by Maddie James
But not this girl. Not Jillian Bass.
She glanced around her small shop and smiled. It was old. Victorian. Needed some maintenance and would be hell on upkeep. But it was hers, and she loved it. Every old, time-polished, and well-worn inch of it.
A foreign and extremely welcome bubble of happiness burst up inside her.
Happy. That was it. She was happy for the first time in years.
“Thank you, Grandma Jean,” she whispered, looking up toward the heavens.
But a little bit of trepidation tripped across her tummy too. It wasn’t easy to make it in small towns. The economy was a factor, of course. But small towns are cliquish, hard to break into, and have barriers up miles deep.
A little worried that she had rushed the opening, she prayed that she hadn’t. This weekend was the downtown merchant open house, and she’d worked like hell to get things ready for that single event. Since Legend was so close to the Smoky Mountains, the event—according to the local Chamber of Commerce web site—brought in tons of tourists each year to the town. It was a huge marketing strategy for the little town, and she wanted in on it this year.
Only a couple of factors might get in her way. For one, the candy-making equipment was not all here yet, and there was no way, even if it was, that she could get set up, hire employees, and start production before the weekend. Today was Wednesday already! She had designed her own label, Chocolates by Jillian, even though she was using her grandmother’s recipes and techniques. Her grandmother had specialized in hand-rolled, hand-dipped, high-end Belgian chocolate truffles...and Jillian? Well, she would do the same. It was what she knew, and it was tried and true.
And it was a good beginning. She could branch off later, right?
Different from her grandmother, she wanted these chocolates made right here in Legend.
Her grandmother had started off small, but her name and the company grew by leaps and bounds, to where the chocolates were only available in fine stores and by mail-order.
Jillian wanted the small shop feel to sell her wares, and Bittersweets was the best place for her to test the market.
Eventually, she would experiment and tweak the recipes to find her place in the chocolate world—she had an idea about a signature flavor just for the mountains—but until then she was going with Grandma’s finest because that’s what would draw the customers in.
And she was nearly ready. She’d had Robert, her manager, create a batch with her new signature label on it to ship down by Friday for the open house. She might not have her candy making supplies here yet, but she could improvise. And, they were ready to take orders for shipping if the opportunities arose.
All she needed was the truffles to arrive here by Friday, then she’d be set.
And two? The damned ankle was giving her fits. She’d gone to a doctor this afternoon—broke a little bone in the arch of her foot, he’d said—and he’d prescribed her one of those lovely boots. Lovely, indeed. But she would wear it from now until Saturday in the hopes that on that day, she could wear cute shoes while she was giving out chocolates on the street.
Sighing, she picked up her purse and her paperwork and hobbled for the door with said lovely boot. Time to lock up and get upstairs to her apartment. Tomorrow would come early.
Turning, she looked back over her little domain. It was falling into place, wasn’t it? She thought of Sydney and Suzie. Had she gotten over one barrier today? Attempting friendship with the two local foodie divas?
She sure as hell hoped so. She didn’t want either of those ladies as her enemy.
Chapter Three
Three days of peace and quiet. Could life get any better?
He’d fished, slept late, and eaten himself into oblivion. Every morning he woke to make the short trek to the Lodge and a huge country breakfast fit for a king. He’d hang out with Brad for a while, talk shop some but mostly not, and then stroll back to his cabin for a relaxing spell in the open-air hot-tub, followed by a nap, maybe read a book, and then he’d walk back to the
Lodge for dinner.
Life was good.
And boring. He was ready for a little more action.
Leaning back against the countertop, he watched Brad supervise a couple of his sous-chefs prepping for dinner. “So besides fishing, what else is there to do around here, bro. I think I’m up for a little more now.”
Brad glanced his way, right eyebrow arched. “Oh? I thought this two weeks was for relaxation.”
“I’ve had three days.”
“Hmm?”
“Yeah.”
