Free No Place Like Home (Holiday Classics) by Fern Michaels Page B

morning. Before she makes a final decision, she said I had to talk with the three of you. So I’m talking.”
    “We have to leave for school on Sunday afternoon. We have finals,” Hannah said, her face filled with worry. “I don’t want her to have to go one day longer than she has to without seeing. Freddie’s our big problem.”
    “I can stay till Tuesday afternoon,” Sam said. “I have a final at eight A . M . Wednesday morning. I can study here as well as I could at the frat house. I’ll find a motel that allows dogs. Worst-case scenario, we’ll sleep in the Rover.”
    “I can come back down Tuesday night and stay till ten A . M . on Thursday. I’ll have to drive like a bat out of hell to be back for a final at four P . M . I can do it. While I’m here I can pick out my wedding dress.” Hannah grinned. Dr. Kelly turned pink.
    “I can leave school Thursday afternoon and stay till Sunday,” Sara said. “I think we’ve got it covered. Will she be able to return to the assisted-living facility that Sunday? She’ll have to stay there until we can leave school for our Christmas break and get the house ready for her, at which point we’ll take her home and stay with her. Does this work for everyone?”
    Her siblings and the doctors nodded. “Then it’s a go,” Dr. Kelly said. “If you’ll excuse me, my patient is waiting to hear the outcome of our little meeting. I signed her in as an outpatient, but she will have to be admitted. In the meantime, I’ll have one of the aides bring her downstairs, and you can all go out for an early dinner. She needs to see her dog, and that dog needs to see her. Healing happens quicker when there’s a loving animal in the picture. It was nice meeting you all.”
    “I’m being paged,” Dr. Wineberg said, looking down at his pager. “It was nice seeing you again, Sara. I’m glad I was able to help.”
    “Me, too. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
    The red-haired pediatrician looked at the three of them. “I have a feeling the three of you would have figured out something. I’ll see you,” he said, sprinting for the door.
    Sam looked at the expression on his sisters’ faces and burst out laughing. “I wish you could see yourselves. You look…so damn sappy.”
    Hard-Hearted Hannah chopped at her brother’s arm. “There’s two of us and one of you, so watch it. You want to talk about sappy, what about Sonia, that exchange student you’re tutoring in English? When you see her coming you do everything but roll over so she’ll scratch your belly. Give up?”
    “Yeah, okay,” Sam snorted. He never won with the two of them. Never.
    They didn’t need to be told that their grandmother was coming down the hall. Freddie strained at her leash, slamming her body against the glass doors. She did everything but turn herself inside out the moment her beloved mistress came into sight.
    The moment the door opened, and the nurse pushed the wheelchair through the opening, quicker than lightning, Freddie sprang free and was in Cisco’s lap, lathering her with wet kisses.
    Cisco squeezed Freddie so hard, the retriever yelped, but she didn’t jump off Cisco’s lap.
    “I heard we’re going out to an early dinner, and then it’s back here for me. This is a good thing,” she said, getting out of the wheelchair with the nurse’s help. “They tell me the Red Circle Inn allows pets, so Freddie will be all right. This is so kind of you all to be doing this for me. That nice young doctor even called in an orthopedic man to check out my arm. They did an X ray, and he said the bone is healed. I just have to be careful. It’s all so wonderful. I just feel like crying. It started out being a miserable, lonely holiday, and now it’s beyond anything I could have hoped for.”
    Beaming with happiness, the Trips hugged her. They led her to the car and settled her with Freddie on her lap before they all started to talk at once.
    “How many times do I have to