When Mel had carried the table, umbrella, and chairs back to the patio, and they'd taken their coffee cups and some store-bought chocolate chip cookies to nibble, Jane sprang her plan on Mel.

"I'm building you an office just behind the dining

room."

"Jane, you can't do that. You don't know how, in the first place, and it would be too expensive. You could just clear out that big closet-sized sewing room."

"It's too small. And where would I put my sewing

machine?"

"When did you last use it?"

"Oh, I think it was around 1923."

That made Mel laugh again. He hadn't even smiled

earlier.

"I've consulted Uncle Jim. He put in a room for his retirement hobbies. He knows who to ask. As for the expense, consider it a long-term wedding gift. You would feel too guilty to ever leave me."

"Jane, quit joking. It would cost the earth."

"Mel, I don't think you realize how much money I have. When I married the first time, my husband was a one-third owner of the family pharmacy. They were about to go under. It was a rental and the owner raised their rent by half again what it had been. I used a fairly large inheritance I'd received to help them get a better location."

"That was good of you," Mel admitted.

"Not really. If the business had gone belly-up my husband would have lost his job. Anyway, he wrote a will in which it said that if he died before I did, he wanted his third of the business profits to go to me for all time. And he did die. Running off to meet his bimbo on an icy night."

"You never told me that part," Mel said. "You just said it was a car accident."

"I don't tell many people. Only my kids and Shelley know. And the kids don't know why he was out that night and never will.