His Best Friend's Wife

by Lee McKenzie

  “You kissed me once before,” she reminded him.

  “Not intentionally,” he said. “And you didn’t kiss me back. This time, you did.”

  “And that makes it a first kiss?”

  “It’s a first for us.”

  She unwound her arms from his neck, rested her hands on his chest and her cheek on his shoulder. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  He closed his eyes, forced himself to breathe. “Do what?”

  “This—us. You’re Eric’s best friend. It’s only been six months since...since he’s been gone. What will people say?”

  Paul could well imagine what people would say and he couldn’t care less, but this wasn’t about him. If Annie was willing, he could wait. “Those people don’t need to know. No one needs to know right now, unless you want them to know.”

  “My sisters will figure it out.”

  “Are you worried about what your sisters will think?”

  The question actually made her laugh. “No. They already think you’re...well, they adore you. No worries there.”

  He thought they might be on his side and he liked having that confirmed. “Your dad?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Isaac?”

  “He’s crazy about you.”

  Paul was tempted to ask if she worried what Eric would think, but he didn’t want to hear the answer. Paul wished he could tell her no one else mattered, but he would have been wrong. Annie mattered more than anyone else, and she believed this wasn’t the right time for them to be a couple. And that meant only one thing. He would wait. She had let him kiss her and she had kissed him back. Something he had long desired and yet believed would never happen. Well, he was a patient man and he would wait until she was ready, because if this could happen, anything could happen.

  He picked up her shawl, which had slid off onto the bench when they stood to dance, and settled it around her shoulders, then tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Ready to go back to the party?”

  “I’m ready.”

  He cautioned himself about reading too much in to those two simple words while at the same time thinking he was beyond ready.

  * * *

  THOMAS ROLLED HIS chair onto the dance floor with his middle daughter at his side. At the DJ’s request, the guests had cleared the floor for the father-daughter dance. At Annie’s wedding, he had surprised her with both the dance and his song choice. There was no surprising Emily. She had her heart set on the same song and she had insisted on rehearsing ahead of time.

  Now, as the opening notes of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” floated through the air, she swept into as deep a curtsy as her expanding midsection would allow before putting her hand in his and following his lead across the floor. She was as light on her feet as he was on his wheels, and as they glided and swirled, as he raised his arm and she twirled beneath it, and as he spun under hers, the crowd around them clapped and cheered.

  The song ended and Emily gave him a curious look after she leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Are those tears?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Happy ones. Thank you for the dance, sweetie. It’s been quite a day, and Jack is a good man.”

  “I know he is, and he’s going to be a great father, just like you.”

  “He’s a lucky man, too. He’s getting one of my girls.”

  Emily planted another kiss on his cheek. “I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you, too, Em. And I know you’ll be happy.”

  As Jack approached to reclaim his wife, Thomas scanned the crowd, searching for Libby. He found her sitting alone. She had brought her mother to the ceremony because Mable was very fond of Emily. Afterward, Libby had driven Mable home because attending the reception would have been too much for the elderly woman. Now Libby was watching him with his daughter, smiling and dabbing the corners of her eyes with a napkin. More happy tears, he hoped.

  One thing was certain. Libby looked amazing, like she could have walked off the page of one of those fashion magazines his daughters were so fond of. He had heard Annie and CJ gushing over Libby’s dress when she’d arrived. He didn’t remember the designer’s name, but apparently the full skirt, narrow belted waist and bold floral print on a pastel background were said designer’s signature. He’d also forgotten the name of this particular shade of pastel, but it looked light blue to him. Her classy elegance made her a standout, and at the same time she fit right in.

  He closed the space between them and wheeled himself into the space next to her chair.

  “Oh, Thomas. That was so touching. The song choice, the way you and Emily were in perfect step with one another, the love...” Again, the napkin fluttered up to touch her eyes.

  “Didn’t I tell you I cut a pretty mean rug?”

  “You did, and you do. I’m impressed.”

  He reached for her hand. “Impressed enough to take a spin out there with me?”

  “Oh. Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a very good dancer.”

  “Doesn’t matter. This is a wedding, not Dancing with the Stars. You’re supposed to have fun. Besides, everyone knows someone’s going to start doing the chicken dance, and that’s never pretty.”

  Libby’s smile brightened her whole face. “Yes, that is so true.”

  He leaned closer. “And I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he said in a stage whisper. “When you’re dancing with a guy in a wheelchair, folks mostly notice he’s not really dancing, and that makes you look like a pro.”

  Her easy laugh made him want to coax more of them out of her. She was beautiful when she smiled but her laughter made her glow. Based on the few things she had let slip about her marriage, he suspected there hadn’t been a lot of levity. He’d like to change that, he decided, and doing the jive with a man on wheels sounded to him like a great place to start.

  “Did I mention how beautiful you look tonight?”

  She lowered her lashes and shook her head.

  “Well, you do. Your dress is really something.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I have a question for you, though.”

  “Oh?” She looked up, startled. “What kind of question?”

