"Thanks. Just make the calls, please? Tell them to go to the pub in about an hour where we'll meet 'em. Have Chuck fire up some burgers, hot dogs and a batch of tater tots or fries." He flicked one of the bowls. "Whatever goes with ketchup."

"And what will you and I be doing?"

Jack pulled the dishtowel off his shoulder and handed it to her. "Guess."

"Gotta love a man with dishpan hands." Marilyn finished drying the last dish and placed it in the cabinet.

Jack popped her on the b.u.t.t with the wet dishrag.

"Hey!"

"That's for drivin' me into this friggin' contest!" he said.

She whirled around, expecting to see him frowning... then melted.

"And this is for getting my personal life out of cruise control," he said, tossing the rag in the sink and pulling her close to kiss her tenderly.

If he'd maintained a joking tone, she'd have been fine. But the kiss was anything but a joke. It was the embodiment of the missing ingredient in the smorgasbord her life had become. Sweetness-home-cooked and heartfelt comfort food for the soul.

"Don't pull away," he whispered, his lips hovering over hers. "Let's stay...jess like this."

His hands cupped her face so that she was forced to look into his eyes.

"This is the first time in years that I've spent more than five minutes in a kitchen with any woman. My mother used to cook when I was small. She and my grandmother would spend hours preparing a meal... chatting it up, pouring, measuring, basting, whatever cooks do. And it was the most rea.s.suring feeling watching them and knowing they were in there."

"And what were you and your brothers doing during those times?"

"Raising h.e.l.l, usually. But now and then we'd sneak in for a cookie or a hug. I'd make excuses to go in there just so I could antic.i.p.ate what we'd be having for the next meal. I loved seeing them do their thing."

"I'm trying to picture you as a little boy," she said, cuddling him. "Have to tell you that when I first read your books, I thought...what sensitivity. What a great storyteller. I imagined you'd be quite different."

"Just what does that mean? That I'm not sensitive now?"

"Not at all!" Marilyn punched his shoulder gently. "I just thought you'd be more... I dunno." She winced as she said the last word. "Feminine." Jackson roared with laughter and hugged her. "Girl, you're as big a bigot as any man who thinks a woman's place is in the kitchen."

He let go of her and wagged a finger as if scolding a child. "Stay put."

Marilyn did as he requested and watched as he chose a chilled bottle of wine from his refrigerator and two gla.s.ses, then carried them to the living room and set them on the coffee table. Then he returned, scooped her into his arms and carried her to the couch in the living room, settling into the sofa with her on his lap.

"I don't remember my mother cooking," Marilyn said sadly as he reached over her and poured the wine.

"Not at all?" he asked, his eyes full of concern as he handed her a gla.s.s.

"Nope. She died when I was small, and meals were usually McDonald's or a TV dinner until I left home. Then Dad and I would meet at restaurants if we shared a meal. Most times one of us would just call the other and we'd chat at our desks while on the speaker phone."

"Only child?"

"Yep. So there was never this urgent need or desire to cook. Christmases and Thanksgivings, when all of our friends were with their families, we'd sometimes go over to Uncle Dave and Aunt Marsha's. But even then... there was never that Norman Rockwell feeling." Marilyn shrugged. "After she died, Dave and Dad would hang out. I took jobs that usually kept me overseas during the holidays. Now and then we'd all meet for a holiday meal at whatever restaurant was open."

"I can't imagine anything like that," he told her. "Our family dinners usually involved a lot of hollering, scuffling, food out the wazoo."

"Were the men ever allowed in the kitchen?"

"Oh, yeah! My grandfather-Mimi's husband-was the family chef for years before he got her involved. In the 'old country', the men and the women alike cooked, grilled, stomped their own grapes for their wine and harvested the produce as a family. So it's actually been strange for her since he died. We haven't had too many big family get-togethers since my older brother left home but... I know Mimi lives for the day that there are dozens of great-grandchildren roaming about underfoot."

