Mail Order Soulmate

by Jean Oram

  “But not good for my well-being,” he grumbled.

  He reached for the diaper bag slung over Catherine’s shoulder, but she gave a quick, “I’ve got it,” and tightened her grip on its strap as well as the baby seat.

  “Stand together,” a woman commanded. She was wearing a blue floral blouse with a loud pattern that matched the camel-comment making woman’s shirt. The sea of blue flowers waved at her as the woman raised her phone to take a photo. “I’m going to post this in the paper.”

  Catherine’s blood chilled and she raised her hand from its spot on her bag’s shoulder strap to hold it in front of her face, shielding herself, unable to speak for what felt like an endless moment. Finally finding her voice, she said loudly enough that the woman could hear, “I don’t like having my picture taken. And I’d rather not be in the paper, thank you.”

  She had to leave. She needed to hide. Everyone here had cell phone cameras. Social media. Facial recognition. She’d be found in a heartbeat if her family was still looking.

  She should have thought of this sooner. But she’d naively believed the party was in someone else’s honor, and that her presence would be nothing more than a curious footnote.

  The woman in the pink shirt was staring at her in disbelief.

  “Please, I just don’t want one taken.” Catherine’s tone was sharp, her voice quavering in poorly disguised panic.

  “No pictures, please,” Zach said smoothly, sliding between Catherine and the camera, while steering her in a new direction.

  “Thank you,” she managed to squeak, leaning into the shelter of his arms, Xavier’s carrier bumping her leg.

  “Do you want to leave?”

  Her eyes teared up at the suggestion, but she shook her head. This was to be her new home. She had to stick it out, show her gratitude to the organizers and partygoers for all they’d done, as well as quickly build a reputation for being camera shy. It was the only way to be safe if she was ever going to belong to a community.

  A woman came up and bent over Xavier. “Oh, he’s adorable. Can I hold him?” She was already peeling back his blanket so she could reach the buckles to release him.

  Catherine panicked. She wasn’t ready to let go of Xavier, to allow him out of her sight in case she needed to run. She knew she didn’t; she knew she was safe. But she couldn’t seem to overcome the urge to pull the car seat away from the woman as she tightened her grip on the diaper bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Whoa there, Gloria,” Zach said smoothly. “Let’s give Catherine a moment or two to settle in before we start mauling her child.”

  “Oh, Zach,” the woman said. “I won’t maul him. Amber and Scott are just taking their sweet time on the grandchild front and I need a dose of special time.”

  “Special time?” Catherine asked, almost fearing the answer.

  “When you’re our age and you hold a baby it transports you back to that special time,” a woman said, joining Gloria and smiling down at Xavier.

  “When we were new moms and the world felt so full of potential,” Gloria added.

  As the crowd ebbed and flowed around them, Catherine noted how the women all seemed to have a special smile for Zach, the men almost reverent in a way that was different than the kind she’d seen reserved for her father. Men had approached her dad with an undertone of fear, sometimes so thick you could practically smell it coming off them. When she’d been small, he’d seemed invincible, crowds of people parting for him as they would for a king, a man in charge of the whole entire world and unable to do wrong.

  Oh, but the wrongs he had committed…

  As a man gave Zach an open, easy smile, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back, she could see that his respect was genuine.

  Over the next several minutes Catherine felt as though she’d never said “hello” or “pleased to meet you” so many times in her entire life. Everyone was so delighted for her and Zach it was overwhelming.

  He kept them in constant motion as they moved through the stuffy, crowded room, but finally he paused, ladling her a glass of nonalcoholic punch.

  “This isn’t so bad,” she said under her breath.

  Zach let out a huff of laughter as Catherine took a welcoming sip of the cool punch. She rocked Xavier’s carrier, which she’d set on the floor, his blanket and snowsuit peeled back.

  “I want to take him out of the carrier, but I fear I’ll never get him back from the ladies if I do.”

