His Best Friend's Wife

This October Tuesday morning had been hectic from the moment her alarm blasted her out of bed at 6:00 a.m. The twins dashed around the house frantically searching for shoes and backpacks, complaining about the healthy lunches she packed for them, suddenly remembering they were supposed to take a favorite stuffed animal because Tuesday was “animal kingdom day” in first grade. That led to lengthy debates about the toys to choose, which necessitated sharp words from Renae to keep them from being late, which, in turn, caused Renae’s live-in mother-in-law, Lucy, to give Renae wounded looks for snapping at her precious grandchildren.

Lucy knew better than to openly challenge Renae’s authority.

By the time the twins were safely delivered to school and Renae arrived at work, the usual chaos there was almost a welcome relief.

As the office manager for two young optometrists, Renae performed many duties along with the two office workers she supervised, Cathy and Lisa. She answered phones, handled insurance claims, kept records for the accountant, checked in patients and scheduled appointments when necessary—anything she had to do to keep the office running with the efficiency she took such pride in. Two optometry assistants worked with Ann Boshears and Gary Sternberg, the married couple who’d moved to North Little Rock, Arkansas, a year earlier to set up their practice. They had hired Renae after she’d seen their ad in the newspaper—a nice promotion from the clerical position she’d held before in another medical office.

Renae had worked well from the start with Ann and Gary, and liked all her coworkers to varying degrees. As much as she loved her children and her mother-in-law, it was nice having a life away from home. She needed this outside interaction with other people, needed to feel that she was a competent, intelligent, self-sufficient woman in addition to being a mom and a daughter.

Yet all it had taken was an unexpected encounter with Evan Daugherty to undo her hard-earned progress and send her spinning back into the emotional mess she’d been when he had first met her almost ten years ago. Angry with herself, she drew a deep, bracing breath and opened her eyes, glaring at her reflection in the mirror. She thought she’d done a decent job of hiding her reactions from Evan and any onlookers, not counting that one paralyzed moment when the clipboards had tumbled to the floor. Now it was time to pull herself together and get back to work.

It had probably been inevitable that she would run into Evan again sometime. After all, they lived in adjacent cities in Central Arkansas, and worked in the same metropolitan area surrounding the capital city of Little Rock. Because he’d stayed in touch once a year through Christmas cards with formal little notes written inside, she knew he’d moved back to the area three years ago after a stint in the army. A few months later, he had started a landscape design business with Tate Price, an old friend who had also known her late husband, Jason.

Probably the only reason their paths hadn’t crossed before now was because they had both avoided chance encounters as much as possible. It had been stressful enough hearing from him through the mail a few times lately in regard to the scholarship he and Tate had recently established in her husband’s memory.

Feeling her responsibilities calling her, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and left the restroom, glad to see that Evan was no longer in the waiting room. He must be in with Dr. Sternberg. She hoped Lisa would get back from lunch so Renae could leave before he came out again. As cowardly as it made her feel, she would just as soon avoid another awkwardly public exchange with him today.

No such luck. Renae hadn’t yet had a chance to escape when Evan reappeared just as she delivered a file to Cathy, putting them both at the payment window at the same time.

“I’m just leaving for lunch. Cathy will take your payment,” she said, nodding pleasantly to him when he looked at her as though expecting her to say something. “It was good to see you again, Evan.”

Cordial and poised. Exactly the tone she’d hoped to achieve, she applauded herself.

“Good to see you, too, Renae.” He glanced at her coworkers before saying tentatively, “Actually, I’ve been wanting to contact you about the scholarship program. Maybe we could have a bite together and discuss it?”

Sitting near enough to overhear, Cathy cleared her throat noisily and gave Renae a look that made it clear she thought she should accept Evan’s offer. No surprise—Cathy was always trying to fix her up with someone, and she would no doubt view Evan as an attractive, charming and intriguing possibility. Which, of course, he would be, had it not been for the convoluted history between them.

