The recipe for the toffee didn’t look too difficult. The ingredients, at least, were simple; butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract. All she had to do was mix them together in a saucepan over medium heat, then pour the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to cool. She read through the recipe again, beginning to feel more confident. This shouldn’t be that hard at all.
Making the toffee went smoothly for about ten minutes, until Winnie scratched at the door and whined to be let outside. Lilah gave the melted sugar and butter a quick stir, but the pan seemed to be taking a while to heat up, and she figured she’d be safe stepping away for a minute to let her dog outside.
When she got back, she found a congealed mess on the bottom of the pan. Disappointed, Lilah turned the burner off and brought the pan over to the garbage can before attempting to scrape the mess out. Despite her best efforts, a good portion of it remained stubbornly stuck to the bottom of the pan. Feeling like this was a sign that maybe she had bitten off more than she could chew, she filled the saucepan with warm water from the tap, squirted some dish soap into it, and put it in her sink to soak while she tried to tackle the toffee again.
This time, she stayed by the pan the entire time, stirring constantly until it was the right color. She shut off the burner, poured the mixture over the parchment paper, and put the tray in the fridge to cool.
When she checked on it again after scraping the last of the hardened sugar off of the first pot, it had solidified into a perfect tray of toffee. She broke off a small piece, popped it into her mouth and smiled. Despite her disastrous first attempt, it really hadn’t been that hard. She had learned her lesson; when the directions said to stir something constantly, chances were they meant it.
It was time to get to work on the cookies. It was a nice, cool, breezy day, so she opened all of her windows and turned the radio up before pulling the now familiar cookie ingredients out of the cupboard. Flour, brown sugar, white sugar, shortening… at heart, all cookies were similar. This part, mixing together wet and dry ingredients, she could practically do with her eyes closed. The recipe was very similar to the one for normal chocolate chip cookies, except for white chocolate chips and crushed toffee.
Twelve minutes later, the first, perfect-looking batch of cookies came out of the oven. While they cooled on a rack, she put the next batch in and cleaned up the kitchen. With a little bit of trepidation, she settled down at the kitchen table with a still-warm cookie and a glass of milk. If she had done something wrong and messed up the recipe somehow, then she would be out hours of work and a lot of expensive ingredients.
She took a bite out of the cookie, chewed slowly for a moment, then grinned. The cookie wasn’t bad at all. The homemade toffee made it work, she decided. Relieved, and feeling bolstered by her success, she finished her cookie, took the second batch out of the oven to cool, then went into the living room to see if there was anything good on the television.
She had only been relaxing for a few minutes before the sound of shouting made her sit up straighter and mute the made-for-TV drama that she had settled on. Looking toward her open window, she realized the sound was coming from Margie’s house.
Concerned, Lilah stood up and walked over to the window, leaning on the sill and peering out through the screen. Her friend’s window, directly across the yard from her, was open as well, and she could see her neighbor standing with her back to it.
“You’ve only known her two years, Margie, this is getting ridiculous!” The person shouting was out of sight, but Lilah was almost certain it was Eliza’s voice.
“She’s a good, true friend, and I don’t want to hear anything else about it,” Margie replied. She wasn’t shouting, but her voice was loud enough that it carried easily across the yard.
“She’s taking advantage of you. Not only of you, but of your children as well. What happens when she takes the money and vanishes, huh? Or even if she does open a cookie shop, what are you going to do when it inevitably fails, and she’s not able to pay you back? Don’t forget, that’s Robby’s inheritance that you’re playing with.”
“Robby has been nothing but supportive,” Margie said. “Are you sure it’s his inheritance you’re worried about?”
This was the closest that Lilah had ever heard her friend come to losing her temper. She knew she was eavesdropping, but despite the guilt she felt at overhearing a conversation that she obviously wasn’t meant to, she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Just because he hasn’t brought his concerns up with you, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any,” Eliza shot back. “How well do you really know this woman? Don’t you think it’s at all suspicious that she moved in to the house right next to you, and two years later she’s asking you for money? I don’t want to see you get taken advantage of, and I’m the bad person in all of this?”
“Eliza, I’ve told you already, she didn’t ask me for a dime. I offered to help her. This cookie shop is something I’ve always wanted to do myself. But I’ve never had the time or the courage to take the plunge. I’m more than happy to help her do this, and I have complete faith that Lilah’s going to be marvelous at running her own business.”
At this, Lilah was finally able to pull herself away from the window and slide it shut. She was touched beyond words that her friend had so much faith in her, and it just made her feel all the worse for listening in. She didn’t feel like she deserved the confidence that Margie seemed to have. When had she ever succeeded at anything in her life? Well, sure, she had gotten through college okay, and she hadn’t messed up horribly when she was working for her father, though she hadn’t enjoyed it. And she made an okay waitress. Other than that, well, she kept track of the years by her failures.