  “Good call,” Zach said.

  She could see the unspoken questions in his eyes in regards to her mini freakout over having a photo taken. She was going to have to give him a story to explain it all.

  “I… S-someone’s stalking me,” she stuttered, offering a partial truth. “I don’t want pictures on social media. In case.” She shut her eyes, knowing how slim the chance was that anyone in her family would come across the photos and track her down. But she’d made it clear she was no longer on their side, and the way they’d all ended up in jail, while she had walked, didn’t look good. Even being related by blood wouldn’t protect her if anyone was out for payback. “It sounds paranoid, I know.”

  He watched her for a split second, then, seeming to accept her excuse, lifted his punch glass to his lips. “Incoming gossips at your six o’clock,” he murmured over its rim.

  Before Catherine could move, the two women in the flowery blouses surrounded her, hemming her in against the table.

  “Will the two of you be holding a reception?” asked the woman in the pink shirt. She’d been the one who’d made the camel comment earlier, and so far she was the one Catherine was most leery of. “I’ve offered to host a combined bridal and baby shower, and I’m sure Frankie would like to hold a little something for you, Zach—unless, of course, Logan has something planned.” The woman paused for an answer, her expression expectant.

  “Catherine has only just arrived,” Zach said calmly, and Catherine found herself edging closer to his side.

  The woman in the blue floral blouse—the earlier photographer—had obviously noted their physical proximity and was smiling, her cell phone still clutched in her hands.

  “That is a very lovely gesture,” Catherine said carefully, her mind awhirl with which approach she should take.

  “It is?” Zach asked in surprise.

  She knew how easily she could have an enemy in the blue lady for refusing to have her photo taken. She struck Catherine as the type who might quietly, yet publicly, begin to question Catherine’s marriage motives behind her back. She could see how it would go. She was a woman who had married Zach sight unseen just so she’d have a father for her baby. It would be easy for the woman to socially ostracize Catherine, while cooing over poor Zach who had a heart of gold, et cetera, et cetera.

  While Catherine wanted to be able to lie low and be left alone, she didn’t want to bring sorrow or gossip to Zach’s door. He deserved better. People respected him and it hurt to think that she might cause some of that to vanish.

  “The town has been very generous, and very accepting,” she said. “So kind and welcoming. Thank you.”

  The women smiled.

  Catherine smiled back, confident she understood them. They were good people, well intended, but would circle the wagons around one of their own—Zach—to protect him. She just had to make sure, if they ever decided to circle, that as his wife she’d earned the right to be on the inside.

  “Well, we’ll plan something then,” the pink-shirted woman said.

  “Yes, something,” Catherine agreed. Preferably a vague date in the future that would never come around.

  From behind her she could catch snippets of conversations about her and Zach.

  “She moved on rather quickly, don’t you think?”

  “How long has the baby’s father been gone?”

  “I wish I had the guts to take a page from the 1882 book on dating and mail myself off to some stud. But knowing my luck I’d get the town sleazeball instead of a real man like Zach.
”

  There was laughter and Catherine felt her cheeks flush.

  The woman in blue said, “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Liz Moss-Brady, and this is my sister, Mary Alice Bernfield.” She gestured to the woman in pink.

  “Keep yourself free the Saturday after next,” Mary Alice advised.

  “Oh!” Catherine said in surprise. She wasn’t expecting something so soon or definite. “Oh, we, um...” She looked to Zach for help, but his eyes were wide, as if he’d just seen his grandmother naked.

  Yup. No help coming from him for the time being.

  “I—we—only just arrived, and Xavier has been so colicky,” Catherine said. “We really don’t need something so soon. Please, don’t put yourself out to arrange it so…quickly.”

  Both women were sizing her up again, eyes narrowed.

  “Honey, this is Blueberry Springs,” Liz said. “It’s what we do.”

  “Nobody gets married around here without notice, or a party,” Mary Alice said, gesturing to the roomful of people.

