Chris opened the door.

“Don’t you know nothing about catching a man?” Edna scolded. “After you got ’em hooked, you don’t go giving away free samples.”

Ken tried to look offended. “How do you know I’m hooked, Aunt Edna?”

Edna waved him away with her hand. “You’re hooked, all right. It’s written all over your face.”

“Edna, one; Callahan, zip,” Chris whispered to Ken. “Let’s see you top that.”

Ken put his arm around Edna. “Okay, Aunt Edna, you’ve got me. I guess I’m just going to have to marry her.” He glanced at Chris. “She’s kind of skinny. And she gets crotchety in the morning, but, what the heck? I suppose I can learn to live with that.”

“Marry her? Well, don’t that beat all!” Edna slapped her thigh and beamed, puffing her cheeks up into dimpled apples.

Chris glared at the two of them. “I might not want to get married.”

Edna’s eyes widened in disgusted disbelief. “What do you mean you might not want to get married?”

“I’ve known this man exactly eleven days. I picked him up on a highway, for goodness sake! For all I know he could be an escaped ax murderer from Lorton prison. And then there’s his job. When he doesn’t have a broken arm and a broken toe, he’s flying all over the place. I don’t want another husband that’s a globetrotter. If I ever get married again, it will be to someone nice and dull. I want a man who lacks ambition.”

Edna shook her head. “What a boob.”

“And besides, that’s the worst proposal I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah,” Edna agreed, “it wasn’t such a hot proposal.”

Ken looked thoughtful. “Did you mean it about wanting someone dull? Someone that lacked ambition?”

Chris kicked her boots off and removed the heavy rag wool sweater she’d been wearing. “I suppose the dull and unambitious part is negotiable…but I definitely need a better proposal.”

Ken lowered his voice an octave. “Aunt Edna, if you would leave us alone for a little while…I think I could manage to be more romantic.”

“Hmmph. I bet you could. Well, no sirree. There’ll be no funny stuff while I’m living under this roof.” She turned him around and began pushing him toward the door. “Go on, now. Chris needs her sleep.” She herded him to the top of the stairs and shook her finger. “And don’t you come sneaking back up. I might be old, but I’ve got top-notch hearing.”

Chris heard Ken chuckling as he descended the stairs. He was getting a kick out of all this, she thought; he must have had some very lonely years to be able to appreciate her protective family so much. Her heart turned at the thought of him spending the night downstairs-alone. She contemplated talking to Edna about sleeping arrangements and decided against it. After all, they weren’t married, and she had to consider Lucy. She didn’t want Lucy discovering a man in her unwed mother’s bed. That wasn’t the sort of value system she hoped to instill in her daughter.

Chris undressed and pulled a flannel nightshirt over her head. She climbed into bed and closed her eyes, thinking that life was sweet. And fate was even sweeter. It had all started with some smart-aleck greedy mechanic who had charged her 245 dollars for a glamus. And it had led to Ken Callahan.

Ken sipped his juice and watched Chris as she hurriedly ate her egg and swilled down a cup of coffee. She looked up at him and smiled happily.

“Sometimes just looking at you knocks the air out of me,” he admitted, his voice filled with astonishment. “How did this happen to me? After all these years…how could I have fallen so ridiculously and painfully in love?”

Edna clattered into the kitchen. “Awful mushy talk for the breakfast table.”

“Yeah. I get romantic when I don’t have to cook my own eggs in the morning.”

Chris wiped her mouth and crumpled her napkin onto the table. “Better watch it,” she warned, grinning, “Edna’ll cut your KP vacation short.”

Ken looked at Edna working in the kitchen, cleaning a frying pan. “This is a short vacation, anyway. Edna says this afternoon we start getting ready for Thanksgiving. We’re going to order a fresh turkey.”

“Gosh, that’s awfully exciting.”

“Don’t get fresh,” Edna called from the kitchen. “It is exciting. Isn’t every day you get to order the Thanksgiving turkey.”

“Aunt Edna, try to control yourself this time-last year we ate leftover turkey for two months. Maybe you could hold it down to…ten or twelve pounds?”

Edna looked insulted. “I don’t cook little birds for Thanksgiving.”

Chris shook her head. “I have to go to work.” She looked at Ken. “Measure the oven before you go, and make sure she buys a bird that fits in there.”

Ken pushed away from the table. “I’ll drive you to the rink. Edna and I need the truck to go shopping.”

Chris zipped her jacket collar high around her throat as she waited for the heater to warm the truck. “You’re being a good sport about Aunt Edna and her theories on courtship and Thanksgiving.”

“I’m enjoying every minute of it.”

Chris slouched in her seat. “To tell you the truth, I’m kind of jealous. I wish I could order the turkey and bake the pies. And I wish I could spend more time with Lucy. She was gone all week. She came home with a cold, and I only got to see her for an hour and a half at supper.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her mitten. “Boy, this is dumb. I feel like an idiot.”

“It’s not dumb. I understand how you feel. I think it must be hard to be a working mother.”

Chris searched her pockets for a tissue. She blew her nose and reached out to Ken in the darkness. “Thanks.”

His voice was husky when he spoke. “Let’s change the subject and pump you up for coaching. Who do you have lessons with today?”

Chris redirected her emotions to his suggestion. She listed her itinerary and soon found herself babbling about Alex, and how she intended to change the last thirty seconds of her routine to include a double Lutz.

From the corner of her eye Chris noticed a flash of black hair and swarthy beard approach the rink barrier. She checked her watch to find that the last twenty-minute lesson of the morning was over. Ken had obviously listened to her schedule this morning and remembered when her lunch break would be. She gave her skater a few last minute words of encouragement and glided over toward Ken, who waved and bent to hoist a heavily bundled Lucy into his arms so she could see her mother over the guardrail.

Lucy squealed and clapped her hands in delight. “Mommy!”

Suddenly, they were surrounded by skaters who hovered over the little girl. She was trundled onto the ice to slide among them. She laughed and fell. She was set back on her feet and cooed over, and carefully pulled and pushed around the rink. Chris stood quietly, enjoying the scene. “This is nice. Thank you for bringing Lucy.”

“Edna didn’t want to send her to school with a cold, but she said it would be all right to bundle her up and bring her in for lunch with you.”

Lucy made her way back to her mother. Her eyes were shiny with excitement of the day. “Mommy, wait till you see! We’re going on a picnic. Ken arranged it all.” She tugged at Chris’ sleeve. “Hurry and get your skates off.”

Chris led the way to the lounge, where she sat on a bench and unlaced her skates. “A picnic? It must be thirty degrees outside.”

“It is,” Lucy laughed. “It’s real cold. And it’s snowing. Great big flakes-but they melt right away.”

“You guys wait right here while I put my skates away and get my shoes.”

“And your coat,” Lucy called. “Don’t forget your coat.”

Chris followed Lucy and Ken into the parking lot. “This is a mystery,” she said to Lucy. “How are we going to have a picnic?”

Lucy ran to the truck. “Ken got a cap on the truck. We spent all morning fixing it up.”

Ken opened the back of the truck and a rush of warm air swirled out to greet them. Lucy climbed in and settled herself on the layers of quilts. “See? It has a heater to keep it warm.”