The Husband Contract

“Well, that dirty rat!” Ted’s attempt at a gangster accent failed miserably. “I’ll stab him in the alley like the dog he is.” He tossed silverware nosily. “Or I would if I could find a damn knife.”

Melanie patted his forearm affectionately. Good old Ted—she thanked heaven for his support this past year. It had been a tough year for both of them. Ted’s fiancée had left him last summer, a break that had wounded him more deeply than he liked to acknowledge. And at about the same time, Melanie’s life had been turned upside down by the arrival of her little brother, who had decided he could no longer tolerate living with his domineering Uncle Joshua.

Melanie herself had escaped Uncle Joshua’s tyranny years ago, running away when she was only sixteen, but Nick had stayed with the old man until last year, when their relationship finally grew so stormy that the boy had sought sanctuary with Melanie.

As the dean of boys at Wakefield, Ted had heard about Nick’s change of address immediately and phoned Melanie for a conference. Since then, Ted had become her best friend. She’d rested her woes on his shoulders a hundred times.

And nice shoulders they were, too—trim and solid and warm. She wondered, not for the first time, why their relationship had never blossomed into a romance. Perhaps Ted wasn’t over Sheila yet—Melanie suspected he might never forget his former fiancée. But Melanie didn’t mind. In spite of Ted’s many charms, she had never felt anything more than friendship toward him. No leap of flame. Not even a tiny wriggle of heat.

The sad truth was, she’d felt more sexual awareness watching Clay Logan launder his shirt with his lips today than she ever had here in Ted Martin’s arms.

Yes, life was just a charming little bundle of ironies, wasn’t it?

Still, his big brother comfort was just what she needed now, when her heart was so sore. Who would have guessed she would find her uncle’s death so unnerving? Was it possible she had been harboring hopes of an eventual reconciliation?

Surely not. She might be naive, immature, impractical—all the things Joshua had accused her of—but she wasn’t a complete idiot. She’d given up yearning for his love years ago. Now she merely wanted justice.

Still—suddenly she couldn’t bear the memories of her uncle. Joshua, bent over his dusty old maps. Joshua, barking into his cellular telephone. Joshua studying the financial pages. Joshua, completely ignoring the little girl waiting in the doorway.

She caught her breath, stunned by the wave of sorrow that overwhelmed her. Instantly aware, Ted dropped the flatware and wrapped his arms around her gently.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice low and steady. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I know.” She shut her eyes. Ted was right. Everything would work out, love or no love, money or no money. Somehow she and Nick would get through.

“Oh, man, that is so gross.”

Straightening, she looked up to see Nick squatting by the open door of the refrigerator, scrounging irritably through the bowls and bottles.

“What’s gross?” With a smile, she patted Ted’s cheek, extricated herself and hurried to her brother’s side. She peered in at the shelves. “Has something spoiled?”

Nick grimaced and grabbed a cold leg of fried chicken. “Yeah, my appetite,” he said. He stood up, gnawing on the drumstick. “People can see you two through the window, you know. Can’t you save that crap for when I’m gone?”

Melanie slowly closed the refrigerator door before speaking. She hardly knew which transgression to address first “Don’t use that word, Nick,” she began.

But he merely grunted and turned his back to her. He had the remote control in his hand and he flicked on the television.

“And what do you mean, when you’re gone?” she asked, keeping her voice neutral. “Were you planning to go out? It’s a school night, you know. It’s Tuesday.”

“Wow.” Nick didn’t turn around. “News flash. It’s Tuesday.”

Behind her, Melanie felt Ted’s tension snap. She touched his arm, warning him, but it was too late. “Listen, Nick,” he said in the tone he ordinarily reserved for the Wakefield campus, “that’s no way to treat—”

Nick finally looked around. His face was hard, closed in. “Hey, we’re not at school now, okay?” He tossed the stripped chicken bone toward the trash can. It missed by two inches, landing with a disagreeable splat on the linoleum. “You’re not the dean when you’re here, man.”

“Nick! Apologize to Mr. Martin immediately,” Melanie ordered, but her words were almost lost beneath a sudden barrage of honking. Five short, aggressive, obviously impatient blares reverberated into the living room.

The sounds acted on Nick like a starting pistol on a sprinter.

He yanked his grimy baseball cap from the kitchen table and darted for the door.

“Nick.” Melanie’s voice was unyielding.

The boy paused. She could almost see him working to swallow his pride.