  “We are already married,” Catherine said carefully.

  “And did you have a bridal shower back home? I heard you arrived with nothing more than that diaper bag and a backpack,” Mary Alice said with a look.

  “Right,” Catherine said seriously. “I see your point. I simply don’t want to overstep, or cause anyone undue stress with organizing something under such a tight deadline.”

  Both women gave a harrumph, as if she’d insulted their ability to throw something of this magnitude together in short order.

  “Marriages, births and deaths are the biggest things to happen to our citizens, and we’re all about celebrating milestones and welcoming newcomers,” Liz said pointedly. She repeated carefully, “It’s what we do.”

  Mary Alice locked her gaze with Catherine’s, then reached into her blouse and pulled out what looked like a small tin. She opened it and offered it to her, never once breaking eye contact. She was smiling pleasantly enough, but it was clear—this woman and her sister were the alpha females in town. Possibly even the alpha everything, bears included.

  The woman rattled the can and the room seemed to grow a little quieter. She asked mildly, “Mint?”

  “That would be lovely,” Catherine said. She’d had worse from the bosom of her late grandmother. This was at least in a sealed tin.

  The people around them were silent as Mary Alice shook a mint into Catherine’s outstretched palm. She pointedly placed it in her mouth with a smile. “Thank you.”

  “Bless her heart,” someone murmured behind her, after which the room started buzzing again as chatter returned to its earlier levels.

  “Keep that Saturday free, dear,” Mary Alice said. “We’re going to throw you two a reception.”

  Zach flopped into his computer chair and let out a deep sigh.

  Well. That party had been something. The kindness and generosity had been a great welcome for Catherine, although definitely over the top. The poor woman hadn’t been in town for more than a day and they were already surprising her with a shindig.

  But what had really thrown him was Catherine’s fear over having her photo taken. That had set off mental alarm bells and caused his agent senses to go on high alert.

  She’d said she had a stalker. She was hiding.

  He wanted to find out who it was and strangle the guy for causing her to fear having a normal life.

  But despite the surprise of the party being for them, and then the panic over the photo, she’d stayed at the event. Had faced the town’s biggest gossips and won them over. Except now they were having more parties to celebrate their platonic, companionable union.

  He really hated those two descriptors.

  Then again, he supposed the town threw parties for couples everyone knew wouldn’t last a year. This wasn’t that different. Although he hoped their marriage lasted longer than twelve months. It had been only a day and a half so far but he already liked having Catherine and Xavier in his life, and knew that if they left, his world would feel empty and lacking in purpose.

  He stared at his computer screen. Catherine and Xavier had turned in for the night after what he and Catherine had dubbed The Battle of the Bath. It had been a wet one involving both of them, one very slippery infant and a poorly designed baby bathtub that he vowed they would never use again.

  Zach had come into his office to do something, but he couldn’t recall what it was.

  How long before Catherine was ready for Xavier to have his own room and this upstairs office became a nursery?

  Zach shook his head, subtly amused by his thoughts and new situation. A baby’s bedroom. He hadn’t seen that coming when he’d bought the house last year. It felt right, though, and he spun in his chair, imagining the space, the little touches he and Catherine would add. Well, he hoped she would allow him to add. Touches such as a giant plush giraffe standing in the corner. One big enough for Xavier to climb when he was older. Although maybe that wasn’t safe. Maybe an animal closer to the ground, such as a giant panda, would be better suited for play.

  He began looking for teddy bears online, then realized he should really be ordering a laptop for Catherine to work on when she was ready to straighten out the business’s accounting.

  Zach paused in his typing and leaned back in his chair.

  He was keeping her, wasn’t he? Already taking off the training wheels, letting her in, giving her a job despite the reservations he’d had earlier in the day.

  She’d won him over. And why not? She was strong as heck. Smart. Good with difficult people. And the two of them connected.

