His Best Friend's Wife

by Lee McKenzie

  The invitation had been extended to her mother as well, but at the last minute, Mable Potter said she was feeling poorly and decided it was best to stay home. She insisted Libby go without her, saying it would do her a world of good to get out into the Riverton community again. Libby had agreed, pushing aside the niggling guilt at leaving her mother alone because she looked forward to an evening spent in the company of Thomas Finnegan. Besides, Mable had been managing on her own until Libby had moved from St. Paul. Her mother also had Banjo, a rascal of a dog of indeterminate breeding and a definite lack of manners, for company. So Libby assured herself she was entitled to a night out. Her mother would be fine on her own.

  The drive along River Road to the farm was always a pleasant one and today, now late in the summer, was no exception. The Finnegans’ gazebo came into view and she slowed to admire it, noticing as she did that it had been outfitted with a wheelchair ramp. It would have to be, of course. She had heard rumors that Thomas often marshaled the Riverboat Days parade on horseback. She, for one, looked forward to seeing that next year. Just thinking about it sped up her pulse.

  She signaled and carefully pulled into the long driveway leading to the house, so as not to send the cake sliding off the car seat. It was impressive that a man in a wheelchair managed to maintain all of this property.

  “Stop it,” she said to herself. “Stop it right now. He’s not merely a ‘man in a wheelchair.’ He’s Thomas Finnegan.” He was heartthrob handsome, a loving family man with a big heart, a genuine smile and a wide circle of friends. He was smart and funny and had already proven there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. Except stairs, she remembered with a smile.

  No, Thomas Finnegan wasn’t just a man in a wheelchair.

  As a teenage boy, he had unknowingly stolen her heart, and she was well aware that she was in danger of surrendering it once again. This time was different. This time she had a feeling he might be falling for her, too. She had no idea how that would work, being with a man in a...being with a paraplegic. But did it matter? Not one bit, she realized. If she was lucky enough for a romantic relationship to develop, they would figure it out.

  She pulled into the roundabout in front of the house and parked next to Thomas’s van. A number of other cars were parked there as well. A dark-blue sedan she knew to be Annie’s because she’d seen her pick up her son after school. A large white truck with Finnegan Farm Equestrian Program emblazoned on the door. There was also a black Jeep with Illinois plates, a silver-gray BMW two-seater, a red-and-white Mini with Morris’s Barbershop painted on the door and a late model Honda Civic that may have been black at one time, its dull finish marred by an untold number of fender benders.

  She hesitated before getting out of her car. Exactly how many people had been invited to this family dinner? She glanced at the welcoming veranda, where a big yellow dog lay sleeping at the front door, and decided it didn’t matter. She had been invited, and she intended to make the most of the opportunity.

  * * *

  FROM HIS PLACE at the head of the dinner table, Thomas surveyed the faces around him and took in the lively conversations abundantly laced with laugher. Life was good. At times in the past it hadn’t always seemed so, but seeing his family and extended family come together like this—this was good.

  Impossible as it might seem, Annie always seemed to outdo herself. Tonight’s prime rib had been roasted to perfection, the mashed potatoes whipped to a cloudlike consistency, the gravy rich and dark, just the way he liked it. And the Yorkshire pudding... He savored a forkful. Who needed gourmet fare when there was food like this in the world?

  And then there was the company. His girls, their friends and significant others—as they liked to call them—his grandson. And tonight, a newcomer. Like everything else about the dinner, Annie was in charge of seating arrangements and she had seated Libby immediately to his right...probably because they were the two old-timers at the table and his daughter assumed they had enough in common to maintain polite conversation. To his left sat Emily and Jack.

  Paul hadn’t fared so well. Annie had seated him a safe distance away from where she sat at the opposite end of the table. At first he seemed to have taken it in stride, but then he had made the bold move of asking Fred Morris to swap places with him so he could sit next to Annie. Thomas could have hugged him.

  “Does your family really do this every Sunday?” Libby asked.

