Goddess of Spring (Goddess Summoning #2)(7)

Out of her element, she admitted to herself. This whole thing was total y out of her element. So, feeling a little like a sparrow struggling to feed the cuckoos in her nest, Lina kept smiling and nodding at her chicks.

"Wel , I think we've been absent from the front long enough. Now that we've got a plan, why don't you two handle it for the next hour and close up for me? I'l go home and begin brainstorming."

"Tess said she'd cal you on Monday about the menu for the dinner, didn't she?" Dolores asked.

"That's what she said, al right." Lina focused on keeping the panic out of her voice.

"Oooh, this real y is exciting. You know, I'l bet there wil be lots of local celebs at that dinner." Anton waggled his well -maintained eyebrows. "Not to mention media coverage."

"I imagine there wil be." Lina walked briskly from her office. As she cal ed quick good-byes to her customers and hastily retreated out the door, she could hear Anton tel ing Dolores that he would certainly need several new, exciting outfits to go with their new, exciting menu.

Her grandmother had told her many times that swearing was common, unladylike behavior reserved only for peasants and men who were not gentlemen. On the other hand, she total y endorsed a well -accented, well -chosen Italian curse as simply showing one's creativity. Standing in front of her bakery Lina let loose with a string of Italian that began with tel ing the IRS they could va al diavolo, or go to hel , and ending with saying they were nothing more than a chronic, flaming rompicoglioni, or pain in the ass. Just to cover al bases in between she strung together several

"shits" and "damns," in Italian, of course. She felt sure Grandma would have been proud. When people began staring she shut her mouth and told herself to breathe slowly and deeply. She was an intel igent, successful businesswoman. Hel , she could even curse eloquently in Italian and English, but she tried to keep the English to a minimum - Grandma had been right, it just didn't sound as well -bred (and yes, Grandma would also have appreciated the pun). How difficult could it be for her to come up with a few new menu choices? Even if they were meals and not breads. She started to twirl a strand of her hair, but caught herself and forced her hand to stay at her side. The problem wasn't that she couldn't come up with some new recipes. The problem, she realized, was that through Pani Del Goddess she had established a solid reputation for preparing breads that were unique and delicious. She couldn't just slap some pesto over pasta and toss a salad on the side of the plate. She wouldn't do it at al if she couldn't do it well . The name Pani Del Goddess meant excel ence, and Lina was determined that it would never stand for anything less. She should cal her grandmother; she'd have a stack of ideas that she'd be thril ed to share with her beloved bambina. Again.

"But as Anton would say, I'm sooo not a baby," Lina muttered to herself. "Good God, I'm fortythree. It's about time I quit running to Grandma." Lina's dialogue with herself was interrupted by the sound of carefree laughter coming from two women who had just emerged from the used bookstore across the street. She scowled and wished that al she had to worry about was shopping with a friend for the perfect book. The scowl shifted as her expression turned thoughtful. The Book Place was a wonderful used bookstore with a vast selection of fiction and nonfiction. Lina had spent many satisfied hours lost in their maze of shelves. Surely she could find a fabulous old cookbook in the stacks, something that had been hidden in out-of-print obscurity for years, and within its pages there would be a recipe that was the perfect blend of Italy and magic and ingredients. Yes, she thought as she dodged cars and crossed the street, The Book Place was the perfect place to begin brain-storming.

Chapter 3

The pile of used books was daunting. She'd found ten of them. Tin old, interesting looking, out-ofprint Italian cookbooks. While she was choosing them they hadn't seemed so thick -  and ten certainly hadn't seemed to be so many. But now that they were home with her, piled in a neat stack on the glass top of the wrought iron sculpture she used as a coffee table, they appeared to have multiplied.

Couldn't she have narrowed her choices down by a few less books before she'd left the bookstore?

"In baking we must always rise to the occasion," she reminded the enormous, longhaired blackand-white tomcat that perched in the middle of the black-and-white toile chaise. The perfect match made Lina grin. She enjoyed purchasing furniture that properly accessorized her pets, even if the cat didn't deign to notice. Lina did receive a brief look of boredom from his side of the room and a quick swish of his tail in response to the proclamation of her bakery motto.

"Patchy Poo the Pud Santoro," she addressed him formal y by his ful name. "You are a handsome beast, but you know nothing about baking."

At her feet, the half-sleeping Old English bulldog snorted as if in agreement with her.

"Don't be rude, Edith Anne," Lina scolded the dog halfheartedly. "You know considerably more about eating than you know about baking."

Edith sighed contentedly as Lina scratched her behind her right ear. With the hand that wasn't busy, Lina picked up the first book. It was a thick tomb entitled Discovering Historical Italy. She let it fal open and began reading a long, complex paragraph about the proper preparation of veal. She blanched and snapped the book shut. Veal was a popular dish in Italy, but to her veal meant baby cows. Mush-brained, adorable, wide-eyed baby cows.