Sweet Haven

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Exactly.”

  “Now I’m really curious.” He stepped over the dog, moving into Adeline’s space because she was there, and he was, and that smile made him think of all the things he was missing being a bachelor, all the things he’d enjoyed about being part of a couple.

  “So tell me, Adeline,” he murmured, his hands settling on her shoulders, his thumbs sliding along the silky column of her neck. “What are people saying about me?”

  “It would take me an hour to cover everything.” She ducked away from his hands, her cheeks bright red. “Neither of us has the time for that.”

  “I could make the time.”

  “I couldn’t. I have a dozen things to finish tonight. Tiny,” she called to the dog as she half ran to the front door, “we need to go.”

  The dog stayed right where he was, belly up, tail thumping.

  “Tiny!” She tried again, her cheeks still blazing, her gaze darting from the dog, to the floor, to the couch. Everywhere in the room except for Sinclair.

  “You can leave him here,” he said, and she finally met his eyes.

  “He’ll drive you crazy.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And Janelle—”

  “Do you really care what Janelle thinks?” He took a step toward her, smiling as she backed away. “There’s no need to be nervous, Adeline.”

  “Who says I’m nervous?”

  “If you back up any further, you’re going to go through the door.”

  “Look, Sinclair,” she said, swiping a stray piece of hair off her cheek, “I’m going to be blunt. I don’t have time for chitchat, and I don’t have time for games.”

  “What games?”

  “The kind where you look at me like I’m a glossy piece of Lamont family fudge, and you’re a starving man. The kind where you tell me all kinds of things that I want to hear because you’re hoping to get something that I’m not going to give.”

  “If I were going to tell you things you wanted to hear, I wouldn’t be talking about your mother or your dog. I’d be talking about the way your hair looks in the moonlight or the way your eyes glow when you’re smiling. I’d be telling you that there aren’t many women who’d take over a chocolate shop for their grandfather or wear an ugly orange dress for their grandmother’s friend.”

  “There are plenty of women who’d do both those things,” she countered, but he wasn’t in the mood for a debate. He wasn’t really in the mood for a conversation. He’d been in Benevolence for too long, listening to Gavin for too many hours at a time. He was starting to feel antsy, and that wasn’t a good thing. Not when a woman like Adeline was standing in front of him.

  “That’s not the point, Adeline,” he responded. “The point is, I’m not into chitchat, and I’m not into games. If I were, I’d be doing more than thinking about kissing you.”

  That was it.

  She was off like a shot, opening the door and racing out onto the landing, calling to Tiny as she went.

  The dog didn’t respond.

  Not a surprise. The mutt had a mind of his own.

  Sinclair could have followed Adeline, but there wasn’t much to add to what had already been said. He didn’t play games, and he didn’t do chitchat. And he did want to taste her lips, feel her smooth skin under his palms.

  He wasn’t going to act on either thing, because Adeline didn’t seem like the kind of woman who’d be happy for a week or two, and he wasn’t the kind of guy who planned to give more than that.

  The dog whined as he closed the door.

  “You made your choice, Tiny,” he muttered, dropping into the chair and eyeing the pile of photos and the computer file. “So have I. Now we’re both stuck with it.”

  Tiny lumbered across the room and dropped down next to Sinclair’s feet.

  He ignored the dog the same way he was ignoring the voice inside his head that was telling him to go downstairs, walk into Chocolate Haven’s kitchen, and show Adeline just exactly what would happen if either of them was willing to take a little time out for games.

  Chapter Seven

  Three dozen chocolate favors complete. Thirty-eight dozen plus to go. Adeline carefully slid a box onto the pantry shelf she’d cleared, peeking inside it to make sure the favors were as pretty as they’d been when she’d packed them.

  They were perfect.