“I’m sorry, Evan, I have an appointment,” she lied without compunction, unable to face the thought of sitting across a little table from him without more preparation. But because she was interested in hearing about the scholarship progress, she scribbled her number and handed it to him. “Call any evening after work and I’d be happy to discuss the scholarship with you.”

She could handle talking with Evan on the phone, she assured herself. Maybe the painful emotions wouldn’t assail her so forcefully if she weren’t looking at him while they talked. Maybe she would be less likely to embarrass herself with her awkward reactions to him, the way she had today.

If he was disappointed that she’d declined his lunch invitation, it didn’t show on his face when he folded the paper and tucked it into the pocket of the navy twill shirt he wore with neatly pressed khakis. “I’ll be in contact.”

She nodded, ignored Cathy’s frown of disapproval and turned to make a determinedly dignified—if still hasty—escape.

She drove several blocks away, pulled into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant and buried her face in her hands, only then letting the memories overwhelm her.

Six hours later, Evan sat in his living room, staring glumly out at the Little Rock skyline across the Arkansas River from his fifth-floor apartment. He lived on the North Little Rock side of the river, driving across the Broadway Bridge every morning to the office of Price-Daugherty Landscape Design, the company he owned with his longtime friend, Tate Price. He’d chosen this place specifically for this view. He had spent too many evenings since admiring it alone.

He’d known since he’d moved back to this area that Renae Ingle Sanchez lived on the other side of that river. He had made no effort to seek her out since his return, communicating with her only by regular mail—a Christmas card every year for the past six years, and more recently information about the scholarship he and his business partner had established in her late husband’s honor. He’d always wondered when they would run into each other again, figuring it would have to happen sometime, but he certainly hadn’t been prepared to do so today.

Judging by the way those clipboards had hit the floor at her feet, she hadn’t been prepared, either. Or had that moment of clumsiness had nothing to do with her seeing him standing there?

How many times had he thought about calling her, trying to see her? Too many to count. Yet something always held him back. Something that felt suspiciously like guilt. And maybe uncertainty about how she would react to hearing from him. After all, Renae’s mother-in-law had once openly blamed Evan for Jason’s death. While Renae hadn’t echoed the words, she hadn’t spoken out in Evan’s defense, either.

He’d wondered if that was because she hadn’t wanted to further upset her mother-in-law—or if it was because she agreed, even subconsciously, that Evan bore some responsibility for the tragedy. He had tried since to convince himself that while her silence might have hurt his feelings a little, he understood that she’d been in a bad place emotionally and hadn’t been thinking clearly. He couldn’t be angry with her any more than he could with Jason’s inconsolable mother.

There were other emotions tangled up in his memories of Renae, but he didn’t want to dwell on them too deeply at the moment. He confined himself to thinking about their encounter today.

She had changed. At first, he hadn’t even been certain the woman behind the reception desk really was Renae. But when she’d looked at him straight on and he’d seen her eyes, there had been no doubt.

Though she had been polite enough, he couldn’t say she had been particularly warm in greeting him. He supposed that made sense; there was too much history between them for a chance encounter to be easy and breezy. Not to mention that their surprise reunion was rather public. He hadn’t been able to read her expression well enough to tell whether seeing him was merely awkward for her or genuinely painful.

He had found her attractive in her early twenties—too much so since she’d been the girlfriend and then the wife of one of his best friends—but she was even prettier at the dawn of her thirties. He remembered her hair being long and tousled, bleached to near white. Now she wore it in a sleek, darker blond bob that nicely framed her oval face. Her eyes looked larger and softer without the black eyeliner she’d favored back then, but they were still the vivid blue he remembered so clearly. Of average height, she was still slim. Maybe she’d gained a few pounds, but the soft curves looked good on her. Womanly, as opposed to girlish.

He knew she hadn’t remarried, but he didn’t know if she was seeing anyone. Did a working, single mom of six-and-a-half-year-old twins even have time to go out? Not that it was any of his business. She had made that clear enough at Jason’s funeral, when she and Jason’s mother had walked away from him without a backward glance.

