A Proper Wife

“Blow out the candles, James, and be quick about it, please.” Her stern face softened as she looked at the child in Ryan’s arms. “Little Jamie wants a bite of birthday cake, doesn’t he, snookums?”

Little Jamie, eleven months old and as beautiful as any baby had ever been, bounced with delight. Ryan shifted his son’s considerable weight and tried to sound stern.

“You’re spoiling him, Agnes,” he said.

Agnes Kincaid leaned toward her step-grandson, widened her eyes, waggled her hands behind her ears and blew a noisy gust of air over her pursed lips. Little Jamie crowed with laughter.

“Is dat what gram-mums is doing to her pwecious widdlle man?” she asked in a singsong lisp.

Ryan’s eyes met his grandfather’s over Agnes’s gray head. The two men grinned at each other, and then James leaned forward, took a deep breath, and blew out all the candles on his cake.

“There,” he said, “it’s done, and I’ll probably die of cardiac arrest in the next thirty seconds.”

“Complaints, complaints, complaints,” his wife said crossly, but she turned away from the baby, bent down and kissed her husband soundly on the mouth. “Happy birthday, you old curmudgeon, and many, many more.”

“Nonsense,” James grumbled, but he smiled.

Little Jamie, ignored for more time than he deemed appropriate, gave a shriek of laughter and sank one chubby fist into his father’s dark hair.

“Ouch,” Ryan said. “Hey, kid, show some respect for your old man, huh?”

“Jamie, you devil!” Devon Franklin Kincaid tried not to laugh as she came through the door from the kitchen with a bowl of home-made ice cream in her hands. “What on earth are you doing to your daddy?”

“Making me bald before my time,” Ryan said, wincing. “See what you can do about separating my son’s fingers from my head while leaving some of my hair behind, will you please?”

Devon put down the ice cream and came toward her husband.

“Our son, you male chauvinist,” she said, smiling. “Here, bend down a little and I’ll see what I can do.”

Ryan cocked his head toward his wife’s as she rose on her toes and worked gently at easing their child’s death grip on his hair. She was so beautiful. So incredibly beautiful. Even after eight years of marriage, the sight of her was enough to make his heartbeat quicken.

“Still calling me names, Mrs. Kincaid?” he said softly.

“Only when you deserve to be called them,” she answered saucily. “There,” she said. “How’s that?”

“My scalp hurts,” Ryan said, lying through his teeth. “You’ll have to give me a kiss to make me feel better.”

Devon smiled and looked into the eyes of her handsome husband. How could a woman still feel this way, after eight years and two children? But she did. Sometimes, when she looked up and saw Ryan entering a room, her heart felt as if it were going to leap from her chest.

“Gladly,” she whispered.

“Right here,” he said, tapping his finger lightly against his lips. “Smack on the kisser.”

She smiled and brushed his lips with hers.

“That,” Ryan said softly, “is not a kiss.”

“Eeew,” a voice said, “aren’t they icky?”

Everyone laughed as a little girl with Ryan’s black hair and Devon’s amethyst eyes came bursting into the room.

“Are you and Mommy done being icky?” she said impatiently. “’Cause if you are, Daddy, you promised you’d come and help me look for frogs.”

Ryan handed the baby to Devon and squatted down beside his five-year-old daughter. Her hair was tousled, there was a smudge of dirt on her chin, and as he looked at her, he thought with a fierce pang that she was going to grow up to be every bit as beautiful as her mother.

“I will, baby. But right now, I want you to go wash your hands and face.”

Susannah Kincaid, who had been named for her paternal grandmother, gave her father a rebellious glare.