  He thought of the moment in the car where they’d almost kissed, and how protective he’d felt when everyone had yelled “Surprise!” at the party, scaring her. That had been the worst part—not his own shock, but seeing her frightened. Then her panic at the idea of a photo being taken.

  He began mulling that over again. A stalker.

  As he allowed his mind to roll the problem over like a stone, he came up with a truth he felt all the way down to his toes.

  She was hiding because this stalker was not your run-of-the-mill guy with a crush. He’d scared her. Maybe even enough to send her here to Blueberry Springs and marry a man she didn’t know.

  That was a lot of fear.

  He twisted his chair to the left and snagged his phone off his desk, then texted Ethan Mattson, the one man in town who just might match some of his skills when it came to the tech world.

  Hey, man. How good is facial recognition these days on social media?

  Ethan replied, Heard you got married. Worried she’s going to find photos of you doing something stupid?

  Zach paused. Now that Ethan mentioned it…

  Nope. Work reasons only.

  Zach popped over to a website that sold toys while he waited for Ethan’s reply. He selected a stuffed giraffe for his cart. Just a small one. Then added a big fat hippo, as well.

  I heard you’re having a bachelor party? came Ethan’s reply.

  Nope.

  His and hers wedding shower?

  Nope.

  You’re not going to escape the town. You know that. I heard she already said yes.

  Yeah. Why had she said yes? Not just to him, but to a reception. To a shower.

  He typed out his reply, mulled it over, then hit Send. I’m busy that day.

  Which day?

  Whichever one they plan for.

  They’ve caught you by surprise once already.

  Zach grumbled under his breath. That they had. And he hadn’t liked it. Neither had Catherine, which had made him like her all the more. The way she’d stuck to his side had warmed him from the inside out.

  Had she said yes to the parties simply to get the town off their backs? Maybe she had a plan to keep putting off the reception until it never happened? That’s what he’d have done if he’d been thinking.

  They’ve already hired Lily to make sandwiches, Ethan texted.

  They moved fas
t; Zach had to give them that. Lock everything in early so there’d be no ducking out.

  Can she say she’s double-booked and push them back a few weeks?

  Why?

  The town’s going to scare off my wife. Zach paused, then backspaced over “my wife,” replacing it with “Catherine” before sending the message.

  She said yes, man. Women love a good fussing over.

  But did Catherine? Zach hadn’t really gotten that vibe from her. They’d connected because they had a similar, stand-back-and-watch approach to life. Slightly skeptical. And they jibed because they seemed to meet on a level that was normally left vacant by others.

  Zach let out a sigh and typed Please?

  So, facial recognition?

  Ethan had to be yanking his chain. Now he wanted to talk about facial recognition?

  What’s the latest? he asked.

  There was a long pause before Ethan’s next text, and Zach started to believe it might be faster to do the research himself than to wait for the man to stop ribbing him about his marriage and answer the question.

  Lily says she’ll push the date back, but that you owe her one for making her look like she can’t read her own calendar.

  Tell her I love her.

  Ethan typed back an expletive and Zach chuckled. That man had it bad for his wife. That was good, but made it way too much fun for Zach to tease him by acting as though he had a thing for the cute and fiery woman.

  Fine. Tell her thanks.

  He could practically hear his friend give a disgruntled harrumph even though they were across town from each other.

  Ethan sent another message, finally answering Zach’s original question. People can find each another with facial feature matching. It’s slick. This mom in Argentina found her son a decade after he went missing based on facial recognition.

  Zach set his phone down and mulled over the implications for Catherine. She was smart to stay out of the public eye when it came to photos and the newspaper. But how was she going to do that forever? And who was this guy that was making her life miserable? Xavier’s father? Was he actually alive? Or was it someone else?

  Zach’s fingers itched to start researching Catherine’s ex, but he had no name, no fingerprints, no location and no legal access to a searchable database. He had nothing.