  “Every Sunday. Since I was a boy younger than Isaac, I have memories of those dinners. My mother was an amazing cook and Annie has inherited her skills. For a few years there—after my mother passed away and before Annie was old enough to prepare anything on such a grand scale—the dinners were pretty basic. You’d be surprised by what a guy in a chair and three young girls can do with a canned ham and some crushed pineapple.”

  Libby’s smile made him a little breathless. “Oh, I don’t think I’d be surprised at all.”

  Maybe not, but he could think of several things that might surprise her. “By the time Annie started high school, she had started pouring over her grandmother’s cookbooks, pulling out the good china. Wasn’t long before her boyfriend, Eric, and Emily’s friend Fred started hanging out here. Teenage boys are not known to turn down a meal.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. I must confess I don’t have much experience with teen boys,” she said. “Not even when I was a teenager myself.”

  The confession made her blush, and Thomas found himself grinning. “You’re one of the lucky ones, then. They don’t have a lot going for them.”

  Libby savored a forkful of mashed potatoes before she spoke again. “Annie’s an amazing cook. And from what I’ve seen of her with her son, she’s a great mom, too. You must be so proud of her.”

  Thomas glanced at his eldest daughter, watched her scoop buttered peas onto her son’s plate, her eyes and her actions brimming with tenderness. Proud barely scratched the surface.

  “I am. I’m proud of all my girls.” He glanced around the table, realized all three of his daughters were unabashedly watching him and Libby. As he caught them at it, they exchanged a look, a nod, a smile. Favorable ones.

  When their mother had packed her bags and headed for the door, they had been too young to have memories of him and Scarlett as a couple. After he’d come home from the Middle East in this chair, they hadn’t lived like a couple anyway. In all these years, tonight was the first time they’d seen him with a woman, a potential love interest. Now there was an old-fashioned phrase, and yet it seemed appropriate. In all those years, this was the first time he’d found a woman who had the potential to become a love interest.

  CJ—his beautiful Cassie Jo—leaned toward them, grinning. “Do you like horses, Ms. Potter?”

  “Please, call me Libby. And yes, I do. I guess. I mean, I’ve never ridden one but I do love to watch equestrian events—especially show jumping at the Olympic level—on television. The riders always look so elegant and they make it look so easy, although I know it isn’t.”

  CJ picked up her water glass, swirled it until the ice cubes made a musical sound. “You should come out sometime and I’ll show you around the stable. And I’d be happy to give you a lesson or two if you’re interested.”

  “Oh.” Libby touched her napkin to the corners of her mouth. “I’d love to look around. I’m not sure about actually riding, though. I think I’m a little too old to take up that sport.”

  Thomas knew his youngest well enough to know where she was going with this.

  “My dad’s really old and he rides,” she said with a wink and a grin.

  “CJ!” Annie admonished, but everyone else laughed, Thomas included.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m pretty much the poster boy for grumpy old men on horseback. And although you and I are about the same age, Libby, I’m sure my lovely daughter didn’t mean to imply you’re old. Just me.”

/>   “Touché, Dad.”

  Libby humored them all with a wide smile and faint blush. “I’ll definitely take you up on the offer to visit the stable. In class, Isaac has told us about your horses. I understand you run a therapeutic riding program?”

  CJ’s face lit up.

  “And here we go,” Emily teased. “My sister can talk your ear off about her kids and her horses.”

  “I can and I will, given the chance. But since everyone else at the table has heard this a thousand times and since you’ll be dropping by soon...maybe next Saturday?”

  Libby nodded. “I’d like that.”

  “Perfect. And now I won’t monopolize the dinner conversation. Why don’t you tell us about yourself, Libby.”

  “Oh.” That seemed to catch her off guard. “Not much to tell, really. I grew up in Riverton but moved to St. Paul after college. I got married and taught elementary school there for many years. Now I’m not married and I’m back in Riverton to take care of my mom.” She angled her head in Paul’s direction, gave him a smile. “I’m sorry to say she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, but she’s being very well taken care of by Dr. Woodward here.”

