His Best Friend's Wife. GINA WILKINS

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СКАЧАТЬ hungry,” he explained in response to Lynette Price’s concerned question from across the restaurant table. “I overslept this morning, so I had to gulp down an apple for breakfast on the way to a client meeting.”

      Lynette nodded as if that fully explained his introspection. “I hate when that happens. I forgot to set my alarm last Friday and I was fifteen minutes late to work. Threw me off schedule for the rest of the day.”

      A week after Evan’s meeting with Renae, he and four friends had gathered for their every-Wednesday lunch at a Little Rock restaurant. His business partner, Tate Price, sat on the opposite side of the table flanked by his bride, Kim Banks Price, and Tate’s sister, Lynette Price. To Evan’s right sat Emma Grainger, who worked with Kim and Lynette.

      Lynette, a physical therapist, and her coworker friends had started the Wednesday lunch outings almost a year ago. Lynette had invited her brother and Evan to join them a few weeks later. That was when Tate had met Kim. Now Tate and Kim were newly married.

      Though Tate and Kim’s wedding had been a spur-of-the-moment event, none of the others had been particularly surprised when they paired off. Sparks had flown between them from the start, though it seemed that the couple had been the last to acknowledge the attraction between them.

      “I’m sorry I caused Tate to miss your scholarship meeting last week,” Kim said to Evan.

      “It wasn’t your fault your car wouldn’t start,” he assured her.

      Evan remembered how hesitant he’d been to tell Renae that Tate had to cancel. He had sensed that she had been more comfortable at the thought of meeting with both of them rather than with Evan alone. He’d done his best to set her at ease, and he thought he’d succeeded for the most part—with the exception of their rather emotional parting.

      He still didn’t know for certain if Renae held resentment toward him for Jason’s death. After all, it had taken several years for him to stop blaming himself. Being outright accused at the funeral by Jason’s grieving mother had certainly not helped him with that slow healing.

      “How was your meeting with Mrs. Sanchez?” Emma asked curiously. Like the others, she’d heard about the scholarship launch, and had been told that the widow of the man in whose honor it was established wanted to be involved.

      It still rather startled Evan to think of Renae as Mrs. Sanchez, a name he associated with Jason’s mother. Renae had been so young when she and Jason married, and not much older when she’d been widowed. She was still young, for that matter, and yet she lived quietly with her children and her mother-in-law. Was she still in mourning for Jason?

      “It went well,” he said, keeping his thoughts to himself. “We made some decisions, outlined some of the things we need to do next.”

      “Is there anything I can do to help?” Kim offered. “I’m still so grateful to you both for making my brother your first recipient.”

      “He wouldn’t have gotten it if he hadn’t been deserving,” Evan reminded her, not for the first time. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do.”

      “I’d like to help, too,” Lynette offered. “Maybe we can come up with an idea for a fundraiser.”

      Evan nodded. “That would be good.”

      “We’ll all help,” Emma said. “It’s definitely a worthy cause. But I’d like to hear more about Jason Sanchez. You guys haven’t told us much about him, other than that he was a high school teacher who died in a motorcycle accident. What was he like?”

      Evan and Tate exchanged glances, and Evan was sure memories were flashing through Tate’s mind, just as they were his own.

      “Jason was great,” Evan said finally. “Smart, funny, outgoing. Every kid’s favorite teacher in school, you know? He made a real effort to keep his classes interesting, to bring history to life for his students. He’d only been teaching a couple years when he died, so I guess you could say he hadn’t had time to burn out yet.”

      “He wanted to teach college history,” Tate contributed. “He liked academia, enjoyed the challenges and even the politics of it all.”

      Evan nodded. A good-looking guy, Jason had savored being the center of attention, knew he was admired by his female students, fancied himself in the role of popular professor. His dad had died when Jason was a young teen, leaving him an only child to be pampered and indulged by his adoring mother.

      Several years his junior, a lonely young woman with a deep-seated longing for family and stability, Renae Ingle had fallen under Jason’s spell while she was an occupational therapy student and Jason was studying for his master’s degree. Evan had been doing an internship in urban gardening in Chicago that year. By the time he returned home, Renae and Jason were a couple.

      Which made it all the more wrong when Evan had fallen for Renae himself.

      “You knew him from childhood?” Emma persisted.

      “I did,” Evan confirmed with a nod. “Jason and I became friends in junior high and remained close after that. I met Tate in college, where we were both studying landscape design. I introduced him to Jason and the three of us spent a lot of time together after that.”

      “Jason was a good friend,” Tate agreed. “We had some fun times, didn’t we, Ev?”

      Evan nodded.

      “I saw Jason a couple of times when he stopped by the house on his motorcycle to meet up with Tate and Evan,” Lynette volunteered. “He was really good-looking, had a smile that made my teen knees melt. I had such a crush on him, and I think he knew it.”

      “Did you ever meet his wife?” Emma asked.

      Lynette shook her head. “No. The guys weren’t hanging out as much when Jason started dating her.”

      Tate shrugged. “We got busy. I was working for a landscape design company in Dallas, Evan was away doing an internship, Jason was getting his master’s degree. Then Evan went into the army, Jason and Renae got married, and Jason started teaching and studying for his doctorate. After that, we were lucky to all be in the same town for an afternoon to shoot some hoops or ride our …”

      Tate’s words faded. Obviously he had suddenly remembered that final motorcycle ride Jason and Evan had taken. “Anyway,” he continued quickly, “Evan spent more time with Jason and Renae when they were dating, before he went off to the army, so he knows her better than I do.”

      Evan still clearly remembered Jason introducing him to Renae. Shaking his hand, she had gazed up at him with a smile in those vivid blue eyes and Evan had felt his heart take a hard flop in his chest. Clichéd, maybe, but true. During the next few months, he’d spent some time with Jason and Renae, even double-dating on a few occasions, though his own dates hadn’t led anywhere. Maybe because he’d had a hard time taking his attention from Renae whenever she was in the vicinity though he’d done his best to ignore his attraction to her.

      There had been times when he thought he’d sensed an answering awareness in her when their eyes had met, but he’d tried to convince himself he was only projecting. It had been easier for his peace of mind to believe he had no chance with his buddy’s girlfriend, and he thought Renae had made an equally determined effort to ignore the sparks between them. Until the night they had found themselves СКАЧАТЬ