Today’s Snippet is from my SanValentino holiday romcom, MISTLETOE, MOBSTERS, & MOZZARELLA.
Finding a body in the freezer of the family deli isn’t the way Madonna San Valentino planned to start her day.
Adding insult to injury, the investigating detective is the one guy she’s never been able to forget. After seven minutes of heaven in the back seat of his car when they were teenagers, Tony Roma skipped town without so much as a thanks for the memory.
Just when Madonna thinks the present situation can’t get any worse, Tony is ordered to go undercover at the deli to ferret out a killer. Forced to work together, she vows to keep their relationship cool and professional. But with the sexy, longing looks he tosses her at every turn, Madonna’s resolve is weakening.
With Christmas drawing closer and Tony’s investigation taking an unexpected turn, Madonna is at her wit’s end. Can she really be falling for him again? And will he wind up leaving her brokenhearted and alone like the last time?
Snippet:
By now on a normal business day, I’d already have re-stocked the shelves and display cabinets, gotten the sinks and prep areas ready, and put out the filled urns, milk and cups for our regular-grab-a-cup-of-coffee-on-the-way-to-work morning customers. Since Angelo had ordered me to touch nothing, I couldn’t occupy my time with any of those ordinary tasks. Even though we weren’t opening today, I hoped we would tomorrow, so I decided to get a jump on the stock ordering. With Christmas on the horizon, I needed to ensure we were fully prepared for the holiday onslaught.
Our supply list grew larger each day, something that warmed my mercenary shopkeeper’s heart. More supplies needed meant more things were being sold, which amounted to greater – here’s the mercenary part – profits.
A cold blast of icy air smacked me in the face when I opened the walk-in refrigerator/freezer where we stored our spoilable items. The usual mounds of deli meats and cheeses, salads, and produce lined the steel shelves from floor to ceiling in the refrigerated section. I ticked each item and the amount we had on hand off on a clipboard list I’d brought in with me. Then, I moved into the freezer to see if we needed to order any of the bigger meat items. As soon as I walked into the frigid area I tripped over something sticking out from between two of the metal shelves.
I reached out and braced myself against one of the shelf posts to keep from falling flat on my face and the clipboard fell from my hand. When I stooped to pick it up and find out what I’d stumbled over, it took me a moment to realize what it was.
A sneaker.
Black and white, it looked…familiar. Like I’d seen it in a magazine or a television ad.
I tracked the shoe from the sole, up across the laces—which were dirty, knotted, and speckled with little red droplets—all the way to the tongue.
Then my gaze traveled further. Up a jeans-clad lower leg.
“What the—”
I left the clipboard on the concrete floor and moved closer to the leg. I don’t think I realized, truly realized, what it was at first.
The one worker I hadn’t been able to notify, Chico, was flat on his back, his wrists bound and folded in his lap, a frosty mask of ice covering his face and something green sticking out of his mouth. A thin boning knife, the kind my father uses to clean fish, protruded from the center of his chest. Little frozen red and white icicles covered his t-shirt.
I may not scare easily, but the amount of times in my life I’ve encountered a dead—no, make that murdered body—can be counted on the fingers of one hand and still have 5 left over. A loud gasp blew through my cold lips as I sprinted back to the door. I needed to tell the cops what I’d found.
Now.
I flew out of the freezer then yanked the industrial refrigerator door open, shot through it, and barreled, full body, into a solid wall. The wall smelled, strangely, of citrus. I would have bounced back and hit the door if the tangy-smelling behemoth hadn’t reached out and, with a grip forged in steel, imprisoned me within hands as large as the ham my mother planned to serve for Christmas dinner in a few weeks.
Trapped and terrified—who wouldn’t be after finding a dead body?—I reacted in the instinctual flight or fight way we’re programmed to during danger.
My body chose fight.
One valuable lesson being the sibling routinely charged with breaking up brotherly scuffles has taught me, is how to get out of a death hold.
In a move I’d learned out of necessity I took a step forward instead of retreating like a person being held routinely would, bent my arms at the elbows, lifted them up, and then twisted them inward. The front of my forearms collided with my captor’s and when they did I pressed outward with every ounce of force in me.
The hold broke.
Before the giant could draw breath and grab me again, I lifted my arms, gripped him by the ears and hauled his head down to meet the knee I’d raised.
A loud, guttural groan reverberated around us.
And then several things happened at once.
The orange-smelling wall of a man sputtered, “Jesus Christ, Donna,” while he held his face in his hands.
My father’s furious “Madonna Violetta,” lifted to the ceiling at the same time
Angelo Rocconova’s “Holy Shit,” competed with both of them. Another besuited man I didn’t know stood behind the three of them, but he kept his mouth shut and simply stared at the guy I’d kneed.
Confused and breathing like I’d swam the length of the East River twice, my gaze bounced from my wide-eyed and worried father to a shocked and nervous Ange and then to the bent-at-the-waist colossus in front of me.
My throat bobbed up and down and the moisture in my mouth evaporated when the hulk lifted back to his full height, his piercing and furious gaze mating with mine. As he’d stood tall I took a step backward, intent on running for the hills. The now-closed steel refrigerator door barred me from making a quick exit.
Looking up at him, my pounding heart stopped cold in my chest.
I knew those eyes.
Intimately.
When they weren’t filled with anger and pain, like they were right now, I knew how captivating they could be. The palest of blue and heavily lashed, they tilted up a tiny bit at the corners. Jealousy ramped through me. How unfair was it a man was gifted eyes like this when I’d been cursed with the most dull and boring brown color ever blended?
Light hair, a mix of natural honey and wheat husks, straight and clipped short covered his head. Shoulders spanning almost as wide as the doorframe were covered by a dark tan sports jacket, the pants a deeper hue of the same color palette.
“Donna,” Angelo said, his voice thick with fear, “why’d you attack Detective Roma?”
“I didn’t attack…wait? Detective?”
I tried to lick some moisture back into my lips but my salivary glands had gone dormant during the flight or fight response. I glanced at each of the men standing in front of me, stopping last on the one Ange had referred to as a detective.
With one hand still cupping his jaw where my knee connected, the man pierced me with his gorgeous gaze, and just like I had when I’d been seventeen and climbed into the back seat of his brand new Z8, I lost what little sanity I still had.
“Hey Donna,” Tony Roma said, shaking his head. “Long time and all. I see you’re still as sweet and mild mannered as ever.”
I love a meet-cute like this, hee hee!!!
Peggy Jaeger, Author 