The Husband Maker Boxed Set

by White, Karey

  I smiled. “Well, he did you a favor then because it suits you.”

  We both ordered the Hebridean salmon special and sat back to wait for our food. Outside, old-fashioned streetlamps sputtered several times and finally stayed lit. The street looked foreign and romantic.

  “I’ve been talking Frank, Frank, Frank ever since I met you. Tell me about you, Charlotte. What are you doing here in Scotland alone?”

  “I’m just here in Glasgow until tomorrow night, and then I’ll be flying to the Isle of Lewis.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “It’s part of Scotland. It’s an island off the west coast.”

  “Sounds wild and remote.”

  “I’ve never been there. A friend of mine lives there.”

  “How nice. How did you meet her?”

  I took a sip of water. “It’s a he.” I told Lucy about Flynn and how we met.

  “What a romantic story. That’ll be a fun one to tell your children and grandchildren.”

  I laughed. “We’re just friends.”

  “Oh, Charlotte, take it from a wise old woman. Friends make the best husbands.”

  “Did you and Frank start out as friends?”

  “No. We fell madly in love almost the moment we met. Couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Frank laid a kiss on me our first date that would have killed me if I hadn’t had a strong heart.” I cringed a little at that, knowing her husband had died during open heart surgery, but Lucy didn’t seem to notice. “We started out with fire and passion, but we were the lucky ones.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me tell you about Frank and his two brothers.” Lucy shifted excitedly in her seat as she prepared to tell her story. “There were three boys in Frank’s family—Frank, Jimmy, and Paul. Frank fell madly in love with me, and we got married not quite a year later. We were lucky though, because behind all that lusty infatuation were two people who had a lot in common. We didn’t know it at the time, but we liked the same movies and we both enjoyed playing games and laughed at the same kinds of jokes. Once we had been married a while, we settled into a real comfortable marriage. We could talk easily, and we could tell what the other one needed. If I’d had a hard day, Frank didn’t even need to ask. He could tell when he walked in the door and he knew exactly what to do. Sometimes he’d offer to take the kids to the park or he would ask if I wanted him to go get some groceries. And I could tell the same about him. If he’d had a hard week at work, I would tell him he should call his brothers and go golfing Saturday morning or I would make him his favorite carrot cake. We became best friends.”

  “It sounds like you had a perfect marriage,” I said.

  “Oh my, no. There’s no such thing as a perfect marriage. But if you’re friends, you can get through all the imperfect stuff together. Paul and his wife, Ivy, started out different than us, but ended up the same. Their families were friends before Paul or Ivy were even born. They played in diapers together and went to the same school. Even went to the same college. One day Ivy realized she wanted to marry Paul. So she told him. Paul thought she was crazy, and he told her so. Said he was waiting for sparks and fireworks. She said, ‘you want sparks and fireworks? Here ya go.’ And she kissed him. He told her he didn’t feel a thing and it about broke Ivy’s heart. But that kiss did its job. Paul couldn’t stop thinking about it, and after a few weeks, he called Ivy and invited her to dinner. And that was that. They got married two months later.”

  “What about Jimmy?”

  Lucy shook her head. “Now that’s a sad story. Jimmy had a hard time because he was always looking for the passion. He always fell in love at first sight—which probably isn’t love, if you know what I mean.” She said that quietly, behind her hand. “Frank kept telling him he needed to get to know a girl first but Jimmy reminded him about us. Frank told him we were the lucky ones that fell hard and then became good friends but he wasn’t really interested. He said, ‘I’ve got plenty of buddies. I don’t need a girl to be my friend.’”

  “So what happened to him?”

  Lucy shook her head. “He had many, many girlfriends, but they never lasted. He got married once, but after the sparks quit flying, they couldn’t stand each other. They divorced after about four years of fighting. He swore off marriage and said he wasn’t cut out for it, but we always thought it would have been different if he would have married someone he liked.”

  “How sad for him.”

  “Yes, it was. He never had a family. He died the year before Frank did.”

  “How are Paul and Ivy?”

  Lucy reached into her bag and pulled out a little book. She showed me pictures of her daughter and son and of Paul and Ivy and their five children. She put the little book away when our food arrived.

  As much as Lucy liked to talk, I think she liked to eat even more. Conversation was sporadic while we ate as she focused on her meal.

  I was glad. It gave me a chance to think, and I was surprised at where my thoughts led. The conversation about falling in love with a friend had been in response to my assertion that Flynn and I were just friends. But now it wasn’t Flynn I was thinking about. It was Angus.

  I thought of Angus helping me study so I could pass my math classes. We had helped each other through years of dating and breakups and he was right. He had always been there to pick up the pieces when things went wrong. And I had been there for him. I had edited papers for him and taken him dinner when he was studying for his medical school entrance exams. I had helped him with an elaborate plan to ask a girl to prom our senior year. We’d had an English class together our junior year so we had read The Grapes of Wrath and Pride and Prejudice aloud together, because I hadn’t wanted to read The Grapes of Wrath, and he hadn’t wanted to read Pride and Prejudice.

