I'll Be Home for Christmas by Fern Michaels Page A

Andi giggled as she headed for the truck, and Peter hastily penned a note.
    â€œGuess you’re gonna have to wait for my wake-up call,” he said when he caught up to her.
    â€œHow long?”
    Peter threw his hands up in the air. “I have all the time in the world. You just let me know when you’re ready.”
    â€œUh-huh. Okay. That sounds good. I had a good time today, Peter, I really did. I felt like a kid for a little while. Thanks. Time to get back to reality and the business at hand.”
    â€œHow about if I drop you off, go pick up Hannah’s ashes, take them to my grandmother and come back. We can have dinner together. I can pick up some steaks and stuff. I want to get those carbon monoxide units for you, too.”
    â€œSounds good.”
    â€œIt’s a date, then?”
    â€œYep, it’s a date.”
    â€œI’ll see you around seven-thirty.”
    Inside the kennel the animals greeted their owner with sharp barks and soft whines, each vying for her attention. She sat down on the floor and did her best to fondle each one of them. “I smell worse than you guys when you get wet,” she said, shrugging out of her wet clothes. “Supper’s coming up!”
    With the door closed to the outside waiting room, Andi paid no mind to the excessive barking and whining from the animals; her thoughts were on Peter King and spending the night with him. She had at least two hours, once the animals were fed, to shower and change into something a little more romantic.
    Outside, Helen Palmer watched the dinner preparations through the front window. When she was certain no one else was in attendance, her eyes narrowed. She walked back to the office, a manila folder in hand, the detective’s report on one Dr. Andrea Evans that she’d taken from Peter King’s car when she’d backtracked from Roosevelt Park where she’d spied on her old lover.
    She eyed the messy desk with the pile of bills. On tiptoe, she walked around the back of the desk to stare down at the piles of bills. With one long, polished nail, she moved the contract to the side so she could see it better. Three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars! For this dump! She tiptoed back to the door and let herself out. Miss Girl Next Door would know there was no manila envelope on the desk. Better to drop it outside where Peter’s car had been parked. “She’ll think it fell out when he got out of the car. Perfect!” she muttered.
    Her feet numb with cold, Helen walked out of the driveway to her car parked on the shoulder of the road in snow up to her ankles. She’d probably get pneumonia and all of this would be for naught. One way or another she was going to get Peter King for herself.
    Inside the house, Andi climbed the stairs to the second floor to run a bath. She poured lavishly from a plastic bag filled with gardenia bath salts. It was the only thing she consistently splurged on. She tried to relax, but the dogs’ incessant barking set her nerves on edge. What in the world was wrong with them today? Maybe they were picking up on her own tenseness in regard to Peter King. And she was tense.
    â€œI hardly know the man and here I sit, speculating on what it would be like to go to bed with him.” The bathtub was the perfect milieu for talking to herself. She loved this time of day when she went over her problems, asked questions of herself aloud and then answered them in the same manner. She wondered aloud about what kind of bed partner he would make. “Shy? No way. Lusty? To a degree. Wild and passionate? I can only hope. Slam, bam, thank you, ma’am? Not in a million years. A man with slow hands like the Pointer Sisters sang about. Oh, yeahhhhh.”
    Puckered, hyped and red-skinned, Andi climbed from the tub, towel dried and dressed. She fluffed out her hair, added makeup sparingly. The gardenia scent stayed with her.
    Andi eyed the bed. When was the