The Million-Dollar Marriage. Eva Rutland

almost ready. Jerry was to tell the men and Patsy should come to set the table.

      “We’ll do this another time,” she told the children. She would take them sailing on a real boat...Jake’s. They would like that.

      After the ritual of hand-washing, Mel followed Patsy into a big kitchen which smelled delicious. “Can I help?” she asked.

      “No, indeed. Everything’s about ready,” Rosalie declared. “You just sit over here and talk to me while Patsy sets the table.”

      When I was Patsy’s age, Mel thought, I wasn’t even allowed in the kitchen, where a Swedish cook, at one time a French chef, presided. She watched in amazement as the little girl set out the plates, silver, coffee mugs, glasses, and paper napkins as efficiently as her mother turned over the hash browns.

      “Is Wilmington your home?” Rosalie asked as she added slices of red onions to the potatoes.

      “Yes.”

      “Lived here all your life?”

      “Mostly.” She was right. Rosalie was curious.

      “Me, too. Lacey Elementary and Milton High. Did you go to Milton?”

      Mel shook her head, visions of her Swiss finishing school dancing through it.

      Rosalie laughed as she stirred the onion rings in with the potatoes. “Don’t know why I keep thinking I should have seen you somewhere. If you had gone to Milton, it would have been long after me. Good gracious, seems a hundred years since my high school days. Patsy, strap Buddy in his chair, and see if the men are getting washed up. Oh, here they are.”

      Just in time, Mel thought, with a sigh of relief. She was glad Rosalie’s turn with her had been brief. Answering the inquisition would have been awkward. After she told Tony...

      After a brief but solemn blessing by Pedro, the usual Sunday ritual began...a short Bible verse from each person at the table. Mel panicked. Her church excursions were skimpy. Her mind frantically searched. Please, she prayed as, beside her, Patsy’s child voice confidently crooned, “Honor thy father and thy mother...”

      Her prayer was answered. Her mother’s funeral. She repeated the pastor’s words. “In my Father’s house are many mansions...” Thank you, she silently whispered to a God she hardly knew.

      It was a good thing that everybody in this family was very active. Otherwise they would all be fat, Mel thought as the full platters were passed around. Potatoes browned to perfection and well seasoned by the crispy onions. Thick, juicy slices of ham. Hot biscuits with jam or honey, eggs to order, and strong, hot coffee. Rosalie was obviously in the last stages of pregnancy, but even she could not be called fat. Probably never would be, Mel thought, the way she kept jumping up and down to serve everyone. Every now and then Patsy was called upon for hot biscuits or to get more butter. But no man, not even little Jerry, budged. Meals were definitely women’s work.

      It was a hilarious gathering, with everyone, even the children, talking at once. About everything, from the vegetables Pedro was going to plant to the “owie” on little Buddy’s skinned knee. Mel said nothing, but felt warm and happy, a part of the camaraderie. Happy listening to down-to-earth talk that had nothing to do with stock options or how the market was going. Happy just looking at Tony.

      He was beautiful. Now that was stupid. Calling a man beautiful, especially one as masculine as Tony. Tall, and yes, almost too slender, but with strong rippling muscles that made him seem as sturdy as a tree trunk. She loved the way he used those muscles with graceful dispatch. Planting roses, or lifting her into his truck as if she was as light as a feather. She loved the tender caring way he had taken Buddy from Rosalie, the easy strength with which he had held the rototiller steady. How he was laughing at something Pedro had said, and that crooked tooth was showing. She loved that crooked tooth, loved the way he ate. With his fork in his left hand! Why? He wasn’t European. Funny, she had not noticed at the spaghetti house. Just that he had wound the spaghetti around his fork with the same ease and dispatch as he did everything else. She loved the way he moved.

      She loved him.

      This was ridiculous. She didn’t really know him. Hadn’t known he existed five days ago.

      He had never even kissed her. None of those passionate, all-consuming, erotic sensations that had once rippled through her body on a Nevada mountaintop. A love she had lost and never hoped to find again.

      This couldn’t be it, could it? Couldn’t love a man just because he held his fork in his left hand and handled a rototiller with ease, could she?

      But there it was. A warm, sure knowing. A feeling that she had found someone wonderful, someone warm, caring and dependable. A feeling that she had come home to a man she would love forever.

      Come home to...? Good heavens! What made her think he would have these same crazy mixed-up impossible sensations!

      She tried to get back on track, and focused on the conversation at the table.

      Pedro’s deep laugh bellowed out. “Married into money, did he?”

      “Guess so. More’n he’d ever had, anyway,” Tony said. “She’s got some kind of catering business that’s beginning to pay off.”

      “So you lost the only employee in your little posy business.”

      Mel didn’t like the way Pedro said that. Like he was putting Tony’s business down.

      Tony didn’t seem to mind. He answered readily enough. “Wasn’t much help anyway, the lazy slob.”

      “What’s his wife like, Tony?” Rosalie wanted to know.

      “Busty blonde. Kinda good-looking, but a bit bossy for my taste. Joe’ll be dancing to her tune the rest of his life.”

      “But he’s pretty well set, ain’t he?” Pedro’s laugh rang out again. “Maybe you should follow Joe’s example, Tony. If you’re gonna stick with posies, you could use some support.”

      “No thank you. I prefer to dance to my own tune.”

      “Atta boy!” Pedro slapped his brother on the back. “You might be a posy peddler, but you’re a Costello all the way, right?”

      “Right,” Tony agreed.

      “Yep, we Costello men support our women. They don’t support us.” Pedro now addressed his remarks to Mel. “My little Rosalie hasn’t worked a day since she married me.”

      Mel smiled and nodded an approval which she didn’t exactly feel. It looked as if Rosalie was working her head off right now.

      But she had just learned something important. About somebody named Joe, and about Costello men.

      Maybe she shouldn’t tell Tony she was rich. Not yet.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      “YOU love the farm, don’t you?” Mel asked as Tony merged the truck onto the freeway.

      “Yeah. It’s...well, kinda home base for all I plan to do.” His face brightened as he began to talk of his plans, how he would divide each plot, where he would set out the trees, which would be reserved for the greenhouses. “All that rich soil. It’s a perfect place for a nursery, and I’m itchy to get started. But I have to go slow. It’ll take quite a bit of capital to set it up right.”

      “You could borrow.” Every venture her father went into was on somebody else’s money, not his.

      “Can’t borrow without security.”

      “The land...”

      “Belongs to my grandparents, the only security they have. Grandpa was running into debts the last few years, but he never borrowed. I think they were sorry when the sale didn’t go through, but with the present zoning laws, they wouldn’t get enough to sustain them. They’re leasing it to me for peanuts, but I plan to make it up to them when I get going.” His voice rang