Revenge of the Chili Queens (30 page)

ALMOST-AUTHENTIC CHILI QUEENS CHILI

A small amount of flour

2 lbs beef shoulder, cubed

1 lb pork shoulder, cubed

¼ C suet

¼ C pork fat

3 medium onions, chopped

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 quart water

4 ancho chiles

1 serrano chile

6 dried red chiles

1 T comino seeds, ground

2 T Mexican oregano

Salt to taste

Lightly flour the beef and pork cubes and put them in a pot with the suet and the pork fat. Sauté, stirring often. Add onions and garlic and cook until they’re soft. Add water and simmer slowly. In the meantime, remove the stems and seeds from the chiles and chop very fine. You might want to wear gloves while you do this to keep the spicy capsacian off your skin. Add to the pot along with the ground comino seeds, the oregano, and the salt. Simmer two hours. Remove suet casing and skim off some of the fat. Serve with condiments of your choice.

Turn the pages for a preview of the next entry in Kylie Logan’s League of Literary Ladies series . . .

AND THEN THERE WERE NUNS

Coming in early 2016 from Berkley Prime
Crime!

“There’s a penguin on my front porch.”

Truth be told, that statement doesn’t sound any less crazy to me now than it did that early spring morning when I muttered it through a fog of sleep.

But then, it had been a long and interesting night, and since I’d just rolled out of bed, I couldn’t really be certain that I was thinking straight.

I was pretty sure I wasn’t seeing straight.

Just to confirm this to myself, I brushed my long, dark hair away from my face and rubbed my eyes. Nothing changed. From the doorway of my private first-floor suite there at the B and B, I looked to my right and toward the foyer. There was a row of long, thin windows on either side of the front door and the glass in them was as old as
the house. Through those windows, the scene outside always looked as rippled as the waves that lapped against the Lake Erie shore beyond the tiny strip of rocks and grass just across the street.

Between the antique glass and the glare of the early morning sunshine reflecting off the lake, it was impossible to see clearly, but I knew this much—I’d come out of my bedroom to make a pot of coffee and I saw what looked like a penguin on my front porch.

Black head.

Torpedo-shaped body.

White at the front.

Outlined with black.

“Very large penguin,” I mumbled.

“What did you say? There’s a big peregrine on the porch?”

From back in my bedroom, Levi Kozlov sounded as sleepy and confused as I felt.

Yeah, that’s right, Levi, the guy I’d felt an instant attraction to the moment I met him. The one I swore I’d never get involved with because I’m convinced good relationships are all about honesty and for reasons I wasn’t ready to divulge to Levi or to anyone else, I couldn’t be honest.

We’d been dancing around our feelings, me and Levi, for months, taking two steps back for every one we took forward, weaving and bobbing and dodging every hint of intimacy like old pros.

That changed just hours before the penguin porch encounter.

Blame it on what I made the mistake of calling my “world-famous Bolognese” when I was chatting with Levi earlier in the week. Blame it on him for daring me to prove how good my pasta sauce was and me for taking him up on the challenge. Blame it on the fact that I didn’t have any guests staying at the B and B and on the soft glow of the candles on the dinner table and the dancing fire in the parlor fireplace. Heck, blame it on spring fever. Or just go ahead and blame it on plain ol’ stupidity. Whatever the reason—the alignment of the stars, the overwhelming power of passion, the weakness of human nature—we’d finally stopped sidestepping each other the night before and finished the dance.

And yes, just for the record, Levi is as good a dancer as I always imagined him to be.

All of which was incredibly exhilarating to remember.

None of which changed the fact that Levi and I had some serious talking to do.

After I took care of the penguin.

“Not a peregrine,” I told him. “It wouldn’t be weird to see a falcon on the island. This is a . . .” I had always prided myself on my good eyesight. In fact, I didn’t need the glasses I’d chosen to hide behind ever since coming to the island and I’d left them on the nightstand next to the bed. I leaned forward and squinted. “Penguin. Definitely a penguin.”

When Levi came up behind me, the temperature shot up a dozen degrees and my heartbeat quickened along with it. He wrapped his arms around my waist, propped his chin on my shoulder, and looked where I was looking, his bare chest brushing my terrycloth robe.

“It’s a nun,” he said.

A wave of memory washed over me like the slap of a cold Lake Erie wave and I groaned. “The nuns! The nuns are coming to the retreat center today. Elias told me . . .” I spun around and raced back into the bedroom, collecting the clothing we’d discarded in disarray hours earlier.

“Not my socks. Yours.” I’d already scooped them up off the floor and I tossed them to Levi and found my purple panties and bra, then pulled on jeans and a sweater in record time. My shoes were . . .

When I didn’t see them I settled for what I could find; I slipped my feet into the fuzzy bunny slippers next to the bed. “Elias Weatherly, the guy who runs the retreat center. He said the nuns were coming today.”

“Right.” Levi had a blanket wrapped around his waist and in the glow of the brilliant morning sun just peeking in my bedroom window, his chest looked as if it had been sculpted by an artist with a keen eye for both the gorgeous and the tempting. “You’re helping with the food.”

I raced to my 1930s-vintage dressing table and dropped down on the bench in front of it, the better to see myself in the mirror when I combed my fingers through my hair. “Yeah, but what I didn’t tell you was that he called yesterday to tell me his mother-in-law was really sick over on the mainland, and I promised I’d help with anything else he needed. The nuns must have just arrived. They must need something.” I whirled away from the mirror. “How do I look?”

