"You would have to show up tonight!" Regina was saying, although she was smiling happily. "This is Mother's evening for volunteer work at the hospital, and Dad has gone bowling with his League. When Barbara called to say she wouldn't be home either, I decided to make myself a sandwich. I haven't a thing prepared!"

"Point me in the direction of the kitchen," Whit said. "This likely-looking KP assistant and I will stir up a few calories while you two hold hands."

No one objected, and half an hour later, after selecting various items from the pantry shelves, Whit had a salmon soufflй puffing in the oven and was measuring ingredients for the lemon sauce that was to accompany it.

"Where did you learn to cook?" Barbara asked him, rinsing salad greens under the faucet.

"On our ranch in Montana. Mom gave up hoping for a girl after six boys and recruited the baby of the family to help her feed the threshers. Once you have cooked for threshers," Whit added emphatically, "feeding a Navy chow line is child's play. Salad ready? Shell some walnuts for brownies. I'd make a lemon pie, but there isn't time."

"Aye, aye, sir," Barbara responded with a smart salute. "Anything else?"

"Set the table while I hail the lovebirds. This soufflй won't keep."

The golden-brown salmon loaf was a work of perfection. Barbara, ladling lemon sauce over it and helping herself to French-sliced green beans garnished with mushrooms and red slivers of pimento, catalogued Whit's culinary artistry in the Cordon Bleu class. Yet there wasn't a trace of sissiness about him. His broad shoulders looked as if they would fit snugly into a football jersey, and she had already seen him stand up for his rights against the bullying Mr. Smith. Watching his blue eyes sparkle with small-boy mischievousness as he teased Regina and Greg, Barbara decided that Whitney Egan, like his cooking, was in a class all by himself.