Warming Trend Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    Covers pulled up around her ears, arms wrapped tight around a pillow—none of it helped. Cold to her core, she was still shivering when she finally fell asleep.
     

Chapter 2
    Eve Cambra didn’t want to wake up, but her brain was already telling her she had to. Tonk, nudging her hand with his wet nose, was telling her the same thing.
    “Stop it, dog.” She swallowed several times to ease her dry throat, then opened one eye. The alarm clock had gone off, and Tonk was regarding her with concern. “I’m awake. You don’t have to breathe on me.”
    For an answer Tonk gave her fingers one last nuzzle, then subsided with a sighing moan to his cushion. For a Newfoundland, nine was well past middle age, but he still did his job, which was looking out for her. She leaned out of the bed to tickle Tonk’s ears and was rewarded with a pleased sigh.
    Naps in mid-afternoon always left her feeling thick-headed, especially when the sun was up. In July, midsummer, the sun was always up. She made herself take a shower, loathing the shock to her system, but she wouldn’t get a chance later. She had to stay up late tonight and work her last catering commitment for a Fourth of July wedding, booked six months ago. She was a restaurateur now, and a successful one. It had said so in the paper.
    Tonk followed her from the bright whites and greens of her bedroom to the big kitchen where more sunshine streamed in, illuminating every nick in the pine floors and counters. Now that she had the restaurant, she would no longer need the large appliances and workhorse pots and pans, and having the wood surfaces sanded and refinished was high on her list of things to do once the Dragonfly provided a little more excess income.
    After brewing a more than decent cup of tea, she set about washing and chopping spinach and buttering phyllo for spanakopita triangles. Two assistants would arrive in the next hour to do the last of the assembly. At the reception hall they’d do the final touches, like searing tuna and toasting hors d’oeuvres.
    Earpiece firmly in place, she cued up a call to the restaurant. “Hey Neeka how is everyone doing?”
    “Boss, we’re fine. Did you get a nap?”
    “Yes, I got a nap. Now I’m cooking.”
    “Did you need something?”
    Eve could picture Neeka leaning over the big stove, looking peeved at the interruption. “Just reassurance.”
    “Consider yourself reassured. There weren’t enough apples for the whole dinner service, so I changed the special to cobbler with ice cream, and we’ll serve eighteen slices out of a pan instead of twelve.”
    “Oh. Do we have enough ice cream?”
    “I checked. Yes.”
    Eve hated not making decisions like that, but she was trying to learn good management. Neeka had made the right move. “That sounds fine, then. Thank you for adapting.”
    Neeka seemed mollified that Eve hadn’t called up to criticize her abilities. “John Russ rang about the rhubarb. Thinks it’ll come in middle of next week.”
    “Fantastic. What did he say about his summer squash?”
    Neeka filled Eve in on what appeared to have been a long, chatty exchange with an owner of one of the series of greenhouse farms located in the fifteen miles that separated North Pole from Fairbanks. The growers’ close and cooperative nurturing of their resources kept the area supplied year-round with produce, eggs and goats’ milk. After finishing the chat with Neeka, Eve unwrapped a chub of fresh goat cheese from Delaney Farms. She inhaled the sharp tang and tasted a sliver. Dandy. She happily divided it up for hors d’oeuvres, salad dressing and an artisan cheese and fruit plate.
    She paused in her prep work long enough to write down a reminder to check back with the woman who had been trying to launch a chocolate wholesale business. Middle of winter, when it was averaging twenty-below, Eve was hoping the Dragonfly was on everyone’s mind for the most incredible hot chocolate they’d ever had, along with a slice