“This would go faster if you’d let me use the knife to cut the wire.”
Roden laughed mirthlessly. “I’m not stupid enough to give you the knife.”
There was a bang, and the knife went flying from Roden’s hand. He screamed and flopped over, holding his right shoulder, the same shoulder that I realized had been hurting him ever since he’d killed Rocky. I knew now that she hadn’t gone down without a fight. She had hit him with the shepherd’s hook and he had taken it with him in a panic after he’d killed her.
I scrambled away from him, frantically looking for the knife in the snow. The snow was coming down again now, making it even more difficult to see.
Finally, I spotted the knife. I didn’t want to touch it, so I just moved to stand next to it.
“Bailey!” A cry came through the trees, and I immediately recognized it as Aiden’s voice.
My body went weak with relief at hearing him, but I forced myself to remain upright. “Here! We’re here!”
“Where? Keep calling out so we can locate you.”
I continued to shout, and after what seemed like a long moment, Aiden and Deputy Little broke through the trees. Aiden’s arm was in a sling, and he held it against his body with his good hand.
Aiden took the scene in with a single glance and then was at my side. “Are you hurt?”
“No, but Roden is. He needs medical attention.”
As if on cue, Roden groaned and rolled onto his good side on the ground. He was struggling to sit up. Part of me wanted to go over and help him, but I had made that mistake before. He might no longer have the knife, but I wasn’t taking any chances that he didn’t have something else up his sleeve.
Aiden stared at Roden and then turned to me. “You shot him?”
“I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“That little girl didn’t shoot him. I did,” Grandma Leah said.
Aiden turned around and his mouth hung open just a little when he saw Grandma Leah standing there next to Daniel with a shotgun on her arm.
Grandma Leah leaned the gun against her shoulder like a cowboy in the Old West. “My husband, Gott rest his soul, taught me how to be a good shot. He said, ‘Leah, Gott doesn’t want you to ever hurt anyone, but I want you to be able to scare someone off if you ever need to when I’m not around.’ Being able to scare someone away at times is more difficult than hitting the target.”
Aiden looked as if he was pained to hear it. Maybe because he thought he would be forced to arrest the oldest woman in Holmes County.
I touched his arm. “Aiden, Grandma Leah saved my life. To make a long story short, Roden was holding a knife to my throat.” I tapped the edge of the knife in the snow with the toe of my boot. “This is the knife.”
With his good hand, Aiden removed a cloth from his pocket and bent down to pick up the knife. It was even larger than I remembered, with a serrated side and a razor-sharp side. It could have certainly done some damage.
Reflexively, I rubbed the spot on my throat where the tip of the blade had been, and I realized how close I had come to joining Rocky as one of Roden’s victims.
Aiden glared at Roden. Whatever compassion he might have had for the man was gone as soon as I told him what had happened.
Roden bled through his thick coat, and bright red stood out on the snow. Deputy Little removed his coat and pressed it against the wound. “The EMTs are on the way, Deputy Brody,” he said to Aiden. The young officer looked more confident than I had ever seen him.
I stared at Aiden. “What are you doing here? You were in the hospital.”
“They were letting me go just as your 911 call came in. You saved me earlier, and bad arm or not, I was going to save you.” He smiled. “It just seems that Grandma Leah beat me to it.” He gave me a big smile, and his dimple appeared.
Epilogue
The next Sunday, my grandmother and Charlotte were at a church meeting, and I was in the front room of Swissmen Sweets decorating the Christmas tree that Grandma Leah had insisted on giving me. It was the same tree she had tried to sell to Cass and me on our first visit to the Christmas tree farm.
The Amish didn’t put up Christmas trees, but I was happy that my grandmother was letting me put this one in the front window of the shop. I decorated it entirely in our handmade candies. It was a good marketing tool, too. I was always looking for ways to drum up business.