"With someone else cooking?" Marilyn asked. "I mean, she won't be able to handle all those dinners by herself much longer."

Jack nodded slowly. "I know. Not unless one of her grandsons or their wives takes over the ap.r.o.ns and all that go with them."

"I see. So looks like it's up to you to become either family chef or family propagator, huh?"

"Don't be such a smart a.s.s. I do have two brothers who could fill at least one of those roles."

"Don't you want kids?" she asked, wincing inwardly at her nosiness.

Jack guffawed and defended himself. "Of course! But please, one job at a time!"

He clinked his gla.s.s gently to hers and said, "Here's to better family dinners...for us both."

His arms tightened about her as she leaned against him. He dropped a kiss on her forehead and cradled her silently, thinking back on such a small part of his life that he'd taken for granted.

"I think I'm going about this all wrong." His words were quiet, thoughtful.

"What's that?"

"Cooking. Light bulb moment, so bear with me. The reason I wanted to write about my grandmother-and that's how I started out, by typing up journal entries-had nothing to do with the recipes themselves. It all had to do with the atmosphere of that kitchen. How one room could hold so much memory for a small boy. Smells, sights, sounds. The food, of course. But mainly the sight of those two women... and then when I was almost in my teens, just Mimi. She loved that kitchen. I'm surprised there isn't an indention in the floor where her tiny feet traced the same paths over and over." He laughed. "Guess that sounds pretty stupid, huh?"

"What-that you're an intuitive writer sharing his insights with his editor? Please! Not at all!" She turned in his arms to look up at him. "I think it's wonderful! Besides, I think you've just struck gold here."

"How's that?"

"Because you've just proven to yourself that you are interested in cooking, not just writing about it. But you never took the time to learn your way around the kitchen." She thumped him lightly on the chest. "Probably because you were too busy learning your way around the bedroom."

Jack flushed and set his jaw. "Huh. I've written in the neighborhood of six books, and up until now I thought I wrote because of the recipes. Because I didn't want to lose sight of those wonderful meals."

"I think you wanted to write about cooking because you were interested in it," Marilyn told him. "And you're a family man, so combining cooking and family with what you love to do, which is write... Well, it all makes perfect sense to me. By learning to cook, you're experiencing firsthand what you write about, which makes Jackson a very well-rounded writer... and man."

"You're right," he said slowly. "It wasn't the meals at all. It was the family gathered around the table. Her cooking. Her gifts... homemade jams and jellies for shut-ins, the loaves of braided bread and sweets she'd take to church picnics. She even made dog treats-did you know that? Homemade dog treats. I used to wrap them and put them in our pets' stockings at Christmas."

Marilyn couldn't help but snort. "You had Christmas stockings for your dogs?"

"And the cat. Don't laugh. I loved that cat and those dogs. Back when Mom was alive, we had stockings hung up all over that mantle in the big house."

"Which house?"

"That old one you had to pa.s.s before you took the turn winding into the trout camp.

Two-story, big yard, lots of rose bushes. Those were Mom's."

Marilyn settled back and listened, relishing the warm currents the wine introduced to her body, enjoying the bittersweet depths Jack opened in her mind. She hadn't thought of her own mother in years. Much less of family meals.

"Want to hear something goofy? I've never had my own ap.r.o.n," Jack told her. "Throughout all of those books, I've never purchased an ap.r.o.n. The one I used in there?

Mimi's. That's why it barely fit."

"Every chef needs an ap.r.o.n, Jack!"

"But I'm not a chef. At least, I've never considered myself one."

Marilyn giggled. "I'd have thought the chef's hat would've been the symbol, that one of those large, floppy white hats would've been your badge of honor. Not an ap.r.o.n."

"Maybe in the past. Have you watched cooking shows lately? No hats. But ap.r.o.ns and the occasional towel tossed over one shoulder. I'm no Emeril Laga.s.se or Julia Child, but still. Would've been nice to at least feel like a chef now and then when I was writing."

