Free I'll Be Home for Christmas by Fern Michaels Page B

finished packing up the attic. At one point, as she descended the attic steps, she put the words to music and sing-songed her way through her bedroom as she stuffed things in cartons.
    Andi stopped only to feed the animals and eat a sandwich. The telephone continued to ring, the answering machine clicking on just as the person on the other end hung up. At eleven o’clock she carried the last of the boxes downstairs to the garage where she stacked them near the door. By three o’clock she had her mother’s china packed as well as all the pictures and knickknacks from the living room sealed in bubble wrap. These, too, went into the garage.
    At three-thirty, she was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, the invitation to Peter King’s party in front of her and his letter propped up against the sugar bowl. Believe or not believe? Go to the party, don’t go to the party? Call him or not call him? Ignore everything and maybe things would turn out right. Like thirty-year-old women with thirty-six animals were really in demand. Was Gertie right? Was she acting like some indignant teenager?
    There were no answers in the kitchen, so she might as well go to bed and try to sleep. Was this how it felt to be in love? Surely love meant more than a sick feeling in the stomach coupled with wet eyes and a pounding headache.
    Andi felt as old as Gertie when she climbed the stairs to the second floor. She blubbered to herself as she brushed her teeth and changed into flannel pajamas. She was asleep the moment she pulled the down comforter up to her chin.
    Even in her dream she knew she was dreaming because once before, in another lifetime, she’d slid down the hill on a plastic shower curtain with a colleague named Tyler. The same Tyler she’d had a two-year relationship with.
    She fell sideways, rolling off the frozen plastic, to land in a heap near a monstrous holly bush. The wind knocked out of her, she struggled to breathe.
    â€œYou okay, Andi?”
    â€œSure. Bet I’m bruised from head to toe, though. How about you?”
    â€œI’m fine. You really aren’t going with me tomorrow, are you?”
    â€œNo. I’ll miss you. Let’s stay in touch, okay?”
    â€œPeople promise that all the time; they even mean it at the time they say it, but it rarely happens. I’ll be in Chicago and you’ll be in New Jersey. I want the big bucks. I could never be content living in some rural area counting my pennies and practicing veterinarian medicine for free. Right now you’re starry-eyed at taking over your family’s old practice, but that’s going to get old real quick. You’re gonna be the new kid on the block. Who’s going to come to your clinic? Yeah, sure, you can board dogs, but how much money is there in that? Not much I can tell you. Let’s go home and make some magic. We’re probably never going to see each other again. We’ll call at first and even write a few letters, and then it will be a Christmas card once a year with our name printed on it. After that it will be, Tyler who? Andi who?”
    â€œThen why do you want to go to bed with me?”
    â€œBecause I think I love you.”
    â€œAfter two years you think you love me? I want to go home and I want to go by myself. I don’t want to go to bed with you either because you remind me of someone I don’t like. He makes greasy lipstick. I changed the sheets and everything, and then he found out, probably from you, that I use a diaphragm. That was tacky, Tyler, to tell him something that personal.”
    â€œI never told him any such thing”
    â€œLiar, liar, your pants are on fire. Get away from me and don’t think I’m going to your stupid Christmas party either. Take this damn shower curtain with you, too.”
    â€œAll right, all right. You came with me, how are you going to get home?”
    â€œI have two feet, I’ll walk. When you’re homeless