Excerpt of Christmas Canap?s & Sabotage by Janel Gradowski

As she stepped onto the porch, she could see Alex through the kitchen door's window. The site of her husband still made her heart go bump, badda, bump. There was a gym set up in the basement, and he knew how to use it. Coming home to be greeted by a rear view of him in perfect- fitting, butt-hugging jeans was good, but he was standing at the stove stirring something in a pot. Oh, baby. That was so not good. He had admitted to ruining canned soup before he met her. Not a promising sign that her dinner would be tasty, since adding a can full of water was apparently too complicated. There wasn't a single can of soup in her pantry, so what was he doing? What if he had decided to whip something up using the ingredients she needed to use for the competition?

"Hey, honey. What are you making?" she asked as she opened the door. It smelled wonderful in the kitchen, like lemon and chicken. Not the burnt aroma she had expected. She hung her coat up on the rack next to the door. "It smells good in here."

"I know. What a surprise, huh? Especially considering it's me." He laughed as he gave whatever was in the pot another vigorous stir. "It's chicken and orzo soup."

Amy ran through the ingredients she would need to make everything for the next evening and decided he probably hadn't poached any of her supplies. At least he shouldn't have if he made the soup like most people would. "You made chicken soup from scratch?"

"Hell, no. I got it from Columbo's Market." He grabbed a couple of bowls out of the cupboard next to the stove. "You never eat well when you are in battle mode. Have a seat and fuel up a bit before you run out of energy. I bet you still have things to do tonight, and you'll be up early tomorrow."

He knew her well. She couldn't deny that was exactly what she had planned. She also couldn't deny that she was exhausted. As she scooted onto the bench in the breakfast nook she could feel her back muscles quiver as they relaxed. Steam rose from the hot soup when Alex set the bowl in front of her. The scent of the rich broth was comforting and energizing before she even took a bite. Hopefully not too energizing, since she just needed to do a couple of simple cooking chores and then go to bed. Sleeping soundly would be nice, but that prospect was sketchy considering the tsunami of thoughts that always invaded her mind when she tried to sleep before a big contest.