Deadly Sweet Dreams

by Connie Shelton

  “Have you ever written a plot about gaslighting?” She worked as they talked, kneading color paste into a ball of modeling chocolate, tinting it deep burgundy for the orchids that would adorn the top of the big cake.

  “Ah, the ever-popular theme of the evil lover manipulating the innocent heroine by convincing her she’s insane. Usually wanting her to be insane enough to hand over her vast fortune to him. Yes, actually, I’ve written one or two. Of course, I must always add the heroic-but-poor man who will step in to save her from such nefarious doings.” He picked up one of the small pearlized spheres Sam had made, the representation of champagne bubbles she would add between the swags, and popped it into his mouth. “Why? You looking for a good read that will keep you up at night?”

  Sam chuckled. “Not exactly.”

  “You know someone it’s happening to! Ohmygod, tell me more.” Rupert always was one to dish gossip, but Sam wasn’t about to name names.

  “I’ll only say that it appears it’s not always the innocent young girl and the despicable man.”

  “Role reversal—I love it. The male is the innocent and the female is predatory.” He picked up another of the champagne bubbles, waving his hand as he talked. “Not for my audience, most likely, but something to think about.”

  He rolled the candy around on his tongue. “Ahhh, wait a second. You want to know how the good guy stops the bad guy in these things. That’s it, right?”

  Sam tilted her head, not sure where he was going with this, but open to any ideas.

  “In a historical romance, I just throw in a duel or something and the cad gets run through or shot or shoved from a cliff … but I’m guessing those aren’t options in the present-day scenario.”

  “’Fraid not. But we’ll think of something.”

  He got a sly look. “So there is a we, and we are thinking of a plan …”

  Sam realized she’d said too much. “It’ll work itself out. I’m sure it will.”

  His wide shoulders slumped. “All right. But keep me in mind if a plan does develop. You know how good I am.”

  A vision popped into her head, one where Rupert had dressed her up as a wealthy art patron to fool the owner of a high-end gallery. His statement was correct—he was good at that sort of thing. “I’ll keep you in mind. Now quit eating all my champagne bubbles.”

  He laughed and pecked her forehead. “Happy decorating, love.”

  For the next two hours she lost herself in forming swirl-roses and the placement, one by one, of candy bubbles around the cake. The work nearly made her forget about the situation with her ranch hand.

  Chapter 10

  Sam stashed the finished wedding cake in the walk-in fridge, checked in quickly with Kelly to see how her day had gone (quietly, now that Scott was out of hibernation and was schooling Ana again), and headed home with the idea of making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

  She pulled off the highway and turned onto their long driveway, parking in front of the house as the two dogs raced from the barn area to greet her. Ranger, the Lab, was moving slower these days but he came to her and nuzzled his graying face against her leg. Nellie circled them both, then ran back to Danny, who was coming down the path with a basket in his hands. The dog led him straight to Sam.

  “Hey, Sam. Beau wanted to be sure these got safely to the house.” He waited a moment while she hitched the strap of her backpack over a shoulder, then handed her the fresh eggs.

  Several long scratches were visible on his left cheek.

  “Thanks for bringing these,” she said. “Everything okay? We saw Lila drive up to the casita late last night.”

  His hand automatically went to his face, confirming the source of the injury.

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t invite her. I would never have someone over late, when they might wake you up.”

  “We were just reading. No problem.” She stared out toward the pasture. “You said you tried blocking her number. Is that why she decided to come out here?”

  “I suppose so. She even went out and got a new sim card and called from a different number so I wouldn’t recognize hers. And the texts aren’t letting up at all. I told her we’re not getting married and she should leave Taos. That didn’t work.”

  “Did you talk to Beau about this? Or Sheriff Richards?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not the kind of thing a guy wants to mention to his boss.”

  Sam nodded. Beau had already told her the answer was to let Danny figure this out for himself. He wouldn’t ever interfere.

