The Marriage Wish Read Online Free

most important meal of the day, you should at least try to have something like muffins and fruit,” he told her firmly. “How about an omelet?” he offered. He did a great omelet.
    “Sure.” She spotted the bookcase he had in the kitchen for his cookbooks and got up to study them. “These are all yours?” she asked, surprised.
    “Yes.” He started pulling items from the refrigerator. Ham. Tomatoes. Green peppers. Cheese.
    He watched as she randomly selected one of the cookbooks from the bookcase and opened it. “Why are the page corners turned down?” she asked.
    “A favorite recipe,” he replied. As the eggs cooked and he chopped the ham and tomatoes and green peppers, he reviewed the dishes he liked to cook, pointing out different cookbooks and which recipes were uniquely good in each one. It was a comfortable conversation. He liked to talk about his hobby, and she was more than casually interested. It was a comfortable conversation that continued as they ate. They split a western omelet between them and a half dozen warm, homemade blueberry muffins. It was not until they finished breakfast that the conversation turned back to personal subjects.
    “How did Jerry die?” Scott asked quietly as he sat watching her drink her second cup of coffee. He didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know.
    She looked out the large window and out over the lake. “He’d gone to the gym to play racquetball with my brother when he collapsed. He died of a massive heart attack.”
    How old would he have been? Thirty? Thirty-five? “It was unexpected,” Scott said, stating the obvious.
    “Very.”
    He looked at the wedding ring she wore. He had noticedit ten days ago, a small heart of diamonds, and it looked like it belonged. “Was there any warning? High blood pressure? A history in his family?”
    She shook her head. “No. He had passed a complete physical not more than six months before.”
    “I’m sorry, Jennifer.” It was such an inadequate response. Her life had been torn apart, and all he could convey was words. She would have felt the loss like a knife cutting into her, especially if they had been a close couple. “You loved him a great deal.” Scott made the observation, more to himself than her, but she answered him, anyway.
    “I still do,” she replied calmly.
    He heard her answer and was envious that love could be so enduring. Not many couples had that kind of closeness. No wonder the anniversary of his death had been so painful for her.
    She set down her cup of coffee and changed the subject abruptly. “I’ve decided to end the series of books.”
    Scott didn’t know what to think, both of the abrupt change of subject and the statement she had just made. She couldn’t be serious. She had been writing the series for almost ten years. She wanted to end it? “Thomas Bradford is going to get killed?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because it’s not the same without Jerry.”
    “You wrote the books with your husband?”
    She nodded.
    Scott didn’t say anything for some time. It wasn’t wise to make such dramatic life changes when you were grieving. But the books had to be a continual reminder to her of what she had lost. “You’ve been writing the series for years. Are you sure, Jennifer?” he finally asked.
    “I’m sure. I’ve known for months it’s something I needed to do.”
    “What are you going to do once the series is finished?” he asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    He frowned, not liking one possibility that had come to mind. “You are still going to write, aren’t you?”
    “It is the only profession I know.”
    He leaned back in his chair, thinking, studying her. He had never known a writer before, and it was hard to make any sort of intelligent judgment about the decision she had to make. The sadness he saw in her expression made him frown. She needed some help. She needed to recover. She needed someone to ensure she ate. He forced himself not to follow that line of thinking any