Chapter 15

“What time is this boy supposed to be here?” Heloise asked. She stood directly behind him while he looked anxiously out the window.

“Not a boy. A man. And any minute.” Edward glanced over his shoulder at her. Her hair was ruby red at present, and piled high on her head like Peg Bundy. She wore what she usually referred to as her “housecoat.” This one she’d made herself—as she did many of them—and had a rather garish Christmas pattern of various Santa Clauses mooning. “Don’t you have a date with Horace or something?”

“I do not. I wouldn’t make a date when I knew your boy was coming over.”

“He’s not a boy and he’s not mine.” Edward blew out a breath. “Yet.”

Jude and Rex were already there, on the patio, sitting by the heat lamp and drinking gingerbread martinis, courtesy of Edward, of course.