  That should have been enough to make her smile, but her legs hurt from her run, her knees hurt from her fall, and Tiny was still upstairs with Sinclair. That situation had some positives. First, Tiny wasn’t home alone. Second, he wasn’t wandering around the neighborhood getting into trouble. Third, Sandy had been so relieved when Adeline called to tell her that she’d found Tiny, that she’d promised to watch him the next time her husband was out of town.

  Those were all good things.

  Great even.

  On the flip side, at some point Adeline was going to have to retrieve the puppy. That would mean facing Sinclair, and that wasn’t something she was in the mood to do.

  Not that she didn’t like Sinclair. She did. That was the problem. She liked him enough that like could turn to something else if she let it. A few more smiles, a few more heated glances, one more second of his thumbs sliding along her skin, and she’d be chasing after him the same way she’d chased after Adam a hundred eons ago. She knew exactly how that would turn out.

  She wasn’t going there.

  Not in a million years.

  She stalked back into the kitchen, eyed the tempered milk chocolate that she’d left on the counter. It looked gorgeous—silky and smooth and creamy. She didn’t taste it. Just poured it into molds that had already been piped with dark chocolate, set the timer for the molds, and left the lot sitting where it was. She’d learned from trial and error that messing with the molds after she poured the chocolate led to disaster.

  She flipped through Granddad’s clipboard, checking the list of candies that she had to make for the following day, then compared it to a dozen online orders that had come in and needed to be filled. How Byron had managed to keep the place running on his own, she didn’t know. As far as she could see, Chocolate Haven was a multi-employee business.

  Maybe she should have realized that before her grandfather ended up in the hospital.

  She frowned. She’d never thought of herself as selfish or self-absorbed. Maybe she’d just been blind to what was going on right in front of her face. After all, she’d been stopping in at Chocolate Haven every Monday and Thursday for as long as she could remember, and even in the days leading up to Byron’s fall she hadn’t noticed him being anything other than cheerful and happy. Overwhelmed? She’d have said he wasn’t. Not even a bit. But Byron was a proud man. He probably wouldn’t have admitted to being overwhelmed even if he was.

  She measured sugar into a large pot, added butter, and started melting it down. The recipe card for caramel nougat was in the box on the counter. She didn’t have to pull it out. She’d made the candies dozens of times since her grandfather’s accident. It had taken a few trial runs to get it right, but she’d finally gotten the hang of it. She watched as the sugar bubbled and turned a beautiful deep brown.

  Someone knocked on the front door as she added marshmallow fluff to the caramel, then folded it in with chopped peanuts and vanilla that she’d made from her grandmother’s recipe book—vodka and vanilla bean. Simple as could be, but more flavorful than store-bought.

  Whoever it was knocked again. She ignored the summons. The shop was closed. Anyone who was anyone who knew or needed her would come around to the back and walk in.

  She had dozens of small cupcake wrappers sitting on trays, and she pulled on disposable gloves and scooped nougat out of the pan with a tiny melon baller. She smoothed it with her palms, dropped it into the white wrapper. She’d have three dozen when she finished.

  Someone pounded on the back door, and she screamed, nearly dropping the nougat ball she was smoothing.

  “Hold on!” she shouted, setting the ball into a w
rapper and tossing the gloves into the trash. It couldn’t be May or Janelle. Both would have walked in without knocking. She doubted it was Sinclair. He’d have knocked on the back door first rather than walking around to the front.

  She opened the door, expecting to see someone she knew. Maybe a friend who’d stopped in to say hello or a customer hoping to buy some chocolate after hours. Instead she saw a teenage boy, his dark hair hanging to his shoulders, his gaze direct. She didn’t recognize him, and that surprised her. She was familiar with most of the families in Benevolence, knew most of the people by name who lived there. Those whose names she didn’t know, she could have easily picked out of a lineup.

  This kid, though, was a complete stranger.