I had just set the hollow chocolate angel on the very top when there was a tap tap on the window. I glanced over my shoulder to see Aiden through the glass. He was out of uniform, and his right arm was in a sling.
I grabbed my coat from the rack by the door and went outside to meet him.
Aiden stood in front of the window. “That’s quite a tree.”
“A gift from Grandma Leah and the Keims.”
He smiled. “Do you have a minute to walk around the square?”
“Of course,” I said, and pulled my hat on my head.
Aiden and I walked side by side across the street to the square. We passed by the gazebo where Rocky had died. I thought the worst part of the tragedy was that Daniel hadn’t gotten to know his mother, but at least now that he and Emily planned to be married, that would bring him some comfort.
Aiden walked to the middle of the square and stopped. He turned to face me. “Tell me the truth.”
“The truth about what?” I asked.
He placed his large hands on my shoulders. “I feel like you are making a choice.” Morning sunlight reflected in his dark eyes. At that angle, they didn’t look chocolate brown as they normally did. Their color was closer to rich amber.
“A choice?” I managed to ask. For some reason, I was having trouble speaking. My tongue felt too large for my mouth.
“Between New York and Holmes County. Between the television show and Swissmen Sweets.”
“But I already picked Swissmen Sweets,” I said. “I promised my grandfather that I would stay to be with Maami. If I do the television show, it would be for the shop, to help it.”
“So, you’ve already decided.”
I nodded.
“You’re going?” He didn’t sound upset or angry.
I nodded.
With his good hand he pulled a long narrow box out of the inside pocket of his coat. “Since I knew what you would decide, I got you something.” He handed the box to me. It looked like a jewelry box.
I stared at it in my hands.
“Go on, open it. Christmas is just a week away. It’s close enough.”
I was afraid of what jewelry I would find in the box. I opened it and found something even better. A chocolatier’s knife. The knife inside was sharp and curved. It was the perfect knife to cut chocolate. I had given my grandfather a knife like this once upon a time as a gift. I knew how much it must have cost. I knew that Aiden didn’t make nearly as much money as a sheriff’s deputy in Ohio as I had as a chocolatier working in New York or as I would just by shooting a pilot for my own television show.
“Aiden, this must have cost you a fortune,” I whispered, and ran my fingers along the broad side of the blade.
He shook his head. “Not a fortune.” He grinned, and the dimple appeared in his cheek. “I know I was upset about you going to New York. I just didn’t want you to leave. I will miss you, Bailey, but I want you to be happy. I would never hold you back. If your dreams are New York, go. That’s what this gift means.”
I kissed him. “My dreams can be in both places.”
He laughed and kissed me back.
When I pulled away, my face fell. “But I didn’t get you a present. I feel awful.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist. “This is Christmas present enough for me.”
Bailey’s Peppermint Bark
Ingredients
• ½ pound of bitter dark chocolate, rough chopped
• ½ pound of semisweet dark chocolate, rough chopped
• 1 pound of white chocolate, rough chopped
• 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract, or to taste
• 20 hard peppermint candies, crushed
Directions
1. Using parchment paper, line a 9 × 13 baking pan.
2. Using a saucepan of steaming water and a glass bowl, create a double boiler. Don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water in the pan. Stir both types of dark chocolate together continuously in the glass bowl until the chocolate is completely melted.
3. Pour the melted dark chocolate into the baking pan. Let it cool for ten to fifteen minutes.
4. Following the second step, make a second double boiler and melt the white chocolate. As the chocolate melts, add the peppermint extract.
5. Pour the melted white chocolate and extract mixture over the top of the dark chocolate.
6. Using a hammer, crush the peppermint candies. Liberally sprinkle them over the top of the white chocolate while the chocolate is still warm.
7. Stick in the refrigerator to cool for twenty minutes.
8. Remove the peppermint bark and parchment paper from the pan. Cut or break the bark into pieces.
Don’t miss the next mystery in
The Amish Candy Shop series,
coming soon!
