Between Seasons (27 page)

She sucked in a huge breath and whispered, “Nate?”

“Sara . . . what is this? I asked God, but I never thought he’d answer. Are you okay? God, look at you. I’ve missed you so much – every day, I think of you and hope you come back. But how—”

“Patrick?” The white faded out to give way to a brilliant pink flush that started on her cheeks and radiated out, catching the edges of her mouth and pulling them up into a triumphant smile that threatened to split her face in two.

He nodded, the air crushed out of his lungs when her arms – solid and fiery hot – closed around him, squeezing.

“Nurse,” she wheezed. “I have to get a nurse.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” Sara released him and perched on the narrow mattress. “But you’ve come to me.”

“Yes. I guess I have.”

A gust of wind pounded at the window, drawing his attention. Snow swirled outside, and for once it didn’t remind Patrick of death.

It was a new beginning.

NEW FROM AIDA BRASSINGTON

JULY 2012 (PAPERBACK & EBOOK)

Relationships are complicated even under the best of circumstances. For Varda Dorfman and Tommy Campi, these are the worst of times. Varda, an illegal foods smuggler, has pissed off Anthony Carluccio, the kingpin of the local underground dinner club, and put her plans for the future in serious jeopardy. Her boyfriend Gino won't quit bugging her to get married, even though his mother hates her. Tommy, Gino's brother and the ladies man of the family, can't even introduce the love of his life to anyone: he's secretly gay and dating the son of Carluccio's biggest competition. And now Tommy's getting pressure to go public.

When Carluccio's hit man turns up dead in Varda's closet after snacking on poisonous mushrooms, all hell breaks loose. Varda's running for her life, and since his mother is dating Carluccio, Gino's convinced the only way to save her life is to drag her to the altar. And when people start discovering Tommy's hush-hush relationship, things really start to get interesting.

From the author of the best-selling paranormal romance
BETWEEN SEASONS
comes a darkly funny tale set in South Philly that explores love, destiny, and family and will have you laughing out loud.

EXCERPT from CHASING FOOLS

CHAPTER 1: OUR FRIENDS, THE MAGGOTS

T
WENTY POUNDS OF
I
TALIAN CHEESE TURNED
Varda Dorfman’s messenger bag into a public health hazard. She’d read somewhere that the smell of frying cabbage approached the level of hazardous air pollution, but cruciferous vegetables had nothing on casu marzu. It stood proudly as the kingpin of evil dairy products.

“Thank you for flying British Airways.” The perky flight attendant almost gagged on the final word. She wilted under the assault of the stink emanating from Varda’s luggage. Trying to get past Customs might present a problem if even this chick —trained in the ways of crisis management —couldn’t keep it together.

The cheese had smelled a little on the short plane ride from Sardinia. The odor picked up on the trip from Rome. Her seatmate appeared to hold her breath the whole way, turning cotton candy pink and then later, the violent hue of rotten cherries. Varda swore the woman passed out once, but the gurgling moan that had drifted from beneath her airline blanket said otherwise.

At least if Varda could get to a toilet she could rewrap the package and dampen the reek. Her feet swooshed across the carpet lining the jet bridge. Her eyes roved for a restroom.

Not that she wanted to be face to face with naked casu marzu and its cargo of larvae. Bile rose just imagining the wrigglers looping and tunneling through the Pecorino.

She’d come close to vomiting when the cheese maker had presented it to her with a flourish and offered a wee taste, the gaping hole of his toothless smile almost as terrifying as the cheese itself.

Almost.

Varda had been a procurer of things, odd and illegal foods that people wanted, for seven years. Six years too many, perhaps. She’d enjoyed the novelty of it at first, but the constant worry of being taken down by snarling security dogs and spending time away from Gino wore on her nerves. This had been the worst job by far —the stupid larva required oxygen to survive, and Anthony Carluccio, one of her best customers, had been adamant: “No maggots, no final payment . . . ya unnerstand me?” he’d asked, waving his hands, laying on a thick South Philly accent, and leering. His expression came off more as a severe seizure with that one-eyed winking tic of his. He seemed to believe being the head of an underground supper club in the city required him to be a douchebag . His competition didn’t act like that.