Brad turned fully toward him, yet kept an eye out for the young chefs. “So, give, little brother. What really brought you to Legend? Other than that I need to give my palate a rest story.”
A jolt of anxiety tripped over his upper abdomen. “I don’t know what you are talking about.” He tried like hell not to break the stare between them.
“Are you in trouble? Is it a woman?”
“No. No. Nothing like that.”
“Money?”
“Oh, no. It’s nothing, Brad, really.”
“Then what?”
Should he? Should he just go ahead and tell him. No, not yet. “It’s nothing! I just wanted to come back to the states for a while and see my family. Hell, you and Suzie have been married six years now, and I’d yet to spend any quality time with her. And little Petey? You know how I’ve been wanting to see that kid, live and in person.”
Brad narrowed his gaze. “You’re sure.”
“Positive.”
Brad waited another moment, giving him the once-over. “All right. What do you have in mind, then?”
Internally, Scott inhaled. He wasn’t ready to get into his problem yet with Brad. Thank God he’d let the subject go. “I don’t know. What is there to do around here? Any night life? Should I go visit those mountains or something?”
Snickering, Brad replied. “You’re pretty much in the mountains and unless you want to go into Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge, you’ll not find a lot of night life here.” He glanced back to one of the girls. “Hey, sweetheart. Not so big chunks on those vegetables, huh? We’ve got an older 1crowd here right now.”
She nodded and said, “Yes, Chef,” and went back to her work.
Brad turned his attention back to his brother. “You were saying?”
“Night life.”
“Oh, yeah. That.”
“I’m out of luck there, is what you are telling me.”
Brad strolled around the end of the counter, picked up a fish filet, and gave it a sniff. “Not really.” He placed it back on the plate and lifted his gaze. “Suzie and I are going downtown tomorrow for the merchant open house. There should be lots of people in town, all of the shops will be open. Want to come with us?”
An open house. Well, all right. “Sure.” It would be something to do.
“All right. We’ll go in the afternoon, after the lunch crowd here. I’ll meet you in the lobby at one o’clock, and you can ride down the mountain with me.”
“Sounds like a plan, bro.”
He wondered if that cute chick from the sidewalk, the one with the ankle, would be around.
****
She hadn’t ordered enough chocolates.
Damn. It!
But thank God she’d had the foresight to hire a few extra people on Thursday—kids really, from the local high school Family & Consumer Sciences Creative Foods class—and then trained them on Friday. They were taking care of the lattés and the frappés and the regular coffee drinkers while she gave out chocolate samples on the street.
And this is where she’d needed to be. She’d talked up her shop and given out samples all morning. Some people had even come back for seconds, and she didn’t care. She was glad they liked them that much!
The cute shoe thing, however, hadn’t panned out. The ankle still hurt like a mother, and taking the lovely boot off made it hurt worse. So she’d made a nice pink, satin cover for it, one that matched the pink
blouse she wore over her very favorite black pants, and made the best of it. As a backup, she brought out a café chair so she could sit between customers.
Glancing down at her tray, she surveyed the dozen or so truffles left to give out. They were almost gone, and it was barely two in the afternoon! The open house was to run until six this evening and all of her chocolates would be gone by then. Thank goodness it was a cool, fall day. They would have been melted into little chocolate puddles by now if it weren’t.
Perhaps, though, having given out almost all of the samples was a good thing. She still had plenty of the coupon cards with her new label on it. Picking one up, she perused the design and smiled.
Nice. Her designer had done a very good job. She was pleased.
“Hey, Jillian!”
Jerking her gaze back up, she saw Suzie and Brad coming up the sidewalk. Suzie was waving madly and grinning. That simple fact relaxed her somewhat. She so did want to be friends with this woman! She had to win her over.
Rushing up, Suzie grasped her forearms and gave her a once over. “Your foot! Oh, my.”
“A little broken bone. A rather insignificant one, but it still hurts like heck.”
Brad rocked back to look at her boot. “I always wanted one of those. Cool!”