At that, Marilyn bit back another giggle.

One of his eyebrows lifted. "Are you making fun of me?"

"Maybe a little. But I think it's sweet. I'm surprised you didn't fly around like a superhero with an ap.r.o.n on your back, if you were that interested in what went on in the kitchen."

"Never thought of myself as a superhero. I always wanted to be like my dad or my grandfather. I wanted to be the man who made those women smile, the man who could understand them and why they enjoyed what they did. Women have always fascinated the h.e.l.l out of me."

Marilyn laughed. "So I gather."

"Cracks like that will not get you invited back into my bed, woman."

"Oh, I'll take my chances. You're pretty easy."

"You could tell that?" he asked, a gleam in his eyes. "After just one night?"

"And one delicious quickie." She rose from her cradle in Jack's arms and set her empty gla.s.s on the coffee table. "Jack, you don't need a cape or an ap.r.o.n to be a hero. You just need the right ingredients beneath the cape or ap.r.o.n." She winked.

"Wanna see what's under my ap.r.o.n?"

She patted his chest. "I was referring to a good heart, a kind disposition, a sense of humor, caring and understanding for other people."

"Okay. You don't ask for much, do you?" He bent to kiss her. "But would you like to see-"

Marilyn unb.u.t.toned his shirt slowly. "You still don't get it. I know what's under your ap.r.o.n."

"So why are you undressing me?" His voice held suspicion.

"Because I want-" She pressed her lips to one of his nipples. "-to see it." This time she nipped him, causing him to flinch. "Again. Now, where's that bottle? And how about some fresh grapes? Let me show you what an East Coast woman knows about wine."

"We need to talk before we make love again."

"I say we talk later."

"Marilyn, I need to know... why... why this and why with me?"

She was saved from answering by Chuck and Colette banging on the door.

Chapter Twelve.

Poor Boy (No Foil or Pans) Baked Potatoes Ingredients: As many large potatoes as desired.

Cake potatoes with mud if on riverbank, toss onto grill to cook, turning periodically. When ready to

serve, crack off the dried mud, cleanse the jackets with water and eat.

By mid-afternoon, the Ketchup King had backtracked his mistakes and discovered that he had indeed put in too much celery. After six tries, he even mastered a recipe that tasted like the family spaghetti sauce. But he never quite got the hang of homemade ketchup.

"So we'll serve spaghetti instead," Marilyn said as the four friends sat on Jack's picnic table, polishing off the last of the food.

"Spaghetti on the riverbank?" he asked. "I don't think so."

"Use the sauce over grilled steak," Chuck suggested. "Grill-baked potatoes in their skins, corn on the cob and steak."

"That's not bad!" Jack said, taking hope.

He looked at the multiple bottles of ketchup and mustard scattered across the table and nodded. "I never want to eat another hamburger or French fried potato."

Marilyn picked up a fry and stabbed one of the small bowls of ketchup. "It's quit raining. How about going canoeing?"

She could tell he was surprised.

"You sure?" Jack asked.

Marilyn nodded. "All four of us. Chuck has quit sniffling since he picked up his medicine this morning, and Larabee won't be here for a couple more days after all."

"Oh, I don't know," Chuck said, his body language clearly indicating that he had no desire to float the Illinois amongst the damp greenery on either side of the bank.

"Me either," Colette said. "I'll keep Chuck company. He's teaching me how to play chess."

Jack looked at Marilyn. "Then I guess that leaves the two of us. Lots of local ranchers don't have fences up near the river-they've let their cattle and horses roam freely and drink from there. Mebbe we can catch us a wild horse or a cow. Put on your swimsuit and some shorts, and I'll meet you at your place as soon as I clean up my mess in the kitchen. Again."

Chuck grinned. "I'm not allergic to dishwater, Jack. I'll stick around for that." He motioned towards the women. "You're not the only one who'd like a little one-on-one with someone special. So go, before I change my mind."