Lucky Stiff

Book Excerpt: ...shoulders. And under the table there were those long, slender, beautiful legs. This was their wedding anniversary. He couldn't even remember which one. It didn't really matter. All that mattered was the waking up every morning and seeing her long, silky hair spread out on the pillow, and her face, childlike in sleep, nestled in her arm. Coffee in the sunroom in the morning, Helene in her violet chiffon negligee, or her fluffy white robe, or her bandanna sunsuit, or, on special occasions, the blue satin house pajamas she'd been wearing the first time they met."Helene," he said, "every time I look at you I feel as if someone had just given my heart a hot-foot."Her eyes warmed. "Darling," she whispered, "I didn't know you were a poet!" This time her hand reached out for his, and it wasn't icy cold. Jake Justus, ex-reporter, ex-press agent, and, as he occasionally reminded himself, definitely ex-amateur detective, sighed again. Happily, this time. That unpleasant knot of anxiety in h...