  “Well, you need to treat those scratches—they’re pretty inflamed. I’ve got some antibiotic ointment in the house. Hang on and I’ll grab it for you.”

  Inside, she set the egg basket on a side table and dropped her pack on the sofa before heading upstairs. The carved box sat on her bathroom vanity and she picked it up for a minute, hoping some brilliant idea would come to her, the exactly right thing to say to Danny. But although the box warmed slightly, no words of wisdom popped into her head. She set the box down and reached into a drawer for the tube of ointment.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to him when she got back to the porch. “A little bit of this, couple times a day, ought to keep that from getting infected.”

  “Thanks, Sam. Look, I’m sorry about all this. She won’t be coming out here again.”

  He dropped the tube into his shirt pocket, murmured something about finishing his chores, and turned away, thanking her again for the ointment. His eyes were downcast, his words soft, but she could see a distinct muddy orange aura around him. He was harboring a lot of anger.

  At least he said Lila wouldn’t be coming out here again. He must have been firm with his orders this time.

  * * *

  Over dinner, Beau was full of stories about the two new calves and how the two men had made a special pen inside the barn for them, so Sam tucked her concerns over Danny and Lila’s situation into the back of her mind. Beau was right—Danny would work this out somehow. But the orange aura surrounding him nagged at her. As the night grew silent, she found herself listening for the sound of a vehicle on the property.

  In the morning Sam decided to get an early start. She would drop by Kelly’s for a short visit before going back to the bakery to put the final touches on the champagne bubbles wedding cake. She tidied the kitchen and gathered her pack and coat before heading out into the bright, clear day.

  At the end of the driveway she spotted Danny’s truck making the turn onto the county road. A white sedan emerged from behind a huge chamisa bush and followed.

  “I don’t believe it.” Her first instinct was to race after them both—to warn Danny or stop Lila. But would she actually accomplish anything?

  Let them work it out, came Beau’s words.

  She backed her SUV around and headed out. Within a mile she was behind the two other vehicles, and the situation was eating at her again.

  Leave it, Sam. Just leave it.

  She made the right-hand turn toward the Victorian and concentrated on the winding road lined with winter-bare trees. The large blue-gray house loomed ahead and Sam turned in, finding Kelly in the spacious kitchen.

  “Hey there, want some coffee?” Kelly looked cozy in blue leggings and a thick cream-colored sweater. Eliza was lapping water from her bowl near the fridge.

  Sam waved away the coffee; she was already edgy enough.

  “So, what’s bugging you, Mom? I know that look.” Kelly held out a plate of cinnamon roll nuggets left from breakfast.

  Sam paced to the window above the sink. “Oh, it’s still about Danny and that girl. Two nights ago, she showed up late and today he’s got these scratches on his face.”

  Kelly stopped in mid-chew on her cinnamon roll. “So now the battle is getting physical?”

  “He didn’t inflict those scratches on himself.”

  “I wonder what he said or did …”

  Sam repeated what Danny had told her. “He doesn’t want to bring it up with
Beau or Evan. I guess that’s not considered manly.”

  “Beau would probably advise him to get a restraining order, but you don’t honestly think a piece of paper would stop her, do you?”

  Sam slumped against the counter. “No, not really.”

  “So, we just need Lila to fall out of love with him. If she simply didn’t care anymore, she’d go away, right?”

  “One could hope.”

  Kelly’s gaze went upward toward the ceiling. “I’ll bet our book has a love potion or two. It’s a universal thing …”

  “Um, we want her out of love, not falling harder.”

  “Right. But if there’s a potion, there must be an antidote. We already know she’s in love, so we make the antidote for that and—” Kelly looked at Sam. “What? It’ll totally work.”

  “Well … it could be the best way to get her to leave town. But we have to be sure it’s not going to harm her.”

  Eliza had sat on a chair, watching the whole conversation. Now, with a strident meow, she jumped down and ran toward the stairs, leading the way.

