A Pizza to Die For Read Online Free PDF

I took care of the dishes as soon as you left.”
    “Not with that,” Josh said. “We’re talking about the new pizza place.”
    “I can’t believe you bothered him with this before he even came to work, Greg.”
    “He didn’t have to,” Josh said between bites. “I heard about it on the radio.”
    “He’s advertising?” I asked, unable to believe he could afford to, in such a small market.
    “Oh, yes. It’s a regular media blitz. You’ve got to do something about it, Eleanor. This guy is not fooling around.”
    “That’s what we told her,” Greg chimed in.
    “Go ahead. One of you come up with a plan. I’m listening,” I said.
    “We’re one step ahead of you,” Greg said. “Josh and I are going to stand in front of his restaurant when he opens and block people from going in.”
    I looked at Josh for a second before I trusted myself to speak. “And you don’t think your father will have a problem with you doing that, what with him being the chief of police and all?”
    “What’s he going to do, lock me up?” he asked with a grin. “Mom would never forgive him.”
    “I can’t say anything about that, but we all know that your father will find a way to blame me for it.” I had to get their attention. As I looked at each of them in turn, I said, “Let me be perfectly clear. There will be no human barricades or demonstrations of any kind anywhere near Italia’s. We need to attack this problem with a positive response, not a negative one. Do we understand each other?”
    They both said that they did, and I only hoped it was true. At the very least, if they disobeyed me now, they couldn’t claim ignorance.
    “Good,” I said. “I’m glad we got that settled. Now, does anyone have any ideas about what we can do to make sure our customers keep coming here instead of going there?”
    “We could always cut prices,” Josh said.
    “Only if we’re all willing to work for free,” I said. “Our margins here are pretty slim as it is. It wouldn’t take much for us to win the battle by selling more pizzas and end up losing the war by being forced to shut down.”
    “Forget about price cuts,” Maddy said. “How about doing some kind of giveaway? We can put a ticket on the bottom of every large pizza pan and takeout box, and at the end of the week, we have a big drawing to see who wins.”
    “What’s the prize going to be?” I asked, intrigued by the concept, but not sure how much foot traffic it would generate.
    She smiled at me. “We could always give away a date with the owner.”
    “I don’t think so,” I said. Since David Quinton had left town to live in Raleigh, potential beaus weren’t exactly lining up to take his place. I couldn’t really blame them. There were folks in town whispering behind my back that I’d driven him off by refusing to date him, and I wasn’t so sure they were wrong. I’d tried my best, but the memory of my late husband, Joe, was still so strong in my heart that I doubted I’d ever be able to let anyone else in.
    I decided to turn the tables on my sister. “We could give a date away with you, instead.”
    “I’m not sure how Bob Lemon would feel about that,” Greg said.
    Maddy smiled at him. “Are you kidding? He’d be good for ten pizzas every night. That alone might be enough to get us solidly in the black.”
    I’d had enough of that particular topic. “Nobody’s going out with anyone as a prize in a drawing. There’s got to be something else we could give away. How about a free pizza to the winner?”
    Maddy arched an eyebrow. “That’s not exactly a big incentive, is it?”
    “You come up with something, then.”
    “I have an idea,” Josh said.
    “Does it require any of us to go out on a forced date?” I asked.
    “No.”
    “Then at least you’ve got my attention.”
    “We could name a pizza after the winner for a week, like Bob’s Specialty Pizza. Then, the next week, we’ll have a new drawing and do it again.”
    “Do you