TOXIC TOFFEE
By Amanda Flower
Chapter 1
Charlotte Weaver stood in the middle of Times Square with her mouth hanging open and the ties of her black bonnet flapping on the hot air pushing its way through the sewer grate where the subway ran below.
“Charlotte!” I took hold of her arm. “Close your mouth. Your Amish is showing.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
The truth was that Charlotte’s “Amish was showing” the entire time we’d been in NYC. In Holmes County, Ohio, no one would blink an eye at the pretty redheaded young woman in the plain dress, sensible black tennis shoes, and black bonnet, but in New York, she stuck out like a gorilla on the subway. We had been in the city for the last six weeks shooting six episodes for my candy maker television show, Bailey’s Amish Sweets, which would appear on Gourmet Television in the summer season.
Charlotte was in Manhattan as my kitchen assistant and would also appear on the show, giving it that extra “Amish umph” as my producer Linc Baggins liked to say. Yes, Baggins like the Hobbit. It was best not to mention that when he was around. Charlotte was able to appear on the show with me because she wasn’t yet baptized in the Amish church and could do more English things while on her rumspringa. Her church elders weren’t thrilled with the idea, but Charlotte’s heart had been set on going with me to New York and being on the show. I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint her.
“I—I’ve never seen anything like this!” Charlotte said in awe.
I glanced around and tried to take everything in through Charlotte’s eyes. The thousands of people of every race, ethnicity, and national origin milling around, the bright lights and signs glittering on the towering buildings, the smell of bodies, car exhaust, and food trucks mingling together. It was sensory overload for anyone; for a girl who had lived most of her life in a very conservative Amish community, it must have been like the dark side of Mars.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Since you’ve been working so hard on the show, and since we haven’t been able to get out much with the shooting schedule, I’m glad I can finally show you some of the city.”
“Is all the city this loud and bright and . . .” She trailed off, searching for the right word.
“Maybe not this loud and bright,” I said with a smile. “We are in the thick of it now, but every city has life to it, but that’s not any different from Holmes County.”
She looked at me with wonder in her large blue eyes. “How can you say that? This place is nothing like back home.”
“Holmes County has as much life and color as New York does. It just shows up in a different way.”
My best friend Cass Calbera ran up the sidewalk, maneuvering expertly through the crowd like someone who had lived in New York her entire life, which she had. “There you are! I’ve been circling the Square for the last ten minutes looking for you two.” She glanced at Charlotte. “I thought it would be easy to spot Charlotte, but I got fooled by a nun in full habit walking down the street. I swore it was Charlotte.”
I rolled my eyes. “Charlotte doesn’t look like a Catholic nun.”
“From the back she might. Anyway, why weren’t you answering your phone? I tried to call too!”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I had put it on silent during our last shooting session and had forgotten to turn the sound back on. Whoops.
“Seriously, Bailey, you’ve lived in Holmes County too long. I think being away from electronics has addled your brain. You don’t know how to behave in normal society.”
“What is normal society?” I asked.
She shook her finger at me, and as she did, her purple bangs fell into her eyes. “Don’t you go and get philosophical on me, King!”
Before I could make a comeback, she retorted, “Jean Pierre sent a car for us. I left it just up the street. It was the only place that the driver could find to park. We have to go. No one keeps Jean Pierre waiting if they know what’s good for them.”
That much was true.
The ride through the city to JP Chocolates was slow, but by the looks of it, Charlotte didn’t mind a bit. She had her nose pressed up against the tinted glass, taking everything in. I could just imagine the stories she would tell my grandmother and Emily Keim, my other shop assistant, when we got back to Swissmen Sweets.
