Wife By Contract. Raye Morgan

his attention to the dishwater, he came in and plunked himself down at the table.

      “How did you know,” he asked abruptly, “that you were going to like kids? Before you had them, I mean. What gave you the courage to take the plunge?”

      She looked at him for a moment, turning her head so that her long, loose hair swung like a pendulum at her back, and laughed. “What did they do to you now?” she asked, one hand on her hip.

      He managed an innocent look. “Nothing. Not a thing.” Then his conscience got the better of him. “Well, if they were a little older, I’d say they snubbed me. But since they’re just kids...”

      “Kids can break your heart, too,” she said softly. “They’re so open and innocent about it. They haven’t learned to hide their feelings, so what they do comes straight from their soul. That can hurt a lot.”

      “Yeah.” He shrugged it off. “I guess you’re just a natural with children, aren’t you?”

      She threw back her head and laughed, surprising him. “Hardly,” she said, her eyes dancing with amusement. “I made a lot of mistakes. I still make them.”

      He shook his head. “It’s all too complex for me. I don’t think I’ll ever have kids. I have enough trouble keeping a dog happy.”

      The laughter evaporated from her face like spring rain on hot pavement. This was not the way she wanted things to go.

      “Kids are great,” she said quickly. “They grow on you.”

      “Like fungus?” He made a face. “No, thanks. I think I’ll pass.”

      “You’ll see,” she said, gazing at him seriously. “You’ll see.”

      He looked back into her deep, dark eyes, and something he saw there—or maybe something he didn’t see—made him uneasy.

      “Listen,” he began, feeling as though he had to explain things to her, make her face the fact that he wasn’t Greg, that he would never go for kids, that he doubted if Greg would, either, that she had made a big mistake coming here to Alaska.

      But as though she read his mind and didn’t want to hear it, she turned away, reaching for the pan she’d been scouring, and the words stopped in his throat. At the same time, he noticed she’d been cleaning.

      “Wow,” he said, examining the kitchen, first one side and then the other. The tile on the counters was shining, and the boxes of food that had been stacked there earlier had vanished. “You didn’t need to do this.”