“I’d let you have this one if I could.”
“Can I keep the pink thing?”
Jillian smiled. “Sure.”
With a more serious look, Brad offered, “I can’t believe that little trip caused a bone to break.”
She’d second that. “Freaky.”
“Yeah,” Suzie echoed. “Otherwise, how are things?”
“Coming along.” Chocolate, Jillian. Give her some chocolate. She grinned and pushed the tray forward a little. “Please, would you like a sample of one of my chocolates?”
Bright-eyed and eager, Suzie stepped closer. “Oh my goodness, yes! Jillian, these look fantastic!” She picked up one with a little J initial on it.
“That’s hazelnut,” Jillian told her. “One of my all-time favorites.”
Suzie held the confection, sitting in a small paper cup, in her hand and looked to Jillian. “I thought you said your candy-making equipment hadn’t arrived yet?” The hand with the truffle moved closer to her mouth.
“That’s right. But I had these made off-site and shipped in yesterday. They… ”
Suzie popped the candy into her mouth and groaned. “Oh, hell,” she said, her eyes rolling back in her head. She grasped Brad’s forearm. “Pick me up if I fall into an orgasmic heap right here on the sidewalk.” She leaned into her husband, slightly chewing, eyes closed, and simply paused.
And moaned. Again.
Finally her eyes popped back open, and she shook Brad’s arm. “Oh, God. Try one. Please. And tell me those are not to die for.”
Brad glanced between the two women. “Well, I never pass up chocolate, but I’m really not the one to…”
Suzie popped one with some white powdered sprinkles over the top in his mouth. His lips clamped over it.
“Shit,” he said while working the sugary mixture around in his mouth. “Shit.” He nodded and stared into his wife’s eyes. “You’re right. Those are excellent. But the real test will be—”
“Hey, guys.”
“Scott!”
Jillian moved back a step as Brad’s brother crowded in. The sight of him made her smile a little. He was a quite handsome man. She pegged him to be a little older than her but quite the looker. And she hadn’t forgotten that electrically-sparked, peck-on-the-corner-of-her-lips the other day. In fact she’d thought of that way too often.
Not to mention that Ciao, babe remark that had escaped his lips.
Groan...
Suzie dragged him closer. “Scott. You have got to try one of these. They are, OMG, they are heavenly.”
Caught up in the moment, Jillian stepped closer to turn the tray with the prettiest truffles remaining toward Brad’s brother. If she could win over all of the Matthews family, it would probably serve her well in this town.
“Help yourself,” she said, smiling to Mr. Chocolate Eyes.
He took one look at her tray, then back up into her face, did a quick sweep over Suzie and Brad’s expectant faces, and said, “No. No thank you. I don’t do chocolate.”
Suzie laughed. “What in the world are you talking about, Scott?”
Scott watched Brad pull her closer into him then said, “Suzie, I’m on vacation.”
“Oh, but you do not understand. These truffles are to die for.”
Hell. Scott glanced at the plate. What he wanted to say, but didn’t, was, I don’t do bad chocolate. The truffles had been out in the sun too long and were sweating. Not good. Besides he was on a palate cleanse. No chocolate for him. He looked to Suzie. “I’m sure they are wonderful,” he told her but was thinking that they were likely pretty awful, considering that the Smoky Mountains were not really chocolate-making territory were they? “But I am going to pass.”
As an afterthought, he did a quick turn toward Jillian. “Not to say that there is anything wrong with...” His gaze hooked into the woman’s wide-eyed stare. Shit. He’d hurt her feelings.
He’d thought of her once or twice while he and Brad were on the lake. He’d liked the looks of her then, and he really liked the looks of her now, cute pink boot and all. Had even relived that slight touch of his lips to the corner of her mouth a time or two.
Except she was now disappointed.
He just didn’t like the looks of her chocolate and truly, did not want to sample one.
