckled up. Libby set the cupcake carrier on the floor next to the wheelchair.

  “Is that everything?” Thomas asked.

  She nodded and stepped back, saw him press a button on the dash and then watched the side door slide shut on its own.

  She climbed into the bucket seat next to him, set her book bag on her lap and closed the door.

  Thomas sat tall, feet flat on the floor, and used the hand controls mounted on the steering wheel to accelerate away from the curb.

  Libby had wondered how she would feel when she saw him after all these years. She knew he’d been a wheelchair since Desert Storm. She knew his wife had run off soon after he’d come home—unthinkable!—leaving him to raise their three young girls on his own. She had not expected to see him sitting confidently behind the wheel of a car, driving his grandson to school.

  “I really appreciate this,” she said, annoyed with herself for feeling flustered, unable to think of anything else to say.

  “Don’t mention it. Isaac’s been talking about meet-the-parents’ day all weekend.” He gave her sideways glance. “This morning his mother woke up with a headache, thinks she might be coming down with a cold, so I volunteered to come along instead.”

  “That was nice. I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience for you. Especially since, I mean...never mind, I’m sorry.” You idiot! He probably thinks you think that because of the wheelchair—

  Which, truth be told, was exactly what she was thinking.

  Thomas, apparently unfazed by her blunder, simply grinned. “I’ve spent more of my life in that chair than out of it. I drive, as you can see for yourself. I help out around the farm, ride a horse, babysit.” He glanced at his grandson in the rearview mirror, eyes brimming with affection.