For the Love of Pete

by Julia Harper

  “Please, Zoey?” he murmured as he entered her, slow and strong, and so very, very good. “Marry me?”

  She wrapped her legs over his hips, her arms around his shoulders, and leaned in to bite him gently on the earlobe. For a second she savored the moment. Dante’s breath coming roughly in her ear as he began to slide in and out of her, his strong, warm body holding her, all his will and heart and mind bent on one task: to make love to her.

  He was right. Life was pretty good right now. Actually, it was downright wonderful.

  She kissed his ear where she’d bitten it and whispered softly, but clearly, “Yes.”

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Meanwhile, somewhere across town . . .

  Pratima Gupta sighed and lowered her spoon to the dish of rice and milk in front of her. “We have done it, Savita-di, we have done it!”

  “Yes,” Savita-di replied, but her face was not wreathed in the joy that Pratima expected.

  “What is the matter?” Pratima asked. “Is not our restaurant a glorious success?”

  “Ye-es,” Savita-di said.

  “Are not the tables filled every night with patrons who groan, their bellies are so full?”

  Savita-di frowned. “Ye-es.”

  Pratima leaned forward across the desk in their shared office. Beyond the door, the voices of their cooks, waiters, dishwashers, and busboys rose and fell, a reminder of the success she claimed.

  “Do we not have protection from the so-strong Mr. Neil Senior, so that we do not have to fear thugs invading our kitchen anymore?”

  “Ye-es.”

  “And is not our kesar kheer the finest—the very finest—in all of Chicago, perhaps in the entire US of A?”

  “Ye-es.”

  Pratima threw her hands up in the air. “Then tell me, Savita-di, what could possibly be the matter?”

  Savita-di slammed her hands flat on the desk, making the bowl of kesar kheer shiver. “The kesar kheer, Pratima, the kesar kheer! It is not entirely perfect.”

  Pratima’s mouth fell open. She looked at the blue bowl of delicious pudding that sat on the desk between them and then she began to slowly nod. “It is not quite tasty enough.”

  “It is not quite spicy enough.”

  Both ladies examined the bowl of kesar kheer. Savita-di took a spoonful and tasted it, her eyes closed, her eyebrows knit.

  Pratima held her breath.

  Then Savita-di’s eyes popped open. “It needs cardamom. A better cardamom than we use.”

  Pratima stared at Savita-di. “The very best cardamom is Grade Number 1 Short Mysore Cardamom from Mumbai. It is very expensive.”

  Savita-di stared back, a dawning excitement in her eyes. “Yes, but not as expensive as Grade 1A Very, Very Fine Mongra Kesar.”

  “True, Savita-di, very true.”

  “And do you not have a nephew’s nephew who lives in the city of Mumbai, Pratima?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And could not this nephew’s nephew be made to understand how very important it is to fulfill the wishes of his uncle’s aunt?”

  “I believe so, Savita-di.”

  The two ladies stared at each other a moment longer, then Savita-di leaned toward her sister-in-law. “Then, Pratima, what we need to make our kesar kheer the very best kesar kheer in all of Chicago—possibly in all the US of A—is Grade Number 1 Short Mysore Cardamom from Mumbai!”

  Mrs. Savita Gupta and Mrs. Pratima Gupta’s Top Secret, Very Special Kesar Kheer Recipe

  ¼ cup shelled pistachios, the best you can buy, with nine reserved

  ½ cup basmati rice, picked through and rinsed

  4 cups whole milk

  6 whole cardamom seeds, preferably from Mumbai

  ½ teaspoon Grade 1A Very, Very Fine Mongra Saffron (or, if you must, regular saffron)

  ½ cup white cane sugar

  First, examine your pistachios. Are they indeed the very best you can buy? If so, soak these pistachios in enough water to cover for about four hours, or perhaps overnight if it is late and you are sleepy. Now take the rice and place it in a saucepan. Add half of the milk and heat, stirring slowly while thinking about how good this pudding will be to eat and how very envious your sister-in-law will be when she tastes it. Cover and cook the rice and milk for twenty minutes until the rice is soft. Then add the saffron, cardamom seeds, the sugar, the pistachios, and the remaining milk. Simmer gently for about sixty minutes or more, stirring now and again, until the rice is the thickness that you desire. Pour the pudding into a lovely dish and decorate using the remaining nine pistachios and your best artistic sensibilities.

  This delicious dish makes eight servings—unless your greedy nephew comes to dinner, in which case it is probably closer to six—and may be served hot or cold.

  THE DISH

  Where authors give you the inside scoop!

  From the desk of Julia Harper

  Dear Reader,

  So many books to read, so little time! Do you find that you have trouble deciding which book to pick up next? Should you read that cat mystery your mother keeps shoving at you or the new zombie book your sister loved so much? And then there are those ubiquitous lists of “classic” books that you must read before you die. What is a reader to do? Well, never fear, I’ve just made your reading decisions a little easier with the following comparison of my new book, FOR THE LOVE OF PETE (on sale now), and one of those books you really should’ve read in freshman lit:

  A Handy Dandy Guide, comparing my new book, FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, with William Faulkner’s AS I LAY DYING

  AS I LAY DYING VS. FOR THE LOVE OF PETE

  First line of book: Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file. Things finally came to a head between Zoey Addler and Lips of Sin the afternoon he tried to steal her parking space.

  Heroine: Addie Bundren, who is dying Zoey Addler, who is alive and on a mission to rescue her kidnapped baby niece.

