The Great Bedroom War by Laurie Kellogg

enough time keeping up with the hospital gift shop orders. Nevertheless, she would never turn her venture into a true success if she turned away business. Maybe Nick was right about her raising her selling price. “Uhh, I would love to sell my animals at your store, but I have to warn you my production and overhead costs have gone up so the sales price will be increasing by two dollars a unit next week.”
    “I can understand the adjustment. Considering the quality, even at that rate the toys will still be a bargain. Can you send me thirty for now? Let’s say twenty dogs and ten cats in a variety of colors. If they sell as well as I think they will, I’ll naturally want a lot more as we get closer to Christmas.”
    “Sure. But I won’t be able to deliver the order for about two weeks.”
    “That’s fine. Just bring them in whenever you can, and I’ll cut you a check when you deliver them.”
    Sam jotted down the woman’s phone number and the name and address of her shop before thanking her for the order. When she hung up the phone, she felt torn between shouting for joy and tearing her hair out.
    In reality, it was a meaningless dilemma since this new order didn’t leave her any time to waste doing either one.
    ~*~
    Nick led Chewie back into the house forty-five minutes later and peeked in on Dani and Ryan laughing and strumming their guitars in the family room. He unhooked the dog’s leash, hung it on the coat tree, and scaled the stairs two at a time to the second floor.
    He found Sam bent over her sewing machine in what had formerly been the guest room, situated next to the master suite at the front of the house. The four-poster queen-sized bed had been replaced by a large table he assumed she used for cutting fabric. Shelves with a rainbow of plush velour, thread, fiberfill, and the other raw materials for Sam’s business occupied every inch of wall space.
    “You look pretty busy,” he said.
    “I am. I just got a call from a shop owner who wants to carry my Worry Pals. The woman ordered thirty units, and I promised her them within two weeks. You might be interested to know I took your advice and raised my price.”
    “Good. The fact that she still wants them proves you’ve undervalued them.”
    When she’d told him her business had grown, he never dreamed it had literally exploded. It seemed his wife might have unwittingly designed a product with the same mysterious appeal that had birthed previous toy fads like the Cabbage Patch Kids and Beanie Babies.
    Her stuffed pets were similar to the Pound Puppies that flooded the market while they were growing up and generated a fortune for Tonka Toys. However, Sam’s extra cuddly creations offered additional features that were especially attractive to kids. As the mother of a sick child, she’d had firsthand insight to the comfort that a disappearing ink marker and a flashlight could provide.
    “I could stuff some of those for you,” he suggested.
    “Thanks. But right now, it’s more important for you to go play chaperone.”
    “I can work on them downstairs and keep an eye on the kids at the same time. Men can multitask too, you know.”
    “That’s all right. I can handle it myself,” she insisted, without looking up from her work, making it plain she didn’t want any help—or at least not from him.
    “Okay.” He studied the animated faces on the finished stock lining the shelves and the unassembled gift cartons the plush pets would be packaged in. One side of the printed boxes had been designed with a grid-marked cellophane window to display the animals as if they were in a pet crate.
    Mounting dread twisted his gut into a tight knot. His industrious wife had become a lot more self-sufficient than she’d let on. Just his luck, her new-found independence would give her even less reason to need him or want him back.
    Even so, her burgeoning enterprise would never realize its full potential without a shrewd expansion plan, which had to include