As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Eliza had a good point. There was no risk of her taking the money and running, of course, but what if something happened that was beyond her control and she was unable to pay Margie back? She knew that it was extremely likely for a small business to fail. In fact, she had read somewhere that most small businesses failed in the first five years. The cookie shop was a gamble. Could she really take that risk with someone else’s money?
Her phone rang, dragging her out of her thoughts. Pushing her doubts to the side, though she knew they would come back with a vengeance while she was lying in bed that night, she grabbed her cellphone from the coffee table. She felt a twinge of trepidation when she saw her mother’s number on the screen.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, throwing herself down on the couch.
“Lilah, it’s good to hear your voice. How are you doing?”
“Good. How’re you and dad?”
“Oh, fine.” Her mother gave a tinkling laugh. “Busy as usual. I got your email, dear, and I thought we should talk in person.”
Lilah sat up straighter at the words “in person.” She had regretted sending her mother an email about her plans for a cookie shop almost immediately after it left her outbox.
“I thought your father and I could come down for dinner and discuss your plan together,” her mother continued. “Are you free tomorrow night? I know it’s short notice, but one of his meetings got canceled, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be free to make the trip again.”
Her mind raced as she tried to think of an excuse good enough to get her out of dinner with her parents, but she couldn’t come up with anything. “Yeah, I’m free,” she said reluctantly.
“Wonderful,” her mother said. “We’ll pick you up at eight. You think of where you want to eat, all right?”
Lilah was in a daze as they said goodbye and hung up. She hadn’t seen her parents for almost a year. Spending time with them, especially with her father, was always stressful. She knew that she was a failure in their eyes, and always felt bad about disappointing them. She couldn’t imagine her father would have anything good to say about the cookie shop. Why, oh why, had she sent her mother that email?
She sighed and rested her head against the plush cushions of the couch. There
was one good thing about the fact that they were going to come to town on such short notice; at least she wouldn’t have long to dread their visit.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
Tasked with finding a nice place to eat dinner that evening, Lilah took advantage of the slow morning at the diner to read reviews of nearby restaurants on her phone. Vista was a small town, and wasn’t exactly crowded with places to eat. There was the diner, of course, a few fast food places scattered along Main Street, a pub, and an Asian restaurant that served everything from sweet-and-sour chicken, to Indian food, to sushi. None of them were what her parents would consider “nice,” so she widened her search to include nearby towns.
She finally found a place that looked promising. It was called the Vintage Grill, and seemed to have a wide enough variety of food to please all three of them, and the pictures on the website showed a nice, upscale restaurant.
When she got out of work, Lilah texted her mother the address, then turned her attention to her wardrobe. She hadn’t exactly had much of a reason to keep her closet stocked with the sorts of clothes that her parents would like. She had a few dresses that might have worked if it had been summer, but they wouldn’t fit with her mother’s sense of fall fashion.
“Well, I guess I need a new outfit for Thanksgiving, anyway,” she said to herself as she shut the closet door. “I might as well head into town and see what I can find.”
There was a nice consignment shop in town where she did most of her clothes shopping. She had found some unique items there over the past few years, and she loved how much variety they had compared to normal retail shops. She never knew what she was going to find when she walked in, but she was almost always pleasantly surprised.
Today was no exception. Just minutes after walking in, the perfect dress caught her eyes. It was dark blue, and fit her perfectly when she tried it on. It fell to her knees, and flared out when she spun in place for fun. Lilah smiled; there was no way her mother would be able to find anything to criticize about this simple, yet elegant dress.
Just in case her parents wanted to pop into her house before going to the restaurant, she also picked up some potpourri, good toilet paper, and a new light bulb for the fixture above the bathroom mirror for good measure.
When she got home, she spent a little bit of time tidying up, and pulled some of the cookies out of the freezer for good measure. If she had more time, she would have loved to bake fresh cookies for the smell, but at least the potpourri would make her kitchen smell like something other than the onion rings that she had heated up for lunch.
By the time she started getting dressed for dinner, her house was spotless and smelled strongly of cinnamon and nutmeg. Winnie and Oscar had both had nail trims, she had straightened up the pile of shoes in her front closet into something that almost looked organized, and she had pulled her nicest glasses to the front of the cupboard. The little yellow house didn’t look too bad at all, at least as far as she was concerned. It almost looked like she was doing well for herself.
She put on the blue dress, then spent a few minutes fiddling with her hair. Eventually she decided to just leave it down, but curled it for good measure. She dug the charm bracelet that her mother had given her years ago out of a drawer and put on the diamond necklace that her father had given her after her first promotion while she was working for him. Her relationship with her parents had been strained, to say the least, after she had very publicly quit her job at her father’s company. She felt no shame in wearing their gifts in a suck-up attempt. She had no idea how this dinner would go, or how they would respond to her plan to open the cookie shop, and she didn’t think it could hurt to do what she could to tweak the odds in her favor.
Despite her misgivings, she met her parents at the door with a smile, and invited them inside. She hugged her mother, whom she had always been closer to, and after a moment’s awkwardness shook her father’s hand.
