Annie's Rainbow - Fern Michaels [34]
Rosie barked once as she leaned over the side of the bed to inspect her handiwork. Annie gave her a swat as she struggled with the twenty-dollar bill she was planning to chew. It ripped in two. She cursed, using every swear word she’d ever heard her brother Tom use in his hellion days. Any minute now she was going to lose it and have a nervous breakdown.
Annie slid from the bed, her eyes wild with panic. How could she send shredded money back to the bank? On her knees, she tried to gather up the bits and pieces of money to try and determine how much the pup had chewed up. At eight o’clock, with socks on her hands, she counted the money in the pillowcase, finally deciding Rosie had chewed up $23,420. She could send it all back with a note saying ... what? Did she dare wash the bits and pieces again.
A headache, the likes of which she’d never experienced, thundered inside her head. Rosie bellied over to where she was sitting and crept onto her lap and started to lick her face. She hugged her. The murderous headache subsided almost immediately. “This is a setback. A big one. I’m going to work this out. I know I can work this out. I will work this out.”
Rosie leaped off her lap and ran to the door when Tom knocked, and shouted, “Breakfast in ten minutes!” “Okay. Be right there,” Annie responded, her eyes wild. She was a lightning bolt then as she ripped the pillowcase from her pillow. On her hands and knees, she crawled about the room picking up the tattered money. “I know you ate some of this money. I know it. You’re going to be pooping twenty-dollar bills all day. If this wasn’t so serious, it would be damn funny.”
This time, Annie closed the closet door before she bent down to pick up the pup. “Bad dog, Rosie. Now I’m in hock to the bank for more than twenty-three thousand dollars. Oh, well, life is going to go on no matter what I do. I’ll find a way to pay it back. I wonder if they’ll let Tom bring you to jail when he visits me,” she muttered. The pup yipped her pleasure at being carried down the long staircase.
“Oh, it smells good, Tom. What are we having?”
“The works. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh brewed coffee, and I squeezed the orange juice myself. I know my way around the kitchen. How’d you sleep?”
“I didn’t. I had a terrible dream.”
“Couldn’t be worse than mine. Share.” Tom grinned as he filled his sister’s plate.
“I dreamed Rosie chewed up twenty thousand dollars I was going to put in the bank,” Annie blurted. The moment the words were out of her mouth she wanted to take them back.
“That’s not a dream, that’s a nightmare. I had this dream that Ben put an ad in a yuppie magazine offering to sell himself to the highest bidder.”
“It was the turkey sandwiches and all those pickles we ate before we went to bed,” Annie said. “I’m not doing that again.”
“Twenty thousand, huh? In your dream did Rosie eat the money or chew it up?”
“Both,” Annie said, guilt riding her shoulders like a yoke.
“What’d you do in the dream?”
“I woke up. I don’t want to talk about it, Tom. It was a stupid dream. Rosie had been chewing on the newspaper in my room the other day. I guess that’s what triggered the whole thing. Great breakfast,” she said, pushing her plate away.
“I cooked, so that means you clean up. Get rid of that turkey. I hate eating it for a week after a holiday.”
“Bossy, aren’t we,” Annie said as she got up from the table.
“Just playing big brother, Annie. Twenty thousand? Wow. Wonder what it means. I’ll be in the living room studying Elmo’s business plan if you need me.”
Annie wondered why her legs were so shaky. She’d never