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.