  Hero: Several choices here, but I’m going with Anse Bundren who needs false teeth. Dante Torelli, hot, if uptight FBI agent. His teeth are all intact.

  The Plot: Well, Addie dies and her family has to bury her. They’re not very good at it. Dante Torelli is an under-cover FBI agent assigned to protect a mob informant and his family. But the informant’s hiding place is blown and a baby girl is snatched by a ruthless hit man. Now, Dante must save the toddler, uncover the traitor in his department, evade various bad guys, and deal with Zoey, the toddler’s sexy aunt, all before the biggest mob trial in Chicago’s history, set to begin in just three days.

  Love Scene: I’m not sure there is one, but Addie did once have an affair with the preacher who’s going to bury her. Woohoo!

  Ends: SPOILER ALERT! One of Addie’s sons gets sent to an insane asylum, but at least her rotting body is saved from a flooding river by another son. Yay! Happily (and with more hot sex)!

  There! Didn’t that make your decision a little easier?

  xxoo,

  www.juliaharper.com

  From the desk of Lisa Dale

  Dear Fellow Bookworms,

  Do you ever get the feeling that life is too complicated? That you just want to get back to the things that matter most?

  I do. That’s why I wrote my first novel, SIMPLE WISHES (on sale now), about a woman who makes an impulsive mistake that forces her to leave her New York City apartment and escape to her deceased mother’s cottage in the country.

  It probably won’t surprise you that I wrote much of the novel in my grandparents’ cabin on a drab dirt road in Pennsylvania. Every morning, I would get up, make tea, do a bit of reading, and write. You can see pictures of the cabin on my blog, www.BookAnatomy101.com.

  Some of the stories in SIMPLE WISHES come from real life. For example, once, my grandfather’s collie ran away and I was the lucky one to apprehend the fugitive. When I found him, he was barking and running in circles around a tree. I bent down to grab his collar and when I looked up, there was a huuuge black bear staring down at me
from a branch above my head! Gives new meaning to the phrase: barking up the wrong tree.

  Unlike me, the hero of SIMPLE WISHES, Jay Westvelt, is totally accustomed to living in the middle of nowhere. He’s a rough-around-the-edges recluse and a brilliant artist, and he’s intrigued when a prickly yet captivating city slicker moves in next door. Adele has to admit her attraction to Jay, but because she plans to return to the city, she can’t let herself fall in love. She vows their relationship is nothing more than a fling—but little does she know that Jay has vows of his own.

  SIMPLE WISHES is about what’s most important to us as women—getting over the past, and sorting the things that matter from the things that don’t. I’d love to hear about your simple wishes. Visit my Web site at www.lisadalebooks.com and leave a note on my “Wishing Well” to share a kind wish for yourself, your friends, your family, or the whole world.

  Happy reading!

  From the desk of Amanda Scott

  Dear Reader,

  Lady Sibylla Cavers of BORDER MOONLIGHT (on sale now) has to deal with Simon Murray, Laird of Elishaw, a man who never forgets a wrong . . . or forgives one.

  However, Sibylla, like most of my heroines, is a capable, intelligent woman who knows her own mind. By the time she’s finished with Simon, he’s not sure which end is up. That is not to say she wins every battle, but she does hold her own.

  I think the reason I enjoy creating strong, independent heroines is that I come from a long line of strong, independent women. Since most of my many Scottish ancestors hailed from the Borders, I often tell people I have horse thieves hanging from nearly every branch of the family tree. I have certainly used many examples from that tree to create my heroines—and a number of my heroes, for that matter.

  Thanks to a little nepotism, my triple-great grandfather, Andrew Scott, whose father came to America from the Borders, became, the first—and from 1819 to 1821 the only—superior, or supreme, court judge for the Arkansas Territory. His older brother, John Scott, was one of the first U.S. senators from Missouri and named the state of Arkansas. Their wives were sisters, daughters of lawyer John Rice-Jones, a Welshman who served as commissary general to George Rogers Clark’s northwest expedition, among many other accomplishments.

  All were strong men, definitely, but their wives and daughters were strong, too. They had to be to cope with those men. One of my favorite stories about Judge Andrew Scott concerns a duel he had in 1824 with another judge shortly after Arkansas outlawed dueling. After an argument over a game of whist, they fought their duel on “Mississippi soil” in order not to break the law. Judge Andrew left a letter for his wife, Eliza—the usual “to be opened in the event of my death” letter.

  I have a copy of it. After expressions of much praise to Eliza as the perfect wife and mother, he added a P.S. telling her to give their youngest son, George, (the only son still at home) to the judge’s brother to raise.

  My grandfather first showed me the letter when I was about ten or twelve. Even then, I did not doubt what Eliza’s reaction to that last sentence must have been. It is my firm belief to this day that the letter still exists because of Eliza, not Andrew. He’d certainly have had less reason to keep it, let alone to pass it on to one of his sons to treasure.

  Andrew had a legendary temper. During the argument, he is said to have thrown a candlestick at the other judge. But Eliza definitely held her own with him. After she read that letter—and I have no doubt that she did—I’d wager he endured an uncomfortable few minutes at best. My grandfather said she probably “snatched the man baldheaded.”

  I grew up with many such tales from my grandfather, so perhaps you can understand why, when I need examples of strong women for my heroines, I often look no further than the Scott family history.

  Enjoy!

  http://home.att.net/~amandascott/