Her Favorite Husband. Caron Todd

didn’t hear you,” she told him.

      He raised his voice. “Pretty, a’nit?”

      She smiled, not sure if he was joking. “I meant I didn’t hear you coming.”

      “Ah.” He nodded. “You was off in your own world. From away, are ya?”

      “Vancouver. And you’re from here?”

      He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “From the Flats.”

      He must mean Willow Flats, part of the Old Town. Sarah wondered if he was one of the prospectors who’d built there during the Depression. That would make him, what, ninety-five? Couldn’t be. Maybe he’d come during the second wave of gold mining. That would put him in his seventies or eighties. From the look of him he hadn’t had much luck, whatever brought him here.

      “I’m taking my walk,” he told her. “Up to the caf for a beer.”

      “In the morning?” She couldn’t help asking.

      “Be noon once I’m there.”

      The café, looking out over the water from the other side of the narrow peninsula, was a long walk for a slow-moving old man. Sarah wondered if she should offer him a few dollars. She didn’t want to offend him, but here she stood with bags and bags of souvenirs, and there he wobbled in his dusty clothes.

      “I don’t suppose you’d let me buy you that beer?” She felt in her pocket and brought out a few five dollar bills, enough for a meal, as well. “To thank you for stopping to make me feel welcome?”

      “Well, ya know, I did that for free.” He nodded in farewell and started away, leaving her with her hand and the bills outstretched.

      Embarrassed, she put the money back in her pocket. She didn’t seem to be doing much right lately.

      Not far along the shoreline was a place where the stones were terraced like stairs. They led to a flat rock shelf big enough for a few people to sunbathe. She tucked her purchases into a dry, shaded nook, put her shoes on top, rolled up her slacks and waded into the lake.

      Cold, clear water lapped over her toes, then over her ankles. It chilled her through, an odd sensation when she was so hot, like chills and fever. Minnows and water bugs darted to her feet, then away. She stopped to watch a small plane take off, slapping against the water before it lifted to the air and headed north, its loud engine fading to a drone.

      She reached the stone steps and she climbed onto the shelf. There was one just like it at her family’s cottage. She and her brothers had fished from it, dived from it, had campfires on it. She and Ian had made love on it, late at night when there was a new moon, so nothing but stars lit their bodies.

      The good memories were the ones that gave her the most trouble. Better memories than she had with anyone else.

      Right from day one.

      First class, first day of university, Old English lit, two rows ahead and three seats over. The cutest guy on the face of the earth.

      Of course, at that point she hadn’t seen many guys yet.

      Beowulf, as fascinating as he was, had receded. Her world, in that moment, was composed only of herself and this unknown boy. She was sorry for everyone else, everyone who wasn’t her, about to fall in love with him.

      They had nearly all their classes together. That first week, she didn’t learn a thing. Didn’t take a single note. Didn’t turn a page. She watched Ian.

      He was different from anyone she’d met before. Quiet, still, but not from shyness. She could tell it was from listening and thinking so intently.

      One day they went for coffee and he talked about Shakespeare the way other guys talked about video games—like something vivid and fun, full of muscled, sweaty men with swords, not English actors in tights.

      She couldn’t concentrate on what he said, though. All she could think was that she wanted to kiss him. She watched his face and his eyes, watched them change as his thoughts changed, noticed the way his mouth tightened when he stopped to think, and the way his lips parted and softened when he spoke. She thought of the way her lips would feel on his.

      One day she did it. Kissed him. Right there in the coffee shop. What she hadn’t imagined was the heat, the current, sparked by that touch. It propelled them, no questions asked, into his dorm room and onto his bed.

      They spent days in his room. Shakespeare was still in the mix. With Ian, Shakespeare was always part of it. Of course, Sarah was a fan, too. After seeing an old video of the Olivia Hussey Romeo and Juliet, how could she not be? But for Ian the Complete Works was like a self-help book. Shakespeare, Ian had claimed, understood everything, all human yearnings, all the mistakes and all the dreams.

      Sarah didn’t want to think what the Bard would say about her now, a comic character on a fool’s errand to Yellowknife. Never mind rose-colored glasses; the minute she’d read that article on Saturday morning, she’d put on a blindfold.

      THE WALK BACK TO THE hotel was uphill all the way. By the time Sarah reached the New Town, she felt as old and tired as the man by the lake.

      She stopped for a breather, and saw three restaurants within close range. A pizzeria straight ahead, a Chinese establishment at one end of the street and a place that claimed to serve authentic northern fare down the other.

      She went closer to read the menu posted on an outside wall. There through the window was Ian, like a framed picture, lost in thought, a cup of coffee beside his laptop.

      Writer at Work. No, that didn’t fit. He didn’t look productive at all. Stalked by Guilt?

      Probably not. By now he’d managed to squeeze the mistake he’d enjoyed so much into some dark, unused corner of his brain, then shut the door and locked it.

      The imbalance between them unsettled her. He so clearly didn’t want to see her, but she wasn’t done needing to see him.

      It was noon and she was hungry. She decided to go in.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      SARAH MANEUVERED HERSELF and her bags onto the bench seat across from Ian’s and gave him a bright smile. “You don’t mind, do you? I’ve been shopping all morning and I’m starving.”

      She couldn’t tell if he minded or not. He closed his laptop and pushed it to one side, then caught a waiter’s eye, pointed at his coffee cup and signaled for another.

      At least his first move wasn’t to call a taxi.

      His water glass, apparently untouched, sat a tantalizing few inches away from her. “Could I have that? I’m parched.”

      “Help yourself.”

      “Another half hour out there and I’d be dead from dehydration.” The restaurant was busy, but not full. From the door she hadn’t seen the empty tables. She’d only seen Ian.

      She drank most of the water, then patted some on her forehead. The coolness was such a relief she spooned out a few small ice cubes and dropped them inside her sweater. “This is the Arctic, right? I didn’t take a wrong turn and end up in Arizona?”

      “It’s the subarctic—”

      “Oh, the subarctic.”

      “And you’re dressed for fall.”

      He was dressed for gardening, or fishing, something outdoorsy, a bit casual even for a freelancer. The look suited him—the open collar, the rolled up sleeves, the signs of a little too much sun and just the right amount of muscle.

      Her body began to tingle. Apparently it had no IQ at all.

      “I thought you might be on your way home by now,” Ian said.

      “That would have been a very short holiday.”

      “You’re staying?”

      “Hard