Finally he turned to Ted. “Sorry, Mr. Martin,” he said, dragging every syllable out with effort. “I guess I lost my cool there. I really didn’t mean to be so rude.”

Ted still looked ruffled, but he accepted the apology fairly graciously. Melanie breathed a sigh of relief. One more crisis averted. Life with a teenager was like this—all peaks and valleys. Poor Nick seemed to be strapped to a hormonal tiger—and Melanie was whipping along behind, holding the bucking tail, trying to hang on.

“Sorry I was being a pig, Mel,” he said, turning to his sister with an expression so angelic she almost laughed out loud. Who did he think he was kidding? “Figgy and I were going out for a burger. His brother Bash is driving. We’ll be back by nine. Okay?”

“Oh, don’t give me that sad-puppy look, you scamp,” she said, reaching out to touch his dark chestnut hair, so wild and messy, yet so like her own. It was hard to stay angry with Nick. Perhaps it was because she remembered all too well her own defiance at fifteen. Or maybe it was because she and Nick had no one but each other now. “I guess it’s okay,” she said, “assuming you’ve done all your home—”

But Nick didn’t dawdle an instant beyond the “okay.” He was already bolting across the front yard, leaping the small iron gate and racing toward the waiting car.

Melanie followed him out, and even after the roaring muffler faded to silence, she lingered on the porch. In a few seconds, she heard Ted’s footsteps. She tossed him an apologetic smile over her shoulder. “Sorry he was such a creep,” she said. “Must have been a spike in the hormone current.”

Ted chuckled. “If only they’d hurry up and invent a cure for adolescence.”

She sighed her heartfelt agreement, but she didn’t pursue the subject. Nick was gone, taking his raging hormones with him, and she didn’t feel like worrying anymore tonight. Instead she breathed deeply, savoring the peace of the sweet latespring evening. Crickets scratched, maples rustled, and in the distance a dog proclaimed himself lord of all he surveyed.

Wrapping her hand around the front post, Melanie gazed down the narrow street, studying the small, cinder-block houses. In spite of a few questionable neighbors, occasional raucous late-night fights in the house next door, she liked this cozy, unpretentious neighborhood, spotty grass, barking dogs and all. She’d take it over the sterile grandeur of Cartouche Court, Joshua’s personal monument to vulgarity, any day.

“Nick hates it here,” she said suddenly. Ted stirred, but he didn’t jump in with a response. She liked that about Ted. He was a good listener. “Every day when we get in the car to go home, he starts singing. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s home to the ghetto we go.” Though technically it wasn’t funny, she had to smile, remembering. “It’s too awful. He does it in this simply spine-tingling falsetto.”

“Jeez. That brat really needs a boot in the rear, doesn’t he?”

She shook her head helplessly, still grinning. “I guess he just lived too long with my uncle. Cartouche Court can kind of distort your perspective.”

Ted hesitated a moment, and when he spoke, his tone was only half-teasing. “All right, out with it, Mel. Is this your way of telling me you’re going to go after the inheritance after all? What are you going to do—wed some pillar of the community just so you can restore Nick to the elegance of the Court?”

She tilted a glance up into his kind, intelligent face. Darn. He read her too well. She hadn’t even been sure herself, until just moments ago, what she was going to do.

“A ‘pillar of the community’? Ugh. Sounds like the statue in the town square.” She shivered. “No. I’d never go that far, even for Nick. But surely there’s a way to get our inheritance without resorting to marriage.”

“Oh, yeah? How?”

She hoisted herself up on the porch railing, settling her flowered skirt primly around her knees. “Well…” She drew the syllable out, stalling. “Perhaps I can persuade this executioner—”

“Executor.”

“Whatever.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Persuade this Logan fellow that I’m not quite the hopeless flake Joshua said I was.” She smiled. “I mean, I do pay my bills, keep a clean house and floss twice a day. I haven’t shot anyone lately, and I don’t think anybody knows about that time I doubleparked outside the Saveway.”

Ted’s brown gaze remained skeptical. “Yeah, it sounds easy. But the one thing you’re not factoring in is your—”

“My pride?” She raised her chin. “I may be a bit…independent, but believe it or not, I can humble myself. Occasionally, anyhow.” She bit her lip. “Temporarily.”

“Actually it’s not your pride I’m worried about. It’s…well, to put it frankly, your temper.” He lifted a finger to silence her indignant protest “Come on, you know it would make you crazy to let Logan paw through your receipts, deciding whether you paid too much for spaghetti sauce or underwear. You’re just not the type of woman who submits to nonsense like this.”