When we finally walked through the front door of JP Chocolates, a wave of nostalgia hit me. This was where I had spent six years of my life working eighty to one hundred hours a week. Unlike Swissmen Sweets, my grandmother’s Amish candy shop back in Ohio with its hardwood floors and pine shelving, JP Chocolates was striking white and sleek, accented with chrome. It might have looked sterile or plain if it had not been for the chocolate itself. Elaborate chocolate creations sat under glass encasements. There was a replica of the Statue of Liberty that I had carved in white chocolate in one of the glass cases.
With Easter just a week away, JP Chocolates was dripping with Easter bunnies in every size and flavor of chocolate. I even saw Easter rabbits made out of molded peanut butter.
“I wish I could have spent more time with you in the last week, but you know what a nuthouse this place is around Easter,” Cass said as she walked through the showroom to the back of the shop, where the chocolate happened. Cass was the head chocolatier at JP Chocolates, and it was obvious that she was the woman in charge as the under chocolatiers backed away from her, not making eye contact as she passed by. Cass didn’t seem to notice the power that she had over them in the least.
I most certainly did. Before Cass got the position as head chocolatier at JP Chocolates, I had been next in line to receive the promotion as Jean Pierre’s protégé, but then my grandfather died and I found myself giving up the position to live with my grandmother in Holmes County, Ohio to help with the candy shop that had been in our family for generations. I left thinking that I would never be back in the city for more than a short visit, but then Linc offered me my own show on his network. I didn’t think much would come of it, but to my surprise, the network love the pilot we shot in Harvest, and the next thing I knew I was in NYC shooting my own candy making show. Somehow fate was giving me the best of both worlds: Holmes County and New York, the two places on earth that had captured my heart. I called it fate, but my Amish grandmother would have called it providence.
“Ma Cherie!” Jean Pierre floated into the giant kitchen. “You have come back to me. Please say that you plan to stay!” Jean Pierre Ruge was a tall, thin man with a Parisian nose who carried himself as erect as any dancer. He moved his arms in such a way that it seemed he might have been just that once upon a time.
I gave Jean Pierre a hug. He always smelled of chocolate, which wasn’t all that surprising considering what he did for a living. But the thing was that he wasn’t supposed to be doing it for a
living any longer. Months ago, he had retired from the candy shop when Cass took over. From what Cass said, he was there every day giving her advice. Cass said that she didn’t mind it, because it made the day go faster.
“You know I can’t stay, Jean Pierre. Charlotte and I leave tomorrow morning. We just dropped by to say our goodbyes.”
“Oh dear me, how are you getting home?”
“We have a flight going out of Newark.”
“A commercial flight?” He shuddered. “You should take my plane. No protégé of mine should ever fly commercial.”
I chuckled. “I appreciate the offer, Jean Pierre, but the network paid for the flight and Charlotte and I will be more than comfortable sticking with that plan.”
He sniffed. “What kind of television network would fly their star commercial? It is a disgrace!”
“Not to worry, Jean Pierre,” Cass chimed in. “Hot Cop is picking them up from the airport.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hot Cop” was the name Cass had given my sheriff’s deputy boyfriend Aiden back in Ohio. Her description was accurate on all counts, but it was also embarrassing. As of yet, Aiden hadn’t heard the nickname, and I would do everything in my power to keep it that way.
Jean Pierre set a long finger against his cheek. “I do not know of this Hot Cop. How do I know if Hot Cop is trustworthy?”
Cass patted his arm. “I gave him the once over and she has my support on this one. We both know what a bulldog I can be.”
Jean Pierre sniffed. “This is very true. You make a judgment on a person’s character and stick with it. I like that decisiveness on your part. This is a good skill to have in chocolate and in life. In chocolate, there are no second chances.”
“In life there might be,” I mused.
Jean Pierre smiled. “This is my wish for you, Ma Cherie.” He clapped his hands. “Now if you want to help us carve some more chocolate Easter baskets, we won’t turn you away.”
I grinned, making chocolate Easter baskets and weaving with chocolate had been one of my favorite jobs at JP Chocolates. I planned to teach my grandmother the fine art when I got home. “I thought you would never ask.”
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