  Kelly put down the half-eaten piece of sweet roll and dusted her hands. “Come on, no time like the present. Scott’s got Ana out on a nature walk this morning—she’s probably going to be into advanced botany before we know it. Anyway, it’s the perfect time for us to play around in the attic and see what we can come up with.”

  Sam followed up the main staircase, toward the back of the house, and up to the third floor. What on earth am I getting myself into?

  Chapter 11

  Kelly pulled two stools up to the big wooden table in the center of the room, then brought the leather-bound book from the shelf. The cat jumped up to the table and watched in fascination. Kelly stared at the first page for a moment before remembering that she had to handle the wooden box before the rune-like characters would make sense. The lower sections of the bookcase were enclosed and one of those was equipped with a lock. She pulled a silver chain with a key from beneath her sweater and unlocked the door to it.

  Within moments of handling the box it began to glow and her hands began to feel warm. The cat’s orange ear twitched, then the black one.

  “Okay, that should help. Did you bring Virtu with you?”

  “No, sorry, I had no clue we’d be going in this direction.” Each of them could read the book, but only after handling her specific carved magic box. No other method had yet worked for them.

  “That’s fine. I’ll see what I can find.” Kelly laid the ancient book on the table and paged through it slowly, handling the old parchment carefully.

  From the beginning, when the book had been handed to Kelly by their quirky Romanian chocolatier friend, Bobul, the two women had noticed oddities about it. Unlike a normal book, this one didn’t appear to have been printed or bound in the usual way. Some pages were parchment, some appeared to be as thin as rice paper, some were yellowed with age, others crisp and much newer. And the edges had not been trimmed to match up. Smaller sheets were inserted at random places. Some larger pages extended slightly beyond the covers. And they’d yet to discover a table of contents or index.

  “I wish I’d taken more time with this,” Kelly mumbled. “I might have discovered if there was some rhyme or reason to the way it’s organized.”

  Sam smiled at her daughter’s fierce concentration. “There’s not a section called Relationship Problems?”

  “I wish.”

  “Okay, so let’s say we do discover some ‘anti-love’ potion … How will we get Lila to take it? I can’t see either of us approaching her with a vial, or her falling for the Drink Me label if we could leave it in her car.”

  “We have to find something she loves to eat and we’ll put it in that,” Kelly said, turning another page and staring at the writing on it.

  An idea flashed through Sam’s mind. “Jen met her. Lila stopped in at the bakery one day and Jen said she bought a triple-chocolate cupcake. Lila admitted she’s a real chocoholic.”

  Kelly looked up with a huge grin. “That’s it, then! We give her a spiked cupcake.”

  “Um, we need to think this through. She might trust me more with a cupcake than a vial, but what if she doesn’t?” Sam paced the length of the big, open space. “And we probably need to witness her eating it. What if she gave it to Danny? I mean, the guy couldn’t be much more not-in-love than he already is. A potion could take him from apathy to downright hatred and I wouldn’t want to see where that could lead.”

  “Hm, you’re right about that.” Kelly drummed her fingers on the table for a moment. “Well, we just have to hope that the potion recipe comes with directions.”

  Kelly was a fraction of the way into the book, and Sam could feel her bakery order calling. “Look, I’ll leave you to it. Call me when you find something, but don’t actually stir up anything on your own. Let’s do that part together.”

  “Right. First things first—we have to hope the ingredients are something we can actually get our hands on. If it requires eye of newt or shavings from a witch’s fingernails, I’m not sure what we’ll do.”

  “Meow,” said Eliza, tapping the open book with a white paw.

  Sam came around the table and gave her daughter a hug. “If we get lucky, Lila will just leave town on her own. But I’m not counting on that.”

  “Nope. That one’s like a bad rash.”

  Sam grinned. “Which, if we can’t find the potion we want, would be another avenue. We come up with something that gives Lila a miserable rash and she’ll leave Danny alone because she won’t want him to see it.”