  “I’ve been wracking my brain for a memory of you back in high school. How could I have spent four years in the same building with someone as gorgeous as you are and not remember anything about you?”

  “That’s easy,” she said without hesitation, her gaze unwavering as it met his. “I was invisible.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Oh, but I’m afraid it was. I was an honor roll student and the English teacher’s daughter. Queen of the geeks, or at least I might have been if I’d had any other geeky friends to hang out with. Since I didn’t, I was a bit of a loner. Oh, and everything I wore was brown. When you’re a teenage girl and you want to disappear, brown makes you invisible.”

  Were teenage boys really so dense they only noticed the girls who went out of their way to make themselves noticed? In a word, yes.

  “Then I hope you never wear brown again. And now I’m going to swing by the DJ’s booth and make a request. Meet me on the dance floor?”

  “Oh.” She folded her napkin and pressed it into a neat square. “What are you going to request?”

  “Let me surprise you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  KISSING PAUL. The morning after the wedding, Annie drifted in and out of the dream before being startled awake by the sound of Beasley bounding down the hallway and Isaac chasing after him, loudly insisting they had to be quiet so they didn’t wake Mom. Allowing her son to get the coveted border collie had made him the happiest boy alive, and he had promptly changed Bentley’s name to Beasley. The dog’s training and manners had been wildly overstated by his previo
us owners, but he had already waggled his way into Annie’s heart.

  She smiled and glanced at her clock, quickly flung back the covers and reached for her dressing gown. She’d overslept by almost an hour, something she rarely did even when she had forgotten to set an alarm. Normally she would feel guilty, but she was glad she had slept in this morning because she’d been dreaming about Paul. Until now, she hadn’t been sure about his feelings for her, in spite of her sisters’ insistence he had a thing for her. Last night he had let her know her sisters were right, and he had done it in a way that hadn’t sent her running for cover. What he hadn’t revealed was the depth of those feelings, which was just as well because that might have freaked her out.

  Now she could acknowledge they shared a mutual attraction and enjoyed one another’s company. The dancing followed by his kiss had simply been the icing on the cake that had been Emily and Jack’s wedding. She and Paul had been caught up in the moment, and now everything about them and between them would go back to normal. It had to.

  Downstairs, she corralled her son and the unruly dog in the kitchen before they woke the rest of the house, and then she put on a pot of coffee. Her father would be up soon enough. CJ liked to sleep in on Sunday mornings and have a leisurely breakfast before starting her day’s work at the stable. As for Rose, there was no telling how late she might sleep.

  Ever since Rose had moved to Riverton, everyone had been hinting she had a drinking problem. Annie was sure they were overreacting. Rose had not had an easy life, so the poor kid was bound to have issues. Annie would be the first to admit Rose had imbibed a little too heavily last night, but it was the first time she had seen her half sister tipsy. No, not tipsy. She’d been drunk. Paul had offered to drive her to her apartment, but she had barely been conscious by the end of the evening, and he and Jack had carried her upstairs to one of the guest rooms.

  “What would you like for breakfast, Isaac?”

  “Corn flakes.” The book about dinosaurs Paul had given him lay open on the table in front of him. He held a plastic model of Tyrannosaurus rex, his all-time favorite, in one hand and Brontosaurus in the other.

  “We don’t have any corn flakes. I can make oatmeal.”

  Isaac scrunched his face. “Yuck.” This was followed by “Rrraaawwwrrr!” as Tyrannosaurus lunged at Brontosaurus.

  “Waffles?”

  “Waffles! Wahoo, waffles!” The brontosaur swung its neck at its attacker, sending the T. rex tumbling across the pages of the book.

  “I take it that’s a yes.”

  “Yup.”

  Annie plugged in the waffle iron and assembled the ingredients. As she measured and mixed, she watched her son play out a battle between the dinosaurs until the herbivore succumbed, listened to his endless chatter that was partly anthropomorphic and partly filled with facts he had gleaned from Paul’s book about the largest creatures to ever have roamed the earth.

  Before Isaac was born, she had secretly hoped for a girl but from the moment her son had been placed in her arms, red-faced and wrinkled, his impossibly tiny fingers curled into a fist, she had fallen head-over-heels in love with him. And he was all boy, as rough and tumble and full of energy as his father had no doubt been as a child.

  She whisked the wet and dry ingredients together and set the bowl of batter aside. Then she quartered an apple and poured a glass of orange juice and set them out for Isaac. Something to tide him over until everyone else straggled in for breakfast.

  “I’m going out to feed the chickens and gather the eggs,” she said, reaching for her basket. “I want you and Beasley to stay in the kitchen, okay? No running around the house, please. Not until Gramps and Auntie CJ are up.”

  “Okay. Rrraaawwwrrr!” Brontosaurus had rebounded and trampled T. rex’s head.

