The Lost Recipe for Happiness - By Barbara O'Neal Page 0,48
doorway, using his tall body to block her way. Elena smelled lemons and almonds and cake. She tilted her head back to look at him, raising one eyebrow.
“Maybe I am jealous,” he rumbled, putting his hands on either side of the threshold to block the way. Their bodies were only inches apart, his hooded blue eyes traveling over her face, her shoulders, breasts. “But not because of the job.”
She put up one hand against his chest. “Don’t,” she said harshly, and shoved him.
With a crooked smile, he took a step backward, then another, and waved a hand to gesture her through into her kitchen. She yanked the paper out of his hand. “Start the tamales,” she said. “I’ve got an appointment at ten.”
Here they are, sweetie, a roster of possible desserts. Still brainstorming, though I think this is a lot. I had fun playing with different ingredients:
Pears and apples poached in tequila and brown sugar, with piñon nuts
Chocolate layer cake (remember this one—I think you and Patrick just about ate the whole thing in two hours)
Almond cornmeal cake (I know this is one of your favorites, and it seems to go well with the theme)
Triple lemon layer cake (you have not had this one, but oh, my God, it’s great!)
Cheese plate with berries, peaches, apples, or cherries according to the season
Black cherry flan (it’s basically a clafoutis, but we’ll call it flan and everyone will be happy)
Mexican hot chocolate and shortbread cookies
Playing still with pinwheel tortillas, but thus far, they’ve been low rent. See you soon!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Mia
PS You look hot in the tabloid photo, but the boss looks like a total geek. Is he? Not really your type, is he?????
SIXTEEN
Julian sat on the deck, wrapped in a thick sweater, drinking a mug of coffee and watching the clouds move in over the mountains, silver gray and blue, moody and dramatic. He loved living here, finally, a place of myth when he was a boy—Colorado—the place to which rebels ran, where you could reinvent yourself. The most beautiful place on earth, he thought now, scrolling through the news on his laptop.
A flag popped up on the screen, an email from his assistant. Hillary lived in a Hollywood apartment and wore chunky shoes and chunky black glasses and her hair in chunky layers, maybe to give her tiny frame some weight. A film-studies graduate, she knew every film ever made, loved research, and was more organized than an office supply store. It was hard to remember what he’d done without her.
A second flag popped up before he had a chance to open the first. One was the details of the interview he’d granted the Denver Post; the second was the one he’d been waiting for. RE: accident, it read. Two paper clip icons showed in the corner. This is what I’ve found so far. More to come.
He lifted his cup, sipped. Thought about Elena sitting across from him last night warning him that she would not give him a story. That fierceness in her eyes, the unsteady gait of pain. He didn’t have any right to dig into her life this way.
And yet.
He punched the first paper clip icon. A copy of a police report had been scanned in. He read it quickly, still telling himself he would leave it alone, leave her in peace, that he just wanted the background to better understand her.
The details were horrific. Bodies in pieces. Elena lying undiscovered in a ditch for several hours through the night, the lone survivor. The only thing that saved her was the fact that she landed in an irrigation ditch. Cold water lowered the temperature of her body, and mud kept her from bleeding to death.
An unexpected wave of nausea rippled through him. For a moment, he closed his eyes, seeing another body, left in a field. Naked and battered.
A long time ago.
He closed the file. Opened the next one. A newspaper article about the funerals, with a photo of four caskets lined up in a small, old-fashioned Spanish church with an elaborate painted wooden altar in the background. Old. He wondered where it was.
Another flag popped up. This one from a business partner. Script? said the subject line. Julian rubbed his eyebrow, a spot that had a scar right through it from when he was twelve and took a dive from his bike into a rosebush right before his mother was killed. He’d still had the stitches at her funeral.