  “Oh, Mom, you’re starting to think like your devious daughter.”

  * * *

  The bakery felt quiet when Sam arrived. Julio was pulling a tray of cupcakes from the big bake oven. Triple chocolate. She imagined the rich devil’s food cake, the molten center filling, and the decadent pile of chocolate buttercream frosting that would go on top. Which of those would provide the best cover for the potion? It would depend on the taste of the magical ingredients. The molten center could conceal the texture and flavor, but if the ingredients wouldn’t stand up to heat, it would have to go into the frosting. Besides, what part of a cupcake could no one resist—the icing!

  What am I thinking? This plan is so over the top—

  “Sam?”

  She snapped to attention. “Sorry, Julio?”

  “I asked if you wanted me to bring that wedding cake out of the cooler. I’m putting this inside.”

  “Oh, yes, please.” She hung up her coat, donned her bakery jacket, and washed her hands.

  The tall pink and burgundy cake was a confectioner’s delight, Sam had to admit. She didn’t remember whether Jen had suggested the champagne bubbles theme, or if that had been the customer’s idea, but they set off the draped fondant and the roses around the lower edge so well. All it needed now was a dusting of edible pearlized powder.

  Sam found a clean brush, similar to one from a makeup kit, large and fluffy. She dipped it in the pearlescent dust and tapped off the excess, then swished the brush over the clusters of little spheres she’d made yesterday. Instantly, they took on the glow of pearls, the iridescence of liquid bubbles. She stood back for a look, and decided the roses could benefit from a dewy glow as well. A few more flicks of the brush, and the cake was perfect.

  Becky stopped in the middle of her Easter bunny cookies. “Wow, Sam. That’s one of your best. It’s spectacular.”

  “It’s ready to go, whenever. The order says it needs to arrive at the church between three and five this afternoon.”

  “I’ll take it,” Becky offered. “I have two birthday cakes to deliver as well. One is done, and I’ll finish the other one right after lunch.”

  Sam walked to the sales room. Two women sat at one of the bistro tables, chatting and nursing cups of coffee. An empty plate with a few crumbs sat in front of each.

  “Busy breakfast and morning rush,” Jen said, bending to reach inside the display case. “We have a few muffi
ns left for the teatime crowd, and I’m about to add cheesecake and cupcakes as soon as Julio has them ready.”

  “He’s nearly there. Just took triple chocolates out of the oven, so as soon as they’ve cooled and Becky adds the frosting. Plus, she’s got more seasonal cookies decorated for the after-school kids.”

  “Good. We’ve kind of had a rush on triple chocolate this week. Not sure why.”

  “You mentioned a young woman a day or two ago … has she been back?”

  “Twice. She’s clearly addicted.”

  The door bells tinkled and an older man walked in, his eye on the last blueberry muffin. Sam left Jen to tend to the sale.

  So, Lila was hooked on the triple-chocolate cupcakes. Interesting.

  Sam’s phone vibrated in her pocket just as she reached the kitchen. Kelly.

  “Can you stop by on your way home? I think Eliza found us just the potion we need.”

  Chapter 12

  A small paper bag with the logo of Blue Sky Herbs & Things sat on the big table in the attic. The book of runes lay open beside it.

  “I had a small shopping list,” Kelly explained. She pulled two tiny bottles and a stick of incense from the bag. “To go along with these handy kitchen items.”

  “You said Eliza found the recipe?” Sam glanced at the window seat where the cat was licking one paw daintily. She walked over and rubbed the cat’s ears.

  “She was sitting on the table when you were here—remember? Well, when I turned around, she had laid down on the open book and her paw was pointing right to the spot.”

  “Good kitty,” Sam said.

  The cat flicked her head away from Sam’s hand.

  “I don’t think she likes ‘kitty’ much. She hissed at me the first time I called her that.”