  Thomas sat back and listened as Libby was swept into an easy conversation that touched on Paul’s work at the clinic, Emily and Jack’s upcoming wedding, Annie’s bed-and-breakfast, which was now on hiatus until Thanksgiving, and the new column she was writing for Emily’s blog.

  Thomas was impressed. This woman was as engaging with a group of adults as she was with her young students, and she and his family seemed to have an easy, seamless fit. He liked that. He liked her. And after he’d finished a second helping of Annie’s incredible dinner, and eased himself and his chair out of the way so the table could be cleared, he liked that Libby jumped up and started stacking plates, gathering cutlery. She handed the stack of china to Annie, absently smoothed her hand over Isaac’s head, paused to exchange a few quiet words with Paul.

  Thomas let his thoughts drift to how the rest of the evening might play out after coffee and dessert were served. Would Libby need to rush home to her mother? He hoped not. He wanted to invite her to sit with him out on the screened veranda that wrapped around the front of the house. Truthfully, what he really wanted was to kiss her. His being seated while she was standing put him at a distinct disadvantage when it came to initiating a kiss. If he could get her to sit with him, he’d have half a chance. He hoped.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PAUL HAD BEEN DISAPPOINTED that Annie’s seating arrangement had him sitting well away from her. Normally, he was a go-with-the-flow kind of guy, but he had not wanted to sit between Libby Potter and Rose, at the opposite end of the table from Annie. So he’d been willing to risk being a terrible dinner guest by shaking things up a little.

  He’d asked Fred Morris to trade seats with him. Fred was happy to comply, since the switch meant he would still be sitting beside Rose, and Paul was next to Annie. Win-win. Paul’s audacity earned him a wink from Thomas, a fist pump from CJ and two thumbs up from Emily. If he annoyed Annie, she wasn’t letting on.

  It had been years since he’d been here for dinner. While Annie’s kitchen was now a model of modern efficiency, the dining room was a throwback to the farmhouse’s origins. From the chandelier overhead to the Turkish carpet on the floor, the dusky floral wallpaper, sturdy old oak furniture, delicate china and gleaming silverware, it all came together to tell this family’s story.

  Annie was as comfortable here as she was in the kitchen, getting up from time to time to move a bowl to the sideboard or retrieve a platter, making sure everyone had all they needed. On several occasions her knee bumped his, making her blush. Her movements were so fluid and effortless that no one else seemed to notice as she anticipated what one of them might want or need even before they knew it themselves. The conversation flowed from horses to weddings to blogs, periodically interspersed with references to the weather, the economy and Isaac’s favorite new dinosaur, “a plant-eating titanosaur with a ginormous body and a long neck that it waved around like a weed whacker.”

  Paul could get used to eating like this. Family-style, the table laden with bowls and platters, a centerpiece of early fall flowers from Annie’s garden. The only thing better than the food was the company, he decided, taking in the faces around the table.

  Across from him, Jack had his arm draped protectively across the back of Emily’s chair. From time to time she looked up at her fiancé, her eyes filled with affection. It made Paul’s chest tighten. Their wedding was just a week away, and Paul was looking forward to the event. He was happy for them, of course, but even more, he looked forward to Annie being maid of honor to his best man. And if she thought his switching places at the dinner table had been a bold move, then she was in for a few more surprises.

  Isaac’s teacher was engaged in a quiet conversation with Thomas. Easy to see what was happening between the two of them. Apparently they had known one another in high school and gone their separate ways. Now they were reconnecting and, if Paul had to guess, neither of them was fighting the attraction. Not unlike his current situation with Annie, with that one important exception. If she could feel the pull of attraction, and he was sure she could, then she was having an easier time denying it than he was.

