The problem was his wife.

The only mystery about Starlette McDavitt was why Danny had married her. This single act betrayed a serious lapse of judgment, which seemed uncharacteristic in him. Of course Laurel had noticed that even brilliant men could be out-and-out fools when it came to picking women. They were like little boys at a Baskin-Robbins. I’ll have some of THAT. Hmm, that tastes good, I want some more. Pretty soon, they bought the whole bucket of ice cream, to keep a steady supply. But once they had access to that bucket all day every day, they didn’t like the taste so much. That ice cream didn’t even look the same as it had behind the frosted glass with the big silver scoop stuck in it.

Starlette looked tasty enough, and her looks matched her name. She was a former Miss Knoxville or something, not quite a Miss Tennessee, but something higher up than a Soybean Queen. Yet her TV spokesmodel beauty was offset by bitter eyes that told you she’d already learned the lesson that pageant victories only take girls a short way down the road of life. The real irony was that in Starlette’s view, Laurel had won the marital lottery. She’d married a doctor-count your blessings and keep your mouth shut, honey (and your legs open, if you know what’s good for you). Starlette had never verbalized any of this per se, but it had seeped out between her little digs at other doctors’ wives (none present to defend themselves) and in her limited observations on her own lot in life.

Danny had married Starlette seven years ago, a year before he’d planned to retire from the air force. First marriage for both of them. He’d waited a long time to make that mistake, he told her, but the waiting hadn’t made him any wiser.