  She hadn’t ever seen him before, and that made her nervous. Sure, strangers came to Benevolence. The town had a pretty healthy tourist season. This wasn’t it. Even if it had been, most tourists wouldn’t knock on a closed shop door.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, doing her best to look relaxed and unintimidated. Not that the kid was trying to be intimidating. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt, his hands hanging limp at his sides, his jacket a few inches too short in the sleeves. His khaki pants were short too, just barely touching the top of his scuffed dress shoes.

  “I saw your sign,” the kid said, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down beneath the buttoned collar of a wrinkled button-down shirt.

  “My sign?”

  “About needing help,” he said quietly. He had a deep voice for how young he looked, and a direct gaze that made her think that maybe she’d misjudged his age.

  “You’re looking for a job?” She hadn’t planned to sound so surprised, but that’s how the words came out. Like the poor kid didn’t look like he had any business inquiring about a sign she’d posted for the public to see.

  To his credit, his gaze never wavered. “Yes, ma’am. I am.”

  “Do you have experience in the kitchen?”

  “I cooked for my mom when she was sick. Other than that, no.”

  It was an honest answer, and she appreciated that.

  If he’d been one of the local teens, maybe one of the kids who came in after school to buy a couple bucks’ worth of sweets for his girlfriend, she’d have had him fill out an application. She could train someone who was willing to learn. God knew she’d been training herself for the past few weeks!

  This kid wasn’t someone she knew, though. She had no idea where he’d come from or how he’d happened upon her HELP WANTED sign. “Any paid work experience?”

  “I was a busser at Denny’s in Houston. I can give you the manager’s contact information for a reference.”

  “Houston is a long way from here,” she pointed out as if either of them could have any doubt about that.

  “My mom died a couple of months ago. I didn’t have any other family in Houston, so I decided to spend some time with my dad. He lives in Ellensburg. I packed everything I had and drove there, but Dad and I don’t see things the same way, and I decided to head back to Houston.”

  It was a pat answer, a rehearsed one, and for the first time since she’d opened the door, he glanced away.

  “You’re young to be driving across the country alone.” She knew she should send him on his way. He had no experience and his story seemed too pat, but it was freezing out and he was standing there in his too-short pants and lightweight jacket, and she couldn’t make herself tell him to go.

  “I’m eighteen, ma’am. Nineteen in a month.” He pulled a wallet from his pocket, opened it so that she could see his driver’s license. The photo was obviously him, the birthdate matching what he’d said.

  “Well, Chase Lyons,” she said, reading his name off the license. “You sure look young.”

  He cocked his head to the side, studied her for a moment. “So do you, but you’re running this shop.”

  “It’s my grandfather’s shop. I’m just filling in while he recovers from an injury.”

  “Doesn’t matter whose shop it is, ma’am. I still need a job, and you’re still looking for help. I don’t know anything about chocolate except how to eat it, but I’m a quick study.”

  “How long are you planning to stay in Benevolence?”

  “Long enough to earn the money to put a new carburetor in my Corvette so I can get back to Houston.”

  “You have a Corvette?”

  “Nineteen seventy-four.” For the first time since she opened the door, he smiled. “Belonged to my grandfather. He gave it to my mom before he passed. She gave it to me before . . .” He shook his head, the smile fading. “Anyway, the carburetor is shot. I made it to the campsite outside of town. You know it?”

  “Sun Valley?” The place had been around since the fifties and attracted RV enthusiasts year-round, the two-thousand-acre campground was the perfect place for travelers to park for a night or two.

  “I guess. I was too busy pushing the Corvette to pay much attention to the sign. The guy who owns it is letting me park in the lot until I can get the car fixed. Should only cost me a few hundred bucks.”

  “It won’t take you long to earn that amount, and I need help until my grandfather is able to return.” That was the perfect excuse to send Chase away, and she latched onto it.

  “I’ll need money for gas too, ma’am. And food.”

  “There are a few other places in town that are hiring. They could probably use you for a week or two.”

  “I put in an application at the hardware store this afternoon, but the owner didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about hiring a stranger. Same for the gas station. They need a janitor, but they said they’ve got plenty of local high school kids applying.” His teeth chattered, and he tugged the edges of his jacket together.