It hadn’t been the first time he and Renae had parted painfully. Two years earlier, while she was still dating Jason, they had shared one illicit kiss, spurred by forbidden infatuation and a few too many drinks. Though they had never crossed that line again, the attraction between them that night had been strong. Ill-advised, but mutual.

Did she ever wonder, as he did occasionally, what might have happened had he handled that episode differently?

Shaking his head in irritation, he pushed himself out of his chair and his memories. He had things to do tonight. He would call Renae, but when he did, it would be strictly about scholarship business. The past was just that—over and done. They had new lives now, new responsibilities. It was far too late for what-might-have-beens.

He’d have to remind himself of that every time those old memories escaped the deep hole where he’d buried them years ago, until he finally convinced himself.

“Mom, Daniel’s feeding Boomer from the table again.”

“Am not!” Daniel set both hands hastily on the table, an exaggeratedly innocent look on his face.

Renae glanced at the small brown-and-white dog happily chewing something beneath her son’s chair. “Don’t fib, Daniel. And don’t feed the dog from the table or I’m going to have to put him in the backyard when we eat.”

Daniel sighed gustily, his dark hair falling over his forehead. Renae made a mental note to take him for a haircut Saturday. She would have had Lucy take him one day after school, but Lucy always insisted the barber cut Daniel’s hair shorter than he liked now that he was in first grade. Renae figured some battles just weren’t worth the trouble. Daniel was old enough to start expressing his preferences in clothing and hair-style—within the limits Renae set, of course.

“Hunter got in trouble in school again today,” Leslie said, indulging in her favorite pastime of gossiping about her classmates over dinner. “He wouldn’t stop playing with his crayons when it was time for math lessons. Ms. Rice took his crayons away and he was mad.”

“Hunter should listen to the teacher,” Lucy said with a disapproving shake of her salt-and-pepper head. “I hope you two are behaving in your classes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they chorused dutifully.

It had been at Renae’s request that her children had been assigned to separate classes. They got along very well for the most part, for which she was grateful, but she thought it was good for them to form relationships as individuals and not just as “the twins.”

“You aren’t eating much this evening,” Lucy commented, eyeing Renae’s plate with a frown. Short, plump and matronly, widowed for almost two decades, Lucy dressed and often acted older than her fifty-nine years, resisting any attempts to modernize what Renae thought of as her housewife-y wardrobe, or to add any new activities to her life. She was content to keep house for her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, and attend the many church activities that kept her occupied while the kids were in school. “Aren’t you feeling well? Do you not like the food?”

“The food is excellent, as always, Lucy,” Renae answered patiently, taking a bite of the beef carnitas just to prove her point. Washing it down with a sip of peach-flavored iced tea, she then explained, “I had a late lunch today, so I’m not overly hungry tonight.”

Lucy’s eyebrows rose. “I thought you just took a turkey sandwich and a few carrot sticks for lunch. I figured you would be hungry tonight.”

Lucy hadn’t actually prepared the sandwich, because Renae insisted on making lunches for herself and the twins. It was one of the little things she did to make herself feel that she was pulling her weight around the house, despite Lucy taking the bulk of the cleaning and cooking. Still, Lucy kept an eye on what went out of “her” kitchen in brown bags and decorated lunch boxes.

Renae was reluctant to admit she’d left her turkey sandwich in the office fridge when she’d bolted after seeing Evan. She hadn’t mentioned that encounter to Lucy yet, though she supposed she should. Maybe she would wait until the twins were in bed, and then try to find a way to break the news without unduly upsetting her mother-in-law, who still bristled whenever Evan’s name came up after all these years.

Daniel squirmed restlessly in his seat, making Boomer wag his tail frantically in anticipation of fun. “I’m done with my dinner—may I go play now?”

“We have dessert,” his grandmother reminded him, momentarily distracted from Renae’s lack of appetite. “Fruit tarts.”

Looking torn, Daniel glanced from his waiting pup toward the kitchen. “Can I have dessert later? I’m full.”

“Go play for an hour, then you can have dessert after your bath,” Renae agreed. “Leslie, do you want yours now or later?”