Charon's Crossing

"Speaking of the bacon... see if it needs turning, would you?"

Matthew peered into the pan of sizzling bacon, "Nay, it's fine."

"Good. Just keep an eye on it, please. So you can turn it when it's ready."

"Me?" he said in horror.

"Yes."

"Kathryn, I am not a cook."

"No?"

He drew himself up in as dignified a fashion as a man could when he was chewing a mouthful of toast.

"No," he said. "I am a sea captain."

"Ah," she said with a sweetness that he knew boded ill, "of course. How silly of me. I suppose you had a seafaring Julia Child to prepare your meals."

"A what?"

"A chef. You know, white toque, white apron, haute cuisine."

Matthew thought of every ship's cook he'd known. They'd all been grizzled old sailors with missing teeth, blackened fingernails, and a nasty propensity for not always picking the weevils out of the biscuits before they served them.

"I would not call a ship's cook a chef, Kathryn."

"Perhaps not, but you'll agree they're all men?"

He laughed even harder, imagining a woman in the galley of a ship.

"Indeed. But on shore—"

"Don't tell me," Kathryn said with wide-eyed innocence. "On shore, cooks are always female."

"Certainly."

She laughed. "Well, we've done away with all those separate gender distinctions."

"Separate gender...? What sort of humbug is that?"

"It's not humbug at all," Kathryn said, bristling. "There's no such thing as men's work and women's work anymore." She watched him as he buttered another piece of toast. There was something incongruous and wonderfully sexy about the sight of all that bare male skin and muscle. Her mouth softened. "Of course," she said demurely, "not all men could possibly look as handsome doing kitchen duty as you."

Two streaks of crimson swept across his high cheekbones.

"Why, Matthew," she said in delight, "you're blushing!"

"Don't be silly. Men don't blush."

"Oh, but they do." Her smile took on a wicked edge. "They've learned to get in touch with their feminine side."

Matthew's eyebrows shot towards his hairline. "What feminine side? Men don't have—"

"Of course they do." She turned her back to him and chewed on her lip to keep from laughing. "Oh, it's wonderful, how men today let their feelings out. You know, share their emotions. It's all part of learning to nurture one's inner child."

"Whose child?" Matthew demanded. "I have no—"

"Everybody has an inner child, unless they're mired in self-denial."