  CJ sat next to her nephew, fully engaged with everything the little chatterbox had to say, from dogs to dinosaurs to dodgeball, which was his new favorite sport at school. The child was bright and energetic, full of mischief, no doubt, but also respectful of his mother and extended family. He had been raised well and with love, and it showed. Paul was completely taken with the little boy’s exuberance.

  The one exception to the convivial group was Annie’s young half sister, Rose. She sat between Paul and Fred. It was obvious Fred had more than a passing interest in Rose, and it was equally obvious those feelings were not reciprocated. Rose still had the crackly cough, and in spite of a generous application of cologne, her clothing carried the scent of cigarette smoke. And although the only beverages at the table were sodas and sparkling water—plus milk for Isaac and Emily—there was no mistaking a hint of alcohol on her breath.

  She had returned to the clinic for a follow-up appointment, as he had requested the first time he saw her at the clinic. The throat swab had ruled out a strep infection but she did have a nasty case of bronchitis. Blood work indicated severe anemia and she was underweight, symptoms he was sure were due to alcohol abuse and poor nutrition.

  Tonight, he noticed, she served herself small portions and spent more time pushing the food around the plate with her fork than consuming it. Annie encouraged her to try the yam casserole, to help herself to a second serving of mashed potatoes and gravy. Yet no amount of Annie’s gentle cajoling could convince her to eat. Paul found her overall demeanor to be more childlike than adult, and he had to wonder what it was Fred saw in her.

  As the dinner plates were cleared, Paul saw an opportunity to catch a few minutes of alone time with Annie.

  “Let me take those,” he said to Libby, picking up the stack of dinner plates and carrying them into the kitchen. Annie went ahead with serving bowls in each hand. Somewhat to his dismay, CJ followed with a platter and the gravy boat. Once inside the kitchen, though, she smiled and gave him a cheeky wink when Annie wasn’t looking. “You two go ahead and load the dishwasher and I’ll finish clearing the table,” she said before she disappeared with a tray tucked under her arm.

  Paul liked both of Annie’s sisters, her whole family, for that matter. But right now, intentionally leaving him alone in the kitchen with Annie made CJ his hands-down favorite.

  He opened the dishwasher. “Annie, thank you for dinner. That was the best meal I’ve had in ages.”

  While he rinsed plates and loaded them into the dishwasher, Annie turned on the coffeemaker and took the lid off a large plastic container that was sitting on the isl
and. “I’m glad you were able to get away. How’s your father?”

  “Today was a relatively good day. Jack’s parents asked him over for dinner and thankfully he agreed to go.” Otherwise Paul might have had to stay home with him. “He’s known them for years and has been to their home many times. His long-term memory is still pretty well intact and he feels comfortable there. And it’s good for him to have company.”

  “It must be a worry for you, having to leave him on his own while you’re at the clinic.”

  Luckily, his father had always preferred solitude, even when he was healthy. “The Evanses have been checking in on him—they’ve always been wonderful neighbors—but I won’t be able to rely on them for long.”

  “Emily tells me they plan to do some traveling after the wedding.”

  “Yes, finally. They’ve worked hard and deserve to enjoy their retirement while they can. I have lined up a caregiver who starts on Wednesday. A young LPN—his name is Jordan—who’ll come in for four or five hours a day.”

  “A male nurse? That’s great, and having him there will be a huge relief, I’m sure.”

  “It is.”

  Truthfully, finding any nurse would have been great but Paul was happy to have found a man who was willing to take on the job. His father tended to be demanding and even difficult with the staff he’d worked with at the clinic, particularly with women. Jordan had a no-nonsense approach to patient care, and his height and build were an added advantage for coping with a difficult patient. Not that Paul expected his father would need to be restrained. If and when that time came, Paul would have to arrange permanent care in a nursing home. In the meantime, his father was less likely to be verbally challenging with another man, especially one who towered over him by a good four inches. That would make everyone’s life easier. And on his father’s more difficult days, Paul was confident that Jordan would take the old man’s unpredictable behavior in stride.