A Proper Wife

Ryan nodded, his expression solemn. “It’s how I feel this minute,” he said, gently thumbing her hair back from her temples. “Everything is so...so damned perfect.”

And, as their lips met, Ryan knew that the beautiful stranger who had lived in his home for five long months was a stranger no longer.

She was his wife, and he was deeply, passionately in love with her.

CHAPTER NINE

HOW did you tell a woman you’d fallen in love with her?

Ryan had never really given it much thought, perhaps because he’d never really imagined himself in love.

But if a man wanted to do such a thing, it would be a cinch. After all, what was so difficult about looking a woman in the eye and saying, Darling, I love you?

Plenty, as he was rapidly learning. For starters, just thinking of saying those words made him nervous. The corollary to “I love you” was “Come live with me and we’ll be happy forever.” And that was OK—except that after a lifetime of being convinced there was no “forever” when it came to men and women and affairs of the heart, who could blame him if he wanted to be sure everything was just right before he took that irretrievable last step?

Candlelight, soft music, long-stemmed roses were what he wanted, a very private, very romantic setting for what was going to be the most important moment of his life.

The Sheep Meadow in Central Park, on a hot July 4th Saturday with kites flying, radios blasting, and kids and dogs and people everywhere, was neither private nor romantic.

The little garden behind the brownstone was. Better still, he knew a restaurant just off 57th Street, a tiny, dimly lit place with wonderful French food and a marvelous wine cellar. Neither of them was really dressed for La Salamandre but its owner was an old friend. He’d not only welcome them warmly, he’d probably weep with Gallic joy once he realized his bistro was going to play an important role in such a romantic event.

Ryan got to his feet and held his hand out to Devon.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s go.”

Her hand clasped his lightly. She stood up, smiled into his eyes, reached up and plucked a blade of grass out of his dark hair.

“Where are we off to?”

Ryan smiled back at her and put his arm around her waist.

“How does lunch sound?”

Devon put her arm around his waist, too. “It sounds fine. Did I ever tell you I make the world’s best tuna melt on rye?”

“Tuna melt?” Ryan said, and shuddered.

“Ah, I see. The man doesn’t go in for sophisticated foods.” Devon grinned. “OK, then, how about bacon, lettuce and tomato on toast?”

“Well, I had something better than a coffee shop in mind.”

“So did I. I thought we could go home and I’d...”

“Home?”

She looked at him. “Sorry,” she said quickly, “I meant we could go back to... to your house and—”

“I liked it better when you called it ‘home,’” Ryan said softly, brushing a kiss across her temple. “But I want to take you someplace special for this particular lunch.”

Devon

smiled. “Where?”

He smiled, too, very mysteriously. “You’ll see.”

As they strolled out the Fifth Avenue exit and made their way slowly downtown, Ryan thought about what he’d say.

How did you tell your own wife that rather than divorcing her, you wanted to marry her all over again? With all the trimmings this time, the ones he’d snickered at over the years.