A slow smile spread over Levi’s face. Have I mentioned tall, golden-haired, chiseled chin? Oh, what that smile did
to me! Before my heartbeat raced out of control and took my common sense along with it—again—I popped off the dressing table bench. I had every intention of heading for the front door. I would have done it, too, if my conscience didn’t pick that moment to prick.

“Look . . .” Feeling suddenly as awkward as I definitely hadn’t been all night long, I scraped one bunny slipper against the carpet and stabbed my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the front porch. “I need to take care of this. Then I’ll make that pot of coffee and some breakfast. We need to talk.”

He pursed his lips. “Talk. Sure. But not now.” Levi reached for his jeans. “Twelve years of Catholic school,” he said. “And I’m not about to let a nun know that we—”

“What?” My shoulders had already shot back before I could remind myself that the stance was altogether too confrontational. “You’re having regrets?”

His head came up. “That’s not what I said.”

It wasn’t and I knew it. Conscience, remember? And I could have kicked myself for letting mine get the best of what should have been a punch-drunk morning of simmering smiles and sizzling shared memories. Damn conscience!

“No, it’s not what you said,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think you’d be leaving so soon.”

“I’ve got a delivery coming in for the bar this morning so I really do need to get over there.” Levi sat on the bed to put his sneakers on. “But Bea . . .” He looked up at me through the honey-colored curl of hair that fell across his forehead. “You’re right. We do need to talk. There are a few things—”

The doorbell rang.

“Penguin at the door,” I said and heck, who cared if I was running away from whatever he was going to say to me or simply dodging what I knew I had to tell him? I spun around and raced out into the hallway.

With any luck, by the time I took care of the nun at my door, Levi would be out the back door and gone.

The thought stabbed at my heart and the memories of what had been a perfect night. Rather than dwell on it, I pasted on a smile, threw open the door, and came face-to-face with one of the most formidable-looking women I had ever seen.

I had been right about the body type. Stout and tapered. Like a hoagie sandwich. I had been right about the penguin similarities, too. The nun who stood at my door wore an old-fashioned habit, a black wool robe that touched the floor, and was covered by a panel of creamy white. She wore a very shiny silver crucifix over that. Her head was covered by a black veil; her face was framed with a stiff white contraption I knew was called a wimple that covered her forehead and her ears.

She had dark eyes, thick lips, and the kind of eagle-eye stare that my imagination told me had intimidated school children for decades.

“Good morning. I hope we didn’t wake you.” Her smile was bright enough to rival the morning sunshine and instantly, her forbidding face was transformed. If she was a teacher, I had no doubt she was a kind one. “I’m Sister Liliosa and this . . .” She waved a hand toward the stairway and for the first time, I realized there were two other nuns
waiting there, both of them wearing much the same kind of old-fashioned habit as Sister Liliosa. “Sister Mary Jean,” she said, gesturing toward a lean-faced, ruddy-cheeked nun. “Sister Gabriel.” This nun was far younger than the other two. She didn’t look at me when she was introduced. “And this is Sister Margaret.” That particular nun had been standing off to the side at the base of the porch stairs, checking out the daffodils just peeking their heads out of the front beds. Her dress was black, too, but shorter than the ones worn by the other sisters. Her veil was a simple square of black fabric, pinned back on her head to reveal a glimmer of silvery hair. She took the stairs carefully and stepped up to Sister Liliosa’s side.

“Elias Weatherly told us we could contact you if we needed help,” that sister told me.

“Of course!” I stepped back to allow the nuns into the B and B. They came inside and clustered in the foyer, Sister Liliosa nearest to me and the others lined against the wall. I closed the door behind them just in time to catch a glimpse of Levi’s black Jeep backing out of the driveway.

An inglorious finish to what had been a splendid night, and maybe I wouldn’t have felt so disappointed if I reminded myself that it was bound to end this way.

“The others who were with us on the ferry this morning have gone on to the retreat center,” Sister Liliosa informed me, shaking me out of my thoughts. “They rented golf carts down near the ferry dock. We thought . . .” The sister slipped a quick sidelong glance toward Sister Margaret, who, rheumy blue eyes wide, studied the stained-glass
window in shades of peacock, teal, and purple above the front door. “They dropped us here because we thought it might be best if we didn’t ride all the way in an open golf cart.” Another furtive look in Margaret’s direction. “You know, with the morning air being a little brisk. We didn’t want to take a chance of getting sick. Not when we’ve got such an exciting week ahead of us.”

I had no doubt “they” weren’t worried about anything at all except their elderly companion and I couldn’t blame them. Sister Margaret was short and so stick thin, I was sure a stiff southern breeze could have blown her clear across the lake to Canada.

“You stopped here because you need a ride to the retreat center.”

Sister Mary Jean grinned. “You’re reading our minds.”

“Could we be so bold as to ask?” Sister Liliosa asked. “Mr. Weatherly said we should contact you for anything we needed.”

“I have to go over there today anyway,” I told them, though I left out the part about how I’d been hoping it wouldn’t be until later, long after the time Levi and I might have done a little more of what we’d been doing the night before. “I can bring over the salads I made for your lunches and that will save me the drive over at noon. Elias asked me to help with the food,” I explained and headed into the kitchen for the salads that I’d already prepared and put in ten separate containers, one for each of the nuns who would be attending the week’s retreat. I loaded the salads into carry bags and added the extras I’d packaged: cheese and ham and turkey, pickled beets and chopped hard-boiled
egg and bacon bits, along with a variety of dressings. When I got back to the foyer, I put the tote bags on the floor and grabbed my jacket from the nearby coat tree. “Elias was called away. His mother-in-law is very sick. Over on the mainland. The house that’s being used as a retreat center—”