His Best Friend's Wife

She opened a bin, took out some potatoes. She had probably misinterpreted that moment with her husband’s best friend. She could call it relief that it was Paul who would examine Isaac, but that didn’t explain why she had invited him to drop by for coffee tomorrow morning. Nor did it explain why she had been secretly glad when he accepted.

But it was just coffee. Just Paul. He had been one of Eric’s best friends. He cared about her and Isaac the way friends did. The same way Jack did. Having Paul drop by for coffee was not a big deal, and she wasn’t the type to make something out of nothing.

So why was she overthinking this?

She browned the roast in a large skillet on the stovetop, transferred it to the roaster and slid it into the lower oven. Then she took a vegetable peeler from a drawer and attacked the mound of potatoes she had dumped in the sink.

She had loved Eric for as long as she could remember. Losing him in the spring had carved a huge hole in her life, one that left her aching and empty. Having Paul and Jack in Riverton would be good for her and Isaac. Especially Isaac.

Jack was about to become her brother-in-law and Paul was...just Paul, she reminded herself.

A movement at the veranda door caught her eye. Chester, the family’s aging retriever, sat patiently waiting to be let in. Annie dropped the last potato into a pot of cold water, then crossed the kitchen to let in the dog.

“Hey there, golden boy.” She gave his head a rub, fed him a biscuit from the jar on the counter. Chester crunched and swallowed the treat, ambled over to his water bowl for a drink, then carefully lowered his arthritic hips to the big red-and-gold plaid cushion that was his bed. For more than a year now, Isaac had been begging for a puppy. Annie had deflected his cajoling with a reminder that they already had a dog. Much as she hated to admit it, the old retriever wouldn’t be with them forever. The Finnegan farmhouse had never been without a dog and Annie knew she would have to relent one of these days. Just not this one.

With Chester snoring softly in his corner, she went back to work. She always welcomed an afternoon alone in the kitchen. After they’d come home from the clinic and had lunch, CJ had gone to work in the stable and their father had taken Isaac into town to pick up a few last-minute back-to-school supplies. They would be home anytime, though, and her solitude would come to an end. She loved her son’s boisterous boyishness, but she also cherished these moments of peace and quiet. There would be more of those moments once school started next week.

She could hardly believe her little boy was already in second grade. He loved school, especially reading and science and gym class, and already had a large circle of friends. He was so much like his father in so many ways, it made her heart swell with love and ache a little at the same time.

Eric would have been over-the-moon to have his two long-time friends in Riverton. With Jack about to marry Emily, he and Eric would have been brothers-in-law. He would have loved that. And now Paul was here, too. Still single and looking like a doctor on a Hollywood TV drama. What had they called that doctor on Grey’s Anatomy? McSomething. McDreamy? That was it. And that was Paul.

The shock from the way she had reacted to his embrace that morning stung again. She felt guilty, too. His relationship with her husband made these feelings inappropriate and downright disrespectful. Eric deserved better.

As she finished readying the vegetables for the pot roast, she could hear the front door swing open and Isaac barreled through the house, yelling a greeting. “Mom? Mo-om! Where are you?” He was heading straight for the kitchen because everyone knew this was the first place to look for her.

“Guess what!” He burst into the room, blue eyes alight, blond curls bouncing, grinning from ear to ear. “You’ll never guess!”

“Then you’ll have to tell me.” She pulled him close, carefully avoiding his bruised shoulder. “Using your inside voice.”

“We went to the hardware store ’cause Auntie CJ needed us to pick up a bridle for the new horse she’s boarding. And you know the dog that’s always at the store? Izzie?”

“I do,” Annie said, leery of the direction this conversation was headed.

“She has puppies! Five of ’em.”

Annie already knew this. She had gone into the hardware store earlier in the week to pick up paint for the chicken coop, and had immediately been drawn to the makeshift pen behind the sales counter, where Izzie had been sprawled on a blanket, nursing her impossibly adorable puppies. Having a soft spot for animals, especially an animal in need of a home, Annie had refused to let herself be drawn to those puppies. She already had all the strays she needed.

Isaac had other ideas. “A dog would be a good thing to get.”

“We have Chester.”

“But he’s not my dog, and he’s old.”

Both were true. Since Isaac was a toddler, Chester had tolerated him. Now he mostly ignored him. But a puppy? Puppies made messes on the floor and chewed the heels off shoes. Puppies needed to be housebroken and crate-trained.

Puppies were also a boy’s best friend. They taught kids to be considerate and compassionate and responsible.

“I need a puppy, Mom.”

“I’ll think about it,” Annie said.