  She almost told him to zip it up, but then she realized the zipper was broken, the fabric threadbare. There was a tiny rip in the shoulder that had been patched with large stitches.

  It reminded her of Marvin Smith’s jacket. The one his wife, Millie, hated with a passion and was constantly threatening to toss. Only Marvin’s jacket had a rip in the right cuff.

  She eyed Chase’s cuff, saw the rip in it. For a moment, she had a clear image of the teen climbing into Dumpsters, trying to find clothes that would work for a job interview. It made her heart hurt, made her want to drag him inside, feed him a hot meal, offer him enough money to get him back where he was going.

  She pushed the image away, because she knew what she shouldn’t do. She shouldn’t make him another one of her projects.

  “There are a lot of kids who need jobs,” she managed to say.

  “Have they applied here?”

  “Not yet, but I’m sure they will once they hear about the job opening.”

  He nodded, his shoulders slumping. “I can’t suddenly become a local, ma’am, but I can promise you this: If you hire me, I’ll stick around until your granddad is back. If that means staying for a few months, I’ll stay.” He shivered again, and she couldn’t take it any longer. She stepped aside and motioned for him to come in.

  “How about I make some hot chocolate, and we discuss it?”

  “I’m here to apply for the job, not ask for charity.”

  “You’re not asking for anything. I’m offering you something hot to drink because it’s the polite thing to do, and because my mother raised me to be that way.”

  “My mother raised me to pay my own way. If I drink your hot chocolate—”

  “Chase,” she said, cutting him off, “it isn’t charity to take a cup of hot chocolate that someone offers you. Now, go on in the service area. Sit at one of the tables. I’ll have the hot chocolate for you in a few minutes.”

  “I could do that,” he responded, pulling his hair into a ponytail and grabbing a hairnet from a box near the sink. “Or I could help you finish these things.” He gestured to the caramel nougats. “Looks like the mix will harden if it’s not shaped soon.”

  “It will, but I can make another batch.”

  “That
would be a waste of good ingredients, ma’am,” he responded as he scrubbed his hands, put on a pair of disposable gloves, and scooped nougat with the melon baller. “And that doesn’t make any kind of business sense.”

  He was right about that.

  She kept an eye on him as she set a small pot on the stove and poured milk into it. She let it simmer while she melted a couple squares of dark chocolate, mixed it into the milk, scooped in some sugar, and stirred. It smelled good. Maybe even great. She wasn’t drinking it, though. She had a dress to fit into, and she was getting closer to achieving that goal.

  She glanced at the whiteboard. She’d rewritten the note about losing weight, and she imagined crossing that off the list. It was enough to make her smile, and if Chase hadn’t been standing beside her, she might have hummed a few measures of “What a Wonderful World.”

  She grabbed Byron’s lunch thermos, poured the chocolate into it. “Here you are,” she said, handing it to Chase.

  “Thank you.” He set the thermos on the counter and went back to work, scooping up the last of the nougat and placing it into a wrapper.

  “There! Finished!” he said triumphantly, his smile so broad and sincere that Addie couldn’t help smiling in return.

  “They look great.”

  “Where do you want me to put them?”

  “The display case out front. This is part of tomorrow’s inventory.” She lifted one of the trays and led the way into the service area.

  It didn’t take long to fill the case. It took her even less time to decide to give Chase a chance. She needed help. He needed money. It seemed like a win-win situation to her.

  “That’s it,” she said as she placed the last nougat in the case. “Now, how about we sit down and talk for a minute?”

  “You’re interviewing me for the job?”

  “I am.”

  “That’s awesome, Ms. . . . ?”

  “Lamont.” She gestured to one of the wrought-iron tables that had been in the shop since its doors opened. “Go ahead and have a seat. I’ll get the application from the office.”

  “Can I fill it out and bring it back?” he asked, glancing at his watch.