A Proper Wife

“Thanks, but no thanks. Marriage just isn’t man’s natural state.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

“Hell, just look at the Kincaids. My mother celebrated her fifteenth anniversary by asking my father for a divorce so she could go off and become an anthropologist. My father fell for his secretary a year later and disappeared into parts unknown. My brother married a woman who saw dollar signs whenever she looked at him...”

“Marriage sucks,” Frank said agreeably.

“My grandfather’s always telling me that his marriage was a joy, but why wouldn’t it have been? The rules were simpler. My grandmother was an old-fashioned woman. Pleasant, sweet-tempered, eager to please.”

Frank sighed. “That’s how women were raised in those days, pal. A girl was raised to be a lady. To play piano, serve tea and embroider doilies, to bring a man his slippers and his newspaper...”

Ryan’s brows lifted. “We’re talking about a wife,” he said gently, “not a cocker spaniel.”

“And with it all,” Frank said, ignoring the interruption, “she’d be gorgeous and more than willing.”

An image suddenly swept into Ryan’s mind. He saw the blonde from Montano’s, saw himself stripping her of that velvet cape. He saw her naked under his hands, all tanned, silky skin, high, sweet breasts and gently curved hips...

Damn! Ryan reached for his glass and drank the last of the chilled Coke.

“If I could find a babe like that, I’d marry her myself,” Frank said emphatically.

“Who wouldn’t?” Ryan grinned, glanced at his watch, and stood up. “You’re describing a proper wife. But they haven’t made a model like that in years. And that’s exactly what I’m going to point out to my grandfather.” He took out his wallet and tossed a couple of bills on the bar. “Thanks for the talk, friend. It was just what I needed.”

Frank smiled modestly. “My pleasure.”

“This time when the old man launches into the Why Don’t You Settle Down speech, I’ll sing him a chorus of I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl that Married Dear Old Grandad. Then I’ll fold my arms, sit back, and smile.”

As he had since childhood, Ryan sat to James’s right at the Kincaid dining room table. But tonight was nothing like those childhood dinners. It was nothing like the hideous dinners of the past several years, either.

Ryan frowned. What in hell was going on?

Prepared for the sort of awful meal he’d described to Frank, he’d come close to falling out of his chair when Miss Brimley had come marching in with the first course.

“Ah,” James had said happily.

“Ah,” Ryan had dutifully repeated, and prepared for the worst. But when his grandfather had uncovered the tureen, a wonderful scent had wafted to Ryan’s nostrils.

“Lobster bisque?” he’d said incredulously.

“Lobster bisque,” James had replied.

Agnes Brimley had glared.

The bisque had been followed by well-marbled beef, baked potatoes slathered in sour cream, and tossed green salad with Roquefort dressing.

“And a good claret to wash it all down, of course,” James had said.

Now, with the meal ending, Ryan cleared his throat.

“Are we ... celebrating something, Grandfather?” he asked carefully.

James looked up from his plate. A strange little smile skimmed across his mouth.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way, my boy, but yes, I suppose you might say that we are.”

Ryan nodded. “And what would it be, sir?”

James smiled and shook his head. “No more questions for now, Ryan. We’ll talk after dessert, I promise.”

As if on signal, Miss Brimley banged open the service door, the very briskness of her step an indication she disapproved of whatever it was she carried on the oval silver platter in her hands.

“Dessert,” she said coldly.

Ryan stared at the platter as she extended it to him. He hadn’t seen such an assortment of goodies since childhood. Tiny golden creampuffs, bite-size chocolate éclairs, chunky squares of shortbread....

He raised shocked eyes to Miss Brimley. “Are those white-chocolate brownies?”

She sniffed. “Indeed.”

He started to reach for one, thought of the workout he put himself through each morning, and drew back his hand.

“I, ah, I don’t think so, thanks.”

The housekeeper’s expression softened, if only slightly. “At least someone’s still using his brain as God intended!”

James wheezed out a laugh. “If you are trying to ruin my appetite, Brimley,” he said, helping himself to one of everything, “it will pain you to know you are not succeeding. Bring in the coffee, if you please. Real coffee, not that decaffeinated swill you’ve been pawning off on me all these years. Then shut the door and leave us alone.”

When she’d done as ordered, James sighed, reached inside his vest, took out a cigar—an act that only recently had seemed daring but which now was all but fraught with innocence, Ryan thought dazedly—and bit off the end.

“Excellent meal, my boy, don’t you think?”

Ryan rose and took his grandfather’s old-fashioned cigar lighter from its place on the mantel.

“I suppose that depends on your definition of excellent,” he said, his tone wry. He held out the lighter and flicked the wheel. “Julia Child would probably agree, but I suspect your doctors would take a different view.”

“Doctors,” James said dismissively. “Shamans, you mean, beating their drums and dancing around the fire when we all know the best they can hope to do is delay the inevitable.”

Ryan grinned. “Your diet may have changed but I see your disposition is still as sweet as ever.”

The old man chuckled, then drew on the cigar until the tip glowed bright red.

“So,” he said, blowing out a wreath of smoke, “what’s new in your life, young man?”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s new in yours first?”

James’s lids drooped down over his eyes. “What could be? I spend my days taking pills and eating pablum.”

“Not tonight.”