The oxygen required by the squirming larvae meant light wrapping. And light wrapping equated to a gag-worthy perfume reminiscent of decomposing pigeon in the middle of a Philadelphia summer.

Varda’s eyes shifted, searching for a TSA agent or a cheese-sniffing pooch on the prowl. She beelined toward the sign for the ladies’ room —her salvation lay just around the corner. Varda ducked into a stall at the far end of the space but not before catching a glimpse of her rumpled clothes and limp blonde hair in the mirror over the bank of sinks. A couple days of tramping around the countryside and several harrowing flight legs had left her resembling like a vagrant with a well-maintained root job.

She situated her rolling carry-on—black and unpatterned to deflect attention —and perched at the edge of the toilet seat.

What came next would be awful. There was no question. People were nosy, but terrible smells were presumed in the restroom. Even still, no one expected the Spanish Inquisition . . . or, in this case, maggot-filled cheese.

Please let the maggots be alive, please let the maggots be alive
, Varda’s inner voice chanted, the words automatically becoming the world’s strangest mantra.

Living critters equated to an extra ten thousand dollars, and that meant she was one step closer to her goal: having enough money to get out of the smuggling business and buy a cheese-making facility she’d had her eye on for months.

She’d insisted on a higher than average fee, given the humiliation and potential for Customs danger. Travelling with illegal foods usually led to fines and jail time under the best of circumstances.

Her breath reverberated off the pocked door and walls before she dipped into the messenger bag, fingers closing around the bottom of the paper sack to transfer it to her lap.

“Oh my gawd!” That was the first outburst of horror from outside the contaminated stall, and it wouldn’t be the last—voiced or not. Varda imagined the women on the other side of the door, disgust becoming more pronounced while making a stab at which stall contained the chick with the bad gastrointestinal problem. Picturing them brought a welcome distraction from the package under her nose, now exposed to the yellow overhead lights.

She took shallow breaths, gulping small puffs of air through her mouth. The paper and cloth under her fingers moved, she was sure of it. Oh, God, what if the maggots were escaping? Hell, they'd had a lot of time to plot their desertion. They could be mobilizing, ready to out her to the authorities by timing a prison break right in the middle of Customs.

It’s nothing, it’s nothing
.

Varda redressed the cheese in fresh wrapping, avoiding the removal of the last layer of cheesecloth so she would have to actually
see the cheese again. It took only a few panic-filled minutes, and the new barriers and layers over the rind cut down on the aroma. Not enough, though, and she'd never get the odor out of her hands.

The suspicious glances after attempting a nonchalant exit from the stall were nothing compared to those in the Customs queue. The graying man in front of her in line crab-stepped away, side-eyeing her. The woman standing behind her wrinkled her pug-like nose and glared as though Varda had suddenly declared her love of eating kittens for breakfast .

"Damn foreigners," the stranger muttered. "Take a bath."

An insult tickled at the tip of Varda’s tongue. Under normal circumstances she would have invited the woman to kiss her pale ass. No need to draw any more attention, though. She smiled and concentrated on looking innocent.

The line moved fast. Arriving in Philadelphia from Italy (or any other country, for that matter) on the Thursday morning before Labor Day wasn’t the most popular of options for no reason she could guess.

It might have been a better choice when crowds pushed and jostled; she could get lost among all those impatient people, hurrying to declare their foreign-bought soap and wine, rather than standing out as the hygienically challenged girl.

On a busy day the Customs agents would be harried and harassed instead of requesting Customs Declaration forms and passports without any sort of urgency at all and exchanging pleasantries before welcoming travelers to the States.

She was screwed. She’d had close calls before, like that time a bottle of mouse fetus wine had shattered in the middle of the airport and left a trail of glass shards and rice-based moonshine across an entire terminal (not to mention a pile of dead rodents polluting her bag like a vermin genocide mass grave). It was a minor miracle these guys didn’t have her name on a watch list by now.