“I forgot what this place looked like,” her mother said, peering around the kitchen. “It’s cozy. I wish you’d have me over more, dear. I know your father’s busy a lot, but I’m only an hour away and I’d be happy to drive down here for the weekend sometime.”
“I know, Mom, I’ve just been so busy lately,” Lilah said. It was even true; she’d spent almost a month working two jobs, and only rarely had time free.
“You’re so like your father,” her mother said with a sigh. “Anyway, where is your bathroom?”
Lilah gave her directions, then turned to face her father. He was a dignified looking man in his late sixties. His hair was steel grey, and his build strong despite his age. He had always been so busy with work that they’d never really had time to bond when she was a child, and she had always found him slightly intimidating. That hadn’t changed. Right now, he was looking at her with his brow creased in a frown. Not a good sign.
“Do you want a cookie?” she asked, gesturing to the small plate of maple brown sugar and white chocolate toffee cookies that she had brought out.
“Maybe after dinner,” he said, not glancing at them. “You know how your mother feels about having dessert first.”
Neither of them said anything after that. The tension in the room lessened only slightly when Lilah’s mother reappeared and announced that she was ready to go.
The Vintage Grill was everything that Lilah had hoped when she chose it, and then some. She was relieved that at least one thing was going right this evening. Certainly, her father would be more inclined to forgive her for whatever she had done to earn his displeasure this time over some good, hearty, southern-style food.
She and her mother made small talk while they waited for the waitress to bring them their drink orders. Lilah was just beginning to think that the evening would go better than she expected, when her father cleared his throat and put his menu down.
“When your mother showed me that email you sent her, I was very concerned,” he said. “You aren’t serious about this cookie business, are you?”
“Well, yes, I am,” she said. “But there’s no need for you to be concerned. I’m not asking you for money—”
“That’s one of my concerns, Lilah. You told your mother you’re borrowing the funds from a friend. That’s a recipe for disaster, and I hope you know that. Have you considered what would happen if you have a disagreement? What if she wants more control over the company than you’re willing to give her?” He shook his head. “You would have been better off coming to us for a loan, or better yet, come work for me again if you’re so eager to jump back into the business world that you, quote, ‘hate with a passion’.”
“I’ve already apologized for saying that, Dad,” she said. She was disappointed, but not surprised. Ever since she had quit her job at his company, he had thrown her parting words back into her face every chance that he got. “I don’t think it’s fair to compare opening a small store to sell cookies with a high-stress corporate job.”
“It may seem different to you, but they’re in the same world. The same principles apply. It’s business, Lilah. It’s not going to be a walk in the park.”
“I’m not expecting it to be,” she said. “Why are you so upset? I thought you’d be glad that your daughter was finally doing something serious with her life.”
“I don’t consider opening a cookie store in a tiny town that isn’t even a dot on the map to be ‘doing something’ with your life,” he said, the frown line between his brows returning even deeper than before. “You have never had realistic expectations. Look at how you bounced from job to job after you left the company. Do you know how many times your mom’s told me that you’d found your new career path, only to hear from you again a few weeks later when you were back working as a waitress in that grease trap? This won’t be any different.”
“It will be different —”
He cut her off. “You’re right, there is a difference. This time, you’re wasting someone else’s time and money, not just your own.”
Lilah didn�
��t have a reply to that. He had touched right upon the heart of her concerns, and she knew that he was right. It was reckless and selfish of her to risk Margie’s money on the cookie shop.
“Look,” he said with a sigh, “if you want to get back into the business world, I’d be happy to hire you back into the company. You can start at the same salary you were at before, and I’d be surprised if you didn’t get a promotion within a year. We can forget about these last few years. I’d be willing to consider them a sort of mid-life crisis on your part.”
“I don’t want to work for you again,” Lilah said, her tone more hollow than argumentative. “I’m sorry, Dad. I wish you approved of this, but I’m going to do it with or without your blessing.”
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
Lilah’s mood was dark for the rest of the evening. She sent her mother, who was refusing to take sides in this renewed schism between father and daughter, home with a container of cookies, and bid them both an icy goodbye in her driveway. Then she retired inside, prepared to watch television for the rest of the evening, with Winnie curled up next to her, Oscar on the chair across the room, and a mug of warm cider in one hand and cookie in the other.
Despite her best efforts at spoiling herself, her mood didn’t improve any until she got a call from Reid. He told her the first bit of good news that she’d heard all day.
“I just heard about another building that’s going to go up for sale,” he told her. “Since we don’t know what the deal is with the sandwich shop yet, well, I thought you might want to take a look.”
“I do,” she said, sitting up straighter. “Where is it?”
“On Crest Drive,” he told her, naming a side street in town. “So the location isn’t as ideal as Pete’s place, but it doesn’t look like a bad little shop from the outside. On the plus side, the guy who’s selling it contracts out to the machine shop. I’m sure he’ll give you a good deal, especially if I go to look at it with you.”
Killer Maple Cookies: Book 3 in Killer Cookie Cozy Mysteries Page 4