Happy first day of February! Today I’m so excited to start the month-long event celebrating Rafe and Juliet’s first Valentine’s Day dinner together.
In my debut romantic suspense novel Every Deep Desire (a contemporary retelling of Romeo and Juliet), ex-Green Beret Rafe returns to Juliet after having been gone for eight years. While she’s not happy he’s back, she’s desperate to understand why he left, why he’s returned, and why she’s in danger.
What Juliet learns, and what she must do to save Rafe, changes her forever. She starts the story out unable to rely on others and ends as a woman who’ll sacrifice anything for the people–the husband–she loves.
Valentine’s Day is significant because it was on that day, eight years earlier, that Juliet learned Rafe had disappeared: leaving her and his men behind.
Because this is a romance novel, there’s a happy ended-, including a June wedding. But this Valentine’s Day, their first a a newly-remarried couple, is special. And Rafe has come up with a plan to celebrate in a way Juliet will always remember.
Rafe: “It’s Valentine’s Day and it’s raining in Savannah. But it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the woman I’m waiting for in St. Julian’s alley. When my wife Juliet closes up her shop Juliet’s Lily and comes outside, I’m waiting–in the rain–with a bouquet of flowers.
She smiles, opens her umbrella, and covers both of us. She wonders why I’m there, getting wet, when our apartment is across the courtyard. I tell her I’m escorting her home because I have a surprise: I made dinner. She laughs and I tell her that not only is it true, it’s not macaroni and cheese or canned tomato soup.
We run across the courtyard, past the fountain, and hurry into our tiny apartment. While she changes, I pour her the first course of the night–a cocktail a buddy of mine who bartends in a local hotel named for her. Juliet’s Muddled Strawberry Cocktail.
When she comes out in a simple pink dress and bare feet, I hand her the very pink drink and we clink glasses. I toast to our past, which we’ve forgiven, and our future that’s filled with more hope and happiness than I deserve. She smiles, kisses me, and I remind her that is just the first course. The best is yet to come.”
Juliet’s Muddled Strawberry Cocktail
This is a lovely cocktail that is super easy to make. This drink recipe is cobbled together from drinks I've tried over the last few years, so it's kind of made up but it's still delicious. And it works best with the freshest strawberries.
Ingredients
- 3 ounces light rum
- 1 ounce pineapple rum
- 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
- 1 1/2 ounces simple syrup
- Dash grenadine
- 3 muddled strawberries
- crushed ice
- 2 whole strawberries for garnish
Instructions
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To muddle the strawberries, take off the stems and gently crush the strawberries in a small bowl until they become pasty.
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Mix all the ingredients with ice in a shaker. Shake for 30 seconds.
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Strain over two glasses, pouring slowly. Garnish with fresh strawberries.