  We had shared so much together. He really was my best friend.

  I thought about Ivy kissing Paul. That’s exactly what Angus had done. The difference was that Paul had thought about it and then asked Ivy out. I had thought about it—obsessed about it even—but I had completely ignored Angus. I hadn’t seen him or said one word to him since that night.

  All I had felt was anger. I was upset with him for kissing me. I didn’t want to feel what I had felt during that kiss. I was angry at him for putting me in a position where I might hurt Aleena. I was furious at him for letting me set him up with her. If he wasn’t interested in being set up, he should have told me. There were a lot of things he should have told me. Maybe things would have been different if he had been honest.

  Everything was such a mess. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I wanted to quit feeling angry and ashamed and frustrated and disappointed. I wanted to be happy again.

  “Thinking about that ‘friend’ you’re about to see?” Lucy was a smart woman with a lot of wisdom, but she couldn’t read my mind the way Flynn did.

  “I guess so,” I lied. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow night.” That part wasn’t a lie.

  I hugged Lucy goodbye in the lobby. “Enjoy the rest of your trip,” I said.

  “Enjoy the rest of your life, young lady.” She hugged me tightly and then reached up and patted my cheek. “Thank you for sharing the day with me.”

  Even though I was exhausted, sleep didn’t come easily. Too much was happening in my head. It was well after midnight before my tired body finally overcame my mind, and I drifted off into a restless sleep.

  Lights grew closer as the small plane descended. That must be Stornoway. Judging by the number of lights, it was a smaller town than I had realized. The flight from Glasgow had been short—only about an hour long. I was glad because it had been the most turbulent hour I had ever spent on a plane. The pilot said it was because of a storm front but I didn’t really care what caused it. I just wanted to land safely.

  There were only nine passengers on the flight, and based on little conversations I overheard, only three of us were tourists. The couple sitting two rows behind me were on their way to see the Arnol Bla
ckhouse, but everyone else, it seemed, was going home. The man sitting across the aisle knew the crew by their first names.

  “Tell Luke to hold ‘er steady up there. He’s not scrambling eggs back here.”

  “Luke and I aren’t talkin’. He called me a dunderhead, so if ya have somethin’ to say to Luke, you’ll have to tell him yourself. What are ya flying home on a Tuesday for, anyway?”

  “Meetings got cancelled for the rest of the week.”

  The plane taxied to a stop, and my nerves started buzzing like a light bulb that can’t decide if it’s ready to burn out or not. It was easy to talk to Flynn through the computer, but what if we had nothing to say in person?

  I took a deep breath and gathered my things.

  We exited the plane down a portable staircase onto the asphalt. No ramps and tunnels that led directly into the airport here. A wall of floor to ceiling windows forty feet away spilled light into the dark and I started toward the door where I could see a few people gathered.

  I saw Flynn as soon as I walked through the door. He wore a navy blue shirt and a khaki barn jacket. His hair was a little messy, like he had been standing in the wind. I hardly had time to wonder if I was supposed to wave or shake his hand or hug him before he had wrapped me in a welcoming hug that felt as good as a warm bowl of soup.

  “Welcome to Stornoway, Charlotte.”

  A few minutes later, my bags were stowed in the back seat of Flynn’s little car and we were leaving the airport.

  “You weren’t lying when you said you drove a little car, too.”

  “What? You thought I was lying?”

  I shrugged. “I thought maybe you were just trying to make me feel better about squishing you in my little car.”

  “You should always believe me. How was your day?”

  I told Flynn about my tour of Glasgow. “I’m glad ya saw the People’s Palace. We went on a field trip there when I was in school.”

  “You flew to Glasgow for a field trip?”

  “Naw, we took the ferry. Were ya lonely? I could have come with you today.”

  “I was fine. It was nice to be able to wander by myself and not have to worry about keeping a conversation going. It was a good day.”

  “Already insulting my conversation skills?”

  “I didn’t mean that. Sorry.”

  “Charlotte, I’m just teasin’ ya. Tell me what you learned about the purple lady last night.”

  “Her husband liked her in purple so that’s what she always wore. Now she hardly owns anything else.”

  “Ah, that’s nice.”

  “She was a very sweet lady. Wise too. I’m glad I joined her.”

  Flynn drove me to the Thorlee Guest House. We gathered my bags, and after I had checked in, we walked to the small, second story room.

  Flynn sat down in a straight-backed chair at a tiny table and I sat on the bed.

  “Charlotte, I’ve got a proposition for ya, and I don’t want you to say no without thinking about it. In fact, I don’t want ya to say no at all, but especially not before you’ve slept on it.”

  “This sounds serious.”

  Flynn drummed his fingers on the table before he started. “You’re here for nine nights. This room is more than a hundred pounds per night, so all together that’s going to cost you over a thousand pounds. That’s too much for a trip to see me.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m here to see you?”

  Flynn laughed. “I want ya to stay at my place. I’ve already talked to Mum, and I’m staying with her the whole time you’re here, so if ya don’t stay in my house, it’ll sit there empty and lonely.”

  “Flynn, I don’t want to kick you out of your house.”