He began again. “Like I said...” Again he got distracted by her eyes. The only way to describe them was the word aqua, like deep blue ocean water, crystal and sparkling, “it’s nothing against you or your chocolates, I just need to...”
What did he need to do?
Suzie interrupted by picking up a small truffle and passing it under his nose. “But Scott, you don’t understand these are...”
Immediately his senses stood at full attention. “Belgian,” he replied. “I can tell by the aroma.” Puzzled, he looked to Jillian.
“Yes. The best I can find.”
No, surely he couldn’t be wrong...
His interest was piqued. He took the paper cup with candy from Suzie and passed it under his nose again. Closing his eyes, he inhaled. Nice.
“Just one,” he mumbled, eyes still closed. He placed the chocolate on his tongue, rolled it around in his mouth, savored, and then swallowed.
When he opened his eyes, three pairs of expectant eyes gazed back at him.
“Well?” Suzie prodded.
Well, what the hell is going on here? was the question doing 360 loops inside his head.
Against his better judgment, he picked up another.
Chapter Four
“I can’t believe you didn’t like her chocolate.”
Scott grimaced in the back seat of Brad’s Jeep. He really didn’t want to get into this. “It’s bad chocolate.”
Both Suzie and Brad glanced back at him with one word, “What?”
He didn’t know how long he was going to be able to hold onto that argument. Both Brad and Suzie had excellent tastes. They knew good flavors when they tasted it. And their palates were discriminating. Right now he was a little confused, so it was the only defense he could come up with about why he had spit that second chocolate on the sidewalk. In his line of work, spitting out chocolate on a sidewalk was not a good thing.
However, it wasn’t that the chocolate was that bad.
It was that it was that good.
Too good.
Surprisingly good.
And familiar.
“I suppose your palate is better than mine,” Suzie added. “I mean, I’m not a world-renowned chocolate taster for Bianchi chocolates by any means, like you are, but I do know what I like, and I liked those truffles.”
Like I used to be... “They’d set out in the sun too long.”
“Perhaps, but the goo
factor was excellent.”
“Goo factor. Now there is a technical term for you.”
Suzie sneered at him. “You know what I mean, Scott.”
Shit, he didn’t want to go upsetting her. “There was a bitter bite to the chocolate that I didn’t like. Something a little off. A chemical taste.”
Brad interjected, watching the road in front of him. “It’s been a long time since I took a confection class, and sweets are not my forte, but damn, bro, I sure didn’t taste anything off in that bite of mine.”
“What do you know about this woman, Suzie?” Changing the subject wasn’t a bad idea about now.
“Jillian?”
“Yeah.”
Suzie turned in her seat. Brad drove on, bumping over the gravel road toward his cabin.
“Yes, Jillian Bass. I don’t know much about her. She moved down here from New York a few weeks ago. The shop is going to be mostly candy, but she serves chocolate and coffee drinks on the side for right now until her candy-making equipment arrives.”
That stirred the pot a bit. No equipment on the premises? “She’s going to make the truffles here? In Legend?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Interesting.” He leaned back in his seat and stared out the window.
“Scott, what’s going on?” Suzie’s gaze was putting a burning hole through him, but he kept his gaze trained out the window.
He avoided the question. “That’s all you know?”
“That’s all I know. Other than she seemed pleasant enough the other morning when
Sydney and I stopped by her place. And you spoke to her some when her ankle was hurt, right?”
Yes, he had. She was pleasant. And attractive. In his limited time around her, she had seemed all that. Interesting that she was a New Yorker. That added to the mystery.
“You like her?” He looked back at Suzie then and hooked into her gaze.
She winked. “Do you?”
What? Do I like her? That was beside the point. “I asked you first.” Well, hell, he did like her, from what he knew about her, but…
She nodded. “I do. I like her very much.”
That’s what he figured. The chocolates were good, and Suzie was a foodie. She could recognize good stuff when she tasted it. But his instincts told him to be wary, cautious, and he would be just that. Suzie liked her, and that gave him a modicum of concern.