  Laughing, Annie slipped on a jacket, opened the French doors and stepped out into the crisp autumn morning air. Inside the coop, she scattered feed and opened the door to release the hens, collected the eggs, and then sat for a moment on the bench. Thoughts about Paul tumbled through her mind. Sitting here with him, basking in his praise for her photographs. Being in his arms last night, swaying to “Fly Me to the Moon,” knowing he had requested it, knowing he had planned to spirit her away to the gazebo for a private dance. Kissing him.

  She could not stop thinking about his kiss, and she couldn’t stop feeling guilty for thinking about it. Paul had been her husband’s best friend, and now he was quickly becoming her best friend. But the kiss was a prelude to something that went well beyond friendship. She remembered Eric talking about Paul. He had been so proud of his friend’s achievements at university, his success as a doctor. How would he feel about this? Annie would never know, of course. She would never really be sure because Eric’s death had been so sudden. There had been no chance to even consider a future without him, let alone talk about it.

  “Good morning,” CJ called from the veranda. “Are you coming in for coffee?”

  “I’ll be right there.” Grateful for the distraction, Annie picked up the basket of eggs and carried it into the house.

  Her father was at the table with Isaac and CJ was at the counter, pouring coffee into mugs.

  “Did everyone sleep well?” Annie asked. She set the eggs on the island and carried a cup to her father.

  “Like a log,” her father said.

  “How do you sleep like a log?” Isaac asked.

  “You get into bed, close your eyes and then the next thing you know, it’s time to get up.”

  “I sleep like a log,” Isaac said.

  “That’s a good thing because little boys need lots of sleep. That’s when you do most of your growing.”

  Isaac considered this for a moment. “You mean I’m bigger when I wake up in the morning than I was when I went to bed the night before?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “But my PJs still fit.” Her son jumped off his chair, stood straight and tall with his arms extended. “See?”

  His earnestness made them all laugh. Annie noticed, though, that while the pajamas did still fit, her son’s ankles were exposed below the bottoms. He looked like an adorable little scarecrow. Isaac laughed along with them as he climbed onto his grandfather’s lap. He’d soon be too big for that, too.

  “Mom’s making waffles for breakfast.”

  “My favorite,” Thomas said, steadying his grandson with one arm.

  “You say that about everything she makes.”

  “That’s because she makes all my favorites. Now tell me, did you have fun at the wedding yesterday?”

  While CJ set the table, Annie stirred the batter, made a small test waffle to make sure the iron was at the right temperature and listened to her father and her son talk about yesterday’s celebration.

  “My favorite thing was getting to carry the rings. Uncle Paul said I was the best ring bearer he’s ever seen.”

  “What about the party? Did you like the food?”

  Isaac made a face. “The chicken had cheese inside of it. That was gross. I liked the cake, though.”

  “So, not liking the chicken cordon bleu, but a big fan of the chocolate cake,” Thomas said.

  “We shoulda had Mom’s fried chicken,” Isaac suggested.

  “Your Aunt Emily was going for something a little more elegant,” Annie said, “and a little less greasy finger food.”

  “Me and Gramps like greasy finger food. Right, Gramps?”

  “It’s another favorite to be sure, but there’s a time and place for everything. What about the rest of the party? Did you like the music and the dancing?”

  “Yup. You can dance pretty good in your wheelchair.”

  Annie watched her father affectionately ruffle her son’s hair. He was an amazing man, he had been such a good father over the years and he had carried those
skills into grandparenthood. At moments like this, she was overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the man who had steadfastly overcome one obstacle after the next and become an incredible role model for his daughters and grandson, and even their wider circle of family and friends.

  “But why did it make people sad?” Isaac asked.

  “Oh, honey. They weren’t sad,” Annie said. “Those were happy tears you saw when your grandfather danced with Auntie Em last night.”

  Isaac seemed to give the idea some serious consideration before moving on to his next question. “People were smiling when you danced with my teacher. How come that didn’t make them cry?”

  Annie and CJ exchanged a look while they waited for their father’s response.

  Thomas cleared his throat. “Well, I guess something about a father dancing with his daughter on her wedding day makes people kind of emotional.”

  “So why did you dance with Ms. Potter?”

  Annie’s father didn’t fluster easily, but this question had definitely caught him off guard.

  “He’s actually blushing,” CJ whispered into her ear.

  Annie grinned as she lifted four golden waffles onto a plate and poured more batter into the waffle maker.

  Thomas cleared his throat. “I danced with Libby because I like her. I knew her a long time ago. We weren’t friends then, but I think we’re going to be friends now.”

  “Is she going to be your girlfriend?”

  CJ laughed outright and Annie tried to shush her, but there was no shushing CJ.

  “Yeah, Dad. Is Libby going to be a girl friend, or is she your girlfriend?”

  Annie was sure she’d never seen her father so discombobulated. “All right, you two. Enough questions. It’s time to eat.”

  She carried a platter piled with waffles to the table. “CJ, if you’ll get the butter and maple syrup, please, I’ll pour the orange juice and refill everyone’s coffee.”

  And she would be grateful that the subject of her father dancing with Libby had kept the focus off her and Paul. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it, and she definitely wasn’t ready to talk about it.