  “You’re not. This will save you money, you’ll have your own place and I’ll be right next door if you decide you want to go exploring in the middle of the night. There’s still a bed in my old room at Mum’s, and my old posters of the Dundee United soccer team on the walls. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll fall asleep looking at those posters and dreamin’ I was on the team.”

  “But I’ve paid for this.”

  “I’ve already talked to Carl and explained the situation. He’ll refund your money for the rest of your trip. You can stay here tonight so you can experience the old Scottish inn and then tomorrow we’ll move ya to my place.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Thank you. That sounds great.” The thought of saving almost two thousand dollars was comforting. I had drained a big chunk of my savings for this trip, so putting some of it back would be a relief.

  “I’m opening the store tomorrow. Jessie’ll get there about eleven, so I’ll come pick you up then.”

  “Thanks, Flynn.”

  Flynn stood and pulled me up off the bed and into his arms. He smelled like laundry soap and sawdust and wind. “If you want to tell me why you decided to come, I’m happy to listen.”

  “What do you mean?” I said into his shoulder, glad he couldn’t see my face.

  “I don’t think it was my charm that made you change your mind, so I think something must have happened. If you ever want to talk about it, we can.”

  I nodded into his shirt, and he ran his hand down the length of my hair before he stepped back. “I’ll stop and tell Carl you’re checking out tomorrow. See you in the morning.”

  I stood in the doorway until Flynn turned the corner, then I closed and locked the door.

  “Stornoway looks larger today,” I said when we left the inn.

  “There are more than nine thousand people who live in Stornoway.”

  “That many, huh?” I smiled and elbowed him.

  “That’s not many compared to San Francisco, but we’ve got everything we need. Right over there is the primary school where Bruce and I went.” I looked at the small school and tried to imagine a little Flynn and Bruce learning their letters and playing games at recess.

  Every street held a memory for Flynn and he shared them in a funny way. He was a good storyteller and I enjoyed listening to him. “See that butcher shop? One year I decided I was tired of working in the hardware store, so I asked Mr. Potter if I could work for him. He needed someone to grind the meat and fill the sausages. I wanted to quit after the first day. My hands were slimy and I smelled terrible. But Dad said I’d wanted the change so now I had to give Mr. Potter a fair effort. He made me work there six months before I could quit. I think he did that on purpose so when I came back to the hardware store, I’d be thankful to work there. Any time I start to get sick of stocking shelves and ordering nails, I remember grinding meat and stuffing sausages.

  “Smart dad.”

  “Aye. And here we are. Macgruger Hardware.”

  The store sat between a PharmX, a corner pharmacy, and a bookstore called Books. The window display had a ladder with an open tool box overflowing with tools sitting beside it. Painted on the window was a list of sale items: Hoses – 20% off, Assorted Garden Tools – Buy one get one ½ off, Weed killer – 15% off. Golf balls – Buy one get one free.

  “Golf balls?” I asked.

  Flynn shrugged. “We’ve still got Dad’s little golf corner.”

  The bell above the door rang as we walked inside.

  “Flynn, can you help me?” a woman asked.

  “Hi, Doreen. What do you need?”

  “Daniel asked me to come pick up some furnace filters, but I have no idea what kind to get.”

  “I can show you what he always buys,” Flynn said. “I’ll be right back,” he said to me and walked down an aisle with Doreen.

  “Can I help you find something?” asked a woman’s voice. I turned around and recognized Jessie. She was shorter than I had thought. And prettier. She smiled. “Oh, you’re not a customer. You’re Charlotte.”

  “And you’re Jessie, right?”

  “Right. It’s great to meet you. What’s Flynn doing leavin’ ya stranded like this?”

  I pointed the direction Flynn had gone.
“He went to help a customer with a filter or something.”

  “Of course. How are ya liking Scotland?”

  “It’s beautiful. I really liked Glasgow.”

  “I love Glasgow. It’s so busy and loud. But after a few days there, I like to come back to Stornoway.”

  “Jessie, could you ring her up?” Flynn asked. Doreen now stood at the cash register with her furnace filters.

  Jessie helped the customer while Flynn gave me a tour of the store. It was larger than I had thought it would be. There were about a dozen aisles of merchandise. “Back here’s the yard where we keep lumber and some of the bigger things.” The yard wasn’t really a yard. It wasn’t even outside. It was just a large room that felt like a warehouse with a garage door at the back. “And here’s the golf corner.”

  I had to laugh. It wasn’t big, but the section was carpeted with artificial grass and even had a tiny putting green. The two walls were lined with golf equipment—clubs, bags, and balls. It felt very out of place among all the hardware and building supplies.

  “Jessie, we’re going out to the Crawford’s. Mom’ll be here soon, so you can go to lunch.”

  “Brilliant.” I smiled. It reminded me of Flynn. “It was nice to meet you, Charlotte.”

  “I hope I’ll see you again,” I said.

  “Oh, ya will for sure. Flynn’s bringing ya to the fire, I hope.”

  I looked at Flynn. “I hadn’t mentioned it yet, but we’ll probably be there.”