“Yay!” Isaac raced back to the front door. “Gramps! We’re getting one of those puppies and we’re going to name him Beasley.”

Annie sighed. “Use your inside voice, please,” she called after him, but she knew he hadn’t heard. When it came to her son, she was a pushover, but he was all she had left of Eric and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

Her father rolled into the kitchen. Isaac had climbed onboard and was sitting on his grandfather’s lap. He’d been doing this since he was a baby, but not for much longer.

“The way you’re growing, you’ll soon be too big to ride with Gramps,” she said.

Isaac flung his arms around his grandfather’s neck. “Then I’ll stop growing.”

Annie exchanged smiles with her father. “So what’s this I hear about a puppy?” he asked. His attempt at innocence didn’t fool her for a second and she immediately knew what she was up against. It wasn’t just Isaac who wanted a puppy, it was Isaac and his grandfather.

“I said I would think about it.”

The co-conspirators in the wheelchair exchanged a wink.

“So...” her father said. “Isaac tells me you saw Paul at the clinic this morning. Said the two of you have a date tomorrow.”

“It’s not a date. He’s just dropping by for coffee.” Annie felt her nose turn red as she debated which conversation was more awkward—dogs or dates.

* * *

EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, Paul fixed his father’s breakfast and served it to him at the kitchen table. Two soft-boiled eggs that Geoff Woodward deemed to be too hard, dry toast that wasn’t dry enough, coffee that was too strong. Afterward, Paul settled the cantankerous old man in his favorite chair with a newspaper, the television remote and a thermos of tea.

“I have patients I need to see this morning,” he said after he had washed the dishes and set them in the drainer to dry. Saying he was on his way to the clinic wasn’t quite true, although he did have to get there eventually. First he wanted to see Annie. He’d thought of little else since yesterday. If he was being honest, he didn’t just want to see Annie, he needed to see her.

“Fine,” the old man said. “Go ahead and leave me. You’re just like your mother.”

Paul knew better than to remind his father that Margaret Woodward had not walked out on her husband, she had died. Feeling a sense of abandonment was normal after the loss of a spouse—there was no point calling her a loved one, since he didn’t believe his father had ever experienced that emotion—and these feelings could be more pronounced in an Alzheimer’s patient.

“Walt Evans from across the street will stop by after lunch. He said he was hoping to have a cup of tea and a game of cribbage.”

“I hope he doesn’t mind me beating the pants off him.”

“I’m sure he won’t.” Their lifelong neighbor and the father of one of Paul’s oldest and best friends in the world knew as well as anyone that Geoff had always been a sore loser. Now if he lost, he was likely to toss the board across the room, pegs and all, and fling the deck of cards in its wake. Luckily for all concerned, Walt had been one of the few people who had managed to forge a genuine friendship with Geoff over the years. No surprise there. Jack’s father was always as cool as a cucumber, and Paul’s father was as approachable as a porcupine.

For now, Paul was comfortable leaving his father on his own in the house, knowing he didn’t yet have a tendency to wander. The disease would progress, though, and that day would come. Paul would deal with it when it did, but for now he could go about his day, confident that his father would still be here when he returned.

At first glance, Geoff was the same man he had always been—tall in stature, almost as tall as his son, hair not gray but silver, with the fit body and angular facial features of a man in his sixties. Of course, he was in his sixties. It was his mind that had decided to age prematurely.

It was the eyes that betrayed him. Sitting as he was now, ensconced in his recliner, remote in hand, staring vacantly at the dark TV screen...this was the man his father had become, and the speed with which the change had come about had been shocking.

Paul knew he should feel compassion for this man who was his father, but all he felt was resentment. For his entire career, Geoff had been a compassionate physician with an exemplary bedside manner. At home, he had ruled his family with a sharp tongue and an iron fist. Paul had looked forward to the day when he could flaunt his own medical successes in his father’s face and call him out on the years of verbal abuse. The Alzheimer’s had robbed him of the chance. It would have been one thing to have a mental sparring match with his father while he was sharp-witted and mean. Now, sadly, the old man was just mean, and having that conversation would be pointless.

For the millionth time in the past few weeks, Paul contemplated his fate and for the first time decided the fates had been fair after all. Riverton’s clinic needed a new doctor, his father needed someone to look after him and Annie was a single woman. None of these things would be easy, he knew that. He already missed practicing medicine at a big hospital. He’d had no idea how to relate to his father when he was in his right mind, let alone like this.

As for Annie, Paul had no idea how he would stop himself from acting like a fool. He knew one thing for sure, though—his shift didn’t start for two hours and Annie had invited him to drop by for coffee, so that’s exactly what he was going to do.