Gino—they’d been dating for five years, so he’d know to start calling state and local penitentiaries if she didn’t come home —would have to visit her in smugglers’ prison, if there was such a thing.

Varda imagined shuffling into a drab visitor’s room, her bright orange jumpsuit blinding and unflattering. He would shield his eyes from the glare and inch closer to sneak a kiss and ask how she’d survived the latest jail house rumble —she was a small girl, after all. Television shows always showed that giant inmates with thick, tattooed necks and names like “Large Marge” routinely picked tiny, pretty girls with no muscle tone as their girlfriends. She didn’t want to be anyone’s bitch. But maybe she was too old for that —at the age of thirty, Varda wasn’t exactly over the hill, but perhaps the lifers would scoop up the super young new criminals first.

Gino would smile, his brown eyes soft with pity, and she would shuffle forward, attempting to be as sexy as an ugly prison outfit would allow. He’d laugh (because he always said her sexy face reminded him of bad porn) and slip her a wheel of aged Gouda with a file wedged into it.

The customs agent, a gentleman with a severe, red crew cut and droopy eyelids, accepted her passport and Customs form. “Welcome to Philadelphia, miss. How’re you doing today?”

She forced a smile. “Good, good. And you?”

“I’m just fine. You’re coming into some great weather.”

Screw the chit chat. Her feet itched with wanting to sprint.

“How long have you been gone?”

Two uniformed officers emerged from a doorway across the terminal, visible just over the agent’s shoulder.

The agent sniffed twice as though sucking up all the clues to Varda’s obvious guilt and let his eyes wander over her; she concentrated on relaxing, trying to gain control over jangling nerves. Maybe he’d chalk up her appearance and malodorous clothes to jet lag. Her Mom would have called her a schlump.

Varda’s lips pulled down. “Four days.”

Whether intent on busting her or simply finding the nearest coffee vending machine, the officers now strode across the terminal, heading in her direction.
Crap, crap, crap .

“And did you visit a farm or come in contact with any animals in Italy?”

“No.”

“Did you bring back any food items?”

Her lungs gave up, refusing to function with any semblance of grace.

“Well, I did buy candy at the Rome airport.” She reached into the pocket of her pants and produced a half-eaten chocolate bar, presenting it as though it were gold bullion. “Does that count?”

The approaching officers paused to say a few words to a female agent, one of them gesturing wildly.

“Thank you, miss.” He returned her passport with nary another glance, his fingers already motioning to the next person in the queue.

The thin-lipped but polite smile froze on her face when a third officer rounded the far corner, a black and beige German shepherd padding along beside him. Varda lunged toward the sign for baggage claim —not that she had any luggage except what hung over her shoulder —as fast as her legs would carry her, surprisingly speedy for a woman of her stature: five feet, two.

The phantom sensation of biscuit breath and slobber licked at her calves. She was sure the dog had caught wind of her or the cheese and now raced toward her in a slow-motion, dairy-induced frenzy. She pictured her limbs, mired in quicksand, the dog gaining speed until the canine pounced, tearing the contraband from her bag.

Her rasping breath turned to a squeak of quasi-relief the second she vaulted off the last set of stairs, thigh muscles burning with the effort to reach the finish line.

Each step brought a deeper breath, and when the sliding glass door to freedom sliced shut behind her, she gulped down air scented with jet fuel.

Nothing had ever smelled so amazing.

N
O MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES AFTER
she’d retrieved her car, Varda spotted Anthony Carluccio's monstrosity of a vehicle —a hint of mint green paint among the rusted body of a Buick Centurion —in her rearview mirror. The high-pitched humming of I-95 under tires grew louder as she passed over the double-decker bridge. She maneuvered toward the meeting place : a quiet enclave amid the gray, industrial buildings off the Broad Street exit perfect for clandestine business meetings and body drops.

Anthony took the whole “Philly mob” thing to extremes, especially since she knew damn well none of his family was, well,
connected .

And really, what possible reason could a union plumber have to carry a gun on the job anyway? Unruly clogs dead set on assassinating him mid-plunge? Or, for that matter, why would the organizer of the Whisk and Spatula Dinner Club need a weapon?