"Sometimes, I think our first year of marriage was kind of a trial. Do you know what I mean, Bob?" Jane searched deeply into her husband's eyes as she asked the question she had been afraid to mention before. But now she thought he might understand… "We went through so much. In some ways, I wasn't the perfect bride you'd thought I'd be."

She breathed a sigh of relief when Bob laughed softly at her subtle apology and pressed his hand gently over hers, and the couple lay together in silence for a long while before he spoke again.

"I only wish that I could have afforded to give this to you before."

Jane tilted her head towards her husband's tanned smiling face. She ran her hand through his shock of dark hair, then pressed a finger against his lips. The warmth of his body was all that she needed now, and anything they could say to each other seemed almost superfluous.

"Just think of all that corporation crap we had to go through back in New York. I bet old Fielding is roasting in the heat. Three accounts folding, another one on the rocks," he laughed, raising the thermos to his lips.

"Don't talk about that now, please Bob," Jane said, slowly raising herself on one elbow and turning her voluptuously formed body toward him. "It's absolutely perfect, being close to you like this."

"Well, being a salesman, if you will excuse the expression, is a bitch and the first couple of months working at R amp; S were a Goddamn strain on me."

Jane sighed and shifted her weight closer to her husband. "Well, that's all over now," she said after a moment. "It's just that you tried so hard to make it on your own. If you'd just swallowed your pride and accepted some of Dad's help, I don't think it would have hurt your dignity."